Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 45

Eli­nor, for some time af­ter he left her, for some time even af­ter the sound of his car­riage had died away, re­mained too much op­pressed by a crowd of ideas, wide­ly dif­fer­ing in them­selves, but of which sad­ness was the gen­er­al re­sult, to think even of her sis­ter.

Willough­by, he, whom on­ly half an hour ago she had ab­horred as the most worth­less of men, Willough­by, in spite of all his faults, ex­cit­ed a de­gree of com­mis­er­ation for the suf­fer­ings pro­duced by them, which made her think of him as now sep­arat­ed for ev­er from her fam­ily, with a ten­der­ness, a re­gret, rather in pro­por­tion, as she soon ac­knowl­edged with­in her­self–to his wish­es than to his mer­its. She felt that his in­flu­ence over her mind was height­ened by cir­cum­stances which ought not in rea­son to have weight; by that per­son of un­com­mon at­trac­tion, that open, af­fec­tion­ate, and live­ly man­ner which it was no mer­it to pos­sess; and by that still ar­dent love for Mar­ianne, which it was not even in­no­cent to in­dulge. But she felt that it was so, long, long be­fore she could feel his in­flu­ence less.

When at last she re­turned to the un­con­scious Mar­ianne, she found her just awak­ing, re­freshed by so long and sweet a sleep to the ex­tent of her hopes. Eli­nor’s heart was full. The past, the present, the fu­ture, Willough­by’s vis­it, Mar­ianne’s safe­ty, and her moth­er’s ex­pect­ed ar­rival, threw her al­to­geth­er in­to an ag­ita­tion of spir­its which kept off ev­ery in­di­ca­tion of fa­tigue, and made her on­ly fear­ful of be­tray­ing her­self to her sis­ter. Short was the time, how­ev­er, in which that fear could af­fect her, for with­in half an hour af­ter Willough­by’s leav­ing the house, she was again called down stairs by the sound of an­oth­er car­riage.–Ea­ger to save her moth­er from ev­ery un­nec­es­sary mo­ment’s hor­ri­ble sus­pense, she ran im­me­di­ate­ly in­to the hall, and reached the out­ward door just in time to re­ceive and sup­port her as she en­tered it.

Mrs. Dash­wood, whose ter­ror as they drew near the house had pro­duced al­most the con­vic­tion of Mar­ianne’s be­ing no more, had no voice to in­quire af­ter her, no voice even for Eli­nor; but SHE, wait­ing nei­ther for salu­ta­tion nor in­quiry, in­stant­ly gave the joy­ful re­lief;– and her moth­er, catch­ing it with all her usu­al warmth, was in a mo­ment as much over­come by her hap­pi­ness, as she had been be­fore by her fears. She was sup­port­ed in­to the draw­ing-​room be­tween her daugh­ter and her friend;– and there, shed­ding tears of joy, though still un­able to speak, em­braced Eli­nor again and again, turn­ing from her at in­ter­vals to press Colonel Bran­don’s hand, with a look which spoke at once her grat­itude, and her con­vic­tion of his shar­ing with her­self in the bliss of the mo­ment. He shared it, how­ev­er, in a si­lence even greater than her own.

As soon as Mrs. Dash­wood had re­cov­ered her­self, to see Mar­ianne was her first de­sire; and in two min­utes she was with her beloved child, ren­dered dear­er to her than ev­er by ab­sence, un­hap­pi­ness, and dan­ger. Eli­nor’s de­light, as she saw what each felt in the meet­ing, was on­ly checked by an ap­pre­hen­sion of its rob­bing Mar­ianne of far­ther sleep;– but Mrs. Dash­wood could be calm, could be even pru­dent, when the life of a child was at stake, and Mar­ianne, sat­is­fied in know­ing her moth­er was near her, and con­scious of be­ing too weak for con­ver­sa­tion, sub­mit­ted read­ily to the si­lence and qui­et pre­scribed by ev­ery nurse around her. Mrs. Dash­wood WOULD sit up with her all night; and Eli­nor, in com­pli­ance with her moth­er’s en­treaty, went to bed. But the rest, which one night en­tire­ly sleep­less, and many hours of the most wear­ing anx­iety seemed to make req­ui­site, was kept off by ir­ri­ta­tion of spir­its. Willough­by, “poor Willough­by,” as she now al­lowed her­self to call him, was con­stant­ly in her thoughts; she would not but have heard his vin­di­ca­tion for the world, and now blamed, now ac­quit­ted her­self for hav­ing judged him so harsh­ly be­fore. But her promise of re­lat­ing it to her sis­ter was in­vari­ably painful. She dread­ed the per­for­mance of it, dread­ed what its ef­fect on Mar­ianne might be; doubt­ed whether af­ter such an ex­pla­na­tion she could ev­er be hap­py with an­oth­er; and for a mo­ment wished Willough­by a wid­ow­er. Then, re­mem­ber­ing Colonel Bran­don, re­proved her­self, felt that to HIS suf­fer­ings and his con­stan­cy far more than to his ri­val’s, the re­ward of her sis­ter was due, and wished any thing rather than Mrs. Willough­by’s death.

The shock of Colonel Bran­don’s er­rand at Bar­ton had been much soft­ened to Mrs. Dash­wood by her own pre­vi­ous alarm; for so great was her un­easi­ness about Mar­ianne, that she had al­ready de­ter­mined to set out for Cleve­land on that very day, with­out wait­ing for any fur­ther in­tel­li­gence, and had so far set­tled her jour­ney be­fore his ar­rival, that the Careys were then ex­pect­ed ev­ery mo­ment to fetch Mar­garet away, as her moth­er was un­will­ing to take her where there might be in­fec­tion.

Mar­ianne con­tin­ued to mend ev­ery day, and the bril­liant cheer­ful­ness of Mrs. Dash­wood’s looks and spir­its proved her to be, as she re­peat­ed­ly de­clared her­self, one of the hap­pi­est wom­en in the world. Eli­nor could not hear the dec­la­ra­tion, nor wit­ness its proofs with­out some­times won­der­ing whether her moth­er ev­er rec­ol­lect­ed Ed­ward. But Mrs. Dash­wood, trust­ing to the tem­per­ate ac­count of her own dis­ap­point­ment which Eli­nor had sent her, was led away by the ex­uber­ance of her joy to think on­ly of what would in­crease it. Mar­ianne was re­stored to her from a dan­ger in which, as she now be­gan to feel, her own mis­tak­en judg­ment in en­cour­ag­ing the un­for­tu­nate at­tach­ment to Willough­by, had con­tribut­ed to place her;– and in her re­cov­ery she had yet an­oth­er source of joy un­thought of by Eli­nor. It was thus im­part­ed to her, as soon as any op­por­tu­ni­ty of pri­vate con­fer­ence be­tween them oc­curred.

“At last we are alone. My Eli­nor, you do not yet know all my hap­pi­ness. Colonel Bran­don loves Mar­ianne. He has told me so him­self.”

Her daugh­ter, feel­ing by turns both pleased and pained, sur­prised and not sur­prised, was all silent at­ten­tion.

“You are nev­er like me, dear Eli­nor, or I should won­der at your com­po­sure now. Had I sat down to wish for any pos­si­ble good to my fam­ily, I should have fixed on Colonel Bran­don’s mar­ry­ing one of you as the ob­ject most de­sir­able. And I be­lieve Mar­ianne will be the most hap­py with him of the two.”

Eli­nor was half in­clined to ask her rea­son for think­ing so, be­cause sat­is­fied that none found­ed on an im­par­tial con­sid­er­ation of their age, char­ac­ters, or feel­ings, could be giv­en;–but her moth­er must al­ways be car­ried away by her imag­ina­tion on any in­ter­est­ing sub­ject, and there­fore in­stead of an in­quiry, she passed it off with a smile.

“He opened his whole heart to me yes­ter­day as we trav­elled. It came out quite un­awares, quite un­de­signed­ly. I, you may well be­lieve, could talk of noth­ing but my child;–he could not con­ceal his dis­tress; I saw that it equalled my own, and he per­haps, think­ing that mere friend­ship, as the world now goes, would not jus­ti­fy so warm a sym­pa­thy–or rather, not think­ing at all, I sup­pose–giv­ing way to ir­re­sistible feel­ings, made me ac­quaint­ed with his earnest, ten­der, con­stant, af­fec­tion for Mar­ianne. He has loved her, my Eli­nor, ev­er since the first mo­ment of see­ing her.”

Here, how­ev­er, Eli­nor per­ceived,–not the lan­guage, not the pro­fes­sions of Colonel Bran­don, but the nat­ural em­bel­lish­ments of her moth­er’s ac­tive fan­cy, which fash­ioned ev­ery thing de­light­ful to her as it chose.

“His re­gard for her, in­finite­ly sur­pass­ing any­thing that Willough­by ev­er felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sin­cere or con­stant–which ev­er we are to call it– has sub­sist­ed through all the knowl­edge of dear Mar­ianne’s un­hap­py pre­pos­ses­sion for that worth­less young man!–and with­out self­ish­ness–with­out en­cour­ag­ing a hope!–could he have seen her hap­py with an­oth­er–Such a no­ble mind!– such open­ness, such sin­cer­ity!–no one can be de­ceived in HIM.”

“Colonel Bran­don’s char­ac­ter,” said Eli­nor, “as an ex­cel­lent man, is well es­tab­lished.”

“I know it is”–replied her moth­er se­ri­ous­ly, “or af­ter such a warn­ing, I should be the last to en­cour­age such af­fec­tion, or even to be pleased by it. But his com­ing for me as he did, with such ac­tive, such ready friend­ship, is enough to prove him one of the wor­thi­est of men.”

“His char­ac­ter, how­ev­er,” an­swered Eli­nor, “does not rest on ONE act of kind­ness, to which his af­fec­tion for Mar­ianne, were hu­man­ity out of the case, would have prompt­ed him. To Mrs. Jen­nings, to the Mid­dle­tons, he has been long and in­ti­mate­ly known; they equal­ly love and re­spect him; and even my own knowl­edge of him, though late­ly ac­quired, is very con­sid­er­able; and so high­ly do I val­ue and es­teem him, that if Mar­ianne can be hap­py with him, I shall be as ready as your­self to think our con­nec­tion the great­est bless­ing to us in the world. What an­swer did you give him?–Did you al­low him to hope?”

“Oh! my love, I could not then talk of hope to him or to my­self. Mar­ianne might at that mo­ment be dy­ing. But he did not ask for hope or en­cour­age­ment. His was an in­vol­un­tary con­fi­dence, an ir­re­press­ible ef­fu­sion to a sooth­ing friend–not an ap­pli­ca­tion to a par­ent. Yet af­ter a time I DID say, for at first I was quite over­come–that if she lived, as I trust­ed she might, my great­est hap­pi­ness would lie in pro­mot­ing their mar­riage; and since our ar­rival, since our de­light­ful se­cu­ri­ty, I have re­peat­ed it to him more ful­ly, have giv­en him ev­ery en­cour­age­ment in my pow­er. Time, a very lit­tle time, I tell him, will do ev­ery­thing;–Mar­ianne’s heart is not to be wast­ed for ev­er on such a man as Willough­by.– His own mer­its must soon se­cure it.”

“To judge from the Colonel’s spir­its, how­ev­er, you have not yet made him equal­ly san­guine.”

“No.–He thinks Mar­ianne’s af­fec­tion too deeply root­ed for any change in it un­der a great length of time, and even sup­pos­ing her heart again free, is too dif­fi­dent of him­self to be­lieve, that with such a dif­fer­ence of age and dis­po­si­tion he could ev­er at­tach her. There, how­ev­er, he is quite mis­tak­en. His age is on­ly so much be­yond hers as to be an ad­van­tage, as to make his char­ac­ter and prin­ci­ples fixed;–and his dis­po­si­tion, I am well con­vinced, is ex­act­ly the very one to make your sis­ter hap­py. And his per­son, his man­ners too, are all in his favour. My par­tial­ity does not blind me; he cer­tain­ly is not so hand­some as Willough­by–but at the same time, there is some­thing much more pleas­ing in his coun­te­nance.– There was al­ways a some­thing,–if you re­mem­ber,–in Willough­by’s eyes at times, which I did not like.”

Eli­nor could NOT re­mem­ber it;–but her moth­er, with­out wait­ing for her as­sent, con­tin­ued,

“And his man­ners, the Colonel’s man­ners are not on­ly more pleas­ing to me than Willough­by’s ev­er were, but they are of a kind I well know to be more solid­ly at­tach­ing to Mar­ianne. Their gen­tle­ness, their gen­uine at­ten­tion to oth­er peo­ple, and their man­ly un­stud­ied sim­plic­ity is much more ac­cor­dant with her re­al dis­po­si­tion, than the live­li­ness–of­ten ar­ti­fi­cial, and of­ten ill-​timed of the oth­er. I am very sure my­self, that had Willough­by turned out as re­al­ly ami­able, as he has proved him­self the con­trary, Mar­ianne would yet nev­er have been so hap­py with HIM, as she will be with Colonel Bran­don.”

She paused.–Her daugh­ter could not quite agree with her, but her dis­sent was not heard, and there­fore gave no of­fence.

“At De­laford, she will be with­in an easy dis­tance of me,” added Mrs. Dash­wood, “even if I re­main at Bar­ton; and in all prob­abil­ity,–for I hear it is a large vil­lage,–in­deed there cer­tain­ly MUST be some small house or cot­tage close by, that would suit us quite as well as our present sit­ua­tion.”

Poor Eli­nor!–here was a new scheme for get­ting her to De­laford!–but her spir­it was stub­born.

“His for­tune too!–for at my time of life you know, ev­ery­body cares about THAT;–and though I nei­ther know nor de­sire to know, what it re­al­ly is, I am sure it must be a good one.”

Here they were in­ter­rupt­ed by the en­trance of a third per­son, and Eli­nor with­drew to think it all over in pri­vate, to wish suc­cess to her friend, and yet in wish­ing it, to feel a pang for Willough­by.