Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 23

How­ev­er small Eli­nor’s gen­er­al de­pen­dence on Lucy’s ve­rac­ity might be, it was im­pos­si­ble for her on se­ri­ous re­flec­tion to sus­pect it in the present case, where no temp­ta­tion could be an­swer­able to the fol­ly of in­vent­ing a false­hood of such a de­scrip­tion. What Lucy had as­sert­ed to be true, there­fore, Eli­nor could not, dared not longer doubt; sup­port­ed as it was too on ev­ery side by such prob­abil­ities and proofs, and con­tra­dict­ed by noth­ing but her own wish­es. Their op­por­tu­ni­ty of ac­quain­tance in the house of Mr. Pratt was a foun­da­tion for the rest, at once in­dis­putable and alarm­ing; and Ed­ward’s vis­it near Ply­mouth, his melan­choly state of mind, his dis­sat­is­fac­tion at his own prospects, his un­cer­tain be­haviour to­wards her­self, the in­ti­mate knowl­edge of the Miss Stee­les as to Nor­land and their fam­ily con­nec­tions, which had of­ten sur­prised her, the pic­ture, the let­ter, the ring, formed al­to­geth­er such a body of ev­idence, as over­came ev­ery fear of con­demn­ing him un­fair­ly, and es­tab­lished as a fact, which no par­tial­ity could set aside, his ill-​treat­ment of her­self.–Her re­sent­ment of such be­haviour, her in­dig­na­tion at hav­ing been its dupe, for a short time made her feel on­ly for her­self; but oth­er ideas, oth­er con­sid­er­ations, soon arose. Had Ed­ward been in­ten­tion­al­ly de­ceiv­ing her? Had he feigned a re­gard for her which he did not feel? Was his en­gage­ment to Lucy an en­gage­ment of the heart? No; what­ev­er it might once have been, she could not be­lieve it such at present. His af­fec­tion was all her own. She could not be de­ceived in that. Her moth­er, sis­ters, Fan­ny, all had been con­scious of his re­gard for her at Nor­land; it was not an il­lu­sion of her own van­ity. He cer­tain­ly loved her. What a soft­en­er of the heart was this per­sua­sion! How much could it not tempt her to for­give! He had been blam­able, high­ly blam­able, in re­main­ing at Nor­land af­ter he first felt her in­flu­ence over him to be more than it ought to be. In that, he could not be de­fend­ed; but if he had in­jured her, how much more had he in­jured him­self; if her case were pitiable, his was hope­less. His im­pru­dence had made her mis­er­able for a while; but it seemed to have de­prived him­self of all chance of ev­er be­ing oth­er­wise. She might in time re­gain tran­quil­li­ty; but HE, what had he to look for­ward to? Could he ev­er be tol­er­ably hap­py with Lucy Steele; could he, were his af­fec­tion for her­self out of the ques­tion, with his in­tegri­ty, his del­ica­cy, and well-​in­formed mind, be sat­is­fied with a wife like her–il­lit­er­ate, art­ful, and self­ish?

The youth­ful in­fat­ua­tion of nine­teen would nat­ural­ly blind him to ev­ery thing but her beau­ty and good na­ture; but the four suc­ceed­ing years–years, which if ra­tio­nal­ly spent, give such im­prove­ment to the un­der­stand­ing, must have opened his eyes to her de­fects of ed­uca­tion, while the same pe­ri­od of time, spent on her side in in­fe­ri­or so­ci­ety and more frivolous pur­suits, had per­haps robbed her of that sim­plic­ity which might once have giv­en an in­ter­est­ing char­ac­ter to her beau­ty.

If in the sup­po­si­tion of his seek­ing to mar­ry her­self, his dif­fi­cul­ties from his moth­er had seemed great, how much greater were they now like­ly to be, when the ob­ject of his en­gage­ment was un­doubt­ed­ly in­fe­ri­or in con­nec­tions, and prob­ably in­fe­ri­or in for­tune to her­self. These dif­fi­cul­ties, in­deed, with a heart so alien­at­ed from Lucy, might not press very hard up­on his pa­tience; but melan­choly was the state of the per­son by whom the ex­pec­ta­tion of fam­ily op­po­si­tion and un­kind­ness, could be felt as a re­lief!

As these con­sid­er­ations oc­curred to her in painful suc­ces­sion, she wept for him, more than for her­self. Sup­port­ed by the con­vic­tion of hav­ing done noth­ing to mer­it her present un­hap­pi­ness, and con­soled by the be­lief that Ed­ward had done noth­ing to for­feit her es­teem, she thought she could even now, un­der the first smart of the heavy blow, com­mand her­self enough to guard ev­ery sus­pi­cion of the truth from her moth­er and sis­ters. And so well was she able to an­swer her own ex­pec­ta­tions, that when she joined them at din­ner on­ly two hours af­ter she had first suf­fered the ex­tinc­tion of all her dear­est hopes, no one would have sup­posed from the ap­pear­ance of the sis­ters, that Eli­nor was mourn­ing in se­cret over ob­sta­cles which must di­vide her for ev­er from the ob­ject of her love, and that Mar­ianne was in­ter­nal­ly dwelling on the per­fec­tions of a man, of whose whole heart she felt thor­ough­ly pos­sessed, and whom she ex­pect­ed to see in ev­ery car­riage which drove near their house.

The ne­ces­si­ty of con­ceal­ing from her moth­er and Mar­ianne, what had been en­trust­ed in con­fi­dence to her­self, though it obliged her to un­ceas­ing ex­er­tion, was no ag­gra­va­tion of Eli­nor’s dis­tress. On the con­trary it was a re­lief to her, to be spared the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of what would give such af­flic­tion to them, and to be saved like­wise from hear­ing that con­dem­na­tion of Ed­ward, which would prob­ably flow from the ex­cess of their par­tial af­fec­tion for her­self, and which was more than she felt equal to sup­port.

From their coun­sel, or their con­ver­sa­tion, she knew she could re­ceive no as­sis­tance, their ten­der­ness and sor­row must add to her dis­tress, while her self-​com­mand would nei­ther re­ceive en­cour­age­ment from their ex­am­ple nor from their praise. She was stronger alone, and her own good sense so well sup­port­ed her, that her firm­ness was as un­shak­en, her ap­pear­ance of cheer­ful­ness as in­vari­able, as with re­grets so poignant and so fresh, it was pos­si­ble for them to be.

Much as she had suf­fered from her first con­ver­sa­tion with Lucy on the sub­ject, she soon felt an earnest wish of re­new­ing it; and this for more rea­sons than one. She want­ed to hear many par­tic­ulars of their en­gage­ment re­peat­ed again, she want­ed more clear­ly to un­der­stand what Lucy re­al­ly felt for Ed­ward, whether there were any sin­cer­ity in her dec­la­ra­tion of ten­der re­gard for him, and she par­tic­ular­ly want­ed to con­vince Lucy, by her readi­ness to en­ter on the mat­ter again, and her calm­ness in con­vers­ing on it, that she was no oth­er­wise in­ter­est­ed in it than as a friend, which she very much feared her in­vol­un­tary ag­ita­tion, in their morn­ing dis­course, must have left at least doubt­ful. That Lucy was dis­posed to be jeal­ous of her ap­peared very prob­able: it was plain that Ed­ward had al­ways spo­ken high­ly in her praise, not mere­ly from Lucy’s as­ser­tion, but from her ven­tur­ing to trust her on so short a per­son­al ac­quain­tance, with a se­cret so con­fess­ed­ly and ev­ident­ly im­por­tant. And even Sir John’s jok­ing in­tel­li­gence must have had some weight. But in­deed, while Eli­nor re­mained so well as­sured with­in her­self of be­ing re­al­ly beloved by Ed­ward, it re­quired no oth­er con­sid­er­ation of prob­abil­ities to make it nat­ural that Lucy should be jeal­ous; and that she was so, her very con­fi­dence was a proof. What oth­er rea­son for the dis­clo­sure of the af­fair could there be, but that Eli­nor might be in­formed by it of Lucy’s su­pe­ri­or claims on Ed­ward, and be taught to avoid him in fu­ture? She had lit­tle dif­fi­cul­ty in un­der­stand­ing thus much of her ri­val’s in­ten­tions, and while she was firm­ly re­solved to act by her as ev­ery prin­ci­ple of hon­our and hon­esty di­rect­ed, to com­bat her own af­fec­tion for Ed­ward and to see him as lit­tle as pos­si­ble; she could not de­ny her­self the com­fort of en­deav­our­ing to con­vince Lucy that her heart was un­wound­ed. And as she could now have noth­ing more painful to hear on the sub­ject than had al­ready been told, she did not mis­trust her own abil­ity of go­ing through a rep­eti­tion of par­tic­ulars with com­po­sure.

But it was not im­me­di­ate­ly that an op­por­tu­ni­ty of do­ing so could be com­mand­ed, though Lucy was as well dis­posed as her­self to take ad­van­tage of any that oc­curred; for the weath­er was not of­ten fine enough to al­low of their join­ing in a walk, where they might most eas­ily sep­arate them­selves from the oth­ers; and though they met at least ev­ery oth­er evening ei­ther at the park or cot­tage, and chiefly at the for­mer, they could not be sup­posed to meet for the sake of con­ver­sa­tion. Such a thought would nev­er en­ter ei­ther Sir John or La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s head; and there­fore very lit­tle leisure was ev­er giv­en for a gen­er­al chat, and none at all for par­tic­ular dis­course. They met for the sake of eat­ing, drink­ing, and laugh­ing to­geth­er, play­ing at cards, or con­se­quences, or any oth­er game that was suf­fi­cient­ly noisy.

One or two meet­ings of this kind had tak­en place, with­out af­ford­ing Eli­nor any chance of en­gag­ing Lucy in pri­vate, when Sir John called at the cot­tage one morn­ing, to beg, in the name of char­ity, that they would all dine with La­dy Mid­dle­ton that day, as he was obliged to at­tend the club at Ex­eter, and she would oth­er­wise be quite alone, ex­cept her moth­er and the two Miss Stee­les. Eli­nor, who fore­saw a fair­er open­ing for the point she had in view, in such a par­ty as this was like­ly to be, more at lib­er­ty among them­selves un­der the tran­quil and well-​bred di­rec­tion of La­dy Mid­dle­ton than when her hus­band unit­ed them to­geth­er in one noisy pur­pose, im­me­di­ate­ly ac­cept­ed the in­vi­ta­tion; Mar­garet, with her moth­er’s per­mis­sion, was equal­ly com­pli­ant, and Mar­ianne, though al­ways un­will­ing to join any of their par­ties, was per­suad­ed by her moth­er, who could not bear to have her se­clude her­self from any chance of amuse­ment, to go like­wise.

The young ladies went, and La­dy Mid­dle­ton was hap­pi­ly pre­served from the fright­ful soli­tude which had threat­ened her. The in­si­pid­ity of the meet­ing was ex­act­ly such as Eli­nor had ex­pect­ed; it pro­duced not one nov­el­ty of thought or ex­pres­sion, and noth­ing could be less in­ter­est­ing than the whole of their dis­course both in the din­ing par­lour and draw­ing room: to the lat­ter, the chil­dren ac­com­pa­nied them, and while they re­mained there, she was too well con­vinced of the im­pos­si­bil­ity of en­gag­ing Lucy’s at­ten­tion to at­tempt it. They quit­ted it on­ly with the re­moval of the tea-​things. The card-​ta­ble was then placed, and Eli­nor be­gan to won­der at her­self for hav­ing ev­er en­ter­tained a hope of find­ing time for con­ver­sa­tion at the park. They all rose up in prepa­ra­tion for a round game.

“I am glad,” said La­dy Mid­dle­ton to Lucy, “you are not go­ing to fin­ish poor lit­tle An­na­maria’s bas­ket this evening; for I am sure it must hurt your eyes to work fil­igree by can­dle­light. And we will make the dear lit­tle love some amends for her dis­ap­point­ment to-​mor­row, and then I hope she will not much mind it.”

This hint was enough, Lucy rec­ol­lect­ed her­self in­stant­ly and replied, “In­deed you are very much mis­tak­en, La­dy Mid­dle­ton; I am on­ly wait­ing to know whether you can make your par­ty with­out me, or I should have been at my fil­igree al­ready. I would not dis­ap­point the lit­tle an­gel for all the world: and if you want me at the card-​ta­ble now, I am re­solved to fin­ish the bas­ket af­ter sup­per.”

“You are very good, I hope it won’t hurt your eyes– will you ring the bell for some work­ing can­dles? My poor lit­tle girl would be sad­ly dis­ap­point­ed, I know, if the bas­ket was not fin­ished to­mor­row, for though I told her it cer­tain­ly would not, I am sure she de­pends up­on hav­ing it done.”

Lucy di­rect­ly drew her work ta­ble near her and re­seat­ed her­self with an alacrity and cheer­ful­ness which seemed to in­fer that she could taste no greater de­light than in mak­ing a fil­igree bas­ket for a spoilt child.

La­dy Mid­dle­ton pro­posed a rub­ber of Casi­no to the oth­ers. No one made any ob­jec­tion but Mar­ianne, who with her usu­al inat­ten­tion to the forms of gen­er­al ci­vil­ity, ex­claimed, “Your La­dy­ship will have the good­ness to ex­cuse ME–you know I de­test cards. I shall go to the pi­ano-​forte; I have not touched it since it was tuned.” And with­out far­ther cer­emo­ny, she turned away and walked to the in­stru­ment.

La­dy Mid­dle­ton looked as if she thanked heav­en that SHE had nev­er made so rude a speech.

“Mar­ianne can nev­er keep long from that in­stru­ment you know, ma’am,” said Eli­nor, en­deav­our­ing to smooth away the of­fence; “and I do not much won­der at it; for it is the very best toned pi­ano-​forte I ev­er heard.”

The re­main­ing five were now to draw their cards.

“Per­haps,” con­tin­ued Eli­nor, “if I should hap­pen to cut out, I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele, in rolling her pa­pers for her; and there is so much still to be done to the bas­ket, that it must be im­pos­si­ble I think for her labour singly, to fin­ish it this evening. I should like the work ex­ceed­ing­ly, if she would al­low me a share in it.”

“In­deed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help,” cried Lucy, “for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was; and it would be a shock­ing thing to dis­ap­point dear An­na­maria af­ter all.”

“Oh! that would be ter­ri­ble, in­deed,” said Miss Steele– “Dear lit­tle soul, how I do love her!”

“You are very kind,” said La­dy Mid­dle­ton to Eli­nor; “and as you re­al­ly like the work, per­haps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till an­oth­er rub­ber, or will you take your chance now?”

Eli­nor joy­ful­ly prof­it­ed by the first of these pro­pos­als, and thus by a lit­tle of that ad­dress which Mar­ianne could nev­er con­de­scend to prac­tise, gained her own end, and pleased La­dy Mid­dle­ton at the same time. Lucy made room for her with ready at­ten­tion, and the two fair ri­vals were thus seat­ed side by side at the same ta­ble, and, with the ut­most har­mo­ny, en­gaged in for­ward­ing the same work. The pi­anoforte at which Mar­ianne, wrapped up in her own mu­sic and her own thoughts, had by this time for­got­ten that any body was in the room be­sides her­self, was luck­ily so near them that Miss Dash­wood now judged she might safe­ly, un­der the shel­ter of its noise, in­tro­duce the in­ter­est­ing sub­ject, with­out any risk of be­ing heard at the card-​ta­ble.