Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 22

Mar­ianne, who had nev­er much tol­er­ation for any thing like im­per­ti­nence, vul­gar­ity, in­fe­ri­or­ity of parts, or even dif­fer­ence of taste from her­self, was at this time par­tic­ular­ly ill-​dis­posed, from the state of her spir­its, to be pleased with the Miss Stee­les, or to en­cour­age their ad­vances; and to the in­vari­able cold­ness of her be­haviour to­wards them, which checked ev­ery en­deav­our at in­ti­ma­cy on their side, Eli­nor prin­ci­pal­ly at­tribut­ed that pref­er­ence of her­self which soon be­came ev­ident in the man­ners of both, but es­pe­cial­ly of Lucy, who missed no op­por­tu­ni­ty of en­gag­ing her in con­ver­sa­tion, or of striv­ing to im­prove their ac­quain­tance by an easy and frank com­mu­ni­ca­tion of her sen­ti­ments.

Lucy was nat­ural­ly clever; her re­marks were of­ten just and amus­ing; and as a com­pan­ion for half an hour Eli­nor fre­quent­ly found her agree­able; but her pow­ers had re­ceived no aid from ed­uca­tion: she was ig­no­rant and il­lit­er­ate; and her de­fi­cien­cy of all men­tal im­prove­ment, her want of in­for­ma­tion in the most com­mon par­tic­ulars, could not be con­cealed from Miss Dash­wood, in spite of her con­stant en­deav­our to ap­pear to ad­van­tage. Eli­nor saw, and pitied her for, the ne­glect of abil­ities which ed­uca­tion might have ren­dered so re­spectable; but she saw, with less ten­der­ness of feel­ing, the thor­ough want of del­ica­cy, of rec­ti­tude, and in­tegri­ty of mind, which her at­ten­tions, her as­siduities, her flat­ter­ies at the Park be­trayed; and she could have no last­ing sat­is­fac­tion in the com­pa­ny of a per­son who joined in­sin­cer­ity with ig­no­rance; whose want of in­struc­tion pre­vent­ed their meet­ing in con­ver­sa­tion on terms of equal­ity, and whose con­duct to­ward oth­ers made ev­ery shew of at­ten­tion and def­er­ence to­wards her­self per­fect­ly val­ue­less.

“You will think my ques­tion an odd one, I dare say,” said Lucy to her one day, as they were walk­ing to­geth­er from the park to the cot­tage–“but pray, are you per­son­al­ly ac­quaint­ed with your sis­ter-​in-​law’s moth­er, Mrs. Fer­rars?”

Eli­nor DID think the ques­tion a very odd one, and her coun­te­nance ex­pressed it, as she an­swered that she had nev­er seen Mrs. Fer­rars.

“In­deed!” replied Lucy; “I won­der at that, for I thought you must have seen her at Nor­land some­times. Then, per­haps, you can­not tell me what sort of a wom­an she is?”

“No,” re­turned Eli­nor, cau­tious of giv­ing her re­al opin­ion of Ed­ward’s moth­er, and not very de­sirous of sat­is­fy­ing what seemed im­per­ti­nent cu­rios­ity– “I know noth­ing of her.”

“I am sure you think me very strange, for en­quir­ing about her in such a way,” said Lucy, eye­ing Eli­nor at­ten­tive­ly as she spoke; “but per­haps there may be rea­sons–I wish I might ven­ture; but how­ev­er I hope you will do me the jus­tice of be­liev­ing that I do not mean to be im­per­ti­nent.”

Eli­nor made her a civ­il re­ply, and they walked on for a few min­utes in si­lence. It was bro­ken by Lucy, who re­newed the sub­ject again by say­ing, with some hes­ita­tion,

“I can­not bear to have you think me im­per­ti­nent­ly cu­ri­ous. I am sure I would rather do any thing in the world than be thought so by a per­son whose good opin­ion is so well worth hav­ing as yours. And I am sure I should not have the small­est fear of trust­ing YOU; in­deed, I should be very glad of your ad­vice how to man­age in such and un­com­fort­able sit­ua­tion as I am; but, how­ev­er, there is no oc­ca­sion to trou­ble YOU. I am sor­ry you do not hap­pen to know Mrs. Fer­rars.”

“I am sor­ry I do NOT,” said Eli­nor, in great as­ton­ish­ment, “if it could be of any use to YOU to know my opin­ion of her. But re­al­ly I nev­er un­der­stood that you were at all con­nect­ed with that fam­ily, and there­fore I am a lit­tle sur­prised, I con­fess, at so se­ri­ous an in­quiry in­to her char­ac­ter.”

“I dare say you are, and I am sure I do not at all won­der at it. But if I dared tell you all, you would not be so much sur­prised. Mrs. Fer­rars is cer­tain­ly noth­ing to me at present–but the time MAY come–how soon it will come must de­pend up­on her­self–when we may be very in­ti­mate­ly con­nect­ed.”

She looked down as she said this, ami­ably bash­ful, with on­ly one side glance at her com­pan­ion to ob­serve its ef­fect on her.

“Good heav­ens!” cried Eli­nor, “what do you mean? Are you ac­quaint­ed with Mr. Robert Fer­rars? Can you be?” And she did not feel much de­light­ed with the idea of such a sis­ter-​in-​law.

“No,” replied Lucy, “not to Mr. ROBERT Fer­rars–I nev­er saw him in my life; but,” fix­ing her eyes up­on Eli­nor, “to his el­dest broth­er.”

What felt Eli­nor at that mo­ment? As­ton­ish­ment, that would have been as painful as it was strong, had not an im­me­di­ate dis­be­lief of the as­ser­tion at­tend­ed it. She turned to­wards Lucy in silent amaze­ment, un­able to di­vine the rea­son or ob­ject of such a dec­la­ra­tion; and though her com­plex­ion var­ied, she stood firm in in­creduli­ty, and felt in no dan­ger of an hys­ter­ical fit, or a swoon.

“You may well be sur­prised,” con­tin­ued Lucy; “for to be sure you could have had no idea of it be­fore; for I dare say he nev­er dropped the small­est hint of it to you or any of your fam­ily; be­cause it was al­ways meant to be a great se­cret, and I am sure has been faith­ful­ly kept so by me to this hour. Not a soul of all my re­la­tions know of it but Anne, and I nev­er should have men­tioned it to you, if I had not felt the great­est de­pen­dence in the world up­on your se­cre­cy; and I re­al­ly thought my be­haviour in ask­ing so many ques­tions about Mrs. Fer­rars must seem so odd, that it ought to be ex­plained. And I do not think Mr. Fer­rars can be dis­pleased, when he knows I have trust­ed you, be­cause I know he has the high­est opin­ion in the world of all your fam­ily, and looks up­on your­self and the oth­er Miss Dash­woods quite as his own sis­ters.”–She paused.

Eli­nor for a few mo­ments re­mained silent. Her as­ton­ish­ment at what she heard was at first too great for words; but at length forc­ing her­self to speak, and to speak cau­tious­ly, she said, with calm­ness of man­ner, which tol­er­ably well con­cealed her sur­prise and so­lic­itude– “May I ask if your en­gage­ment is of long stand­ing?”

“We have been en­gaged these four years.”

“Four years!”

“Yes.”

Eli­nor, though great­ly shocked, still felt un­able to be­lieve it.

“I did not know,” said she, “that you were even ac­quaint­ed till the oth­er day.”

“Our ac­quain­tance, how­ev­er, is of many years date. He was un­der my un­cle’s care, you know, a con­sid­er­able while.”

“Your un­cle!”

“Yes; Mr. Pratt. Did you nev­er hear him talk of Mr. Pratt?”

“I think I have,” replied Eli­nor, with an ex­er­tion of spir­its, which in­creased with her in­crease of emo­tion.

“He was four years with my un­cle, who lives at Longsta­ple, near Ply­mouth. It was there our ac­quain­tance be­gun, for my sis­ter and me was of­ten stay­ing with my un­cle, and it was there our en­gage­ment was formed, though not till a year af­ter he had quit­ted as a pupil; but he was al­most al­ways with us af­ter­wards. I was very un­will­ing to en­ter in­to it, as you may imag­ine, with­out the knowl­edge and ap­pro­ba­tion of his moth­er; but I was too young, and loved him too well, to be so pru­dent as I ought to have been.– Though you do not know him so well as me, Miss Dash­wood, you must have seen enough of him to be sen­si­ble he is very ca­pa­ble of mak­ing a wom­an sin­cere­ly at­tached to him.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” an­swered Eli­nor, with­out know­ing what she said; but af­ter a mo­ment’s re­flec­tion, she added, with re­vived se­cu­ri­ty of Ed­ward’s hon­our and love, and her com­pan­ion’s false­hood–“En­gaged to Mr. Ed­ward Fer­rars!–I con­fess my­self so to­tal­ly sur­prised at what you tell me, that re­al­ly–I beg your par­don; but sure­ly there must be some mis­take of per­son or name. We can­not mean the same Mr. Fer­rars.”

“We can mean no oth­er,” cried Lucy, smil­ing. “Mr. Ed­ward Fer­rars, the el­dest son of Mrs. Fer­rars, of Park Street, and broth­er of your sis­ter-​in-​law, Mrs. John Dash­wood, is the per­son I mean; you must al­low that I am not like­ly to be de­ceived as to the name of the man on who all my hap­pi­ness de­pends.”

“It is strange,” replied Eli­nor, in a most painful per­plex­ity, “that I should nev­er have heard him even men­tion your name.”

“No; con­sid­er­ing our sit­ua­tion, it was not strange. Our first care has been to keep the mat­ter se­cret.– You knew noth­ing of me, or my fam­ily, and, there­fore, there could be no OC­CA­SION for ev­er men­tion­ing my name to you; and, as he was al­ways par­tic­ular­ly afraid of his sis­ter’s sus­pect­ing any thing, THAT was rea­son enough for his not men­tion­ing it.”

She was silent.–Eli­nor’s se­cu­ri­ty sunk; but her self-​com­mand did not sink with it.

“Four years you have been en­gaged,” said she with a firm voice.

“Yes; and heav­en knows how much longer we may have to wait. Poor Ed­ward! It puts him quite out of heart.” Then tak­ing a small minia­ture from her pock­et, she added, “To pre­vent the pos­si­bil­ity of mis­take, be so good as to look at this face. It does not do him jus­tice, to be sure, but yet I think you can­not be de­ceived as to the per­son it was drew for.–I have had it above these three years.”

She put it in­to her hands as she spoke; and when Eli­nor saw the paint­ing, what­ev­er oth­er doubts her fear of a too hasty de­ci­sion, or her wish of de­tect­ing false­hood might suf­fer to linger in her mind, she could have none of its be­ing Ed­ward’s face. She re­turned it al­most in­stant­ly, ac­knowl­edg­ing the like­ness.

“I have nev­er been able,” con­tin­ued Lucy, “to give him my pic­ture in re­turn, which I am very much vexed at, for he has been al­ways so anx­ious to get it! But I am de­ter­mined to set for it the very first op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

“You are quite in the right,” replied Eli­nor calm­ly. They then pro­ceed­ed a few paces in si­lence. Lucy spoke first.

“I am sure,” said she, “I have no doubt in the world of your faith­ful­ly keep­ing this se­cret, be­cause you must know of what im­por­tance it is to us, not to have it reach his moth­er; for she would nev­er ap­prove of it, I dare say. I shall have no for­tune, and I fan­cy she is an ex­ceed­ing proud wom­an.”

“I cer­tain­ly did not seek your con­fi­dence,” said Eli­nor; “but you do me no more than jus­tice in imag­in­ing that I may be de­pend­ed on. Your se­cret is safe with me; but par­don me if I ex­press some sur­prise at so un­nec­es­sary a com­mu­ni­ca­tion. You must at least have felt that my be­ing ac­quaint­ed with it could not add to its safe­ty.”

As she said this, she looked earnest­ly at Lucy, hop­ing to dis­cov­er some­thing in her coun­te­nance; per­haps the false­hood of the great­est part of what she had been say­ing; but Lucy’s coun­te­nance suf­fered no change.

“I was afraid you would think I was tak­ing a great lib­er­ty with you,” said she, “in telling you all this. I have not known you long to be sure, per­son­al­ly at least, but I have known you and all your fam­ily by de­scrip­tion a great while; and as soon as I saw you, I felt al­most as if you was an old ac­quain­tance. Be­sides in the present case, I re­al­ly thought some ex­pla­na­tion was due to you af­ter my mak­ing such par­tic­ular in­quiries about Ed­ward’s moth­er; and I am so un­for­tu­nate, that I have not a crea­ture whose ad­vice I can ask. Anne is the on­ly per­son that knows of it, and she has no judg­ment at all; in­deed, she does me a great deal more harm than good, for I am in con­stant fear of her be­tray­ing me. She does not know how to hold her tongue, as you must per­ceive, and I am sure I was in the great­est fright in the world t’oth­er day, when Ed­ward’s name was men­tioned by Sir John, lest she should out with it all. You can’t think how much I go through in my mind from it al­to­geth­er. I on­ly won­der that I am alive af­ter what I have suf­fered for Ed­ward’s sake these last four years. Ev­ery thing in such sus­pense and un­cer­tain­ty; and see­ing him so sel­dom–we can hard­ly meet above twice a-​year. I am sure I won­der my heart is not quite broke.”

Here she took out her hand­ker­chief; but Eli­nor did not feel very com­pas­sion­ate.

“Some­times.” con­tin­ued Lucy, af­ter wip­ing her eyes, “I think whether it would not be bet­ter for us both to break off the mat­ter en­tire­ly.” As she said this, she looked di­rect­ly at her com­pan­ion. “But then at oth­er times I have not res­olu­tion enough for it.– I can­not bear the thoughts of mak­ing him so mis­er­able, as I know the very men­tion of such a thing would do. And on my own ac­count too–so dear as he is to me–I don’t think I could be equal to it. What would you ad­vise me to do in such a case, Miss Dash­wood? What would you do your­self?”

“Par­don me,” replied Eli­nor, star­tled by the ques­tion; “but I can give you no ad­vice un­der such cir­cum­stances. Your own judg­ment must di­rect you.”

“To be sure,” con­tin­ued Lucy, af­ter a few min­utes si­lence on both sides, “his moth­er must pro­vide for him some­time or oth­er; but poor Ed­ward is so cast down by it! Did you not think him dread­ful low-​spir­it­ed when he was at Bar­ton? He was so mis­er­able when he left us at Longsta­ple, to go to you, that I was afraid you would think him quite ill.”

“Did he come from your un­cle’s, then, when he vis­it­ed us?”

“Oh, yes; he had been stay­ing a fort­night with us. Did you think he came di­rect­ly from town?”

“No,” replied Eli­nor, most feel­ing­ly sen­si­ble of ev­ery fresh cir­cum­stance in favour of Lucy’s ve­rac­ity; “I re­mem­ber he told us, that he had been stay­ing a fort­night with some friends near Ply­mouth.” She re­mem­bered too, her own sur­prise at the time, at his men­tion­ing noth­ing far­ther of those friends, at his to­tal si­lence with re­spect even to their names.

“Did not you think him sad­ly out of spir­its?” re­peat­ed Lucy.

“We did, in­deed, par­tic­ular­ly so when he first ar­rived.”

“I begged him to ex­ert him­self for fear you should sus­pect what was the mat­ter; but it made him so melan­choly, not be­ing able to stay more than a fort­night with us, and see­ing me so much af­fect­ed.– Poor fel­low!–I am afraid it is just the same with him now; for he writes in wretched spir­its. I heard from him just be­fore I left Ex­eter;” tak­ing a let­ter from her pock­et and care­less­ly show­ing the di­rec­tion to Eli­nor. “You know his hand, I dare say, a charm­ing one it is; but that is not writ­ten so well as usu­al.–He was tired, I dare say, for he had just filled the sheet to me as full as pos­si­ble.”

Eli­nor saw that it WAS his hand, and she could doubt no longer. This pic­ture, she had al­lowed her­self to be­lieve, might have been ac­ci­den­tal­ly ob­tained; it might not have been Ed­ward’s gift; but a cor­re­spon­dence be­tween them by let­ter, could sub­sist on­ly un­der a pos­itive en­gage­ment, could be au­tho­rised by noth­ing else; for a few mo­ments, she was al­most over­come–her heart sunk with­in her, and she could hard­ly stand; but ex­er­tion was in­dis­pens­ably nec­es­sary; and she strug­gled so res­olute­ly against the op­pres­sion of her feel­ings, that her suc­cess was speedy, and for the time com­plete.

“Writ­ing to each oth­er,” said Lucy, re­turn­ing the let­ter in­to her pock­et, “is the on­ly com­fort we have in such long sep­ara­tions. Yes, I have one oth­er com­fort in his pic­ture, but poor Ed­ward has not even THAT. If he had but my pic­ture, he says he should be easy. I gave him a lock of my hair set in a ring when he was at Longsta­ple last, and that was some com­fort to him, he said, but not equal to a pic­ture. Per­haps you might no­tice the ring when you saw him?”

“I did,” said Eli­nor, with a com­po­sure of voice, un­der which was con­cealed an emo­tion and dis­tress be­yond any thing she had ev­er felt be­fore. She was mor­ti­fied, shocked, con­found­ed.

For­tu­nate­ly for her, they had now reached the cot­tage, and the con­ver­sa­tion could be con­tin­ued no far­ther. Af­ter sit­ting with them a few min­utes, the Miss Stee­les re­turned to the Park, and Eli­nor was then at lib­er­ty to think and be wretched.

[At this point in the first and sec­ond edi­tions, Vol­ume 1 ends.]