Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 36

With­in a few days af­ter this meet­ing, the news­pa­pers an­nounced to the world, that the la­dy of Thomas Palmer, Esq. was safe­ly de­liv­ered of a son and heir; a very in­ter­est­ing and sat­is­fac­to­ry para­graph, at least to all those in­ti­mate con­nec­tions who knew it be­fore.

This event, high­ly im­por­tant to Mrs. Jen­nings’s hap­pi­ness, pro­duced a tem­po­rary al­ter­ation in the dis­pos­al of her time, and in­flu­enced, in a like de­gree, the en­gage­ments of her young friends; for as she wished to be as much as pos­si­ble with Char­lotte, she went thith­er ev­ery morn­ing as soon as she was dressed, and did not re­turn till late in the evening; and the Miss Dash­woods, at the par­tic­ular re­quest of the Mid­dle­tons, spent the whole of ev­ery day, in ev­ery day in Con­duit Street. For their own com­fort they would much rather have re­mained, at least all the morn­ing, in Mrs. Jen­nings’s house; but it was not a thing to be urged against the wish­es of ev­ery­body. Their hours were there­fore made over to La­dy Mid­dle­ton and the two Miss Stee­les, by whom their com­pa­ny, in fact was as lit­tle val­ued, as it was pro­fess­ed­ly sought.

They had too much sense to be de­sir­able com­pan­ions to the for­mer; and by the lat­ter they were con­sid­ered with a jeal­ous eye, as in­trud­ing on THEIR ground, and shar­ing the kind­ness which they want­ed to mo­nop­olize. Though noth­ing could be more po­lite than La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s be­haviour to Eli­nor and Mar­ianne, she did not re­al­ly like them at all. Be­cause they nei­ther flat­tered her­self nor her chil­dren, she could not be­lieve them good-​na­tured; and be­cause they were fond of read­ing, she fan­cied them satir­ical: per­haps with­out ex­act­ly know­ing what it was to be satir­ical; but THAT did not sig­ni­fy. It was cen­sure in com­mon use, and eas­ily giv­en.

Their pres­ence was a re­straint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the idle­ness of one, and the busi­ness of the oth­er. La­dy Mid­dle­ton was ashamed of do­ing noth­ing be­fore them, and the flat­tery which Lucy was proud to think of and ad­min­is­ter at oth­er times, she feared they would de­spise her for of­fer­ing. Miss Steele was the least dis­com­posed of the three, by their pres­ence; and it was in their pow­er to rec­on­cile her to it en­tire­ly. Would ei­ther of them on­ly have giv­en her a full and minute ac­count of the whole af­fair be­tween Mar­ianne and Mr. Willough­by, she would have thought her­self am­ply re­ward­ed for the sac­ri­fice of the best place by the fire af­ter din­ner, which their ar­rival oc­ca­sioned. But this con­cil­ia­tion was not grant­ed; for though she of­ten threw out ex­pres­sions of pity for her sis­ter to Eli­nor, and more than once dropt a re­flec­tion on the in­con­stan­cy of beaux be­fore Mar­ianne, no ef­fect was pro­duced, but a look of in­dif­fer­ence from the for­mer, or of dis­gust in the lat­ter. An ef­fort even yet lighter might have made her their friend. Would they on­ly have laughed at her about the Doc­tor! But so lit­tle were they, any­more than the oth­ers, in­clined to oblige her, that if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day with­out hear­ing any oth­er raillery on the sub­ject, than what she was kind enough to be­stow on her­self.

All these jeal­ousies and dis­con­tents, how­ev­er, were so to­tal­ly un­sus­pect­ed by Mrs. Jen­nings, that she thought it a de­light­ful thing for the girls to be to­geth­er; and gen­er­al­ly con­grat­ulat­ed her young friends ev­ery night, on hav­ing es­caped the com­pa­ny of a stupid old wom­an so long. She joined them some­times at Sir John’s, some­times at her own house; but wher­ev­er it was, she al­ways came in ex­cel­lent spir­its, full of de­light and im­por­tance, at­tribut­ing Char­lotte’s well do­ing to her own care, and ready to give so ex­act, so minute a de­tail of her sit­ua­tion, as on­ly Miss Steele had cu­rios­ity enough to de­sire. One thing DID dis­turb her; and of that she made her dai­ly com­plaint. Mr. Palmer main­tained the com­mon, but un­fa­ther­ly opin­ion among his sex, of all in­fants be­ing alike; and though she could plain­ly per­ceive, at dif­fer­ent times, the most strik­ing re­sem­blance be­tween this ba­by and ev­ery one of his re­la­tions on both sides, there was no con­vinc­ing his fa­ther of it; no per­suad­ing him to be­lieve that it was not ex­act­ly like ev­ery oth­er ba­by of the same age; nor could he even be brought to ac­knowl­edge the sim­ple propo­si­tion of its be­ing the finest child in the world.

I come now to the re­la­tion of a mis­for­tune, which about this time be­fell Mrs. John Dash­wood. It so hap­pened that while her two sis­ters with Mrs. Jen­nings were first call­ing on her in Harley Street, an­oth­er of her ac­quain­tance had dropt in–a cir­cum­stance in it­self not ap­par­ent­ly like­ly to pro­duce evil to her. But while the imag­ina­tions of oth­er peo­ple will car­ry them away to form wrong judg­ments of our con­duct, and to de­cide on it by slight ap­pear­ances, one’s hap­pi­ness must in some mea­sure be al­ways at the mer­cy of chance. In the present in­stance, this last-​ar­rived la­dy al­lowed her fan­cy to so far out­run truth and prob­abil­ity, that on mere­ly hear­ing the name of the Miss Dash­woods, and un­der­stand­ing them to be Mr. Dash­wood’s sis­ters, she im­me­di­ate­ly con­clud­ed them to be stay­ing in Harley Street; and this mis­con­struc­tion pro­duced with­in a day or two af­ter­wards, cards of in­vi­ta­tion for them as well as for their broth­er and sis­ter, to a small mu­si­cal par­ty at her house. The con­se­quence of which was, that Mrs. John Dash­wood was obliged to sub­mit not on­ly to the ex­ceed­ing­ly great in­con­ve­nience of send­ing her car­riage for the Miss Dash­woods, but, what was still worse, must be sub­ject to all the un­pleas­ant­ness of ap­pear­ing to treat them with at­ten­tion: and who could tell that they might not ex­pect to go out with her a sec­ond time? The pow­er of dis­ap­point­ing them, it was true, must al­ways be her’s. But that was not enough; for when peo­ple are de­ter­mined on a mode of con­duct which they know to be wrong, they feel in­jured by the ex­pec­ta­tion of any thing bet­ter from them.

Mar­ianne had now been brought by de­grees, so much in­to the habit of go­ing out ev­ery day, that it was be­come a mat­ter of in­dif­fer­ence to her, whether she went or not: and she pre­pared qui­et­ly and me­chan­ical­ly for ev­ery evening’s en­gage­ment, though with­out ex­pect­ing the small­est amuse­ment from any, and very of­ten with­out know­ing, till the last mo­ment, where it was to take her.

To her dress and ap­pear­ance she was grown so per­fect­ly in­dif­fer­ent, as not to be­stow half the con­sid­er­ation on it, dur­ing the whole of her toi­let, which it re­ceived from Miss Steele in the first five min­utes of their be­ing to­geth­er, when it was fin­ished. Noth­ing es­caped HER minute ob­ser­va­tion and gen­er­al cu­rios­ity; she saw ev­ery thing, and asked ev­ery thing; was nev­er easy till she knew the price of ev­ery part of Mar­ianne’s dress; could have guessed the num­ber of her gowns al­to­geth­er with bet­ter judg­ment than Mar­ianne her­self, and was not with­out hopes of find­ing out be­fore they part­ed, how much her wash­ing cost per week, and how much she had ev­ery year to spend up­on her­self. The im­per­ti­nence of these kind of scru­ti­nies, more­over, was gen­er­al­ly con­clud­ed with a com­pli­ment, which though meant as its douceur, was con­sid­ered by Mar­ianne as the great­est im­per­ti­nence of all; for af­ter un­der­go­ing an ex­am­ina­tion in­to the val­ue and make of her gown, the colour of her shoes, and the ar­range­ment of her hair, she was al­most sure of be­ing told that up­on “her word she looked vast­ly smart, and she dared to say she would make a great many con­quests.”

With such en­cour­age­ment as this, was she dis­missed on the present oc­ca­sion, to her broth­er’s car­riage; which they were ready to en­ter five min­utes af­ter it stopped at the door, a punc­tu­al­ity not very agree­able to their sis­ter-​in-​law, who had pre­ced­ed them to the house of her ac­quain­tance, and was there hop­ing for some de­lay on their part that might in­con­ve­nience ei­ther her­self or her coach­man.

The events of this evening were not very re­mark­able. The par­ty, like oth­er mu­si­cal par­ties, com­pre­hend­ed a great many peo­ple who had re­al taste for the per­for­mance, and a great many more who had none at all; and the per­form­ers them­selves were, as usu­al, in their own es­ti­ma­tion, and that of their im­me­di­ate friends, the first pri­vate per­form­ers in Eng­land.

As Eli­nor was nei­ther mu­si­cal, nor af­fect­ing to be so, she made no scru­ple of turn­ing her eyes from the grand pi­anoforte, when­ev­er it suit­ed her, and un­re­strained even by the pres­ence of a harp, and vi­olon­cel­lo, would fix them at plea­sure on any oth­er ob­ject in the room. In one of these ex­cur­sive glances she per­ceived among a group of young men, the very he, who had giv­en them a lec­ture on tooth­pick-​cas­es at Gray’s. She per­ceived him soon af­ter­wards look­ing at her­self, and speak­ing fa­mil­iar­ly to her broth­er; and had just de­ter­mined to find out his name from the lat­ter, when they both came to­wards her, and Mr. Dash­wood in­tro­duced him to her as Mr. Robert Fer­rars.

He ad­dressed her with easy ci­vil­ity, and twist­ed his head in­to a bow which as­sured her as plain­ly as words could have done, that he was ex­act­ly the cox­comb she had heard him de­scribed to be by Lucy. Hap­py had it been for her, if her re­gard for Ed­ward had de­pend­ed less on his own mer­it, than on the mer­it of his near­est re­la­tions! For then his broth­er’s bow must have giv­en the fin­ish­ing stroke to what the ill-​hu­mour of his moth­er and sis­ter would have be­gun. But while she won­dered at the dif­fer­ence of the two young men, she did not find that the empti­ness of con­ceit of the one, put her out of all char­ity with the mod­esty and worth of the oth­er. Why they WERE dif­fer­ent, Robert ex­claimed to her him­self in the course of a quar­ter of an hour’s con­ver­sa­tion; for, talk­ing of his broth­er, and lament­ing the ex­treme GAUCHERIE which he re­al­ly be­lieved kept him from mix­ing in prop­er so­ci­ety, he can­did­ly and gen­er­ous­ly at­tribut­ed it much less to any nat­ural de­fi­cien­cy, than to the mis­for­tune of a pri­vate ed­uca­tion; while he him­self, though prob­ably with­out any par­tic­ular, any ma­te­ri­al su­pe­ri­or­ity by na­ture, mere­ly from the ad­van­tage of a pub­lic school, was as well fit­ted to mix in the world as any oth­er man.

“Up­on my soul,” he added, “I be­lieve it is noth­ing more; and so I of­ten tell my moth­er, when she is griev­ing about it. ‘My dear Madam,’ I al­ways say to her, ‘you must make your­self easy. The evil is now ir­re­me­di­able, and it has been en­tire­ly your own do­ing. Why would you be per­suad­ed by my un­cle, Sir Robert, against your own judg­ment, to place Ed­ward un­der pri­vate tu­ition, at the most crit­ical time of his life? If you had on­ly sent him to West­min­ster as well as my­self, in­stead of send­ing him to Mr. Pratt’s, all this would have been pre­vent­ed.’ This is the way in which I al­ways con­sid­er the mat­ter, and my moth­er is per­fect­ly con­vinced of her er­ror.”

Eli­nor would not op­pose his opin­ion, be­cause, what­ev­er might be her gen­er­al es­ti­ma­tion of the ad­van­tage of a pub­lic school, she could not think of Ed­ward’s abode in Mr. Pratt’s fam­ily, with any sat­is­fac­tion.

“You re­side in De­von­shire, I think,”–was his next ob­ser­va­tion, “in a cot­tage near Dawlish.”

Eli­nor set him right as to its sit­ua­tion; and it seemed rather sur­pris­ing to him that any­body could live in De­von­shire, with­out liv­ing near Dawlish. He be­stowed his hearty ap­pro­ba­tion how­ev­er on their species of house.

“For my own part,” said he, “I am ex­ces­sive­ly fond of a cot­tage; there is al­ways so much com­fort, so much el­egance about them. And I protest, if I had any mon­ey to spare, I should buy a lit­tle land and build one my­self, with­in a short dis­tance of Lon­don, where I might drive my­self down at any time, and col­lect a few friends about me, and be hap­py. I ad­vise ev­ery body who is go­ing to build, to build a cot­tage. My friend Lord Court­land came to me the oth­er day on pur­pose to ask my ad­vice, and laid be­fore me three dif­fer­ent plans of Bono­mi’s. I was to de­cide on the best of them. ‘My dear Court­land,’ said I, im­me­di­ate­ly throw­ing them all in­to the fire, ‘do not adopt ei­ther of them, but by all means build a cot­tage.’ And that I fan­cy, will be the end of it.

“Some peo­ple imag­ine that there can be no ac­com­mo­da­tions, no space in a cot­tage; but this is all a mis­take. I was last month at my friend El­liott’s, near Dart­ford. La­dy El­liott wished to give a dance. ‘But how can it be done?’ said she; ‘my dear Fer­rars, do tell me how it is to be man­aged. There is not a room in this cot­tage that will hold ten cou­ple, and where can the sup­per be?’ I im­me­di­ate­ly saw that there could be no dif­fi­cul­ty in it, so I said, ‘My dear La­dy El­liott, do not be un­easy. The din­ing par­lour will ad­mit eigh­teen cou­ple with ease; card-​ta­bles may be placed in the draw­ing-​room; the li­brary may be open for tea and oth­er re­fresh­ments; and let the sup­per be set out in the sa­loon.’ La­dy El­liott was de­light­ed with the thought. We mea­sured the din­ing-​room, and found it would hold ex­act­ly eigh­teen cou­ple, and the af­fair was ar­ranged pre­cise­ly af­ter my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if peo­ple do but know how to set about it, ev­ery com­fort may be as well en­joyed in a cot­tage as in the most spa­cious dwelling.”

Eli­nor agreed to it all, for she did not think he de­served the com­pli­ment of ra­tio­nal op­po­si­tion.

As John Dash­wood had no more plea­sure in mu­sic than his el­dest sis­ter, his mind was equal­ly at lib­er­ty to fix on any thing else; and a thought struck him dur­ing the evening, which he com­mu­ni­cat­ed to his wife, for her ap­pro­ba­tion, when they got home. The con­sid­er­ation of Mrs. Den­ni­son’s mis­take, in sup­pos­ing his sis­ters their guests, had sug­gest­ed the pro­pri­ety of their be­ing re­al­ly in­vit­ed to be­come such, while Mrs. Jen­ning’s en­gage­ments kept her from home. The ex­pense would be noth­ing, the in­con­ve­nience not more; and it was al­to­geth­er an at­ten­tion which the del­ica­cy of his con­science point­ed out to be req­ui­site to its com­plete en­fran­chise­ment from his promise to his fa­ther. Fan­ny was star­tled at the pro­pos­al.

“I do not see how it can be done,” said she, “with­out af­fronting La­dy Mid­dle­ton, for they spend ev­ery day with her; oth­er­wise I should be ex­ceed­ing­ly glad to do it. You know I am al­ways ready to pay them any at­ten­tion in my pow­er, as my tak­ing them out this evening shews. But they are La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s vis­itors. How can I ask them away from her?”

Her hus­band, but with great hu­mil­ity, did not see the force of her ob­jec­tion. “They had al­ready spent a week in this man­ner in Con­duit Street, and La­dy Mid­dle­ton could not be dis­pleased at their giv­ing the same num­ber of days to such near re­la­tions.”

Fan­ny paused a mo­ment, and then, with fresh vig­or, said,

“My love I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my pow­er. But I had just set­tled with­in my­self to ask the Miss Stee­les to spend a few days with us. They are very well be­haved, good kind of girls; and I think the at­ten­tion is due to them, as their un­cle did so very well by Ed­ward. We can ask your sis­ters some oth­er year, you know; but the Miss Stee­les may not be in town any more. I am sure you will like them; in­deed, you DO like them, you know, very much al­ready, and so does my moth­er; and they are such favourites with Har­ry!”

Mr. Dash­wood was con­vinced. He saw the ne­ces­si­ty of invit­ing the Miss Stee­les im­me­di­ate­ly, and his con­science was paci­fied by the res­olu­tion of invit­ing his sis­ters an­oth­er year; at the same time, how­ev­er, sly­ly sus­pect­ing that an­oth­er year would make the in­vi­ta­tion need­less, by bring­ing Eli­nor to town as Colonel Bran­don’s wife, and Mar­ianne as THEIR vis­itor.

Fan­ny, re­joic­ing in her es­cape, and proud of the ready wit that had pro­cured it, wrote the next morn­ing to Lucy, to re­quest her com­pa­ny and her sis­ter’s, for some days, in Harley Street, as soon as La­dy Mid­dle­ton could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy re­al­ly and rea­son­ably hap­py. Mrs. Dash­wood seemed ac­tu­al­ly work­ing for her, her­self; cher­ish­ing all her hopes, and pro­mot­ing all her views! Such an op­por­tu­ni­ty of be­ing with Ed­ward and his fam­ily was, above all things, the most ma­te­ri­al to her in­ter­est, and such an in­vi­ta­tion the most grat­ify­ing to her feel­ings! It was an ad­van­tage that could not be too grate­ful­ly ac­knowl­edged, nor too speed­ily made use of; and the vis­it to La­dy Mid­dle­ton, which had not be­fore had any pre­cise lim­its, was in­stant­ly dis­cov­ered to have been al­ways meant to end in two days’ time.

When the note was shown to Eli­nor, as it was with­in ten min­utes af­ter its ar­rival, it gave her, for the first time, some share in the ex­pec­ta­tions of Lucy; for such a mark of un­com­mon kind­ness, vouch­safed on so short an ac­quain­tance, seemed to de­clare that the good-​will to­wards her arose from some­thing more than mere­ly mal­ice against her­self; and might be brought, by time and ad­dress, to do ev­ery thing that Lucy wished. Her flat­tery had al­ready sub­dued the pride of La­dy Mid­dle­ton, and made an en­try in­to the close heart of Mrs. John Dash­wood; and these were ef­fects that laid open the prob­abil­ity of greater.

The Miss Stee­les re­moved to Harley Street, and all that reached Eli­nor of their in­flu­ence there, strength­ened her ex­pec­ta­tion of the event. Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such ac­counts of the favour they were in, as must be uni­ver­sal­ly strik­ing. Mrs. Dash­wood had nev­er been so much pleased with any young wom­en in her life, as she was with them; had giv­en each of them a nee­dle book made by some em­igrant; called Lucy by her Chris­tian name; and did not know whether she should ev­er be able to part with them.

[At this point in the first and sec­ond ed­tions, Vol­ume II end­ed.]