Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 27

“If this open weath­er holds much longer,” said Mrs. Jen­nings, when they met at break­fast the fol­low­ing morn­ing, “Sir John will not like leav­ing Bar­ton next week; ’tis a sad thing for sports­men to lose a day’s plea­sure. Poor souls! I al­ways pity them when they do; they seem to take it so much to heart.”

“That is true,” cried Mar­ianne, in a cheer­ful voice, and walk­ing to the win­dow as she spoke, to ex­am­ine the day. “I had not thought of that. This weath­er will keep many sports­men in the coun­try.”

It was a lucky rec­ol­lec­tion, all her good spir­its were re­stored by it. “It is charm­ing weath­er for THEM in­deed,” she con­tin­ued, as she sat down to the break­fast ta­ble with a hap­py coun­te­nance. “How much they must en­joy it! But” (with a lit­tle re­turn of anx­iety) “it can­not be ex­pect­ed to last long. At this time of the year, and af­ter such a se­ries of rain, we shall cer­tain­ly have very lit­tle more of it. Frosts will soon set in, and in all prob­abil­ity with sever­ity. In an­oth­er day or two per­haps; this ex­treme mild­ness can hard­ly last longer–nay, per­haps it may freeze tonight!”

“At any rate,” said Eli­nor, wish­ing to pre­vent Mrs. Jen­nings from see­ing her sis­ter’s thoughts as clear­ly as she did, “I dare say we shall have Sir John and La­dy Mid­dle­ton in town by the end of next week.”

“Ay, my dear, I’ll war­rant you we do. Mary al­ways has her own way.”

“And now,” silent­ly con­jec­tured Eli­nor, “she will write to Combe by this day’s post.”

But if she DID, the let­ter was writ­ten and sent away with a pri­va­cy which elud­ed all her watch­ful­ness to as­cer­tain the fact. What­ev­er the truth of it might be, and far as Eli­nor was from feel­ing thor­ough con­tent­ment about it, yet while she saw Mar­ianne in spir­its, she could not be very un­com­fort­able her­self. And Mar­ianne was in spir­its; hap­py in the mild­ness of the weath­er, and still hap­pi­er in her ex­pec­ta­tion of a frost.

The morn­ing was chiefly spent in leav­ing cards at the hous­es of Mrs. Jen­nings’s ac­quain­tance to in­form them of her be­ing in town; and Mar­ianne was all the time busy in ob­serv­ing the di­rec­tion of the wind, watch­ing the vari­ations of the sky and imag­in­ing an al­ter­ation in the air.

“Don’t you find it cold­er than it was in the morn­ing, Eli­nor? There seems to me a very de­cid­ed dif­fer­ence. I can hard­ly keep my hands warm even in my muff. It was not so yes­ter­day, I think. The clouds seem part­ing too, the sun will be out in a mo­ment, and we shall have a clear af­ter­noon.”

Eli­nor was al­ter­nate­ly di­vert­ed and pained; but Mar­ianne per­se­vered, and saw ev­ery night in the bright­ness of the fire, and ev­ery morn­ing in the ap­pear­ance of the at­mo­sphere, the cer­tain symp­toms of ap­proach­ing frost.

The Miss Dash­woods had no greater rea­son to be dis­sat­is­fied with Mrs. Jen­nings’s style of liv­ing, and set of ac­quain­tance, than with her be­haviour to them­selves, which was in­vari­ably kind. Ev­ery thing in her house­hold ar­range­ments was con­duct­ed on the most lib­er­al plan, and ex­cept­ing a few old city friends, whom, to La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s re­gret, she had nev­er dropped, she vis­it­ed no one to whom an in­tro­duc­tion could at all dis­com­pose the feel­ings of her young com­pan­ions. Pleased to find her­self more com­fort­ably sit­uat­ed in that par­tic­ular than she had ex­pect­ed, Eli­nor was very will­ing to com­pound for the want of much re­al en­joy­ment from any of their evening par­ties, which, whether at home or abroad, formed on­ly for cards, could have lit­tle to amuse her.

Colonel Bran­don, who had a gen­er­al in­vi­ta­tion to the house, was with them al­most ev­ery day; he came to look at Mar­ianne and talk to Eli­nor, who of­ten de­rived more sat­is­fac­tion from con­vers­ing with him than from any oth­er dai­ly oc­cur­rence, but who saw at the same time with much con­cern his con­tin­ued re­gard for her sis­ter. She feared it was a strength­en­ing re­gard. It grieved her to see the earnest­ness with which he of­ten watched Mar­ianne, and his spir­its were cer­tain­ly worse than when at Bar­ton.

About a week af­ter their ar­rival, it be­came cer­tain that Willough­by was al­so ar­rived. His card was on the ta­ble when they came in from the morn­ing’s drive.

“Good God!” cried Mar­ianne, “he has been here while we were out.” Eli­nor, re­joiced to be as­sured of his be­ing in Lon­don, now ven­tured to say, “De­pend up­on it, he will call again to­mor­row.” But Mar­ianne seemed hard­ly to hear her, and on Mrs. Jen­ning’s en­trance, es­caped with the pre­cious card.

This event, while it raised the spir­its of Eli­nor, re­stored to those of her sis­ter all, and more than all, their for­mer ag­ita­tion. From this mo­ment her mind was nev­er qui­et; the ex­pec­ta­tion of see­ing him ev­ery hour of the day, made her un­fit for any thing. She in­sist­ed on be­ing left be­hind, the next morn­ing, when the oth­ers went out.

Eli­nor’s thoughts were full of what might be pass­ing in Berke­ley Street dur­ing their ab­sence; but a mo­ment’s glance at her sis­ter when they re­turned was enough to in­form her, that Willough­by had paid no sec­ond vis­it there. A note was just then brought in, and laid on the ta­ble,

“For me!” cried Mar­ianne, step­ping hasti­ly for­ward.

“No, ma’am, for my mis­tress.”

But Mar­ianne, not con­vinced, took it in­stant­ly up.

“It is in­deed for Mrs. Jen­nings; how pro­vok­ing!”

“You are ex­pect­ing a let­ter, then?” said Eli­nor, un­able to be longer silent.

“Yes, a lit­tle–not much.”

Af­ter a short pause. “You have no con­fi­dence in me, Mar­ianne.”

“Nay, Eli­nor, this re­proach from YOU–you who have con­fi­dence in no one!”

“Me!” re­turned Eli­nor in some con­fu­sion; “in­deed, Mar­ianne, I have noth­ing to tell.”

“Nor I,” an­swered Mar­ianne with en­er­gy, “our sit­ua­tions then are alike. We have nei­ther of us any thing to tell; you, be­cause you do not com­mu­ni­cate, and I, be­cause I con­ceal noth­ing.”

Eli­nor, dis­tressed by this charge of re­serve in her­self, which she was not at lib­er­ty to do away, knew not how, un­der such cir­cum­stances, to press for greater open­ness in Mar­ianne.

Mrs. Jen­nings soon ap­peared, and the note be­ing giv­en her, she read it aloud. It was from La­dy Mid­dle­ton, an­nounc­ing their ar­rival in Con­duit Street the night be­fore, and re­quest­ing the com­pa­ny of her moth­er and cousins the fol­low­ing evening. Busi­ness on Sir John’s part, and a vi­olent cold on her own, pre­vent­ed their call­ing in Berke­ley Street. The in­vi­ta­tion was ac­cept­ed; but when the hour of ap­point­ment drew near, nec­es­sary as it was in com­mon ci­vil­ity to Mrs. Jen­nings, that they should both at­tend her on such a vis­it, Eli­nor had some dif­fi­cul­ty in per­suad­ing her sis­ter to go, for still she had seen noth­ing of Willough­by; and there­fore was not more in­dis­posed for amuse­ment abroad, than un­will­ing to run the risk of his call­ing again in her ab­sence.

Eli­nor found, when the evening was over, that dis­po­si­tion is not ma­te­ri­al­ly al­tered by a change of abode, for al­though scarce­ly set­tled in town, Sir John had con­trived to col­lect around him, near­ly twen­ty young peo­ple, and to amuse them with a ball. This was an af­fair, how­ev­er, of which La­dy Mid­dle­ton did not ap­prove. In the coun­try, an un­premed­itat­ed dance was very al­low­able; but in Lon­don, where the rep­uta­tion of el­egance was more im­por­tant and less eas­ily at­tained, it was risk­ing too much for the grat­ifi­ca­tion of a few girls, to have it known that La­dy Mid­dle­ton had giv­en a small dance of eight or nine cou­ple, with two vi­olins, and a mere side-​board col­la­tion.

Mr. and Mrs. Palmer were of the par­ty; from the for­mer, whom they had not seen be­fore since their ar­rival in town, as he was care­ful to avoid the ap­pear­ance of any at­ten­tion to his moth­er-​in-​law, and there­fore nev­er came near her, they re­ceived no mark of recog­ni­tion on their en­trance. He looked at them slight­ly, with­out seem­ing to know who they were, and mere­ly nod­ded to Mrs. Jen­nings from the oth­er side of the room. Mar­ianne gave one glance round the apart­ment as she en­tered: it was enough–HE was not there–and she sat down, equal­ly ill-​dis­posed to re­ceive or com­mu­ni­cate plea­sure. Af­ter they had been as­sem­bled about an hour, Mr. Palmer saun­tered to­wards the Miss Dash­woods to ex­press his sur­prise on see­ing them in town, though Colonel Bran­don had been first in­formed of their ar­rival at his house, and he had him­self said some­thing very droll on hear­ing that they were to come.

“I thought you were both in De­von­shire,” said he.

“Did you?” replied Eli­nor.

“When do you go back again?”

“I do not know.” And thus end­ed their dis­course.

Nev­er had Mar­ianne been so un­will­ing to dance in her life, as she was that evening, and nev­er so much fa­tigued by the ex­er­cise. She com­plained of it as they re­turned to Berke­ley Street.

“Aye, aye,” said Mrs. Jen­nings, “we know the rea­son of all that very well; if a cer­tain per­son who shall be name­less, had been there, you would not have been a bit tired: and to say the truth it was not very pret­ty of him not to give you the meet­ing when he was in­vit­ed.”

“In­vit­ed!” cried Mar­ianne.

“So my daugh­ter Mid­dle­ton told me, for it seems Sir John met him some­where in the street this morn­ing.” Mar­ianne said no more, but looked ex­ceed­ing­ly hurt. Im­pa­tient in this sit­ua­tion to be do­ing some­thing that might lead to her sis­ter’s re­lief, Eli­nor re­solved to write the next morn­ing to her moth­er, and hoped by awak­en­ing her fears for the health of Mar­ianne, to pro­cure those in­quiries which had been so long de­layed; and she was still more ea­ger­ly bent on this mea­sure by per­ceiv­ing af­ter break­fast on the mor­row, that Mar­ianne was again writ­ing to Willough­by, for she could not sup­pose it to be to any oth­er per­son.

About the mid­dle of the day, Mrs. Jen­nings went out by her­self on busi­ness, and Eli­nor be­gan her let­ter di­rect­ly, while Mar­ianne, too rest­less for em­ploy­ment, too anx­ious for con­ver­sa­tion, walked from one win­dow to the oth­er, or sat down by the fire in melan­choly med­ita­tion. Eli­nor was very earnest in her ap­pli­ca­tion to her moth­er, re­lat­ing all that had passed, her sus­pi­cions of Willough­by’s in­con­stan­cy, urg­ing her by ev­ery plea of du­ty and af­fec­tion to de­mand from Mar­ianne an ac­count of her re­al sit­ua­tion with re­spect to him.

Her let­ter was scarce­ly fin­ished, when a rap fore­told a vis­itor, and Colonel Bran­don was an­nounced. Mar­ianne, who had seen him from the win­dow, and who hat­ed com­pa­ny of any kind, left the room be­fore he en­tered it. He looked more than usu­al­ly grave, and though ex­press­ing sat­is­fac­tion at find­ing Miss Dash­wood alone, as if he had some­what in par­tic­ular to tell her, sat for some time with­out say­ing a word. Eli­nor, per­suad­ed that he had some com­mu­ni­ca­tion to make in which her sis­ter was con­cerned, im­pa­tient­ly ex­pect­ed its open­ing. It was not the first time of her feel­ing the same kind of con­vic­tion; for, more than once be­fore, be­gin­ning with the ob­ser­va­tion of “your sis­ter looks un­well to-​day,” or “your sis­ter seems out of spir­its,” he had ap­peared on the point, ei­ther of dis­clos­ing, or of in­quir­ing, some­thing par­tic­ular about her. Af­ter a pause of sev­er­al min­utes, their si­lence was bro­ken, by his ask­ing her in a voice of some ag­ita­tion, when he was to con­grat­ulate her on the ac­qui­si­tion of a broth­er? Eli­nor was not pre­pared for such a ques­tion, and hav­ing no an­swer ready, was obliged to adopt the sim­ple and com­mon ex­pe­di­ent, of ask­ing what he meant? He tried to smile as he replied, “your sis­ter’s en­gage­ment to Mr. Willough­by is very gen­er­al­ly known.”

“It can­not be gen­er­al­ly known,” re­turned Eli­nor, “for her own fam­ily do not know it.”

He looked sur­prised and said, “I beg your par­don, I am afraid my in­quiry has been im­per­ti­nent; but I had not sup­posed any se­cre­cy in­tend­ed, as they open­ly cor­re­spond, and their mar­riage is uni­ver­sal­ly talked of.”

“How can that be? By whom can you have heard it men­tioned?”

“By many–by some of whom you know noth­ing, by oth­ers with whom you are most in­ti­mate, Mrs. Jen­nings, Mrs. Palmer, and the Mid­dle­tons. But still I might not have be­lieved it, for where the mind is per­haps rather un­will­ing to be con­vinced, it will al­ways find some­thing to sup­port its doubts, if I had not, when the ser­vant let me in to­day, ac­ci­den­tal­ly seen a let­ter in his hand, di­rect­ed to Mr. Willough­by in your sis­ter’s writ­ing. I came to in­quire, but I was con­vinced be­fore I could ask the ques­tion. Is ev­ery thing fi­nal­ly set­tled? Is it im­pos­si­ble to-? But I have no right, and I could have no chance of suc­ceed­ing. Ex­cuse me, Miss Dash­wood. I be­lieve I have been wrong in say­ing so much, but I hard­ly know what to do, and on your pru­dence I have the strongest de­pen­dence. Tell me that it is all ab­so­lute­ly re­solved on, that any at­tempt, that in short con­ceal­ment, if con­ceal­ment be pos­si­ble, is all that re­mains.”

These words, which con­veyed to Eli­nor a di­rect avow­al of his love for her sis­ter, af­fect­ed her very much. She was not im­me­di­ate­ly able to say any­thing, and even when her spir­its were re­cov­ered, she de­bat­ed for a short time, on the an­swer it would be most prop­er to give. The re­al state of things be­tween Willough­by and her sis­ter was so lit­tle known to her­self, that in en­deav­our­ing to ex­plain it, she might be as li­able to say too much as too lit­tle. Yet as she was con­vinced that Mar­ianne’s af­fec­tion for Willough­by, could leave no hope of Colonel Bran­don’s suc­cess, what­ev­er the event of that af­fec­tion might be, and at the same time wished to shield her con­duct from cen­sure, she thought it most pru­dent and kind, af­ter some con­sid­er­ation, to say more than she re­al­ly knew or be­lieved. She ac­knowl­edged, there­fore, that though she had nev­er been in­formed by them­selves of the terms on which they stood with each oth­er, of their mu­tu­al af­fec­tion she had no doubt, and of their cor­re­spon­dence she was not as­ton­ished to hear.

He lis­tened to her with silent at­ten­tion, and on her ceas­ing to speak, rose di­rect­ly from his seat, and af­ter say­ing in a voice of emo­tion, “to your sis­ter I wish all imag­in­able hap­pi­ness; to Willough­by that he may en­deav­our to de­serve her,”–took leave, and went away.

Eli­nor de­rived no com­fort­able feel­ings from this con­ver­sa­tion, to lessen the un­easi­ness of her mind on oth­er points; she was left, on the con­trary, with a melan­choly im­pres­sion of Colonel Bran­don’s un­hap­pi­ness, and was pre­vent­ed even from wish­ing it re­moved, by her anx­iety for the very event that must con­firm it.