Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 41

Ed­ward, hav­ing car­ried his thanks to Colonel Bran­don, pro­ceed­ed with his hap­pi­ness to Lucy; and such was the ex­cess of it by the time he reached Bartlett’s Build­ings, that she was able to as­sure Mrs. Jen­nings, who called on her again the next day with her con­grat­ula­tions, that she had nev­er seen him in such spir­its be­fore in her life.

Her own hap­pi­ness, and her own spir­its, were at least very cer­tain; and she joined Mrs. Jen­nings most hearti­ly in her ex­pec­ta­tion of their be­ing all com­fort­ably to­geth­er in De­laford Par­son­age be­fore Michael­mas. So far was she, at the same time, from any back­ward­ness to give Eli­nor that cred­it which Ed­ward WOULD give her, that she spoke of her friend­ship for them both with the most grate­ful warmth, was ready to own all their obli­ga­tion to her, and open­ly de­clared that no ex­er­tion for their good on Miss Dash­wood’s part, ei­ther present or fu­ture, would ev­er sur­prise her, for she be­lieved her ca­pa­ble of do­ing any thing in the world for those she re­al­ly val­ued. As for Colonel Bran­don, she was not on­ly ready to wor­ship him as a saint, but was more­over tru­ly anx­ious that he should be treat­ed as one in all world­ly con­cerns; anx­ious that his tithes should be raised to the ut­most; and scarce­ly re­solved to avail her­self, at De­laford, as far as she pos­si­bly could, of his ser­vants, his car­riage, his cows, and his poul­try.

It was now above a week since John Dash­wood had called in Berke­ley Street, and as since that time no no­tice had been tak­en by them of his wife’s in­dis­po­si­tion, be­yond one ver­bal en­quiry, Eli­nor be­gan to feel it nec­es­sary to pay her a vis­it.–This was an obli­ga­tion, how­ev­er, which not on­ly op­posed her own in­cli­na­tion, but which had not the as­sis­tance of any en­cour­age­ment from her com­pan­ions. Mar­ianne, not con­tent­ed with ab­so­lute­ly re­fus­ing to go her­self, was very ur­gent to pre­vent her sis­ter’s go­ing at all; and Mrs. Jen­nings, though her car­riage was al­ways at Eli­nor’s ser­vice, so very much dis­liked Mrs. John Dash­wood, that not even her cu­rios­ity to see how she looked af­ter the late dis­cov­ery, nor her strong de­sire to af­front her by tak­ing Ed­ward’s part, could over­come her un­will­ing­ness to be in her com­pa­ny again. The con­se­quence was, that Eli­nor set out by her­self to pay a vis­it, for which no one could re­al­ly have less in­cli­na­tion, and to run the risk of a tete-​a-​tete with a wom­an, whom nei­ther of the oth­ers had so much rea­son to dis­like.

Mrs. Dash­wood was de­nied; but be­fore the car­riage could turn from the house, her hus­band ac­ci­den­tal­ly came out. He ex­pressed great plea­sure in meet­ing Eli­nor, told her that he had been just go­ing to call in Berke­ley Street, and, as­sur­ing her that Fan­ny would be very glad to see her, in­vit­ed her to come in.

They walked up stairs in to the draw­ing-​room.–No­body was there.

“Fan­ny is in her own room, I sup­pose,” said he:–“I will go to her present­ly, for I am sure she will not have the least ob­jec­tion in the world to see­ing YOU.– Very far from it, in­deed. NOW es­pe­cial­ly there can­not be–but how­ev­er, you and Mar­ianne were al­ways great favourites.–Why would not Mar­ianne come?”–

Eli­nor made what ex­cuse she could for her.

“I am not sor­ry to see you alone,” he replied, “for I have a good deal to say to you. This liv­ing of Colonel Bran­don’s–can it be true?–has he re­al­ly giv­en it to Ed­ward?–I heard it yes­ter­day by chance, and was com­ing to you on pur­pose to en­quire far­ther about it.”

“It is per­fect­ly true.–Colonel Bran­don has giv­en the liv­ing of De­laford to Ed­ward.”

“Re­al­ly!–Well, this is very as­ton­ish­ing!–no re­la­tion­ship!–no con­nec­tion be­tween them!–and now that liv­ings fetch such a price!–what was the val­ue of this?”

“About two hun­dred a year.”

“Very well–and for the next pre­sen­ta­tion to a liv­ing of that val­ue–sup­pos­ing the late in­cum­bent to have been old and sick­ly, and like­ly to va­cate it soon–he might have got I dare say–four­teen hun­dred pounds. And how came he not to have set­tled that mat­ter be­fore this per­son’s death?–NOW in­deed it would be too late to sell it, but a man of Colonel Bran­don’s sense!–I won­der he should be so im­prov­ident in a point of such com­mon, such nat­ural, con­cern!–Well, I am con­vinced that there is a vast deal of in­con­sis­ten­cy in al­most ev­ery hu­man char­ac­ter. I sup­pose, how­ev­er–on rec­ol­lec­tion–that the case may prob­ably be THIS. Ed­ward is on­ly to hold the liv­ing till the per­son to whom the Colonel has re­al­ly sold the pre­sen­ta­tion, is old enough to take it.–Aye, aye, that is the fact, de­pend up­on it.”

Eli­nor con­tra­dict­ed it, how­ev­er, very pos­itive­ly; and by re­lat­ing that she had her­self been em­ployed in con­vey­ing the of­fer from Colonel Bran­don to Ed­ward, and, there­fore, must un­der­stand the terms on which it was giv­en, obliged him to sub­mit to her au­thor­ity.

“It is tru­ly as­ton­ish­ing!”–he cried, af­ter hear­ing what she said–“what could be the Colonel’s mo­tive?”

“A very sim­ple one–to be of use to Mr. Fer­rars.”

“Well, well; what­ev­er Colonel Bran­don may be, Ed­ward is a very lucky man.–You will not men­tion the mat­ter to Fan­ny, how­ev­er, for though I have broke it to her, and she bears it vast­ly well,–she will not like to hear it much talked of.”

Eli­nor had some dif­fi­cul­ty here to re­frain from ob­serv­ing, that she thought Fan­ny might have borne with com­po­sure, an ac­qui­si­tion of wealth to her broth­er, by which nei­ther she nor her child could be pos­si­bly im­pov­er­ished.

“Mrs. Fer­rars,” added he, low­er­ing his voice to the tone be­com­ing so im­por­tant a sub­ject, “knows noth­ing about it at present, and I be­lieve it will be best to keep it en­tire­ly con­cealed from her as long as may be.– When the mar­riage takes place, I fear she must hear of it all.”

“But why should such pre­cau­tion be used?–Though it is not to be sup­posed that Mrs. Fer­rars can have the small­est sat­is­fac­tion in know­ing that her son has mon­ey enough to live up­on,–for THAT must be quite out of the ques­tion; yet why, up­on her late be­haviour, is she sup­posed to feel at all?–She has done with her son, she cast him off for ev­er, and has made all those over whom she had any in­flu­ence, cast him off like­wise. Sure­ly, af­ter do­ing so, she can­not be imag­ined li­able to any im­pres­sion of sor­row or of joy on his ac­count– she can­not be in­ter­est­ed in any thing that be­falls him.– She would not be so weak as to throw away the com­fort of a child, and yet re­tain the anx­iety of a par­ent!”

“Ah! Eli­nor,” said John, “your rea­son­ing is very good, but it is found­ed on ig­no­rance of hu­man na­ture. When Ed­ward’s un­hap­py match takes place, de­pend up­on it his moth­er will feel as much as if she had nev­er dis­card­ed him; and, there­fore ev­ery cir­cum­stance that may ac­cel­er­ate that dread­ful event, must be con­cealed from her as much as pos­si­ble. Mrs. Fer­rars can nev­er for­get that Ed­ward is her son.”

“You sur­prise me; I should think it must near­ly have es­caped her mem­ory by THIS time.”

“You wrong her ex­ceed­ing­ly. Mrs. Fer­rars is one of the most af­fec­tion­ate moth­ers in the world.”

Eli­nor was silent.

“We think NOW,”–said Mr. Dash­wood, af­ter a short pause, “of ROBERT’S mar­ry­ing Miss Mor­ton.”

Eli­nor, smil­ing at the grave and de­ci­sive im­por­tance of her broth­er’s tone, calm­ly replied,

“The la­dy, I sup­pose, has no choice in the af­fair.”

“Choice!–how do you mean?”

“I on­ly mean that I sup­pose, from your man­ner of speak­ing, it must be the same to Miss Mor­ton whether she mar­ry Ed­ward or Robert.”

“Cer­tain­ly, there can be no dif­fer­ence; for Robert will now to all in­tents and pur­pos­es be con­sid­ered as the el­dest son;–and as to any thing else, they are both very agree­able young men: I do not know that one is su­pe­ri­or to the oth­er.”

Eli­nor said no more, and John was al­so for a short time silent.–His re­flec­tions end­ed thus.

“Of ONE thing, my dear sis­ter,” kind­ly tak­ing her hand, and speak­ing in an aw­ful whis­per,–“I may as­sure you;– and I WILL do it, be­cause I know it must grat­ify you. I have good rea­son to think–in­deed I have it from the best au­thor­ity, or I should not re­peat it, for oth­er­wise it would be very wrong to say any thing about it–but I have it from the very best au­thor­ity–not that I ev­er pre­cise­ly heard Mrs. Fer­rars say it her­self–but her daugh­ter DID, and I have it from her–That in short, what­ev­er ob­jec­tions there might be against a cer­tain–a cer­tain con­nec­tion–you un­der­stand me–it would have been far prefer­able to her, it would not have giv­en her half the vex­ation that THIS does. I was ex­ceed­ing­ly pleased to hear that Mrs. Fer­rars con­sid­ered it in that light– a very grat­ify­ing cir­cum­stance you know to us all. ‘It would have been be­yond com­par­ison,’ she said, ‘the least evil of the two, and she would be glad to com­pound NOW for noth­ing worse.’ But how­ev­er, all that is quite out of the ques­tion–not to be thought of or men­tioned– as to any at­tach­ment you know–it nev­er could be–all that is gone by. But I thought I would just tell you of this, be­cause I knew how much it must please you. Not that you have any rea­son to re­gret, my dear Eli­nor. There is no doubt of your do­ing ex­ceed­ing­ly well–quite as well, or bet­ter, per­haps, all things con­sid­ered. Has Colonel Bran­don been with you late­ly?”

Eli­nor had heard enough, if not to grat­ify her van­ity, and raise her self-​im­por­tance, to ag­itate her nerves and fill her mind;–and she was there­fore glad to be spared from the ne­ces­si­ty of say­ing much in re­ply her­self, and from the dan­ger of hear­ing any thing more from her broth­er, by the en­trance of Mr. Robert Fer­rars. Af­ter a few mo­ments’ chat, John Dash­wood, rec­ol­lect­ing that Fan­ny was yet un­in­formed of her sis­ter’s be­ing there, quit­ted the room in quest of her; and Eli­nor was left to im­prove her ac­quain­tance with Robert, who, by the gay un­con­cern, the hap­py self-​com­pla­cen­cy of his man­ner while en­joy­ing so un­fair a di­vi­sion of his moth­er’s love and lib­er­al­ity, to the prej­udice of his ban­ished broth­er, earned on­ly by his own dis­si­pat­ed course of life, and that broth­er’s in­tegri­ty, was con­firm­ing her most un­favourable opin­ion of his head and heart.

They had scarce­ly been two min­utes by them­selves, be­fore he be­gan to speak of Ed­ward; for he, too, had heard of the liv­ing, and was very in­quis­itive on the sub­ject. Eli­nor re­peat­ed the par­tic­ulars of it, as she had giv­en them to John; and their ef­fect on Robert, though very dif­fer­ent, was not less strik­ing than it had been on HIM. He laughed most im­mod­er­ate­ly. The idea of Ed­ward’s be­ing a cler­gy­man, and liv­ing in a small par­son­age-​house, di­vert­ed him be­yond mea­sure;–and when to that was added the fan­ci­ful im­agery of Ed­ward read­ing prayers in a white sur­plice, and pub­lish­ing the banns of mar­riage be­tween John Smith and Mary Brown, he could con­ceive noth­ing more ridicu­lous.

Eli­nor, while she wait­ed in si­lence and im­mov­able grav­ity, the con­clu­sion of such fol­ly, could not re­strain her eyes from be­ing fixed on him with a look that spoke all the con­tempt it ex­cit­ed. It was a look, how­ev­er, very well be­stowed, for it re­lieved her own feel­ings, and gave no in­tel­li­gence to him. He was re­called from wit to wis­dom, not by any re­proof of her’s, but by his own sen­si­bil­ity.

“We may treat it as a joke,” said he, at last, re­cov­er­ing from the af­fect­ed laugh which had con­sid­er­ably length­ened out the gen­uine gai­ety of the mo­ment–“but, up­on my soul, it is a most se­ri­ous busi­ness. Poor Ed­ward! he is ru­ined for ev­er. I am ex­treme­ly sor­ry for it– for I know him to be a very good-​heart­ed crea­ture; as well-​mean­ing a fel­low per­haps, as any in the world. You must not judge of him, Miss Dash­wood, from YOUR slight ac­quain­tance.–Poor Ed­ward!–His man­ners are cer­tain­ly not the hap­pi­est in na­ture.–But we are not all born, you know, with the same pow­ers,–the same ad­dress.– Poor fel­low!–to see him in a cir­cle of strangers!– to be sure it was pitiable enough!–but up­on my soul, I be­lieve he has as good a heart as any in the king­dom; and I de­clare and protest to you I nev­er was so shocked in my life, as when it all burst forth. I could not be­lieve it.– My moth­er was the first per­son who told me of it; and I, feel­ing my­self called on to act with res­olu­tion, im­me­di­ate­ly said to her, ‘My dear madam, I do not know what you may in­tend to do on the oc­ca­sion, but as for my­self, I must say, that if Ed­ward does mar­ry this young wom­an, I nev­er will see him again.’ That was what I said im­me­di­ate­ly.– I was most un­com­mon­ly shocked, in­deed!–Poor Ed­ward!–he has done for him­self com­plete­ly–shut him­self out for ev­er from all de­cent so­ci­ety!–but, as I di­rect­ly said to my moth­er, I am not in the least sur­prised at it; from his style of ed­uca­tion, it was al­ways to be ex­pect­ed. My poor moth­er was half fran­tic.”

“Have you ev­er seen the la­dy?”

“Yes; once, while she was stay­ing in this house, I hap­pened to drop in for ten min­utes; and I saw quite enough of her. The mer­est awk­ward coun­try girl, with­out style, or el­egance, and al­most with­out beau­ty.– I re­mem­ber her per­fect­ly. Just the kind of girl I should sup­pose like­ly to cap­ti­vate poor Ed­ward. I of­fered im­me­di­ate­ly, as soon as my moth­er re­lat­ed the af­fair to me, to talk to him my­self, and dis­suade him from the match; but it was too late THEN, I found, to do any thing, for un­luck­ily, I was not in the way at first, and knew noth­ing of it till af­ter the breach had tak­en place, when it was not for me, you know, to in­ter­fere. But had I been in­formed of it a few hours ear­li­er–I think it is most prob­able–that some­thing might have been hit on. I cer­tain­ly should have rep­re­sent­ed it to Ed­ward in a very strong light. ‘My dear fel­low,’ I should have said, ‘con­sid­er what you are do­ing. You are mak­ing a most dis­grace­ful con­nec­tion, and such a one as your fam­ily are unan­imous in dis­ap­prov­ing.’ I can­not help think­ing, in short, that means might have been found. But now it is all too late. He must be starved, you know;– that is cer­tain; ab­so­lute­ly starved.”

He had just set­tled this point with great com­po­sure, when the en­trance of Mrs. John Dash­wood put an end to the sub­ject. But though SHE nev­er spoke of it out of her own fam­ily, Eli­nor could see its in­flu­ence on her mind, in the some­thing like con­fu­sion of coun­te­nance with which she en­tered, and an at­tempt at cor­dial­ity in her be­haviour to her­self. She even pro­ceed­ed so far as to be con­cerned to find that Eli­nor and her sis­ter were so soon to leave town, as she had hoped to see more of them;–an ex­er­tion in which her hus­band, who at­tend­ed her in­to the room, and hung en­am­oured over her ac­cents, seemed to dis­tin­guish ev­ery thing that was most af­fec­tion­ate and grace­ful.