Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 40

“Well, Miss Dash­wood,” said Mrs. Jen­nings, saga­cious­ly smil­ing, as soon as the gen­tle­man had with­drawn, “I do not ask you what the Colonel has been say­ing to you; for though, up­on my hon­our, I TRIED to keep out of hear­ing, I could not help catch­ing enough to un­der­stand his busi­ness. And I as­sure you I nev­er was bet­ter pleased in my life, and I wish you joy of it with all my heart.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Eli­nor. “It is a mat­ter of great joy to me; and I feel the good­ness of Colonel Bran­don most sen­si­bly. There are not many men who would act as he has done. Few peo­ple who have so com­pas­sion­ate a heart! I nev­er was more as­ton­ished in my life.”

“Lord! my dear, you are very mod­est. I an’t the least as­ton­ished at it in the world, for I have of­ten thought of late, there was noth­ing more like­ly to hap­pen.”

“You judged from your knowl­edge of the Colonel’s gen­er­al benev­olence; but at least you could not fore­see that the op­por­tu­ni­ty would so very soon oc­cur.”

“Op­por­tu­ni­ty!” re­peat­ed Mrs. Jen­nings–“Oh! as to that, when a man has once made up his mind to such a thing, some­how or oth­er he will soon find an op­por­tu­ni­ty. Well, my dear, I wish you joy of it again and again; and if ev­er there was a hap­py cou­ple in the world, I think I shall soon know where to look for them.”

“You mean to go to De­laford af­ter them I sup­pose,” said Eli­nor, with a faint smile.

“Aye, my dear, that I do, in­deed. And as to the house be­ing a bad one, I do not know what the Colonel would be at, for it is as good a one as ev­er I saw.”

“He spoke of its be­ing out of re­pair.”

“Well, and whose fault is that? why don’t he re­pair it?– who should do it but him­self?”

They were in­ter­rupt­ed by the ser­vant’s com­ing in to an­nounce the car­riage be­ing at the door; and Mrs. Jen­nings im­me­di­ate­ly prepar­ing to go, said,–

“Well, my dear, I must be gone be­fore I have had half my talk out. But, how­ev­er, we may have it all over in the evening; for we shall be quite alone. I do not ask you to go with me, for I dare say your mind is too full of the mat­ter to care for com­pa­ny; and be­sides, you must long to tell your sis­ter all about it.”

Mar­ianne had left the room be­fore the con­ver­sa­tion be­gan.

“Cer­tain­ly, ma’am, I shall tell Mar­ianne of it; but I shall not men­tion it at present to any body else.”

“Oh! very well,” said Mrs. Jen­nings rather dis­ap­point­ed. “Then you would not have me tell it to Lucy, for I think of go­ing as far as Hol­born to-​day.”

“No, ma’am, not even Lucy if you please. One day’s de­lay will not be very ma­te­ri­al; and till I have writ­ten to Mr. Fer­rars, I think it ought not to be men­tioned to any body else. I shall do THAT di­rect­ly. It is of im­por­tance that no time should be lost with him, for he will of course have much to do rel­ative to his or­di­na­tion.”

This speech at first puz­zled Mrs. Jen­nings ex­ceed­ing­ly. Why Mr. Fer­rars was to have been writ­ten to about it in such a hur­ry, she could not im­me­di­ate­ly com­pre­hend. A few mo­ments’ re­flec­tion, how­ev­er, pro­duced a very hap­py idea, and she ex­claimed;–

“Oh, ho!–I un­der­stand you. Mr. Fer­rars is to be the man. Well, so much the bet­ter for him. Ay, to be sure, he must be or­dained in readi­ness; and I am very glad to find things are so for­ward be­tween you. But, my dear, is not this rather out of char­ac­ter? Should not the Colonel write him­self?–sure, he is the prop­er per­son.”

Eli­nor did not quite un­der­stand the be­gin­ning of Mrs. Jen­nings’s speech, nei­ther did she think it worth in­quir­ing in­to; and there­fore on­ly replied to its con­clu­sion.

“Colonel Bran­don is so del­icate a man, that he rather wished any one to an­nounce his in­ten­tions to Mr. Fer­rars than him­self.”

“And so YOU are forced to do it. Well THAT is an odd kind of del­ica­cy! How­ev­er, I will not dis­turb you (see­ing her prepar­ing to write.) You know your own con­cerns best. So good­by, my dear. I have not heard of any thing to please me so well since Char­lotte was brought to bed.”

And away she went; but re­turn­ing again in a mo­ment,

“I have just been think­ing of Bet­ty’s sis­ter, my dear. I should be very glad to get her so good a mis­tress. But whether she would do for a la­dy’s maid, I am sure I can’t tell. She is an ex­cel­lent house­maid, and works very well at her nee­dle. How­ev­er, you will think of all that at your leisure.”

“Cer­tain­ly, ma’am,” replied Eli­nor, not hear­ing much of what she said, and more anx­ious to be alone, than to be mis­tress of the sub­ject.

How she should be­gin–how she should ex­press her­self in her note to Ed­ward, was now all her con­cern. The par­tic­ular cir­cum­stances be­tween them made a dif­fi­cul­ty of that which to any oth­er per­son would have been the eas­iest thing in the world; but she equal­ly feared to say too much or too lit­tle, and sat de­lib­er­at­ing over her pa­per, with the pen in her band, till bro­ken in on by the en­trance of Ed­ward him­self.

He had met Mrs. Jen­nings at the door in her way to the car­riage, as he came to leave his farewell card; and she, af­ter apol­ogis­ing for not re­turn­ing her­self, had obliged him to en­ter, by say­ing that Miss Dash­wood was above, and want­ed to speak with him on very par­tic­ular busi­ness.

Eli­nor had just been con­grat­ulat­ing her­self, in the midst of her per­plex­ity, that how­ev­er dif­fi­cult it might be to ex­press her­self prop­er­ly by let­ter, it was at least prefer­able to giv­ing the in­for­ma­tion by word of mouth, when her vis­itor en­tered, to force her up­on this great­est ex­er­tion of all. Her as­ton­ish­ment and con­fu­sion were very great on his so sud­den ap­pear­ance. She had not seen him be­fore since his en­gage­ment be­came pub­lic, and there­fore not since his know­ing her to be ac­quaint­ed with it; which, with the con­scious­ness of what she had been think­ing of, and what she had to tell him, made her feel par­tic­ular­ly un­com­fort­able for some min­utes. He too was much dis­tressed; and they sat down to­geth­er in a most promis­ing state of em­bar­rass­ment.–Whether he had asked her par­don for his in­tru­sion on first com­ing in­to the room, he could not rec­ol­lect; but de­ter­min­ing to be on the safe side, he made his apol­ogy in form as soon as he could say any thing, af­ter tak­ing a chair.

“Mrs. Jen­nings told me,” said he, “that you wished to speak with me, at least I un­der­stood her so–or I cer­tain­ly should not have in­trud­ed on you in such a man­ner; though at the same time, I should have been ex­treme­ly sor­ry to leave Lon­don with­out see­ing you and your sis­ter; es­pe­cial­ly as it will most like­ly be some time–it is not prob­able that I should soon have the plea­sure of meet­ing you again. I go to Ox­ford to­mor­row.”

“You would not have gone, how­ev­er,” said Eli­nor, re­cov­er­ing her­self, and de­ter­mined to get over what she so much dread­ed as soon as pos­si­ble, “with­out re­ceiv­ing our good wish­es, even if we had not been able to give them in per­son. Mrs. Jen­nings was quite right in what she said. I have some­thing of con­se­quence to in­form you of, which I was on the point of com­mu­ni­cat­ing by pa­per. I am charged with a most agree­able of­fice (breath­ing rather faster than usu­al as she spoke.) Colonel Bran­don, who was here on­ly ten min­utes ago, has de­sired me to say, that un­der­stand­ing you mean to take or­ders, he has great plea­sure in of­fer­ing you the liv­ing of De­laford now just va­cant, and on­ly wish­es it were more valu­able. Al­low me to con­grat­ulate you on hav­ing so re­spectable and well-​judg­ing a friend, and to join in his wish that the liv­ing–it is about two hun­dred a-​year–were much more con­sid­er­able, and such as might bet­ter en­able you to–as might be more than a tem­po­rary ac­com­mo­da­tion to your­self–such, in short, as might es­tab­lish all your views of hap­pi­ness.”

What Ed­ward felt, as he could not say it him­self, it can­not be ex­pect­ed that any one else should say for him. He LOOKED all the as­ton­ish­ment which such un­ex­pect­ed, such un­thought-​of in­for­ma­tion could not fail of ex­cit­ing; but he said on­ly these two words,

“Colonel Bran­don!”

“Yes,” con­tin­ued Eli­nor, gath­er­ing more res­olu­tion, as some of the worst was over, “Colonel Bran­don means it as a tes­ti­mo­ny of his con­cern for what has late­ly passed–for the cru­el sit­ua­tion in which the un­jus­ti­fi­able con­duct of your fam­ily has placed you–a con­cern which I am sure Mar­ianne, my­self, and all your friends, must share; and like­wise as a proof of his high es­teem for your gen­er­al char­ac­ter, and his par­tic­ular ap­pro­ba­tion of your be­haviour on the present oc­ca­sion.”

“Colonel Bran­don give ME a liv­ing!–Can it be pos­si­ble?”

“The un­kind­ness of your own re­la­tions has made you as­ton­ished to find friend­ship any where.”

“No,” replied be, with sud­den con­scious­ness, “not to find it in YOU; for I can­not be ig­no­rant that to you, to your good­ness, I owe it all.–I feel it–I would ex­press it if I could–but, as you well know, I am no or­ator.”

“You are very much mis­tak­en. I do as­sure you that you owe it en­tire­ly, at least al­most en­tire­ly, to your own mer­it, and Colonel Bran­don’s dis­cern­ment of it. I have had no hand in it. I did not even know, till I un­der­stood his de­sign, that the liv­ing was va­cant; nor had it ev­er oc­curred to me that he might have had such a liv­ing in his gift. As a friend of mine, of my fam­ily, he may, per­haps–in­deed I know he HAS, still greater plea­sure in be­stow­ing it; but, up­on my word, you owe noth­ing to my so­lic­ita­tion.”

Truth obliged her to ac­knowl­edge some small share in the ac­tion, but she was at the same time so un­will­ing to ap­pear as the bene­fac­tress of Ed­ward, that she ac­knowl­edged it with hes­ita­tion; which prob­ably con­tribut­ed to fix that sus­pi­cion in his mind which had re­cent­ly en­tered it. For a short time he sat deep in thought, af­ter Eli­nor had ceased to speak;–at last, and as if it were rather an ef­fort, he said,

“Colonel Bran­don seems a man of great worth and re­spectabil­ity. I have al­ways heard him spo­ken of as such, and your broth­er I know es­teems him high­ly. He is un­doubt­ed­ly a sen­si­ble man, and in his man­ners per­fect­ly the gen­tle­man.”

“In­deed,” replied Eli­nor, “I be­lieve that you will find him, on far­ther ac­quain­tance, all that you have heard him to be, and as you will be such very near neigh­bours (for I un­der­stand the par­son­age is al­most close to the man­sion-​house,) it is par­tic­ular­ly im­por­tant that he SHOULD be all this.”

Ed­ward made no an­swer; but when she had turned away her head, gave her a look so se­ri­ous, so earnest, so uncheer­ful, as seemed to say, that he might here­after wish the dis­tance be­tween the par­son­age and the man­sion-​house much greater.

“Colonel Bran­don, I think, lodges in St. James Street,” said he, soon af­ter­wards, ris­ing from his chair.

Eli­nor told him the num­ber of the house.

“I must hur­ry away then, to give him those thanks which you will not al­low me to give YOU; to as­sure him that he has made me a very–an ex­ceed­ing­ly hap­py man.”

Eli­nor did not of­fer to de­tain him; and they part­ed, with a very earnest as­sur­ance on HER side of her un­ceas­ing good wish­es for his hap­pi­ness in ev­ery change of sit­ua­tion that might be­fall him; on HIS, with rather an at­tempt to re­turn the same good will, than the pow­er of ex­press­ing it.

“When I see him again,” said Eli­nor to her­self, as the door shut him out, “I shall see him the hus­band of Lucy.”

And with this pleas­ing an­tic­ipa­tion, she sat down to re­con­sid­er the past, re­call the words and en­deav­our to com­pre­hend all the feel­ings of Ed­ward; and, of course, to re­flect on her own with dis­con­tent.

When Mrs. Jen­nings came home, though she re­turned from see­ing peo­ple whom she had nev­er seen be­fore, and of whom there­fore she must have a great deal to say, her mind was so much more oc­cu­pied by the im­por­tant se­cret in her pos­ses­sion, than by any­thing else, that she re­vert­ed to it again as soon as Eli­nor ap­peared.

“Well, my dear,” she cried, “I sent you up to the young man. Did not I do right?–And I sup­pose you had no great dif­fi­cul­ty–You did not find him very un­will­ing to ac­cept your pro­pos­al?”

“No, ma’am; THAT was not very like­ly.”

“Well, and how soon will he be ready?–For it seems all to de­pend up­on that.”

“Re­al­ly,” said Eli­nor, “I know so lit­tle of these kind of forms, that I can hard­ly even con­jec­ture as to the time, or the prepa­ra­tion nec­es­sary; but I sup­pose two or three months will com­plete his or­di­na­tion.”

“Two or three months!” cried Mrs. Jen­nings; “Lord! my dear, how calm­ly you talk of it; and can the Colonel wait two or three months! Lord bless me!–I am sure it would put ME quite out of pa­tience!–And though one would be very glad to do a kind­ness by poor Mr. Fer­rars, I do think it is not worth while to wait two or three months for him. Sure some­body else might be found that would do as well; some­body that is in or­ders al­ready.”

“My dear ma’am,” said Eli­nor, “what can you be think­ing of?– Why, Colonel Bran­don’s on­ly ob­ject is to be of use to Mr. Fer­rars.”

“Lord bless you, my dear!–Sure you do not mean to per­suade me that the Colonel on­ly mar­ries you for the sake of giv­ing ten guineas to Mr. Fer­rars!”

The de­cep­tion could not con­tin­ue af­ter this; and an ex­pla­na­tion im­me­di­ate­ly took place, by which both gained con­sid­er­able amuse­ment for the mo­ment, with­out any ma­te­ri­al loss of hap­pi­ness to ei­ther, for Mrs. Jen­nings on­ly ex­changed one form of de­light for an­oth­er, and still with­out for­feit­ing her ex­pec­ta­tion of the first.

“Aye, aye, the par­son­age is but a small one,” said she, af­ter the first ebul­li­tion of sur­prise and sat­is­fac­tion was over, “and very like­ly MAY be out of re­pair; but to hear a man apol­ogis­ing, as I thought, for a house that to my knowl­edge has five sit­ting rooms on the ground-​floor, and I think the house­keep­er told me could make up fif­teen beds!– and to you too, that had been used to live in Bar­ton cot­tage!– It seems quite ridicu­lous. But, my dear, we must touch up the Colonel to do some thing to the par­son­age, and make it com­fort­able for them, be­fore Lucy goes to it.”

“But Colonel Bran­don does not seem to have any idea of the liv­ing’s be­ing enough to al­low them to mar­ry.”

“The Colonel is a nin­ny, my dear; be­cause he has two thou­sand a-​year him­self, he thinks that no­body else can mar­ry on less. Take my word for it, that, if I am alive, I shall be pay­ing a vis­it at De­laford Par­son­age be­fore Michael­mas; and I am sure I sha’nt go if Lucy an’t there.”

Eli­nor was quite of her opin­ion, as to the prob­abil­ity of their not wait­ing for any thing more.