Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 26

Eli­nor could not find her­self in the car­riage with Mrs. Jen­nings, and be­gin­ning a jour­ney to Lon­don un­der her pro­tec­tion, and as her guest, with­out won­der­ing at her own sit­ua­tion, so short had their ac­quain­tance with that la­dy been, so whol­ly un­suit­ed were they in age and dis­po­si­tion, and so many had been her ob­jec­tions against such a mea­sure on­ly a few days be­fore! But these ob­jec­tions had all, with that hap­py ar­dour of youth which Mar­ianne and her moth­er equal­ly shared, been over­come or over­looked; and Eli­nor, in spite of ev­ery oc­ca­sion­al doubt of Willough­by’s con­stan­cy, could not wit­ness the rap­ture of de­light­ful ex­pec­ta­tion which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of Mar­ianne, with­out feel­ing how blank was her own prospect, how cheer­less her own state of mind in the com­par­ison, and how glad­ly she would en­gage in the so­lic­itude of Mar­ianne’s sit­ua­tion to have the same an­imat­ing ob­ject in view, the same pos­si­bil­ity of hope. A short, a very short time how­ev­er must now de­cide what Willough­by’s in­ten­tions were; in all prob­abil­ity he was al­ready in town. Mar­ianne’s ea­ger­ness to be gone de­clared her de­pen­dence on find­ing him there; and Eli­nor was re­solved not on­ly up­on gain­ing ev­ery new light as to his char­ac­ter which her own ob­ser­va­tion or the in­tel­li­gence of oth­ers could give her, but like­wise up­on watch­ing his be­haviour to her sis­ter with such zeal­ous at­ten­tion, as to as­cer­tain what he was and what he meant, be­fore many meet­ings had tak­en place. Should the re­sult of her ob­ser­va­tions be un­favourable, she was de­ter­mined at all events to open the eyes of her sis­ter; should it be oth­er­wise, her ex­er­tions would be of a dif­fer­ent na­ture–she must then learn to avoid ev­ery self­ish com­par­ison, and ban­ish ev­ery re­gret which might lessen her sat­is­fac­tion in the hap­pi­ness of Mar­ianne.

They were three days on their jour­ney, and Mar­ianne’s be­haviour as they trav­elled was a hap­py spec­imen of what fu­ture com­plai­sance and com­pan­ion­able­ness to Mrs. Jen­nings might be ex­pect­ed to be. She sat in si­lence al­most all the way, wrapt in her own med­ita­tions, and scarce­ly ev­er vol­un­tar­ily speak­ing, ex­cept when any ob­ject of pic­turesque beau­ty with­in their view drew from her an ex­cla­ma­tion of de­light ex­clu­sive­ly ad­dressed to her sis­ter. To atone for this con­duct there­fore, Eli­nor took im­me­di­ate pos­ses­sion of the post of ci­vil­ity which she had as­signed her­self, be­haved with the great­est at­ten­tion to Mrs. Jen­nings, talked with her, laughed with her, and lis­tened to her when­ev­er she could; and Mrs. Jen­nings on her side treat­ed them both with all pos­si­ble kind­ness, was so­lic­itous on ev­ery oc­ca­sion for their ease and en­joy­ment, and on­ly dis­turbed that she could not make them choose their own din­ners at the inn, nor ex­tort a con­fes­sion of their pre­fer­ring salmon to cod, or boiled fowls to veal cut­lets. They reached town by three o’clock the third day, glad to be re­leased, af­ter such a jour­ney, from the con­fine­ment of a car­riage, and ready to en­joy all the lux­ury of a good fire.

The house was hand­some, and hand­some­ly fit­ted up, and the young ladies were im­me­di­ate­ly put in pos­ses­sion of a very com­fort­able apart­ment. It had for­mer­ly been Char­lotte’s, and over the man­tel­piece still hung a land­scape in coloured silks of her per­for­mance, in proof of her hav­ing spent sev­en years at a great school in town to some ef­fect.

As din­ner was not to be ready in less than two hours from their ar­rival, Eli­nor de­ter­mined to em­ploy the in­ter­val in writ­ing to her moth­er, and sat down for that pur­pose. In a few mo­ments Mar­ianne did the same. “I am writ­ing home, Mar­ianne,” said Eli­nor; “had not you bet­ter de­fer your let­ter for a day or two?”

“I am NOT go­ing to write to my moth­er,” replied Mar­ianne, hasti­ly, and as if wish­ing to avoid any far­ther in­quiry. Eli­nor said no more; it im­me­di­ate­ly struck her that she must then be writ­ing to Willough­by; and the con­clu­sion which as in­stant­ly fol­lowed was, that, how­ev­er mys­te­ri­ous­ly they might wish to con­duct the af­fair, they must be en­gaged. This con­vic­tion, though not en­tire­ly sat­is­fac­to­ry, gave her plea­sure, and she con­tin­ued her let­ter with greater alacrity. Mar­ianne’s was fin­ished in a very few min­utes; in length it could be no more than a note; it was then fold­ed up, sealed, and di­rect­ed with ea­ger ra­pid­ity. Eli­nor thought she could dis­tin­guish a large W in the di­rec­tion; and no soon­er was it com­plete than Mar­ianne, ring­ing the bell, re­quest­ed the foot­man who an­swered it to get that let­ter con­veyed for her to the two-​pen­ny post. This de­cid­ed the mat­ter at once.

Her spir­its still con­tin­ued very high; but there was a flut­ter in them which pre­vent­ed their giv­ing much plea­sure to her sis­ter, and this ag­ita­tion in­creased as the evening drew on. She could scarce­ly eat any din­ner, and when they af­ter­wards re­turned to the draw­ing room, seemed anx­ious­ly lis­ten­ing to the sound of ev­ery car­riage.

It was a great sat­is­fac­tion to Eli­nor that Mrs. Jen­nings, by be­ing much en­gaged in her own room, could see lit­tle of what was pass­ing. The tea things were brought in, and al­ready had Mar­ianne been dis­ap­point­ed more than once by a rap at a neigh­bour­ing door, when a loud one was sud­den­ly heard which could not be mis­tak­en for one at any oth­er house, Eli­nor felt se­cure of its an­nounc­ing Willough­by’s ap­proach, and Mar­ianne, start­ing up, moved to­wards the door. Ev­ery thing was silent; this could not be borne many sec­onds; she opened the door, ad­vanced a few steps to­wards the stairs, and af­ter lis­ten­ing half a minute, re­turned in­to the room in all the ag­ita­tion which a con­vic­tion of hav­ing heard him would nat­ural­ly pro­duce; in the ec­sta­sy of her feel­ings at that in­stant she could not help ex­claim­ing, “Oh, Eli­nor, it is Willough­by, in­deed it is!” and seemed al­most ready to throw her­self in­to his arms, when Colonel Bran­don ap­peared.

It was too great a shock to be borne with calm­ness, and she im­me­di­ate­ly left the room. Eli­nor was dis­ap­point­ed too; but at the same time her re­gard for Colonel Bran­don en­sured his wel­come with her; and she felt par­tic­ular­ly hurt that a man so par­tial to her sis­ter should per­ceive that she ex­pe­ri­enced noth­ing but grief and dis­ap­point­ment in see­ing him. She in­stant­ly saw that it was not un­no­ticed by him, that he even ob­served Mar­ianne as she quit­ted the room, with such as­ton­ish­ment and con­cern, as hard­ly left him the rec­ol­lec­tion of what ci­vil­ity de­mand­ed to­wards her­self.

“Is your sis­ter ill?” said he.

Eli­nor an­swered in some dis­tress that she was, and then talked of head-​aches, low spir­its, and over fa­tigues; and of ev­ery thing to which she could de­cent­ly at­tribute her sis­ter’s be­haviour.

He heard her with the most earnest at­ten­tion, but seem­ing to rec­ol­lect him­self, said no more on the sub­ject, and be­gan di­rect­ly to speak of his plea­sure at see­ing them in Lon­don, mak­ing the usu­al in­quiries about their jour­ney, and the friends they had left be­hind.

In this calm kind of way, with very lit­tle in­ter­est on ei­ther side, they con­tin­ued to talk, both of them out of spir­its, and the thoughts of both en­gaged else­where. Eli­nor wished very much to ask whether Willough­by were then in town, but she was afraid of giv­ing him pain by any en­quiry af­ter his ri­val; and at length, by way of say­ing some­thing, she asked if he had been in Lon­don ev­er since she had seen him last. “Yes,” he replied, with some em­bar­rass­ment, “al­most ev­er since; I have been once or twice at De­laford for a few days, but it has nev­er been in my pow­er to re­turn to Bar­ton.”

This, and the man­ner in which it was said, im­me­di­ate­ly brought back to her re­mem­brance all the cir­cum­stances of his quit­ting that place, with the un­easi­ness and sus­pi­cions they had caused to Mrs. Jen­nings, and she was fear­ful that her ques­tion had im­plied much more cu­rios­ity on the sub­ject than she had ev­er felt.

Mrs. Jen­nings soon came in. “Oh! Colonel,” said she, with her usu­al noisy cheer­ful­ness, “I am mon­strous glad to see you–sor­ry I could not come be­fore–beg your par­don, but I have been forced to look about me a lit­tle, and set­tle my mat­ters; for it is a long while since I have been at home, and you know one has al­ways a world of lit­tle odd things to do af­ter one has been away for any time; and then I have had Cartwright to set­tle with– Lord, I have been as busy as a bee ev­er since din­ner! But pray, Colonel, how came you to con­jure out that I should be in town to­day?”

“I had the plea­sure of hear­ing it at Mr. Palmer’s, where I have been din­ing.”

“Oh, you did; well, and how do they all do at their house? How does Char­lotte do? I war­rant you she is a fine size by this time.”

“Mrs. Palmer ap­peared quite well, and I am com­mis­sioned to tell you, that you will cer­tain­ly see her to-​mor­row.”

“Ay, to be sure, I thought as much. Well, Colonel, I have brought two young ladies with me, you see–that is, you see but one of them now, but there is an­oth­er some­where. Your friend, Miss Mar­ianne, too–which you will not be sor­ry to hear. I do not know what you and Mr. Willough­by will do be­tween you about her. Ay, it is a fine thing to be young and hand­some. Well! I was young once, but I nev­er was very hand­some–worse luck for me. How­ev­er, I got a very good hus­band, and I don’t know what the great­est beau­ty can do more. Ah! poor man! he has been dead these eight years and bet­ter. But Colonel, where have you been to since we part­ed? And how does your busi­ness go on? Come, come, let’s have no se­crets among friends.”

He replied with his ac­cus­tom­ary mild­ness to all her in­quiries, but with­out sat­is­fy­ing her in any. Eli­nor now be­gan to make the tea, and Mar­ianne was obliged to ap­pear again.

Af­ter her en­trance, Colonel Bran­don be­came more thought­ful and silent than he had been be­fore, and Mrs. Jen­nings could not pre­vail on him to stay long. No oth­er vis­itor ap­peared that evening, and the ladies were unan­imous in agree­ing to go ear­ly to bed.

Mar­ianne rose the next morn­ing with re­cov­ered spir­its and hap­py looks. The dis­ap­point­ment of the evening be­fore seemed for­got­ten in the ex­pec­ta­tion of what was to hap­pen that day. They had not long fin­ished their break­fast be­fore Mrs. Palmer’s barouche stopped at the door, and in a few min­utes she came laugh­ing in­to the room: so de­light­ed to see them all, that it was hard to say whether she re­ceived most plea­sure from meet­ing her moth­er or the Miss Dash­woods again. So sur­prised at their com­ing to town, though it was what she had rather ex­pect­ed all along; so an­gry at their ac­cept­ing her moth­er’s in­vi­ta­tion af­ter hav­ing de­clined her own, though at the same time she would nev­er have for­giv­en them if they had not come!

“Mr. Palmer will be so hap­py to see you,” said she; “What do you think he said when he heard of your com­ing with Mam­ma? I for­get what it was now, but it was some­thing so droll!”

Af­ter an hour or two spent in what her moth­er called com­fort­able chat, or in oth­er words, in ev­ery va­ri­ety of in­quiry con­cern­ing all their ac­quain­tance on Mrs. Jen­nings’s side, and in laugh­ter with­out cause on Mrs. Palmer’s, it was pro­posed by the lat­ter that they should all ac­com­pa­ny her to some shops where she had busi­ness that morn­ing, to which Mrs. Jen­nings and Eli­nor read­ily con­sent­ed, as hav­ing like­wise some pur­chas­es to make them­selves; and Mar­ianne, though de­clin­ing it at first was in­duced to go like­wise.

Wher­ev­er they went, she was ev­ident­ly al­ways on the watch. In Bond Street es­pe­cial­ly, where much of their busi­ness lay, her eyes were in con­stant in­quiry; and in what­ev­er shop the par­ty were en­gaged, her mind was equal­ly ab­stract­ed from ev­ery thing ac­tu­al­ly be­fore them, from all that in­ter­est­ed and oc­cu­pied the oth­ers. Rest­less and dis­sat­is­fied ev­ery where, her sis­ter could nev­er ob­tain her opin­ion of any ar­ti­cle of pur­chase, how­ev­er it might equal­ly con­cern them both: she re­ceived no plea­sure from any­thing; was on­ly im­pa­tient to be at home again, and could with dif­fi­cul­ty gov­ern her vex­ation at the te­dious­ness of Mrs. Palmer, whose eye was caught by ev­ery thing pret­ty, ex­pen­sive, or new; who was wild to buy all, could de­ter­mine on none, and daw­dled away her time in rap­ture and in­de­ci­sion.

It was late in the morn­ing be­fore they re­turned home; and no soon­er had they en­tered the house than Mar­ianne flew ea­ger­ly up stairs, and when Eli­nor fol­lowed, she found her turn­ing from the ta­ble with a sor­row­ful coun­te­nance, which de­clared that no Willough­by had been there.

“Has no let­ter been left here for me since we went out?” said she to the foot­man who then en­tered with the parcels. She was an­swered in the neg­ative. “Are you quite sure of it?” she replied. “Are you cer­tain that no ser­vant, no porter has left any let­ter or note?”

The man replied that none had.

“How very odd!” said she, in a low and dis­ap­point­ed voice, as she turned away to the win­dow.

“How odd, in­deed!” re­peat­ed Eli­nor with­in her­self, re­gard­ing her sis­ter with un­easi­ness. “If she had not known him to be in town she would not have writ­ten to him, as she did; she would have writ­ten to Combe Magna; and if he is in town, how odd that he should nei­ther come nor write! Oh! my dear moth­er, you must be wrong in per­mit­ting an en­gage­ment be­tween a daugh­ter so young, a man so lit­tle known, to be car­ried on in so doubt­ful, so mys­te­ri­ous a man­ner! I long to in­quire; and how will MY in­ter­fer­ence be borne.”

She de­ter­mined, af­ter some con­sid­er­ation, that if ap­pear­ances con­tin­ued many days longer as un­pleas­ant as they now were, she would rep­re­sent in the strongest man­ner to her moth­er the ne­ces­si­ty of some se­ri­ous en­quiry in­to the af­fair.

Mrs. Palmer and two el­der­ly ladies of Mrs. Jen­nings’s in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance, whom she had met and in­vit­ed in the morn­ing, dined with them. The for­mer left them soon af­ter tea to ful­fill her evening en­gage­ments; and Eli­nor was obliged to as­sist in mak­ing a whist ta­ble for the oth­ers. Mar­ianne was of no use on these oc­ca­sions, as she would nev­er learn the game; but though her time was there­fore at her own dis­pos­al, the evening was by no means more pro­duc­tive of plea­sure to her than to Eli­nor, for it was spent in all the anx­iety of ex­pec­ta­tion and the pain of dis­ap­point­ment. She some­times en­deav­oured for a few min­utes to read; but the book was soon thrown aside, and she re­turned to the more in­ter­est­ing em­ploy­ment of walk­ing back­wards and for­wards across the room, paus­ing for a mo­ment when­ev­er she came to the win­dow, in hopes of dis­tin­guish­ing the long-​ex­pect­ed rap.