Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 20

As the Miss Dash­woods en­tered the draw­ing-​room of the park the next day, at one door, Mrs. Palmer came run­ning in at the oth­er, look­ing as good hu­moured and mer­ry as be­fore. She took them all most af­fec­tion­ate­ly by the hand, and ex­pressed great de­light in see­ing them again.

“I am so glad to see you!” said she, seat­ing her­self be­tween Eli­nor and Mar­ianne, “for it is so bad a day I was afraid you might not come, which would be a shock­ing thing, as we go away again to­mor­row. We must go, for the We­st­ons come to us next week you know. It was quite a sud­den thing our com­ing at all, and I knew noth­ing of it till the car­riage was com­ing to the door, and then Mr. Palmer asked me if I would go with him to Bar­ton. He is so droll! He nev­er tells me any thing! I am so sor­ry we can­not stay longer; how­ev­er we shall meet again in town very soon, I hope.”

They were obliged to put an end to such an ex­pec­ta­tion.

“Not go to town!” cried Mrs. Palmer, with a laugh, “I shall be quite dis­ap­point­ed if you do not. I could get the nicest house in world for you, next door to ours, in Hanover-​square. You must come, in­deed. I am sure I shall be very hap­py to chap­er­on you at any time till I am con­fined, if Mrs. Dash­wood should not like to go in­to pub­lic.”

They thanked her; but were obliged to re­sist all her en­treaties.

“Oh, my love,” cried Mrs. Palmer to her hus­band, who just then en­tered the room–“you must help me to per­suade the Miss Dash­woods to go to town this win­ter.”

Her love made no an­swer; and af­ter slight­ly bow­ing to the ladies, be­gan com­plain­ing of the weath­er.

“How hor­rid all this is!” said he. “Such weath­er makes ev­ery thing and ev­ery body dis­gust­ing. Dull­ness is as much pro­duced with­in doors as with­out, by rain. It makes one de­test all one’s ac­quain­tance. What the dev­il does Sir John mean by not hav­ing a bil­liard room in his house? How few peo­ple know what com­fort is! Sir John is as stupid as the weath­er.”

The rest of the com­pa­ny soon dropt in.

“I am afraid, Miss Mar­ianne,” said Sir John, “you have not been able to take your usu­al walk to Al­len­ham to­day.”

Mar­ianne looked very grave and said noth­ing.

“Oh, don’t be so sly be­fore us,” said Mrs. Palmer; “for we know all about it, I as­sure you; and I ad­mire your taste very much, for I think he is ex­treme­ly hand­some. We do not live a great way from him in the coun­try, you know. Not above ten miles, I dare say.”

“Much near­er thir­ty,” said her hus­band.

“Ah, well! there is not much dif­fer­ence. I nev­er was at his house; but they say it is a sweet pret­ty place.”

“As vile a spot as I ev­er saw in my life,” said Mr. Palmer.

Mar­ianne re­mained per­fect­ly silent, though her coun­te­nance be­trayed her in­ter­est in what was said.

“Is it very ug­ly?” con­tin­ued Mrs. Palmer–“then it must be some oth­er place that is so pret­ty I sup­pose.”

When they were seat­ed in the din­ing room, Sir John ob­served with re­gret that they were on­ly eight all to­geth­er.

“My dear,” said he to his la­dy, “it is very pro­vok­ing that we should be so few. Why did not you ask the Gilberts to come to us to­day?”

“Did not I tell you, Sir John, when you spoke to me about it be­fore, that it could not be done? They dined with us last.”

“You and I, Sir John,” said Mrs. Jen­nings, “should not stand up­on such cer­emo­ny.”

“Then you would be very ill-​bred,” cried Mr. Palmer.

“My love you con­tra­dict ev­ery body,” said his wife with her usu­al laugh. “Do you know that you are quite rude?”

“I did not know I con­tra­dict­ed any body in call­ing your moth­er ill-​bred.”

“Ay, you may abuse me as you please,” said the good-​na­tured old la­dy, “you have tak­en Char­lotte off my hands, and can­not give her back again. So there I have the whip hand of you.”

Char­lotte laughed hearti­ly to think that her hus­band could not get rid of her; and ex­ult­ing­ly said, she did not care how cross he was to her, as they must live to­geth­er. It was im­pos­si­ble for any one to be more thor­ough­ly good-​na­tured, or more de­ter­mined to be hap­py than Mrs. Palmer. The stud­ied in­dif­fer­ence, in­so­lence, and dis­con­tent of her hus­band gave her no pain; and when he scold­ed or abused her, she was high­ly di­vert­ed.

“Mr. Palmer is so droll!” said she, in a whis­per, to Eli­nor. “He is al­ways out of hu­mour.”

Eli­nor was not in­clined, af­ter a lit­tle ob­ser­va­tion, to give him cred­it for be­ing so gen­uine­ly and un­af­fect­ed­ly ill-​na­tured or ill-​bred as he wished to ap­pear. His tem­per might per­haps be a lit­tle soured by find­ing, like many oth­ers of his sex, that through some un­ac­count­able bias in favour of beau­ty, he was the hus­band of a very sil­ly wom­an,–but she knew that this kind of blun­der was too com­mon for any sen­si­ble man to be last­ing­ly hurt by it.– It was rather a wish of dis­tinc­tion, she be­lieved, which pro­duced his con­temp­tu­ous treat­ment of ev­ery body, and his gen­er­al abuse of ev­ery thing be­fore him. It was the de­sire of ap­pear­ing su­pe­ri­or to oth­er peo­ple. The mo­tive was too com­mon to be won­dered at; but the means, how­ev­er they might suc­ceed by es­tab­lish­ing his su­pe­ri­or­ity in ill-​breed­ing, were not like­ly to at­tach any one to him ex­cept his wife.

“Oh, my dear Miss Dash­wood,” said Mrs. Palmer soon af­ter­wards, “I have got such a favour to ask of you and your sis­ter. Will you come and spend some time at Cleve­land this Christ­mas? Now, pray do,–and come while the We­st­ons are with us. You can­not think how hap­py I shall be! It will be quite de­light­ful!–My love,” ap­ply­ing to her hus­band, “don’t you long to have the Miss Dash­woods come to Cleve­land?”

“Cer­tain­ly,” he replied, with a sneer–“I came in­to De­von­shire with no oth­er view.”

“There now,”–said his la­dy, “you see Mr. Palmer ex­pects you; so you can­not refuse to come.”

They both ea­ger­ly and res­olute­ly de­clined her in­vi­ta­tion.

“But in­deed you must and shall come. I am sure you will like it of all things. The We­st­ons will be with us, and it will be quite de­light­ful. You can­not think what a sweet place Cleve­land is; and we are so gay now, for Mr. Palmer is al­ways go­ing about the coun­try can­vass­ing against the elec­tion; and so many peo­ple came to dine with us that I nev­er saw be­fore, it is quite charm­ing! But, poor fel­low! it is very fa­tigu­ing to him! for he is forced to make ev­ery body like him.”

Eli­nor could hard­ly keep her coun­te­nance as she as­sent­ed to the hard­ship of such an obli­ga­tion.

“How charm­ing it will be,” said Char­lotte, “when he is in Par­lia­ment!–won’t it? How I shall laugh! It will be so ridicu­lous to see all his let­ters di­rect­ed to him with an M.P.–But do you know, he says, he will nev­er frank for me? He de­clares he won’t. Don’t you, Mr. Palmer?”

Mr. Palmer took no no­tice of her.

“He can­not bear writ­ing, you know,” she con­tin­ued– “he says it is quite shock­ing.”

“No,” said he, “I nev­er said any thing so ir­ra­tional. Don’t palm all your abus­es of lan­guages up­on me.”

“There now; you see how droll he is. This is al­ways the way with him! Some­times he won’t speak to me for half a day to­geth­er, and then he comes out with some­thing so droll–all about any thing in the world.”

She sur­prised Eli­nor very much as they re­turned in­to the draw­ing-​room, by ask­ing her whether she did not like Mr. Palmer ex­ces­sive­ly.

“Cer­tain­ly,” said Eli­nor; “he seems very agree­able.”

“Well–I am so glad you do. I thought you would, he is so pleas­ant; and Mr. Palmer is ex­ces­sive­ly pleased with you and your sis­ters I can tell you, and you can’t think how dis­ap­point­ed he will be if you don’t come to Cleve­land.–I can’t imag­ine why you should ob­ject to it.”

Eli­nor was again obliged to de­cline her in­vi­ta­tion; and by chang­ing the sub­ject, put a stop to her en­treaties. She thought it prob­able that as they lived in the same coun­ty, Mrs. Palmer might be able to give some more par­tic­ular ac­count of Willough­by’s gen­er­al char­ac­ter, than could be gath­ered from the Mid­dle­tons’ par­tial ac­quain­tance with him; and she was ea­ger to gain from any one, such a con­fir­ma­tion of his mer­its as might re­move the pos­si­bil­ity of fear from Mar­ianne. She be­gan by in­quir­ing if they saw much of Mr. Willough­by at Cleve­land, and whether they were in­ti­mate­ly ac­quaint­ed with him.

“Oh dear, yes; I know him ex­treme­ly well,” replied Mrs. Palmer;–“Not that I ev­er spoke to him, in­deed; but I have seen him for ev­er in town. Some­how or oth­er I nev­er hap­pened to be stay­ing at Bar­ton while he was at Al­len­ham. Ma­ma saw him here once be­fore;– but I was with my un­cle at Wey­mouth. How­ev­er, I dare say we should have seen a great deal of him in Som­er­set­shire, if it had not hap­pened very un­luck­ily that we should nev­er have been in the coun­try to­geth­er. He is very lit­tle at Combe, I be­lieve; but if he were ev­er so much there, I do not think Mr. Palmer would vis­it him, for he is in the op­po­si­tion, you know, and be­sides it is such a way off. I know why you in­quire about him, very well; your sis­ter is to mar­ry him. I am mon­strous glad of it, for then I shall have her for a neigh­bour you know.”

“Up­on my word,” replied Eli­nor, “you know much more of the mat­ter than I do, if you have any rea­son to ex­pect such a match.”

“Don’t pre­tend to de­ny it, be­cause you know it is what ev­ery body talks of. I as­sure you I heard of it in my way through town.”

“My dear Mrs. Palmer!”

“Up­on my hon­our I did.–I met Colonel Bran­don Mon­day morn­ing in Bond-​street, just be­fore we left town, and he told me of it di­rect­ly.”

“You sur­prise me very much. Colonel Bran­don tell you of it! Sure­ly you must be mis­tak­en. To give such in­tel­li­gence to a per­son who could not be in­ter­est­ed in it, even if it were true, is not what I should ex­pect Colonel Bran­don to do.”

“But I do as­sure you it was so, for all that, and I will tell you how it hap­pened. When we met him, he turned back and walked with us; and so we be­gan talk­ing of my broth­er and sis­ter, and one thing and an­oth­er, and I said to him, ‘So, Colonel, there is a new fam­ily come to Bar­ton cot­tage, I hear, and ma­ma sends me word they are very pret­ty, and that one of them is go­ing to be mar­ried to Mr. Willough­by of Combe Magna. Is it true, pray? for of course you must know, as you have been in De­von­shire so late­ly.’”

“And what did the Colonel say?”

“Oh–he did not say much; but he looked as if he knew it to be true, so from that mo­ment I set it down as cer­tain. It will be quite de­light­ful, I de­clare! When is it to take place?”

“Mr. Bran­don was very well I hope?”

“Oh! yes, quite well; and so full of your prais­es, he did noth­ing but say fine things of you.”

“I am flat­tered by his com­men­da­tion. He seems an ex­cel­lent man; and I think him un­com­mon­ly pleas­ing.”

“So do I.–He is such a charm­ing man, that it is quite a pity he should be so grave and so dull. Mam­ma says HE was in love with your sis­ter too.– I as­sure you it was a great com­pli­ment if he was, for he hard­ly ev­er falls in love with any body.”

“Is Mr. Willough­by much known in your part of Som­er­set­shire?” said Eli­nor.

“Oh! yes, ex­treme­ly well; that is, I do not be­lieve many peo­ple are ac­quaint­ed with him, be­cause Combe Magna is so far off; but they all think him ex­treme­ly agree­able I as­sure you. No­body is more liked than Mr. Willough­by wher­ev­er he goes, and so you may tell your sis­ter. She is a mon­strous lucky girl to get him, up­on my hon­our; not but that he is much more lucky in get­ting her, be­cause she is so very hand­some and agree­able, that noth­ing can be good enough for her. How­ev­er, I don’t think her hard­ly at all hand­somer than you, I as­sure you; for I think you both ex­ces­sive­ly pret­ty, and so does Mr. Palmer too I am sure, though we could not get him to own it last night.”

Mrs. Palmer’s in­for­ma­tion re­spect­ing Willough­by was not very ma­te­ri­al; but any tes­ti­mo­ny in his favour, how­ev­er small, was pleas­ing to her.

“I am so glad we are got ac­quaint­ed at last,” con­tin­ued Char­lotte.–“And now I hope we shall al­ways be great friends. You can’t think how much I longed to see you! It is so de­light­ful that you should live at the cot­tage! Noth­ing can be like it, to be sure! And I am so glad your sis­ter is go­ing to be well mar­ried! I hope you will be a great deal at Combe Magna. It is a sweet place, by all ac­counts.”

“You have been long ac­quaint­ed with Colonel Bran­don, have not you?”

“Yes, a great while; ev­er since my sis­ter mar­ried.– He was a par­tic­ular friend of Sir John’s. I be­lieve,” she added in a low voice, “he would have been very glad to have had me, if he could. Sir John and La­dy Mid­dle­ton wished it very much. But ma­ma did not think the match good enough for me, oth­er­wise Sir John would have men­tioned it to the Colonel, and we should have been mar­ried im­me­di­ate­ly.”

“Did not Colonel Bran­don know of Sir John’s pro­pos­al to your moth­er be­fore it was made? Had he nev­er owned his af­fec­tion to your­self?”

“Oh, no; but if ma­ma had not ob­ject­ed to it, I dare say he would have liked it of all things. He had not seen me then above twice, for it was be­fore I left school. How­ev­er, I am much hap­pi­er as I am. Mr. Palmer is the kind of man I like.”