Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 18

Eli­nor saw, with great un­easi­ness the low spir­its of her friend. His vis­it af­ford­ed her but a very par­tial sat­is­fac­tion, while his own en­joy­ment in it ap­peared so im­per­fect. It was ev­ident that he was un­hap­py; she wished it were equal­ly ev­ident that he still dis­tin­guished her by the same af­fec­tion which once she had felt no doubt of in­spir­ing; but hith­er­to the con­tin­uance of his pref­er­ence seemed very un­cer­tain; and the re­served­ness of his man­ner to­wards her con­tra­dict­ed one mo­ment what a more an­imat­ed look had in­ti­mat­ed the pre­ced­ing one.

He joined her and Mar­ianne in the break­fast-​room the next morn­ing be­fore the oth­ers were down; and Mar­ianne, who was al­ways ea­ger to pro­mote their hap­pi­ness as far as she could, soon left them to them­selves. But be­fore she was half way up­stairs she heard the par­lour door open, and, turn­ing round, was as­ton­ished to see Ed­ward him­self come out.

“I am go­ing in­to the vil­lage to see my hors­es,” said be, “as you are not yet ready for break­fast; I shall be back again present­ly.”

***

Ed­ward re­turned to them with fresh ad­mi­ra­tion of the sur­round­ing coun­try; in his walk to the vil­lage, he had seen many parts of the val­ley to ad­van­tage; and the vil­lage it­self, in a much high­er sit­ua­tion than the cot­tage, af­ford­ed a gen­er­al view of the whole, which had ex­ceed­ing­ly pleased him. This was a sub­ject which en­sured Mar­ianne’s at­ten­tion, and she was be­gin­ning to de­scribe her own ad­mi­ra­tion of these scenes, and to ques­tion him more minute­ly on the ob­jects that had par­tic­ular­ly struck him, when Ed­ward in­ter­rupt­ed her by say­ing, “You must not en­quire too far, Mar­ianne–re­mem­ber I have no knowl­edge in the pic­turesque, and I shall of­fend you by my ig­no­rance and want of taste if we come to par­tic­ulars. I shall call hills steep, which ought to be bold; sur­faces strange and un­couth, which ought to be ir­reg­ular and rugged; and dis­tant ob­jects out of sight, which ought on­ly to be in­dis­tinct through the soft medi­um of a hazy at­mo­sphere. You must be sat­is­fied with such ad­mi­ra­tion as I can hon­est­ly give. I call it a very fine coun­try–the hills are steep, the woods seem full of fine tim­ber, and the val­ley looks com­fort­able and snug–with rich mead­ows and sev­er­al neat farm hous­es scat­tered here and there. It ex­act­ly an­swers my idea of a fine coun­try, be­cause it unites beau­ty with util­ity–and I dare say it is a pic­turesque one too, be­cause you ad­mire it; I can eas­ily be­lieve it to be full of rocks and promon­to­ries, grey moss and brush wood, but these are all lost on me. I know noth­ing of the pic­turesque.”

“I am afraid it is but too true,” said Mar­ianne; “but why should you boast of it?”

“I sus­pect,” said Eli­nor, “that to avoid one kind of af­fec­ta­tion, Ed­ward here falls in­to an­oth­er. Be­cause he be­lieves many peo­ple pre­tend to more ad­mi­ra­tion of the beau­ties of na­ture than they re­al­ly feel, and is dis­gust­ed with such pre­ten­sions, he af­fects greater in­dif­fer­ence and less dis­crim­ina­tion in view­ing them him­self than he pos­sess­es. He is fas­tid­ious and will have an af­fec­ta­tion of his own.”

“It is very true,” said Mar­ianne, “that ad­mi­ra­tion of land­scape scenery is be­come a mere jar­gon. Ev­ery body pre­tends to feel and tries to de­scribe with the taste and el­egance of him who first de­fined what pic­turesque beau­ty was. I de­test jar­gon of ev­ery kind, and some­times I have kept my feel­ings to my­self, be­cause I could find no lan­guage to de­scribe them in but what was worn and hack­neyed out of all sense and mean­ing.”

“I am con­vinced,” said Ed­ward, “that you re­al­ly feel all the de­light in a fine prospect which you pro­fess to feel. But, in re­turn, your sis­ter must al­low me to feel no more than I pro­fess. I like a fine prospect, but not on pic­turesque prin­ci­ples. I do not like crooked, twist­ed, blast­ed trees. I ad­mire them much more if they are tall, straight, and flour­ish­ing. I do not like ru­ined, tat­tered cot­tages. I am not fond of net­tles or this­tles, or heath blos­soms. I have more plea­sure in a snug farm-​house than a watch-​tow­er–and a troop of tidy, hap­py vil­lages please me bet­ter than the finest ban­dit­ti in the world.”

Mar­ianne looked with amaze­ment at Ed­ward, with com­pas­sion at her sis­ter. Eli­nor on­ly laughed.

The sub­ject was con­tin­ued no far­ther; and Mar­ianne re­mained thought­ful­ly silent, till a new ob­ject sud­den­ly en­gaged her at­ten­tion. She was sit­ting by Ed­ward, and in tak­ing his tea from Mrs. Dash­wood, his hand passed so di­rect­ly be­fore her, as to make a ring, with a plait of hair in the cen­tre, very con­spic­uous on one of his fin­gers.

“I nev­er saw you wear a ring be­fore, Ed­ward,” she cried. “Is that Fan­ny’s hair? I re­mem­ber her promis­ing to give you some. But I should have thought her hair had been dark­er.”

Mar­ianne spoke in­con­sid­er­ate­ly what she re­al­ly felt– but when she saw how much she had pained Ed­ward, her own vex­ation at her want of thought could not be sur­passed by his. He coloured very deeply, and giv­ing a mo­men­tary glance at Eli­nor, replied, “Yes; it is my sis­ter’s hair. The set­ting al­ways casts a dif­fer­ent shade on it, you know.”

Eli­nor had met his eye, and looked con­scious like­wise. That the hair was her own, she in­stan­ta­neous­ly felt as well sat­is­fied as Mar­ianne; the on­ly dif­fer­ence in their con­clu­sions was, that what Mar­ianne con­sid­ered as a free gift from her sis­ter, Eli­nor was con­scious must have been pro­cured by some theft or con­trivance un­known to her­self. She was not in a hu­mour, how­ev­er, to re­gard it as an af­front, and af­fect­ing to take no no­tice of what passed, by in­stant­ly talk­ing of some­thing else, she in­ter­nal­ly re­solved hence­for­ward to catch ev­ery op­por­tu­ni­ty of eye­ing the hair and of sat­is­fy­ing her­self, be­yond all doubt, that it was ex­act­ly the shade of her own.

Ed­ward’s em­bar­rass­ment last­ed some time, and it end­ed in an ab­sence of mind still more set­tled. He was par­tic­ular­ly grave the whole morn­ing. Mar­ianne severe­ly cen­sured her­self for what she had said; but her own for­give­ness might have been more speedy, had she known how lit­tle of­fence it had giv­en her sis­ter.

Be­fore the mid­dle of the day, they were vis­it­ed by Sir John and Mrs. Jen­nings, who, hav­ing heard of the ar­rival of a gen­tle­man at the cot­tage, came to take a sur­vey of the guest. With the as­sis­tance of his moth­er-​in-​law, Sir John was not long in dis­cov­er­ing that the name of Fer­rars be­gan with an F. and this pre­pared a fu­ture mine of raillery against the de­vot­ed Eli­nor, which noth­ing but the new­ness of their ac­quain­tance with Ed­ward could have pre­vent­ed from be­ing im­me­di­ate­ly sprung. But, as it was, she on­ly learned, from some very sig­nif­icant looks, how far their pen­etra­tion, found­ed on Mar­garet’s in­struc­tions, ex­tend­ed.

Sir John nev­er came to the Dash­woods with­out ei­ther invit­ing them to dine at the park the next day, or to drink tea with them that evening. On the present oc­ca­sion, for the bet­ter en­ter­tain­ment of their vis­itor, to­wards whose amuse­ment he felt him­self bound to con­tribute, he wished to en­gage them for both.

“You MUST drink tea with us to night,” said he, “for we shall be quite alone–and to­mor­row you must ab­so­lute­ly dine with us, for we shall be a large par­ty.”

Mrs. Jen­nings en­forced the ne­ces­si­ty. “And who knows but you may raise a dance,” said she. “And that will tempt YOU, Miss Mar­ianne.”

“A dance!” cried Mar­ianne. “Im­pos­si­ble! Who is to dance?”

“Who! why your­selves, and the Careys, and Whitak­ers to be sure.–What! you thought no­body could dance be­cause a cer­tain per­son that shall be name­less is gone!”

“I wish with all my soul,” cried Sir John, “that Willough­by were among us again.”

This, and Mar­ianne’s blush­ing, gave new sus­pi­cions to Ed­ward. “And who is Willough­by?” said he, in a low voice, to Miss Dash­wood, by whom he was sit­ting.

She gave him a brief re­ply. Mar­ianne’s coun­te­nance was more com­mu­nica­tive. Ed­ward saw enough to com­pre­hend, not on­ly the mean­ing of oth­ers, but such of Mar­ianne’s ex­pres­sions as had puz­zled him be­fore; and when their vis­itors left them, he went im­me­di­ate­ly round her, and said, in a whis­per, “I have been guess­ing. Shall I tell you my guess?”

“What do you mean?”

“Shall I tell you.”

“Cer­tain­ly.”

“Well then; I guess that Mr. Willough­by hunts.”

Mar­ianne was sur­prised and con­fused, yet she could not help smil­ing at the qui­et arch­ness of his man­ner, and af­ter a mo­ment’s si­lence, said,

“Oh, Ed­ward! How can you?–But the time will come I hope…I am sure you will like him.”

“I do not doubt it,” replied he, rather as­ton­ished at her earnest­ness and warmth; for had he not imag­ined it to be a joke for the good of her ac­quain­tance in gen­er­al, found­ed on­ly on a some­thing or a noth­ing be­tween Mr. Willough­by and her­self, he would not have ven­tured to men­tion it.