Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 2

Mrs. John Dash­wood now in­stalled her­self mis­tress of Nor­land; and her moth­er and sis­ters-​in-​law were de­grad­ed to the con­di­tion of vis­itors. As such, how­ev­er, they were treat­ed by her with qui­et ci­vil­ity; and by her hus­band with as much kind­ness as he could feel to­wards any­body be­yond him­self, his wife, and their child. He re­al­ly pressed them, with some earnest­ness, to con­sid­er Nor­land as their home; and, as no plan ap­peared so el­igi­ble to Mrs. Dash­wood as re­main­ing there till she could ac­com­mo­date her­self with a house in the neigh­bour­hood, his in­vi­ta­tion was ac­cept­ed.

A con­tin­uance in a place where ev­ery­thing re­mind­ed her of for­mer de­light, was ex­act­ly what suit­ed her mind. In sea­sons of cheer­ful­ness, no tem­per could be more cheer­ful than hers, or pos­sess, in a greater de­gree, that san­guine ex­pec­ta­tion of hap­pi­ness which is hap­pi­ness it­self. But in sor­row she must be equal­ly car­ried away by her fan­cy, and as far be­yond con­so­la­tion as in plea­sure she was be­yond al­loy.

Mrs. John Dash­wood did not at all ap­prove of what her hus­band in­tend­ed to do for his sis­ters. To take three thou­sand pounds from the for­tune of their dear lit­tle boy would be im­pov­er­ish­ing him to the most dread­ful de­gree. She begged him to think again on the sub­ject. How could he an­swer it to him­self to rob his child, and his on­ly child too, of so large a sum? And what pos­si­ble claim could the Miss Dash­woods, who were re­lat­ed to him on­ly by half blood, which she con­sid­ered as no re­la­tion­ship at all, have on his gen­eros­ity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no af­fec­tion was ev­er sup­posed to ex­ist be­tween the chil­dren of any man by dif­fer­ent mar­riages; and why was he to ru­in him­self, and their poor lit­tle Har­ry, by giv­ing away all his mon­ey to his half sis­ters?

“It was my fa­ther’s last re­quest to me,” replied her hus­band, “that I should as­sist his wid­ow and daugh­ters.”

“He did not know what he was talk­ing of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-​head­ed at the time. Had he been in his right sens­es, he could not have thought of such a thing as beg­ging you to give away half your for­tune from your own child.”

“He did not stip­ulate for any par­tic­ular sum, my dear Fan­ny; he on­ly re­quest­ed me, in gen­er­al terms, to as­sist them, and make their sit­ua­tion more com­fort­able than it was in his pow­er to do. Per­haps it would have been as well if he had left it whol­ly to my­self. He could hard­ly sup­pose I should ne­glect them. But as he re­quired the promise, I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time. The promise, there­fore, was giv­en, and must be per­formed. Some­thing must be done for them when­ev­er they leave Nor­land and set­tle in a new home.”

“Well, then, LET some­thing be done for them; but THAT some­thing need not be three thou­sand pounds. Con­sid­er,” she added, “that when the mon­ey is once part­ed with, it nev­er can re­turn. Your sis­ters will mar­ry, and it will be gone for ev­er. If, in­deed, it could be re­stored to our poor lit­tle boy–“

“Why, to be sure,” said her hus­band, very grave­ly, “that would make great dif­fer­ence. The time may come when Har­ry will re­gret that so large a sum was part­ed with. If he should have a nu­mer­ous fam­ily, for in­stance, it would be a very con­ve­nient ad­di­tion.”

“To be sure it would.”

“Per­haps, then, it would be bet­ter for all par­ties, if the sum were di­min­ished one half.–Five hun­dred pounds would be a prodi­gious in­crease to their for­tunes!”

“Oh! be­yond any­thing great! What broth­er on earth would do half so much for his sis­ters, even if RE­AL­LY his sis­ters! And as it is–on­ly half blood!–But you have such a gen­er­ous spir­it!”

“I would not wish to do any thing mean,” he replied. “One had rather, on such oc­ca­sions, do too much than too lit­tle. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even them­selves, they can hard­ly ex­pect more.”

“There is no know­ing what THEY may ex­pect,” said the la­dy, “but we are not to think of their ex­pec­ta­tions: the ques­tion is, what you can af­ford to do.”

“Cer­tain­ly–and I think I may af­ford to give them five hun­dred pounds a-​piece. As it is, with­out any ad­di­tion of mine, they will each have about three thou­sand pounds on their moth­er’s death–a very com­fort­able for­tune for any young wom­an.”

“To be sure it is; and, in­deed, it strikes me that they can want no ad­di­tion at all. They will have ten thou­sand pounds di­vid­ed amongst them. If they mar­ry, they will be sure of do­ing well, and if they do not, they may all live very com­fort­ably to­geth­er on the in­ter­est of ten thou­sand pounds.”

“That is very true, and, there­fore, I do not know whether, up­on the whole, it would not be more ad­vis­able to do some­thing for their moth­er while she lives, rather than for them–some­thing of the an­nu­ity kind I mean.–My sis­ters would feel the good ef­fects of it as well as her­self. A hun­dred a year would make them all per­fect­ly com­fort­able.”

His wife hes­itat­ed a lit­tle, how­ev­er, in giv­ing her con­sent to this plan.

“To be sure,” said she, “it is bet­ter than part­ing with fif­teen hun­dred pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dash­wood should live fif­teen years we shall be com­plete­ly tak­en in.”

“Fif­teen years! my dear Fan­ny; her life can­not be worth half that pur­chase.”

“Cer­tain­ly not; but if you ob­serve, peo­ple al­ways live for ev­er when there is an an­nu­ity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hard­ly forty. An an­nu­ity is a very se­ri­ous busi­ness; it comes over and over ev­ery year, and there is no get­ting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are do­ing. I have known a great deal of the trou­ble of an­nu­ities; for my moth­er was clogged with the pay­ment of three to old su­per­an­nu­at­ed ser­vants by my fa­ther’s will, and it is amaz­ing how dis­agree­able she found it. Twice ev­ery year these an­nu­ities were to be paid; and then there was the trou­ble of get­ting it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and af­ter­wards it turned out to be no such thing. My moth­er was quite sick of it. Her in­come was not her own, she said, with such per­pet­ual claims on it; and it was the more un­kind in my fa­ther, be­cause, oth­er­wise, the mon­ey would have been en­tire­ly at my moth­er’s dis­pos­al, with­out any re­stric­tion what­ev­er. It has giv­en me such an ab­hor­rence of an­nu­ities, that I am sure I would not pin my­self down to the pay­ment of one for all the world.”

“It is cer­tain­ly an un­pleas­ant thing,” replied Mr. Dash­wood, “to have those kind of year­ly drains on one’s in­come. One’s for­tune, as your moth­er just­ly says, is NOT one’s own. To be tied down to the reg­ular pay­ment of such a sum, on ev­ery rent day, is by no means de­sir­able: it takes away one’s in­de­pen­dence.”

“Un­doubt­ed­ly; and af­ter all you have no thanks for it. They think them­selves se­cure, you do no more than what is ex­pect­ed, and it rais­es no grat­itude at all. If I were you, what­ev­er I did should be done at my own dis­cre­tion en­tire­ly. I would not bind my­self to al­low them any thing year­ly. It may be very in­con­ve­nient some years to spare a hun­dred, or even fifty pounds from our own ex­pens­es.”

“I be­lieve you are right, my love; it will be bet­ter that there should by no an­nu­ity in the case; what­ev­er I may give them oc­ca­sion­al­ly will be of far greater as­sis­tance than a year­ly al­lowance, be­cause they would on­ly en­large their style of liv­ing if they felt sure of a larg­er in­come, and would not be six­pence the rich­er for it at the end of the year. It will cer­tain­ly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will pre­vent their ev­er be­ing dis­tressed for mon­ey, and will, I think, be am­ply dis­charg­ing my promise to my fa­ther.”

“To be sure it will. In­deed, to say the truth, I am con­vinced with­in my­self that your fa­ther had no idea of your giv­ing them any mon­ey at all. The as­sis­tance he thought of, I dare say, was on­ly such as might be rea­son­ably ex­pect­ed of you; for in­stance, such as look­ing out for a com­fort­able small house for them, help­ing them to move their things, and send­ing them presents of fish and game, and so forth, when­ev­er they are in sea­son. I’ll lay my life that he meant noth­ing far­ther; in­deed, it would be very strange and un­rea­son­able if he did. Do but con­sid­er, my dear Mr. Dash­wood, how ex­ces­sive­ly com­fort­able your moth­er-​in-​law and her daugh­ters may live on the in­ter­est of sev­en thou­sand pounds, be­sides the thou­sand pounds be­long­ing to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year a-​piece, and, of course, they will pay their moth­er for their board out of it. Al­to­geth­er, they will have five hun­dred a-​year amongst them, and what on earth can four wom­en want for more than that?–They will live so cheap! Their house­keep­ing will be noth­ing at all. They will have no car­riage, no hors­es, and hard­ly any ser­vants; they will keep no com­pa­ny, and can have no ex­pens­es of any kind! On­ly con­ceive how com­fort­able they will be! Five hun­dred a year! I am sure I can­not imag­ine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giv­ing them more, it is quite ab­surd to think of it. They will be much more able to give YOU some­thing.”

“Up­on my word,” said Mr. Dash­wood, “I be­lieve you are per­fect­ly right. My fa­ther cer­tain­ly could mean noth­ing more by his re­quest to me than what you say. I clear­ly un­der­stand it now, and I will strict­ly ful­fil my en­gage­ment by such acts of as­sis­tance and kind­ness to them as you have de­scribed. When my moth­er re­moves in­to an­oth­er house my ser­vices shall be read­ily giv­en to ac­com­mo­date her as far as I can. Some lit­tle present of fur­ni­ture too may be ac­cept­able then.”

“Cer­tain­ly,” re­turned Mrs. John Dash­wood. “But, how­ev­er, ONE thing must be con­sid­ered. When your fa­ther and moth­er moved to Nor­land, though the fur­ni­ture of Stan­hill was sold, all the chi­na, plate, and linen was saved, and is now left to your moth­er. Her house will there­fore be al­most com­plete­ly fit­ted up as soon as she takes it.”

“That is a ma­te­ri­al con­sid­er­ation un­doubt­ed­ly. A valu­able lega­cy in­deed! And yet some of the plate would have been a very pleas­ant ad­di­tion to our own stock here.”

“Yes; and the set of break­fast chi­na is twice as hand­some as what be­longs to this house. A great deal too hand­some, in my opin­ion, for any place THEY can ev­er af­ford to live in. But, how­ev­er, so it is. Your fa­ther thought on­ly of THEM. And I must say this: that you owe no par­tic­ular grat­itude to him, nor at­ten­tion to his wish­es; for we very well know that if he could, he would have left al­most ev­ery­thing in the world to THEM.”

This ar­gu­ment was ir­re­sistible. It gave to his in­ten­tions what­ev­er of de­ci­sion was want­ing be­fore; and he fi­nal­ly re­solved, that it would be ab­so­lute­ly un­nec­es­sary, if not high­ly in­deco­rous, to do more for the wid­ow and chil­dren of his fa­ther, than such kind of neigh­bourly acts as his own wife point­ed out.