Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 32

When the par­tic­ulars of this con­ver­sa­tion were re­peat­ed by Miss Dash­wood to her sis­ter, as they very soon were, the ef­fect on her was not en­tire­ly such as the for­mer had hoped to see. Not that Mar­ianne ap­peared to dis­trust the truth of any part of it, for she lis­tened to it all with the most steady and sub­mis­sive at­ten­tion, made nei­ther ob­jec­tion nor re­mark, at­tempt­ed no vin­di­ca­tion of Willough­by, and seemed to shew by her tears that she felt it to be im­pos­si­ble. But though this be­haviour as­sured Eli­nor that the con­vic­tion of this guilt WAS car­ried home to her mind, though she saw with sat­is­fac­tion the ef­fect of it, in her no longer avoid­ing Colonel Bran­don when he called, in her speak­ing to him, even vol­un­tar­ily speak­ing, with a kind of com­pas­sion­ate re­spect, and though she saw her spir­its less vi­olent­ly ir­ri­tat­ed than be­fore, she did not see her less wretched. Her mind did be­come set­tled, but it was set­tled in a gloomy de­jec­tion. She felt the loss of Willough­by’s char­ac­ter yet more heav­ily than she had felt the loss of his heart; his se­duc­tion and de­ser­tion of Miss Williams, the mis­ery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his de­signs might ONCE have been on her­self, preyed al­to­geth­er so much on her spir­its, that she could not bring her­self to speak of what she felt even to Eli­nor; and, brood­ing over her sor­rows in si­lence, gave more pain to her sis­ter than could have been com­mu­ni­cat­ed by the most open and most fre­quent con­fes­sion of them.

To give the feel­ings or the lan­guage of Mrs. Dash­wood on re­ceiv­ing and an­swer­ing Eli­nor’s let­ter would be on­ly to give a rep­eti­tion of what her daugh­ters had al­ready felt and said; of a dis­ap­point­ment hard­ly less painful than Mar­ianne’s, and an in­dig­na­tion even greater than Eli­nor’s. Long let­ters from her, quick­ly suc­ceed­ing each oth­er, ar­rived to tell all that she suf­fered and thought; to ex­press her anx­ious so­lic­itude for Mar­ianne, and en­treat she would bear up with for­ti­tude un­der this mis­for­tune. Bad in­deed must the na­ture of Mar­ianne’s af­flic­tion be, when her moth­er could talk of for­ti­tude! mor­ti­fy­ing and hu­mil­iat­ing must be the ori­gin of those re­grets, which SHE could wish her not to in­dulge!

Against the in­ter­est of her own in­di­vid­ual com­fort, Mrs. Dash­wood had de­ter­mined that it would be bet­ter for Mar­ianne to be any where, at that time, than at Bar­ton, where ev­ery thing with­in her view would be bring­ing back the past in the strongest and most af­flict­ing man­ner, by con­stant­ly plac­ing Willough­by be­fore her, such as she had al­ways seen him there. She rec­om­mend­ed it to her daugh­ters, there­fore, by all means not to short­en their vis­it to Mrs. Jen­nings; the length of which, though nev­er ex­act­ly fixed, had been ex­pect­ed by all to com­prise at least five or six weeks. A va­ri­ety of oc­cu­pa­tions, of ob­jects, and of com­pa­ny, which could not be pro­cured at Bar­ton, would be in­evitable there, and might yet, she hoped, cheat Mar­ianne, at times, in­to some in­ter­est be­yond her­self, and even in­to some amuse­ment, much as the ideas of both might now be spurned by her.

From all dan­ger of see­ing Willough­by again, her moth­er con­sid­ered her to be at least equal­ly safe in town as in the coun­try, since his ac­quain­tance must now be dropped by all who called them­selves her friends. De­sign could nev­er bring them in each oth­er’s way: neg­li­gence could nev­er leave them ex­posed to a sur­prise; and chance had less in its favour in the crowd of Lon­don than even in the re­tire­ment of Bar­ton, where it might force him be­fore her while pay­ing that vis­it at Al­len­ham on his mar­riage, which Mrs. Dash­wood, from fore­see­ing at first as a prob­able event, had brought her­self to ex­pect as a cer­tain one.

She had yet an­oth­er rea­son for wish­ing her chil­dren to re­main where they were; a let­ter from her son-​in-​law had told her that he and his wife were to be in town be­fore the mid­dle of Febru­ary, and she judged it right that they should some­times see their broth­er.

Mar­ianne had promised to be guid­ed by her moth­er’s opin­ion, and she sub­mit­ted to it there­fore with­out op­po­si­tion, though it proved per­fect­ly dif­fer­ent from what she wished and ex­pect­ed, though she felt it to be en­tire­ly wrong, formed on mis­tak­en grounds, and that by re­quir­ing her longer con­tin­uance in Lon­don it de­prived her of the on­ly pos­si­ble al­le­vi­ation of her wretched­ness, the per­son­al sym­pa­thy of her moth­er, and doomed her to such so­ci­ety and such scenes as must pre­vent her ev­er know­ing a mo­ment’s rest.

But it was a mat­ter of great con­so­la­tion to her, that what brought evil to her­self would bring good to her sis­ter; and Eli­nor, on the oth­er hand, sus­pect­ing that it would not be in her pow­er to avoid Ed­ward en­tire­ly, com­fort­ed her­self by think­ing, that though their longer stay would there­fore mil­itate against her own hap­pi­ness, it would be bet­ter for Mar­ianne than an im­me­di­ate re­turn in­to De­von­shire.

Her care­ful­ness in guard­ing her sis­ter from ev­er hear­ing Willough­by’s name men­tioned, was not thrown away. Mar­ianne, though with­out know­ing it her­self, reaped all its ad­van­tage; for nei­ther Mrs. Jen­nings, nor Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer her­self, ev­er spoke of him be­fore her. Eli­nor wished that the same for­bear­ance could have ex­tend­ed to­wards her­self, but that was im­pos­si­ble, and she was obliged to lis­ten day af­ter day to the in­dig­na­tion of them all.

Sir John, could not have thought it pos­si­ble. “A man of whom he had al­ways had such rea­son to think well! Such a good-​na­tured fel­low! He did not be­lieve there was a bold­er rid­er in Eng­land! It was an un­ac­count­able busi­ness. He wished him at the dev­il with all his heart. He would not speak an­oth­er word to him, meet him where he might, for all the world! No, not if it were to be by the side of Bar­ton covert, and they were kept watch­ing for two hours to­geth­er. Such a scoundrel of a fel­low! such a de­ceit­ful dog! It was on­ly the last time they met that he had of­fered him one of Fol­ly’s pup­pies! and this was the end of it!”

Mrs. Palmer, in her way, was equal­ly an­gry. “She was de­ter­mined to drop his ac­quain­tance im­me­di­ate­ly, and she was very thank­ful that she had nev­er been ac­quaint­ed with him at all. She wished with all her heart Combe Magna was not so near Cleve­land; but it did not sig­ni­fy, for it was a great deal too far off to vis­it; she hat­ed him so much that she was re­solved nev­er to men­tion his name again, and she should tell ev­ery­body she saw, how good-​for-​noth­ing he was.”

The rest of Mrs. Palmer’s sym­pa­thy was shewn in procur­ing all the par­tic­ulars in her pow­er of the ap­proach­ing mar­riage, and com­mu­ni­cat­ing them to Eli­nor. She could soon tell at what coach­mak­er’s the new car­riage was build­ing, by what painter Mr. Willough­by’s por­trait was drawn, and at what ware­house Miss Grey’s clothes might be seen.

The calm and po­lite un­con­cern of La­dy Mid­dle­ton on the oc­ca­sion was a hap­py re­lief to Eli­nor’s spir­its, op­pressed as they of­ten were by the clam­orous kind­ness of the oth­ers. It was a great com­fort to her to be sure of ex­cit­ing no in­ter­est in ONE per­son at least among their cir­cle of friends: a great com­fort to know that there was ONE who would meet her with­out feel­ing any cu­rios­ity af­ter par­tic­ulars, or any anx­iety for her sis­ter’s health.

Ev­ery qual­ifi­ca­tion is raised at times, by the cir­cum­stances of the mo­ment, to more than its re­al val­ue; and she was some­times wor­ried down by of­fi­cious con­do­lence to rate good-​breed­ing as more in­dis­pens­able to com­fort than good-​na­ture.

La­dy Mid­dle­ton ex­pressed her sense of the af­fair about once ev­ery day, or twice, if the sub­ject oc­curred very of­ten, by say­ing, “It is very shock­ing, in­deed!” and by the means of this con­tin­ual though gen­tle vent, was able not on­ly to see the Miss Dash­woods from the first with­out the small­est emo­tion, but very soon to see them with­out rec­ol­lect­ing a word of the mat­ter; and hav­ing thus sup­port­ed the dig­ni­ty of her own sex, and spo­ken her de­cid­ed cen­sure of what was wrong in the oth­er, she thought her­self at lib­er­ty to at­tend to the in­ter­est of her own as­sem­blies, and there­fore de­ter­mined (though rather against the opin­ion of Sir John) that as Mrs. Willough­by would at once be a wom­an of el­egance and for­tune, to leave her card with her as soon as she mar­ried.

Colonel Bran­don’s del­icate, un­ob­tru­sive en­quiries were nev­er un­wel­come to Miss Dash­wood. He had abun­dant­ly earned the priv­ilege of in­ti­mate dis­cus­sion of her sis­ter’s dis­ap­point­ment, by the friend­ly zeal with which he had en­deav­oured to soft­en it, and they al­ways con­versed with con­fi­dence. His chief re­ward for the painful ex­er­tion of dis­clos­ing past sor­rows and present hu­mil­ia­tions, was giv­en in the pity­ing eye with which Mar­ianne some­times ob­served him, and the gen­tle­ness of her voice when­ev­er (though it did not of­ten hap­pen) she was obliged, or could oblige her­self to speak to him. THESE as­sured him that his ex­er­tion had pro­duced an in­crease of good-​will to­wards him­self, and THESE gave Eli­nor hopes of its be­ing far­ther aug­ment­ed here­after; but Mrs. Jen­nings, who knew noth­ing of all this, who knew on­ly that the Colonel con­tin­ued as grave as ev­er, and that she could nei­ther pre­vail on him to make the of­fer him­self, nor com­mis­sion her to make it for him, be­gan, at the end of two days, to think that, in­stead of Mid­sum­mer, they would not be mar­ried till Michael­mas, and by the end of a week that it would not be a match at all. The good un­der­stand­ing be­tween the Colonel and Miss Dash­wood seemed rather to de­clare that the hon­ours of the mul­ber­ry-​tree, the canal, and the yew ar­bour, would all be made over to HER; and Mrs. Jen­nings had, for some time ceased to think at all of Mrs. Fer­rars.

Ear­ly in Febru­ary, with­in a fort­night from the re­ceipt of Willough­by’s let­ter, Eli­nor had the painful of­fice of in­form­ing her sis­ter that he was mar­ried. She had tak­en care to have the in­tel­li­gence con­veyed to her­self, as soon as it was known that the cer­emo­ny was over, as she was de­sirous that Mar­ianne should not re­ceive the first no­tice of it from the pub­lic pa­pers, which she saw her ea­ger­ly ex­am­in­ing ev­ery morn­ing.

She re­ceived the news with res­olute com­po­sure; made no ob­ser­va­tion on it, and at first shed no tears; but af­ter a short time they would burst out, and for the rest of the day, she was in a state hard­ly less pitiable than when she first learnt to ex­pect the event.

The Willough­bys left town as soon as they were mar­ried; and Eli­nor now hoped, as there could be no dan­ger of her see­ing ei­ther of them, to pre­vail on her sis­ter, who had nev­er yet left the house since the blow first fell, to go out again by de­grees as she had done be­fore.

About this time the two Miss Stee­les, late­ly ar­rived at their cousin’s house in Bartlett’s Build­ings, Hol­burn, pre­sent­ed them­selves again be­fore their more grand re­la­tions in Con­duit and Berke­ley Streets; and were wel­comed by them all with great cor­dial­ity.

Eli­nor on­ly was sor­ry to see them. Their pres­ence al­ways gave her pain, and she hard­ly knew how to make a very gra­cious re­turn to the over­pow­er­ing de­light of Lucy in find­ing her STILL in town.

“I should have been quite dis­ap­point­ed if I had not found you here STILL,” said she re­peat­ed­ly, with a strong em­pha­sis on the word. “But I al­ways thought I SHOULD. I was al­most sure you would not leave Lon­don yet awhile; though you TOLD me, you know, at Bar­ton, that you should not stay above a MONTH. But I thought, at the time, that you would most like­ly change your mind when it came to the point. It would have been such a great pity to have went away be­fore your broth­er and sis­ter came. And now to be sure you will be in no hur­ry to be gone. I am amaz­ing­ly glad you did not keep to YOUR WORD.”

Eli­nor per­fect­ly un­der­stood her, and was forced to use all her self-​com­mand to make it ap­pear that she did NOT.

“Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Jen­nings, “and how did you trav­el?”

“Not in the stage, I as­sure you,” replied Miss Steele, with quick ex­ul­ta­tion; “we came post all the way, and had a very smart beau to at­tend us. Dr. Davies was com­ing to town, and so we thought we’d join him in a post-​chaise; and he be­haved very gen­teel­ly, and paid ten or twelve shillings more than we did.”

“Oh, oh!” cried Mrs. Jen­nings; “very pret­ty, in­deed! and the Doc­tor is a sin­gle man, I war­rant you.”

“There now,” said Miss Steele, af­fect­ed­ly sim­per­ing, “ev­ery­body laughs at me so about the Doc­tor, and I can­not think why. My cousins say they are sure I have made a con­quest; but for my part I de­clare I nev­er think about him from one hour’s end to an­oth­er. ‘Lord! here comes your beau, Nan­cy,’ my cousin said t’oth­er day, when she saw him cross­ing the street to the house. My beau, in­deed! said I–I can­not think who you mean. The Doc­tor is no beau of mine.”

“Aye, aye, that is very pret­ty talk­ing–but it won’t do– the Doc­tor is the man, I see.”

“No, in­deed!” replied her cousin, with af­fect­ed earnest­ness, “and I beg you will con­tra­dict it, if you ev­er hear it talked of.”

Mrs. Jen­nings di­rect­ly gave her the grat­ify­ing as­sur­ance that she cer­tain­ly would NOT, and Miss Steele was made com­plete­ly hap­py.

“I sup­pose you will go and stay with your broth­er and sis­ter, Miss Dash­wood, when they come to town,” said Lucy, re­turn­ing, af­ter a ces­sa­tion of hos­tile hints, to the charge.

“No, I do not think we shall.”

“Oh, yes, I dare say you will.”

Eli­nor would not hu­mour her by far­ther op­po­si­tion.

“What a charm­ing thing it is that Mrs. Dash­wood can spare you both for so long a time to­geth­er!”

“Long a time, in­deed!” in­ter­posed Mrs. Jen­nings. “Why, their vis­it is but just be­gun!”

Lucy was si­lenced.

“I am sor­ry we can­not see your sis­ter, Miss Dash­wood,” said Miss Steele. “I am sor­ry she is not well–” for Mar­ianne had left the room on their ar­rival.

“You are very good. My sis­ter will be equal­ly sor­ry to miss the plea­sure of see­ing you; but she has been very much plagued late­ly with ner­vous head-​aches, which make her un­fit for com­pa­ny or con­ver­sa­tion.”

“Oh, dear, that is a great pity! but such old friends as Lucy and me!–I think she might see US; and I am sure we would not speak a word.”

Eli­nor, with great ci­vil­ity, de­clined the pro­pos­al. Her sis­ter was per­haps laid down up­on the bed, or in her dress­ing gown, and there­fore not able to come to them.

“Oh, if that’s all,” cried Miss Steele, “we can just as well go and see HER.”

Eli­nor be­gan to find this im­per­ti­nence too much for her tem­per; but she was saved the trou­ble of check­ing it, by Lucy’s sharp rep­ri­mand, which now, as on many oc­ca­sions, though it did not give much sweet­ness to the man­ners of one sis­ter, was of ad­van­tage in gov­ern­ing those of the oth­er.