Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 38

Mrs. Jen­nings was very warm in her praise of Ed­ward’s con­duct, but on­ly Eli­nor and Mar­ianne un­der­stood its true mer­it. THEY on­ly knew how lit­tle he had had to tempt him to be dis­obe­di­ent, and how small was the con­so­la­tion, be­yond the con­scious­ness of do­ing right, that could re­main to him in the loss of friends and for­tune. Eli­nor glo­ried in his in­tegri­ty; and Mar­ianne for­gave all his of­fences in com­pas­sion for his pun­ish­ment. But though con­fi­dence be­tween them was, by this pub­lic dis­cov­ery, re­stored to its prop­er state, it was not a sub­ject on which ei­ther of them were fond of dwelling when alone. Eli­nor avoid­ed it up­on prin­ci­ple, as tend­ing to fix still more up­on her thoughts, by the too warm, too pos­itive as­sur­ances of Mar­ianne, that be­lief of Ed­ward’s con­tin­ued af­fec­tion for her­self which she rather wished to do away; and Mar­ianne’s courage soon failed her, in try­ing to con­verse up­on a top­ic which al­ways left her more dis­sat­is­fied with her­self than ev­er, by the com­par­ison it nec­es­sar­ily pro­duced be­tween Eli­nor’s con­duct and her own.

She felt all the force of that com­par­ison; but not as her sis­ter had hoped, to urge her to ex­er­tion now; she felt it with all the pain of con­tin­ual self-​re­proach, re­gret­ted most bit­ter­ly that she had nev­er ex­ert­ed her­self be­fore; but it brought on­ly the tor­ture of pen­itence, with­out the hope of amend­ment. Her mind was so much weak­ened that she still fan­cied present ex­er­tion im­pos­si­ble, and there­fore it on­ly dispir­it­ed her more.

Noth­ing new was heard by them, for a day or two af­ter­wards, of af­fairs in Harley Street, or Bartlett’s Build­ings. But though so much of the mat­ter was known to them al­ready, that Mrs. Jen­nings might have had enough to do in spread­ing that knowl­edge far­ther, with­out seek­ing af­ter more, she had re­solved from the first to pay a vis­it of com­fort and in­quiry to her cousins as soon as she could; and noth­ing but the hin­drance of more vis­itors than usu­al, had pre­vent­ed her go­ing to them with­in that time.

The third day suc­ceed­ing their knowl­edge of the par­tic­ulars, was so fine, so beau­ti­ful a Sun­day as to draw many to Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens, though it was on­ly the sec­ond week in March. Mrs. Jen­nings and Eli­nor were of the num­ber; but Mar­ianne, who knew that the Willough­bys were again in town, and had a con­stant dread of meet­ing them, chose rather to stay at home, than ven­ture in­to so pub­lic a place.

An in­ti­mate ac­quain­tance of Mrs. Jen­nings joined them soon af­ter they en­tered the Gar­dens, and Eli­nor was not sor­ry that by her con­tin­uing with them, and en­gag­ing all Mrs. Jen­nings’s con­ver­sa­tion, she was her­self left to qui­et re­flec­tion. She saw noth­ing of the Willough­bys, noth­ing of Ed­ward, and for some time noth­ing of any­body who could by any chance whether grave or gay, be in­ter­est­ing to her. But at last she found her­self with some sur­prise, ac­cost­ed by Miss Steele, who, though look­ing rather shy, ex­pressed great sat­is­fac­tion in meet­ing them, and on re­ceiv­ing en­cour­age­ment from the par­tic­ular kind­ness of Mrs. Jen­nings, left her own par­ty for a short time, to join their’s. Mrs. Jen­nings im­me­di­ate­ly whis­pered to Eli­nor,

“Get it all out of her, my dear. She will tell you any thing if you ask. You see I can­not leave Mrs. Clarke.”

It was lucky, how­ev­er, for Mrs. Jen­nings’s cu­rios­ity and Eli­nor’s too, that she would tell any thing WITH­OUT be­ing asked; for noth­ing would oth­er­wise have been learnt.

“I am so glad to meet you;” said Miss Steele, tak­ing her fa­mil­iar­ly by the arm–“for I want­ed to see you of all things in the world.” And then low­er­ing her voice, “I sup­pose Mrs. Jen­nings has heard all about it. Is she an­gry?”

“Not at all, I be­lieve, with you.”

“That is a good thing. And La­dy Mid­dle­ton, is SHE an­gry?”

“I can­not sup­pose it pos­si­ble that she should.”

“I am mon­strous glad of it. Good gra­cious! I have had such a time of it! I nev­er saw Lucy in such a rage in my life. She vowed at first she would nev­er trim me up a new bon­net, nor do any thing else for me again, so long as she lived; but now she is quite come to, and we are as good friends as ev­er. Look, she made me this bow to my hat, and put in the feath­er last night. There now, YOU are go­ing to laugh at me too. But why should not I wear pink rib­bons? I do not care if it IS the Doc­tor’s favourite colour. I am sure, for my part, I should nev­er have known he DID like it bet­ter than any oth­er colour, if he had not hap­pened to say so. My cousins have been so plagu­ing me! I de­clare some­times I do not know which way to look be­fore them.”

She had wan­dered away to a sub­ject on which Eli­nor had noth­ing to say, and there­fore soon judged it ex­pe­di­ent to find her way back again to the first.

“Well, but Miss Dash­wood,” speak­ing tri­umphant­ly, “peo­ple may say what they chuse about Mr. Fer­rars’s declar­ing he would not have Lucy, for it is no such thing I can tell you; and it is quite a shame for such ill-​na­tured re­ports to be spread abroad. What­ev­er Lucy might think about it her­self, you know, it was no busi­ness of oth­er peo­ple to set it down for cer­tain.”

“I nev­er heard any thing of the kind hint­ed at be­fore, I as­sure you,” said Eli­nor.

“Oh, did not you? But it WAS said, I know, very well, and by more than one; for Miss God­by told Miss Sparks, that no­body in their sens­es could ex­pect Mr. Fer­rars to give up a wom­an like Miss Mor­ton, with thir­ty thou­sand pounds to her for­tune, for Lucy Steele that had noth­ing at all; and I had it from Miss Sparks my­self. And be­sides that, my cousin Richard said him­self, that when it came to the point he was afraid Mr. Fer­rars would be off; and when Ed­ward did not come near us for three days, I could not tell what to think my­self; and I be­lieve in my heart Lucy gave it up all for lost; for we came away from your broth­er’s Wednes­day, and we saw noth­ing of him not all Thurs­day, Fri­day, and Sat­ur­day, and did not know what was be­come of him. Once Lucy thought to write to him, but then her spir­its rose against that. How­ev­er this morn­ing he came just as we came home from church; and then it all came out, how he had been sent for Wednes­day to Harley Street, and been talked to by his moth­er and all of them, and how he had de­clared be­fore them all that he loved no­body but Lucy, and no­body but Lucy would he have. And how he had been so wor­ried by what passed, that as soon as he had went away from his moth­er’s house, he had got up­on his horse, and rid in­to the coun­try, some where or oth­er; and how he had stayed about at an inn all Thurs­day and Fri­day, on pur­pose to get the bet­ter of it. And af­ter think­ing it all over and over again, he said, it seemed to him as if, now he had no for­tune, and no noth­ing at all, it would be quite un­kind to keep her on to the en­gage­ment, be­cause it must be for her loss, for he had noth­ing but two thou­sand pounds, and no hope of any thing else; and if he was to go in­to or­ders, as he had some thoughts, he could get noth­ing but a cu­ra­cy, and how was they to live up­on that?–He could not bear to think of her do­ing no bet­ter, and so he begged, if she had the least mind for it, to put an end to the mat­ter di­rect­ly, and leave him shift for him­self. I heard him say all this as plain as could pos­si­bly be. And it was en­tire­ly for HER sake, and up­on HER ac­count, that he said a word about be­ing off, and not up­on his own. I will take my oath he nev­er dropt a syl­la­ble of be­ing tired of her, or of wish­ing to mar­ry Miss Mor­ton, or any thing like it. But, to be sure, Lucy would not give ear to such kind of talk­ing; so she told him di­rect­ly (with a great deal about sweet and love, you know, and all that–Oh, la! one can’t re­peat such kind of things you know)–she told him di­rect­ly, she had not the least mind in the world to be off, for she could live with him up­on a tri­fle, and how lit­tle so ev­er he might have, she should be very glad to have it all, you know, or some­thing of the kind. So then he was mon­strous hap­py, and talked on some time about what they should do, and they agreed he should take or­ders di­rect­ly, and they must wait to be mar­ried till he got a liv­ing. And just then I could not hear any more, for my cousin called from be­low to tell me Mrs. Richard­son was come in her coach, and would take one of us to Kens­ing­ton Gar­dens; so I was forced to go in­to the room and in­ter­rupt them, to ask Lucy if she would like to go, but she did not care to leave Ed­ward; so I just run up stairs and put on a pair of silk stock­ings and came off with the Richard­sons.”

“I do not un­der­stand what you mean by in­ter­rupt­ing them,” said Eli­nor; “you were all in the same room to­geth­er, were not you?”

“No, in­deed, not us. La! Miss Dash­wood, do you think peo­ple make love when any body else is by? Oh, for shame!–To be sure you must know bet­ter than that. (Laugh­ing af­fect­ed­ly.)–No, no; they were shut up in the draw­ing-​room to­geth­er, and all I heard was on­ly by lis­ten­ing at the door.”

“How!” cried Eli­nor; “have you been re­peat­ing to me what you on­ly learnt your­self by lis­ten­ing at the door? I am sor­ry I did not know it be­fore; for I cer­tain­ly would not have suf­fered you to give me par­tic­ulars of a con­ver­sa­tion which you ought not to have known your­self. How could you be­have so un­fair­ly by your sis­ter?”

“Oh, la! there is noth­ing in THAT. I on­ly stood at the door, and heard what I could. And I am sure Lucy would have done just the same by me; for a year or two back, when Martha Sharpe and I had so many se­crets to­geth­er, she nev­er made any bones of hid­ing in a clos­et, or be­hind a chim­ney-​board, on pur­pose to hear what we said.”

Eli­nor tried to talk of some­thing else; but Miss Steele could not be kept be­yond a cou­ple of min­utes, from what was up­per­most in her mind.

“Ed­ward talks of go­ing to Ox­ford soon,” said she; “but now he is lodg­ing at No. –, Pall Mall. What an ill-​na­tured wom­an his moth­er is, an’t she? And your broth­er and sis­ter were not very kind! How­ev­er, I shan’t say any­thing against them to YOU; and to be sure they did send us home in their own char­iot, which was more than I looked for. And for my part, I was all in a fright for fear your sis­ter should ask us for the huswifes she had gave us a day or two be­fore; but, how­ev­er, noth­ing was said about them, and I took care to keep mine out of sight. Ed­ward have got some busi­ness at Ox­ford, he says; so he must go there for a time; and af­ter THAT, as soon as he can light up­on a Bish­op, he will be or­dained. I won­der what cu­ra­cy he will get!–Good gra­cious! (gig­gling as she spoke) I’d lay my life I know what my cousins will say, when they hear of it. They will tell me I should write to the Doc­tor, to get Ed­ward the cu­ra­cy of his new liv­ing. I know they will; but I am sure I would not do such a thing for all the world.– ‘La!’ I shall say di­rect­ly, ‘I won­der how you could think of such a thing? I write to the Doc­tor, in­deed!’”

“Well,” said Eli­nor, “it is a com­fort to be pre­pared against the worst. You have got your an­swer ready.”

Miss Steele was go­ing to re­ply on the same sub­ject, but the ap­proach of her own par­ty made an­oth­er more nec­es­sary.

“Oh, la! here come the Richard­sons. I had a vast deal more to say to you, but I must not stay away from them not any longer. I as­sure you they are very gen­teel peo­ple. He makes a mon­strous deal of mon­ey, and they keep their own coach. I have not time to speak to Mrs. Jen­nings about it my­self, but pray tell her I am quite hap­py to hear she is not in anger against us, and La­dy Mid­dle­ton the same; and if any­thing should hap­pen to take you and your sis­ter away, and Mrs. Jen­nings should want com­pa­ny, I am sure we should be very glad to come and stay with her for as long a time as she likes. I sup­pose La­dy Mid­dle­ton won’t ask us any more this bout. Good-​by; I am sor­ry Miss Mar­ianne was not here. Re­mem­ber me kind­ly to her. La! if you have not got your spot­ted muslin on!–I won­der you was not afraid of its be­ing torn.”

Such was her part­ing con­cern; for af­ter this, she had time on­ly to pay her farewell com­pli­ments to Mrs. Jen­nings, be­fore her com­pa­ny was claimed by Mrs. Richard­son; and Eli­nor was left in pos­ses­sion of knowl­edge which might feed her pow­ers of re­flec­tion some time, though she had learnt very lit­tle more than what had been al­ready fore­seen and fore­planned in her own mind. Ed­ward’s mar­riage with Lucy was as firm­ly de­ter­mined on, and the time of its tak­ing place re­mained as ab­so­lute­ly un­cer­tain, as she had con­clud­ed it would be;–ev­ery thing de­pend­ed, ex­act­ly af­ter her ex­pec­ta­tion, on his get­ting that prefer­ment, of which, at present, there seemed not the small­est chance.

As soon as they re­turned to the car­riage, Mrs. Jen­nings was ea­ger for in­for­ma­tion; but as Eli­nor wished to spread as lit­tle as pos­si­ble in­tel­li­gence that had in the first place been so un­fair­ly ob­tained, she con­fined her­self to the brief rep­eti­tion of such sim­ple par­tic­ulars, as she felt as­sured that Lucy, for the sake of her own con­se­quence, would choose to have known. The con­tin­uance of their en­gage­ment, and the means that were able to be tak­en for pro­mot­ing its end, was all her com­mu­ni­ca­tion; and this pro­duced from Mrs. Jen­nings the fol­low­ing nat­ural re­mark.

“Wait for his hav­ing a liv­ing!–ay, we all know how THAT will end:–they will wait a twelve­month, and find­ing no good comes of it, will set down up­on a cu­ra­cy of fifty pounds a-​year, with the in­ter­est of his two thou­sand pounds, and what lit­tle mat­ter Mr. Steele and Mr. Pratt can give her.–Then they will have a child ev­ery year! and Lord help ‘em! how poor they will be!–I must see what I can give them to­wards fur­nish­ing their house. Two maids and two men, in­deed!–as I talked of t’oth­er day.–No, no, they must get a stout girl of all works.– Bet­ty’s sis­ter would nev­er do for them NOW.”

The next morn­ing brought Eli­nor a let­ter by the two-​pen­ny post from Lucy her­self. It was as fol­lows:

“Bartlett’s Build­ing, March.

“I hope my dear Miss Dash­wood will ex­cuse the lib­er­ty I take of writ­ing to her; but I know your friend­ship for me will make you pleased to hear such a good ac­count of my­self and my dear Ed­ward, af­ter all the trou­bles we have went through late­ly, there­fore will make no more apolo­gies, but pro­ceed to say that, thank God! though we have suf­fered dread­ful­ly, we are both quite well now, and as hap­py as we must al­ways be in one an­oth­er’s love. We have had great tri­als, and great per­se­cu­tions, but how­ev­er, at the same time, grate­ful­ly ac­knowl­edge many friends, your­self not the least among them, whose great kind­ness I shall al­ways thank­ful­ly re­mem­ber, as will Ed­ward too, who I have told of it. I am sure you will be glad to hear, as like­wise dear Mrs. Jen­nings, I spent two hap­py hours with him yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, he would not hear of our part­ing, though earnest­ly did I, as I thought my du­ty re­quired, urge him to it for pru­dence sake, and would have part­ed for ev­er on the spot, would he con­sent to it; but he said it should nev­er be, he did not re­gard his moth­er’s anger, while he could have my af­fec­tions; our prospects are not very bright, to be sure, but we must wait, and hope for the best; he will be or­dained short­ly; and should it ev­er be in your pow­er to rec­om­mend him to any body that has a liv­ing to be­stow, am very sure you will not for­get us, and dear Mrs. Jen­nings too, trust she will speak a good word for us to Sir John, or Mr. Palmer, or any friend that may be able to as­sist us.–Poor Anne was much to blame for what she did, but she did it for the best, so I say noth­ing; hope Mrs. Jen­nings won’t think it too much trou­ble to give us a call, should she come this way any morn­ing, ‘twould be a great kind­ness, and my cousins would be proud to know her.–My pa­per re­minds me to con­clude; and beg­ging to be most grate­ful­ly and re­spect­ful­ly re­mem­bered to her, and to Sir John, and La­dy Mid­dle­ton, and the dear chil­dren, when you chance to see them, and love to Miss Mar­ianne,

“I am, &c.”

As soon as Eli­nor had fin­ished it, she per­formed what she con­clud­ed to be its writ­er’s re­al de­sign, by plac­ing it in the hands of Mrs. Jen­nings, who read it aloud with many com­ments of sat­is­fac­tion and praise.

“Very well in­deed!–how pret­ti­ly she writes!–aye, that was quite prop­er to let him be off if he would. That was just like Lucy.–Poor soul! I wish I COULD get him a liv­ing, with all my heart.–She calls me dear Mrs. Jen­nings, you see. She is a good-​heart­ed girl as ev­er lived.–Very well up­on my word. That sen­tence is very pret­ti­ly turned. Yes, yes, I will go and see her, sure enough. How at­ten­tive she is, to think of ev­ery body!–Thank you, my dear, for shew­ing it me. It is as pret­ty a let­ter as ev­er I saw, and does Lucy’s head and heart great cred­it.”