Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 21

The Palmers re­turned to Cleve­land the next day, and the two fam­ilies at Bar­ton were again left to en­ter­tain each oth­er. But this did not last long; Eli­nor had hard­ly got their last vis­itors out of her head, had hard­ly done won­der­ing at Char­lotte’s be­ing so hap­py with­out a cause, at Mr. Palmer’s act­ing so sim­ply, with good abil­ities, and at the strange un­suit­able­ness which of­ten ex­ist­ed be­tween hus­band and wife, be­fore Sir John’s and Mrs. Jen­nings’s ac­tive zeal in the cause of so­ci­ety, pro­cured her some oth­er new ac­quain­tance to see and ob­serve.

In a morn­ing’s ex­cur­sion to Ex­eter, they had met with two young ladies, whom Mrs. Jen­nings had the sat­is­fac­tion of dis­cov­er­ing to be her re­la­tions, and this was enough for Sir John to in­vite them di­rect­ly to the park, as soon as their present en­gage­ments at Ex­eter were over. Their en­gage­ments at Ex­eter in­stant­ly gave way be­fore such an in­vi­ta­tion, and La­dy Mid­dle­ton was thrown in­to no lit­tle alarm on the re­turn of Sir John, by hear­ing that she was very soon to re­ceive a vis­it from two girls whom she had nev­er seen in her life, and of whose el­egance,– whose tol­er­able gen­til­ity even, she could have no proof; for the as­sur­ances of her hus­band and moth­er on that sub­ject went for noth­ing at all. Their be­ing her re­la­tions too made it so much the worse; and Mrs. Jen­nings’s at­tempts at con­so­la­tion were there­fore un­for­tu­nate­ly found­ed, when she ad­vised her daugh­ter not to care about their be­ing so fash­ion­able; be­cause they were all cousins and must put up with one an­oth­er. As it was im­pos­si­ble, how­ev­er, now to pre­vent their com­ing, La­dy Mid­dle­ton re­signed her­self to the idea of it, with all the phi­los­ophy of a well-​bred wom­an, con­tent­ing her­self with mere­ly giv­ing her hus­band a gen­tle rep­ri­mand on the sub­ject five or six times ev­ery day.

The young ladies ar­rived: their ap­pear­ance was by no means un­gen­teel or un­fash­ion­able. Their dress was very smart, their man­ners very civ­il, they were de­light­ed with the house, and in rap­tures with the fur­ni­ture, and they hap­pened to be so doat­ing­ly fond of chil­dren that La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s good opin­ion was en­gaged in their favour be­fore they had been an hour at the Park. She de­clared them to be very agree­able girls in­deed, which for her la­dy­ship was en­thu­si­as­tic ad­mi­ra­tion. Sir John’s con­fi­dence in his own judg­ment rose with this an­imat­ed praise, and he set off di­rect­ly for the cot­tage to tell the Miss Dash­woods of the Miss Stee­les’ ar­rival, and to as­sure them of their be­ing the sweet­est girls in the world. From such com­men­da­tion as this, how­ev­er, there was not much to be learned; Eli­nor well knew that the sweet­est girls in the world were to be met with in ev­ery part of Eng­land, un­der ev­ery pos­si­ble vari­ation of form, face, tem­per and un­der­stand­ing. Sir John want­ed the whole fam­ily to walk to the Park di­rect­ly and look at his guests. Benev­olent, phil­an­thropic man! It was painful to him even to keep a third cousin to him­self.

“Do come now,” said he–“pray come–you must come–I de­clare you shall come–You can’t think how you will like them. Lucy is mon­strous pret­ty, and so good hu­moured and agree­able! The chil­dren are all hang­ing about her al­ready, as if she was an old ac­quain­tance. And they both long to see you of all things, for they have heard at Ex­eter that you are the most beau­ti­ful crea­tures in the world; and I have told them it is all very true, and a great deal more. You will be de­light­ed with them I am sure. They have brought the whole coach full of play­things for the chil­dren. How can you be so cross as not to come? Why they are your cousins, you know, af­ter a fash­ion. YOU are my cousins, and they are my wife’s, so you must be re­lat­ed.”

But Sir John could not pre­vail. He could on­ly ob­tain a promise of their call­ing at the Park with­in a day or two, and then left them in amaze­ment at their in­dif­fer­ence, to walk home and boast anew of their at­trac­tions to the Miss Stee­les, as he had been al­ready boast­ing of the Miss Stee­les to them.

When their promised vis­it to the Park and con­se­quent in­tro­duc­tion to these young ladies took place, they found in the ap­pear­ance of the el­dest, who was near­ly thir­ty, with a very plain and not a sen­si­ble face, noth­ing to ad­mire; but in the oth­er, who was not more than two or three and twen­ty, they ac­knowl­edged con­sid­er­able beau­ty; her fea­tures were pret­ty, and she had a sharp quick eye, and a smart­ness of air, which though it did not give ac­tu­al el­egance or grace, gave dis­tinc­tion to her per­son.– Their man­ners were par­tic­ular­ly civ­il, and Eli­nor soon al­lowed them cred­it for some kind of sense, when she saw with what con­stant and ju­di­cious at­ten­tion they were mak­ing them­selves agree­able to La­dy Mid­dle­ton. With her chil­dren they were in con­tin­ual rap­tures, ex­tolling their beau­ty, court­ing their no­tice, and hu­mour­ing their whims; and such of their time as could be spared from the im­por­tu­nate de­mands which this po­lite­ness made on it, was spent in ad­mi­ra­tion of what­ev­er her la­dy­ship was do­ing, if she hap­pened to be do­ing any thing, or in tak­ing pat­terns of some el­egant new dress, in which her ap­pear­ance the day be­fore had thrown them in­to un­ceas­ing de­light. For­tu­nate­ly for those who pay their court through such foibles, a fond moth­er, though, in pur­suit of praise for her chil­dren, the most ra­pa­cious of hu­man be­ings, is like­wise the most cred­ulous; her de­mands are ex­or­bi­tant; but she will swal­low any thing; and the ex­ces­sive af­fec­tion and en­durance of the Miss Stee­les to­wards her off­spring were viewed there­fore by La­dy Mid­dle­ton with­out the small­est sur­prise or dis­trust. She saw with ma­ter­nal com­pla­cen­cy all the im­per­ti­nent en­croach­ments and mis­chievous tricks to which her cousins sub­mit­ted. She saw their sash­es un­tied, their hair pulled about their ears, their work-​bags searched, and their knives and scis­sors stolen away, and felt no doubt of its be­ing a re­cip­ro­cal en­joy­ment. It sug­gest­ed no oth­er sur­prise than that Eli­nor and Mar­ianne should sit so com­pos­ed­ly by, with­out claim­ing a share in what was pass­ing.

“John is in such spir­its to­day!” said she, on his tak­ing Miss Stee­les’s pock­et hand­ker­chief, and throw­ing it out of win­dow–“He is full of mon­key tricks.”

And soon af­ter­wards, on the sec­ond boy’s vi­olent­ly pinch­ing one of the same la­dy’s fin­gers, she fond­ly ob­served, “How play­ful William is!”

“And here is my sweet lit­tle An­na­maria,” she added, ten­der­ly ca­ress­ing a lit­tle girl of three years old, who had not made a noise for the last two min­utes; “And she is al­ways so gen­tle and qui­et–Nev­er was there such a qui­et lit­tle thing!”

But un­for­tu­nate­ly in be­stow­ing these em­braces, a pin in her la­dy­ship’s head dress slight­ly scratch­ing the child’s neck, pro­duced from this pat­tern of gen­tle­ness such vi­olent screams, as could hard­ly be out­done by any crea­ture pro­fess­ed­ly noisy. The moth­er’s con­ster­na­tion was ex­ces­sive; but it could not sur­pass the alarm of the Miss Stee­les, and ev­ery thing was done by all three, in so crit­ical an emer­gen­cy, which af­fec­tion could sug­gest as like­ly to as­suage the ag­onies of the lit­tle suf­fer­er. She was seat­ed in her moth­er’s lap, cov­ered with kiss­es, her wound bathed with laven­der-​wa­ter, by one of the Miss Stee­les, who was on her knees to at­tend her, and her mouth stuffed with sug­ar plums by the oth­er. With such a re­ward for her tears, the child was too wise to cease cry­ing. She still screamed and sobbed lusti­ly, kicked her two broth­ers for of­fer­ing to touch her, and all their unit­ed sooth­ings were in­ef­fec­tu­al till La­dy Mid­dle­ton luck­ily re­mem­ber­ing that in a scene of sim­ilar dis­tress last week, some apri­cot mar­malade had been suc­cess­ful­ly ap­plied for a bruised tem­ple, the same rem­edy was ea­ger­ly pro­posed for this un­for­tu­nate scratch, and a slight in­ter­mis­sion of screams in the young la­dy on hear­ing it, gave them rea­son to hope that it would not be re­ject­ed.– She was car­ried out of the room there­fore in her moth­er’s arms, in quest of this medicine, and as the two boys chose to fol­low, though earnest­ly en­treat­ed by their moth­er to stay be­hind, the four young ladies were left in a quiet­ness which the room had not known for many hours.

“Poor lit­tle crea­tures!” said Miss Steele, as soon as they were gone. “It might have been a very sad ac­ci­dent.”

“Yet I hard­ly know how,” cried Mar­ianne, “un­less it had been un­der to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances. But this is the usu­al way of height­en­ing alarm, where there is noth­ing to be alarmed at in re­al­ity.”

“What a sweet wom­an La­dy Mid­dle­ton is!” said Lucy Steele.

Mar­ianne was silent; it was im­pos­si­ble for her to say what she did not feel, how­ev­er triv­ial the oc­ca­sion; and up­on Eli­nor there­fore the whole task of telling lies when po­lite­ness re­quired it, al­ways fell. She did her best when thus called on, by speak­ing of La­dy Mid­dle­ton with more warmth than she felt, though with far less than Miss Lucy.

“And Sir John too,” cried the el­der sis­ter, “what a charm­ing man he is!”

Here too, Miss Dash­wood’s com­men­da­tion, be­ing on­ly sim­ple and just, came in with­out any eclat. She mere­ly ob­served that he was per­fect­ly good hu­moured and friend­ly.

“And what a charm­ing lit­tle fam­ily they have! I nev­er saw such fine chil­dren in my life.–I de­clare I quite doat up­on them al­ready, and in­deed I am al­ways dis­tract­ed­ly fond of chil­dren.”

“I should guess so,” said Eli­nor, with a smile, “from what I have wit­nessed this morn­ing.”

“I have a no­tion,” said Lucy, “you think the lit­tle Mid­dle­tons rather too much in­dulged; per­haps they may be the out­side of enough; but it is so nat­ural in La­dy Mid­dle­ton; and for my part, I love to see chil­dren full of life and spir­its; I can­not bear them if they are tame and qui­et.”

“I con­fess,” replied Eli­nor, “that while I am at Bar­ton Park, I nev­er think of tame and qui­et chil­dren with any ab­hor­rence.”

A short pause suc­ceed­ed this speech, which was first bro­ken by Miss Steele, who seemed very much dis­posed for con­ver­sa­tion, and who now said rather abrupt­ly, “And how do you like De­von­shire, Miss Dash­wood? I sup­pose you were very sor­ry to leave Sus­sex.”

In some sur­prise at the fa­mil­iar­ity of this ques­tion, or at least of the man­ner in which it was spo­ken, Eli­nor replied that she was.

“Nor­land is a prodi­gious beau­ti­ful place, is not it?” added Miss Steele.

“We have heard Sir John ad­mire it ex­ces­sive­ly,” said Lucy, who seemed to think some apol­ogy nec­es­sary for the free­dom of her sis­ter.

“I think ev­ery one MUST ad­mire it,” replied Eli­nor, “who ev­er saw the place; though it is not to be sup­posed that any one can es­ti­mate its beau­ties as we do.”

“And had you a great many smart beaux there? I sup­pose you have not so many in this part of the world; for my part, I think they are a vast ad­di­tion al­ways.”

“But why should you think,” said Lucy, look­ing ashamed of her sis­ter, “that there are not as many gen­teel young men in De­von­shire as Sus­sex?”

“Nay, my dear, I’m sure I don’t pre­tend to say that there an’t. I’m sure there’s a vast many smart beaux in Ex­eter; but you know, how could I tell what smart beaux there might be about Nor­land; and I was on­ly afraid the Miss Dash­woods might find it dull at Bar­ton, if they had not so many as they used to have. But per­haps you young ladies may not care about the beaux, and had as lief be with­out them as with them. For my part, I think they are vast­ly agree­able, pro­vid­ed they dress smart and be­have civ­il. But I can’t bear to see them dirty and nasty. Now there’s Mr. Rose at Ex­eter, a prodi­gious smart young man, quite a beau, clerk to Mr. Simp­son, you know, and yet if you do but meet him of a morn­ing, he is not fit to be seen.– I sup­pose your broth­er was quite a beau, Miss Dash­wood, be­fore he mar­ried, as he was so rich?”

“Up­on my word,” replied Eli­nor, “I can­not tell you, for I do not per­fect­ly com­pre­hend the mean­ing of the word. But this I can say, that if he ev­er was a beau be­fore he mar­ried, he is one still for there is not the small­est al­ter­ation in him.”

“Oh! dear! one nev­er thinks of mar­ried men’s be­ing beaux–they have some­thing else to do.”

“Lord! Anne,” cried her sis­ter, “you can talk of noth­ing but beaux;–you will make Miss Dash­wood be­lieve you think of noth­ing else.” And then to turn the dis­course, she be­gan ad­mir­ing the house and the fur­ni­ture.

This spec­imen of the Miss Stee­les was enough. The vul­gar free­dom and fol­ly of the el­dest left her no rec­om­men­da­tion, and as Eli­nor was not blind­ed by the beau­ty, or the shrewd look of the youngest, to her want of re­al el­egance and art­less­ness, she left the house with­out any wish of know­ing them bet­ter.

Not so the Miss Stee­les.–They came from Ex­eter, well pro­vid­ed with ad­mi­ra­tion for the use of Sir John Mid­dle­ton, his fam­ily, and all his re­la­tions, and no nig­gard­ly pro­por­tion was now dealt out to his fair cousins, whom they de­clared to be the most beau­ti­ful, el­egant, ac­com­plished, and agree­able girls they had ev­er be­held, and with whom they were par­tic­ular­ly anx­ious to be bet­ter ac­quaint­ed.– And to be bet­ter ac­quaint­ed there­fore, Eli­nor soon found was their in­evitable lot, for as Sir John was en­tire­ly on the side of the Miss Stee­les, their par­ty would be too strong for op­po­si­tion, and that kind of in­ti­ma­cy must be sub­mit­ted to, which con­sists of sit­ting an hour or two to­geth­er in the same room al­most ev­ery day. Sir John could do no more; but he did not know that any more was re­quired: to be to­geth­er was, in his opin­ion, to be in­ti­mate, and while his con­tin­ual schemes for their meet­ing were ef­fec­tu­al, he had not a doubt of their be­ing es­tab­lished friends.

To do him jus­tice, he did ev­ery thing in his pow­er to pro­mote their un­re­serve, by mak­ing the Miss Stee­les ac­quaint­ed with what­ev­er he knew or sup­posed of his cousins’ sit­ua­tions in the most del­icate par­tic­ulars,–and Eli­nor had not seen them more than twice, be­fore the el­dest of them wished her joy on her sis­ter’s hav­ing been so lucky as to make a con­quest of a very smart beau since she came to Bar­ton.

“‘Twill be a fine thing to have her mar­ried so young to be sure,” said she, “and I hear he is quite a beau, and prodi­gious hand­some. And I hope you may have as good luck your­self soon,–but per­haps you may have a friend in the cor­ner al­ready.”

Eli­nor could not sup­pose that Sir John would be more nice in pro­claim­ing his sus­pi­cions of her re­gard for Ed­ward, than he had been with re­spect to Mar­ianne; in­deed it was rather his favourite joke of the two, as be­ing some­what new­er and more con­jec­tural; and since Ed­ward’s vis­it, they had nev­er dined to­geth­er with­out his drink­ing to her best af­fec­tions with so much sig­nif­ican­cy and so many nods and winks, as to ex­cite gen­er­al at­ten­tion. The let­ter F– had been like­wise in­vari­ably brought for­ward, and found pro­duc­tive of such count­less jokes, that its char­ac­ter as the wit­ti­est let­ter in the al­pha­bet had been long es­tab­lished with Eli­nor.

The Miss Stee­les, as she ex­pect­ed, had now all the ben­efit of these jokes, and in the el­dest of them they raised a cu­rios­ity to know the name of the gen­tle­man al­lud­ed to, which, though of­ten im­per­ti­nent­ly ex­pressed, was per­fect­ly of a piece with her gen­er­al in­quis­itive­ness in­to the con­cerns of their fam­ily. But Sir John did not sport long with the cu­rios­ity which he de­light­ed to raise, for he had at least as much plea­sure in telling the name, as Miss Steele had in hear­ing it.

“His name is Fer­rars,” said he, in a very au­di­ble whis­per; “but pray do not tell it, for it’s a great se­cret.”

“Fer­rars!” re­peat­ed Miss Steele; “Mr. Fer­rars is the hap­py man, is he? What! your sis­ter-​in-​law’s broth­er, Miss Dash­wood? a very agree­able young man to be sure; I know him very well.”

“How can you say so, Anne?” cried Lucy, who gen­er­al­ly made an amend­ment to all her sis­ter’s as­ser­tions. “Though we have seen him once or twice at my un­cle’s, it is rather too much to pre­tend to know him very well.”

Eli­nor heard all this with at­ten­tion and sur­prise. “And who was this un­cle? Where did he live? How came they ac­quaint­ed?” She wished very much to have the sub­ject con­tin­ued, though she did not chuse to join in it her­self; but noth­ing more of it was said, and for the first time in her life, she thought Mrs. Jen­nings de­fi­cient ei­ther in cu­rios­ity af­ter pet­ty in­for­ma­tion, or in a dis­po­si­tion to com­mu­ni­cate it. The man­ner in which Miss Steele had spo­ken of Ed­ward, in­creased her cu­rios­ity; for it struck her as be­ing rather ill-​na­tured, and sug­gest­ed the sus­pi­cion of that la­dy’s know­ing, or fan­cy­ing her­self to know some­thing to his dis­ad­van­tage.–But her cu­rios­ity was un­avail­ing, for no far­ther no­tice was tak­en of Mr. Fer­rars’s name by Miss Steele when al­lud­ed to, or even open­ly men­tioned by Sir John.