Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 34

Mrs. John Dash­wood had so much con­fi­dence in her hus­band’s judg­ment, that she wait­ed the very next day both on Mrs. Jen­nings and her daugh­ter; and her con­fi­dence was re­ward­ed by find­ing even the for­mer, even the wom­an with whom her sis­ters were stay­ing, by no means un­wor­thy her no­tice; and as for La­dy Mid­dle­ton, she found her one of the most charm­ing wom­en in the world!

La­dy Mid­dle­ton was equal­ly pleased with Mrs. Dash­wood. There was a kind of cold heart­ed self­ish­ness on both sides, which mu­tu­al­ly at­tract­ed them; and they sym­pa­thised with each oth­er in an in­sipid pro­pri­ety of de­meanor, and a gen­er­al want of un­der­stand­ing.

The same man­ners, how­ev­er, which rec­om­mend­ed Mrs. John Dash­wood to the good opin­ion of La­dy Mid­dle­ton did not suit the fan­cy of Mrs. Jen­nings, and to HER she ap­peared noth­ing more than a lit­tle proud-​look­ing wom­an of un­cor­dial ad­dress, who met her hus­band’s sis­ters with­out any af­fec­tion, and al­most with­out hav­ing any­thing to say to them; for of the quar­ter of an hour be­stowed on Berke­ley Street, she sat at least sev­en min­utes and a half in si­lence.

Eli­nor want­ed very much to know, though she did not chuse to ask, whether Ed­ward was then in town; but noth­ing would have in­duced Fan­ny vol­un­tar­ily to men­tion his name be­fore her, till able to tell her that his mar­riage with Miss Mor­ton was re­solved on, or till her hus­band’s ex­pec­ta­tions on Colonel Bran­don were an­swered; be­cause she be­lieved them still so very much at­tached to each oth­er, that they could not be too sed­ulous­ly di­vid­ed in word and deed on ev­ery oc­ca­sion. The in­tel­li­gence how­ev­er, which SHE would not give, soon flowed from an­oth­er quar­ter. Lucy came very short­ly to claim Eli­nor’s com­pas­sion on be­ing un­able to see Ed­ward, though he had ar­rived in town with Mr. and Mrs. Dash­wood. He dared not come to Bartlett’s Build­ings for fear of de­tec­tion, and though their mu­tu­al im­pa­tience to meet, was not to be told, they could do noth­ing at present but write.

Ed­ward as­sured them him­self of his be­ing in town, with­in a very short time, by twice call­ing in Berke­ley Street. Twice was his card found on the ta­ble, when they re­turned from their morn­ing’s en­gage­ments. Eli­nor was pleased that he had called; and still more pleased that she had missed him.

The Dash­woods were so prodi­gious­ly de­light­ed with the Mid­dle­tons, that, though not much in the habit of giv­ing any­thing, they de­ter­mined to give them– a din­ner; and soon af­ter their ac­quain­tance be­gan, in­vit­ed them to dine in Harley Street, where they had tak­en a very good house for three months. Their sis­ters and Mrs. Jen­nings were in­vit­ed like­wise, and John Dash­wood was care­ful to se­cure Colonel Bran­don, who, al­ways glad to be where the Miss Dash­woods were, re­ceived his ea­ger ci­vil­ities with some sur­prise, but much more plea­sure. They were to meet Mrs. Fer­rars; but Eli­nor could not learn whether her sons were to be of the par­ty. The ex­pec­ta­tion of see­ing HER, how­ev­er, was enough to make her in­ter­est­ed in the en­gage­ment; for though she could now meet Ed­ward’s moth­er with­out that strong anx­iety which had once promised to at­tend such an in­tro­duc­tion, though she could now see her with per­fect in­dif­fer­ence as to her opin­ion of her­self, her de­sire of be­ing in com­pa­ny with Mrs. Fer­rars, her cu­rios­ity to know what she was like, was as live­ly as ev­er.

The in­ter­est with which she thus an­tic­ipat­ed the par­ty, was soon af­ter­wards in­creased, more pow­er­ful­ly than pleas­ant­ly, by her hear­ing that the Miss Stee­les were al­so to be at it.

So well had they rec­om­mend­ed them­selves to La­dy Mid­dle­ton, so agree­able had their as­siduities made them to her, that though Lucy was cer­tain­ly not so el­egant, and her sis­ter not even gen­teel, she was as ready as Sir John to ask them to spend a week or two in Con­duit Street; and it hap­pened to be par­tic­ular­ly con­ve­nient to the Miss Stee­les, as soon as the Dash­woods’ in­vi­ta­tion was known, that their vis­it should be­gin a few days be­fore the par­ty took place.

Their claims to the no­tice of Mrs. John Dash­wood, as the nieces of the gen­tle­man who for many years had had the care of her broth­er, might not have done much, how­ev­er, to­wards procur­ing them seats at her ta­ble; but as La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s guests they must be wel­come; and Lucy, who had long want­ed to be per­son­al­ly known to the fam­ily, to have a near­er view of their char­ac­ters and her own dif­fi­cul­ties, and to have an op­por­tu­ni­ty of en­deav­our­ing to please them, had sel­dom been hap­pi­er in her life, than she was on re­ceiv­ing Mrs. John Dash­wood’s card.

On Eli­nor its ef­fect was very dif­fer­ent. She be­gan im­me­di­ate­ly to de­ter­mine, that Ed­ward who lived with his moth­er, must be asked as his moth­er was, to a par­ty giv­en by his sis­ter; and to see him for the first time, af­ter all that passed, in the com­pa­ny of Lucy!–she hard­ly knew how she could bear it!

These ap­pre­hen­sions, per­haps, were not found­ed en­tire­ly on rea­son, and cer­tain­ly not at all on truth. They were re­lieved how­ev­er, not by her own rec­ol­lec­tion, but by the good will of Lucy, who be­lieved her­self to be in­flict­ing a se­vere dis­ap­point­ment when she told her that Ed­ward cer­tain­ly would not be in Harley Street on Tues­day, and even hoped to be car­ry­ing the pain still far­ther by per­suad­ing her that he was kept away by the ex­treme af­fec­tion for her­self, which he could not con­ceal when they were to­geth­er.

The im­por­tant Tues­day came that was to in­tro­duce the two young ladies to this formidable moth­er-​in-​law.

“Pity me, dear Miss Dash­wood!” said Lucy, as they walked up the stairs to­geth­er–for the Mid­dle­tons ar­rived so di­rect­ly af­ter Mrs. Jen­nings, that they all fol­lowed the ser­vant at the same time–“There is no­body here but you, that can feel for me.–I de­clare I can hard­ly stand. Good gra­cious!–In a mo­ment I shall see the per­son that all my hap­pi­ness de­pends on–that is to be my moth­er!”–

Eli­nor could have giv­en her im­me­di­ate re­lief by sug­gest­ing the pos­si­bil­ity of its be­ing Miss Mor­ton’s moth­er, rather than her own, whom they were about to be­hold; but in­stead of do­ing that, she as­sured her, and with great sin­cer­ity, that she did pity her–to the ut­ter amaze­ment of Lucy, who, though re­al­ly un­com­fort­able her­self, hoped at least to be an ob­ject of ir­re­press­ible en­vy to Eli­nor.

Mrs. Fer­rars was a lit­tle, thin wom­an, up­right, even to for­mal­ity, in her fig­ure, and se­ri­ous, even to sour­ness, in her as­pect. Her com­plex­ion was sal­low; and her fea­tures small, with­out beau­ty, and nat­ural­ly with­out ex­pres­sion; but a lucky con­trac­tion of the brow had res­cued her coun­te­nance from the dis­grace of in­si­pid­ity, by giv­ing it the strong char­ac­ters of pride and ill na­ture. She was not a wom­an of many words; for, un­like peo­ple in gen­er­al, she pro­por­tioned them to the num­ber of her ideas; and of the few syl­la­bles that did es­cape her, not one fell to the share of Miss Dash­wood, whom she eyed with the spir­it­ed de­ter­mi­na­tion of dis­lik­ing her at all events.

Eli­nor could not NOW be made un­hap­py by this be­haviour.– A few months ago it would have hurt her ex­ceed­ing­ly; but it was not in Mrs. Fer­rars’ pow­er to dis­tress her by it now;– and the dif­fer­ence of her man­ners to the Miss Stee­les, a dif­fer­ence which seemed pur­pose­ly made to hum­ble her more, on­ly amused her. She could not but smile to see the gra­cious­ness of both moth­er and daugh­ter to­wards the very per­son– for Lucy was par­tic­ular­ly dis­tin­guished–whom of all oth­ers, had they known as much as she did, they would have been most anx­ious to mor­ti­fy; while she her­self, who had com­par­ative­ly no pow­er to wound them, sat point­ed­ly slight­ed by both. But while she smiled at a gra­cious­ness so mis­ap­plied, she could not re­flect on the mean-​spir­it­ed fol­ly from which it sprung, nor ob­serve the stud­ied at­ten­tions with which the Miss Stee­les court­ed its con­tin­uance, with­out thor­ough­ly de­spis­ing them all four.

Lucy was all ex­ul­ta­tion on be­ing so hon­or­ably dis­tin­guished; and Miss Steele want­ed on­ly to be teazed about Dr. Davies to be per­fect­ly hap­py.

The din­ner was a grand one, the ser­vants were nu­mer­ous, and ev­ery thing be­spoke the Mis­tress’s in­cli­na­tion for show, and the Mas­ter’s abil­ity to sup­port it. In spite of the im­prove­ments and ad­di­tions which were mak­ing to the Nor­land es­tate, and in spite of its own­er hav­ing once been with­in some thou­sand pounds of be­ing obliged to sell out at a loss, noth­ing gave any symp­tom of that in­di­gence which he had tried to in­fer from it;– no pover­ty of any kind, ex­cept of con­ver­sa­tion, ap­peared– but there, the de­fi­cien­cy was con­sid­er­able. John Dash­wood had not much to say for him­self that was worth hear­ing, and his wife had still less. But there was no pe­cu­liar dis­grace in this; for it was very much the case with the chief of their vis­itors, who al­most all laboured un­der one or oth­er of these dis­qual­ifi­ca­tions for be­ing agree­able–Want of sense, ei­ther nat­ural or im­proved–want of el­egance–want of spir­its–or want of tem­per.

When the ladies with­drew to the draw­ing-​room af­ter din­ner, this pover­ty was par­tic­ular­ly ev­ident, for the gen­tle­men HAD sup­plied the dis­course with some va­ri­ety–the va­ri­ety of pol­itics, in­clos­ing land, and break­ing hors­es–but then it was all over; and one sub­ject on­ly en­gaged the ladies till cof­fee came in, which was the com­par­ative heights of Har­ry Dash­wood, and La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s sec­ond son William, who were near­ly of the same age.

Had both the chil­dren been there, the af­fair might have been de­ter­mined too eas­ily by mea­sur­ing them at once; but as Har­ry on­ly was present, it was all con­jec­tural as­ser­tion on both sides; and ev­ery body had a right to be equal­ly pos­itive in their opin­ion, and to re­peat it over and over again as of­ten as they liked.

The par­ties stood thus:

The two moth­ers, though each re­al­ly con­vinced that her own son was the tallest, po­lite­ly de­cid­ed in favour of the oth­er.

The two grand­moth­ers, with not less par­tial­ity, but more sin­cer­ity, were equal­ly earnest in sup­port of their own de­scen­dant.

Lucy, who was hard­ly less anx­ious to please one par­ent than the oth­er, thought the boys were both re­mark­ably tall for their age, and could not con­ceive that there could be the small­est dif­fer­ence in the world be­tween them; and Miss Steele, with yet greater ad­dress gave it, as fast as she could, in favour of each.

Eli­nor, hav­ing once de­liv­ered her opin­ion on William’s side, by which she of­fend­ed Mrs. Fer­rars and Fan­ny still more, did not see the ne­ces­si­ty of en­forc­ing it by any far­ther as­ser­tion; and Mar­ianne, when called on for her’s, of­fend­ed them all, by declar­ing that she had no opin­ion to give, as she had nev­er thought about it.

Be­fore her re­mov­ing from Nor­land, Eli­nor had paint­ed a very pret­ty pair of screens for her sis­ter-​in-​law, which be­ing now just mount­ed and brought home, or­na­ment­ed her present draw­ing room; and these screens, catch­ing the eye of John Dash­wood on his fol­low­ing the oth­er gen­tle­men in­to the room, were of­fi­cious­ly hand­ed by him to Colonel Bran­don for his ad­mi­ra­tion.

“These are done by my el­dest sis­ter,” said he; “and you, as a man of taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them. I do not know whether you have ev­er hap­pened to see any of her per­for­mances be­fore, but she is in gen­er­al reck­oned to draw ex­treme­ly well.”

The Colonel, though dis­claim­ing all pre­ten­sions to con­nois­seur­ship, warm­ly ad­mired the screens, as he would have done any thing paint­ed by Miss Dash­wood; and on the cu­rios­ity of the oth­ers be­ing of course ex­cit­ed, they were hand­ed round for gen­er­al in­spec­tion. Mrs. Fer­rars, not aware of their be­ing Eli­nor’s work, par­tic­ular­ly re­quest­ed to look at them; and af­ter they had re­ceived grat­ify­ing tes­ti­mo­ny of La­dy Mid­dle­tons’s ap­pro­ba­tion, Fan­ny pre­sent­ed them to her moth­er, con­sid­er­ate­ly in­form­ing her, at the same time, that they were done by Miss Dash­wood.

“Hum”–said Mrs. Fer­rars–“very pret­ty,”–and with­out re­gard­ing them at all, re­turned them to her daugh­ter.

Per­haps Fan­ny thought for a mo­ment that her moth­er had been quite rude enough,–for, colour­ing a lit­tle, she im­me­di­ate­ly said,

“They are very pret­ty, ma’am–an’t they?” But then again, the dread of hav­ing been too civ­il, too en­cour­ag­ing her­self, prob­ably came over her, for she present­ly added,

“Do you not think they are some­thing in Miss Mor­ton’s style of paint­ing, Ma’am?–She DOES paint most de­light­ful­ly!–How beau­ti­ful­ly her last land­scape is done!”

“Beau­ti­ful­ly in­deed! But SHE does ev­ery thing well.”

Mar­ianne could not bear this.–She was al­ready great­ly dis­pleased with Mrs. Fer­rars; and such ill-​timed praise of an­oth­er, at Eli­nor’s ex­pense, though she had not any no­tion of what was prin­ci­pal­ly meant by it, pro­voked her im­me­di­ate­ly to say with warmth,

“This is ad­mi­ra­tion of a very par­tic­ular kind!– what is Miss Mor­ton to us?–who knows, or who cares, for her?–it is Eli­nor of whom WE think and speak.”

And so say­ing, she took the screens out of her sis­ter-​in-​law’s hands, to ad­mire them her­self as they ought to be ad­mired.

Mrs. Fer­rars looked ex­ceed­ing­ly an­gry, and draw­ing her­self up more stiffly than ev­er, pro­nounced in re­tort this bit­ter philip­pic, “Miss Mor­ton is Lord Mor­ton’s daugh­ter.”

Fan­ny looked very an­gry too, and her hus­band was all in a fright at his sis­ter’s au­dac­ity. Eli­nor was much more hurt by Mar­ianne’s warmth than she had been by what pro­duced it; but Colonel Bran­don’s eyes, as they were fixed on Mar­ianne, de­clared that he no­ticed on­ly what was ami­able in it, the af­fec­tion­ate heart which could not bear to see a sis­ter slight­ed in the small­est point.

Mar­ianne’s feel­ings did not stop here. The cold in­so­lence of Mrs. Fer­rars’s gen­er­al be­haviour to her sis­ter, seemed, to her, to fore­tell such dif­fi­cul­ties and dis­tress­es to Eli­nor, as her own wound­ed heart taught her to think of with hor­ror; and urged by a strong im­pulse of af­fec­tion­ate sen­si­bil­ity, she moved af­ter a mo­ment, to her sis­ter’s chair, and putting one arm round her neck, and one cheek close to hers, said in a low, but ea­ger, voice,

“Dear, dear Eli­nor, don’t mind them. Don’t let them make YOU un­hap­py.”

She could say no more; her spir­its were quite over­come, and hid­ing her face on Eli­nor’s shoul­der, she burst in­to tears. Ev­ery body’s at­ten­tion was called, and al­most ev­ery body was con­cerned.–Colonel Bran­don rose up and went to them with­out know­ing what he did.–Mrs. Jen­nings, with a very in­tel­li­gent “Ah! poor dear,” im­me­di­ate­ly gave her her salts; and Sir John felt so des­per­ate­ly en­raged against the au­thor of this ner­vous dis­tress, that he in­stant­ly changed his seat to one close by Lucy Steele, and gave her, in a whis­per, a brief ac­count of the whole shock­ing af­fair.

In a few min­utes, how­ev­er, Mar­ianne was re­cov­ered enough to put an end to the bus­tle, and sit down among the rest; though her spir­its re­tained the im­pres­sion of what had passed, the whole evening.

“Poor Mar­ianne!” said her broth­er to Colonel Bran­don, in a low voice, as soon as he could se­cure his at­ten­tion,– “She has not such good health as her sis­ter,–she is very ner­vous,–she has not Eli­nor’s con­sti­tu­tion;–and one must al­low that there is some­thing very try­ing to a young wom­an who HAS BEEN a beau­ty in the loss of her per­son­al at­trac­tions. You would not think it per­haps, but Mar­ianne WAS re­mark­ably hand­some a few months ago; quite as hand­some as Eli­nor.– Now you see it is all gone.”