Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 47

Mrs. Dash­wood did not hear un­moved the vin­di­ca­tion of her for­mer favourite. She re­joiced in his be­ing cleared from some part of his im­put­ed guilt;–she was sor­ry for him;–she wished him hap­py. But the feel­ings of the past could not be re­called.–Noth­ing could re­store him with a faith un­bro­ken–a char­ac­ter un­blem­ished, to Mar­ianne. Noth­ing could do away the knowl­edge of what the lat­ter had suf­fered through his means, nor re­move the guilt of his con­duct to­wards Eliza. Noth­ing could re­place him, there­fore, in her for­mer es­teem, nor in­jure the in­ter­ests of Colonel Bran­don.

Had Mrs. Dash­wood, like her daugh­ter, heard Willough­by’s sto­ry from him­self–had she wit­nessed his dis­tress, and been un­der the in­flu­ence of his coun­te­nance and his man­ner, it is prob­able that her com­pas­sion would have been greater. But it was nei­ther in Eli­nor’s pow­er, nor in her wish, to rouse such feel­ings in an­oth­er, by her re­tailed ex­pla­na­tion, as had at first been called forth in her­self. Re­flec­tion had giv­en calm­ness to her judg­ment, and sobered her own opin­ion of Willough­by’s deserts;– she wished, there­fore, to de­clare on­ly the sim­ple truth, and lay open such facts as were re­al­ly due to his char­ac­ter, with­out any em­bel­lish­ment of ten­der­ness to lead the fan­cy astray.

In the evening, when they were all three to­geth­er, Mar­ianne be­gan vol­un­tar­ily to speak of him again;– but that it was not with­out an ef­fort, the rest­less, un­qui­et thought­ful­ness in which she had been for some time pre­vi­ous­ly sit­ting–her ris­ing colour, as she spoke,– and her un­steady voice, plain­ly shewed.

“I wish to as­sure you both,” said she, “that I see ev­ery thing–as you can de­sire me to do.”

Mrs. Dash­wood would have in­ter­rupt­ed her in­stant­ly with sooth­ing ten­der­ness, had not Eli­nor, who re­al­ly wished to hear her sis­ter’s un­bi­ased opin­ion, by an ea­ger sign, en­gaged her si­lence. Mar­ianne slow­ly con­tin­ued–

“It is a great re­lief to me–what Eli­nor told me this morn­ing–I have now heard ex­act­ly what I wished to hear.”–For some mo­ments her voice was lost; but re­cov­er­ing her­self, she added, and with greater calm­ness than be­fore–“I am now per­fect­ly sat­is­fied, I wish for no change. I nev­er could have been hap­py with him, af­ter know­ing, as soon­er or lat­er I must have known, all this.–I should have had no con­fi­dence, no es­teem. Noth­ing could have done it away to my feel­ings.”

“I know it–I know it,” cried her moth­er. “Hap­py with a man of lib­er­tine prac­tices!–With one who so in­jured the peace of the dear­est of our friends, and the best of men!–No–my Mar­ianne has not a heart to be made hap­py with such a man!–Her con­science, her sen­si­tive con­science, would have felt all that the con­science of her hus­band ought to have felt.”

Mar­ianne sighed, and re­peat­ed, “I wish for no change.”

“You con­sid­er the mat­ter,” said Eli­nor, “ex­act­ly as a good mind and a sound un­der­stand­ing must con­sid­er it; and I dare say you per­ceive, as well as my­self, not on­ly in this, but in many oth­er cir­cum­stances, rea­son enough to be con­vinced that your mar­riage must have in­volved you in many cer­tain trou­bles and dis­ap­point­ments, in which you would have been poor­ly sup­port­ed by an af­fec­tion, on his side, much less cer­tain. Had you mar­ried, you must have been al­ways poor. His ex­pen­sive­ness is ac­knowl­edged even by him­self, and his whole con­duct de­clares that self-​de­nial is a word hard­ly un­der­stood by him. His de­mands and your in­ex­pe­ri­ence to­geth­er, on a small, very small in­come, must have brought on dis­tress­es which would not be the LESS grievous to you, from hav­ing been en­tire­ly un­known and un­thought of be­fore. YOUR sense of hon­our and hon­esty would have led you, I know, when aware of your sit­ua­tion, to at­tempt all the econ­omy that would ap­pear to you pos­si­ble: and, per­haps, as long as your fru­gal­ity re­trenched on­ly on your own com­fort, you might have been suf­fered to prac­tice it, but be­yond that– and how lit­tle could the ut­most of your sin­gle man­age­ment do to stop the ru­in which had be­gun be­fore your mar­riage?– Be­yond THAT, had you en­deav­oured, how­ev­er rea­son­ably, to abridge HIS en­joy­ments, is it not to be feared, that in­stead of pre­vail­ing on feel­ings so self­ish to con­sent to it, you would have less­ened your own in­flu­ence on his heart, and made him re­gret the con­nec­tion which had in­volved him in such dif­fi­cul­ties?”

Mar­ianne’s lips quiv­ered, and she re­peat­ed the word “Self­ish?” in a tone that im­plied–“do you re­al­ly think him self­ish?”

“The whole of his be­haviour,” replied Eli­nor, “from the be­gin­ning to the end of the af­fair, has been ground­ed on self­ish­ness. It was self­ish­ness which first made him sport with your af­fec­tions; which af­ter­wards, when his own were en­gaged, made him de­lay the con­fes­sion of it, and which fi­nal­ly car­ried him from Bar­ton. His own en­joy­ment, or his own ease, was, in ev­ery par­tic­ular, his rul­ing prin­ci­ple.”

“It is very true. MY hap­pi­ness nev­er was his ob­ject.”

“At present,” con­tin­ued Eli­nor, “he re­grets what he has done. And why does he re­gret it?–Be­cause he finds it has not an­swered to­wards him­self. It has not made him hap­py. His cir­cum­stances are now un­em­bar­rassed–he suf­fers from no evil of that kind; and he thinks on­ly that he has mar­ried a wom­an of a less ami­able tem­per than your­self. But does it fol­low that had he mar­ried you, he would have been hap­py?–The in­con­ve­niences would have been dif­fer­ent. He would then have suf­fered un­der the pe­cu­niary dis­tress­es which, be­cause they are re­moved, he now reck­ons as noth­ing. He would have had a wife of whose tem­per he could make no com­plaint, but he would have been al­ways ne­ces­si­tous–al­ways poor; and prob­ably would soon have learned to rank the in­nu­mer­able com­forts of a clear es­tate and good in­come as of far more im­por­tance, even to do­mes­tic hap­pi­ness, than the mere tem­per of a wife.”

“I have not a doubt of it,” said Mar­ianne; “and I have noth­ing to re­gret–noth­ing but my own fol­ly.”

“Rather say your moth­er’s im­pru­dence, my child,” said Mrs. Dash­wood; “SHE must be an­swer­able.”

Mar­ianne would not let her pro­ceed;–and Eli­nor, sat­is­fied that each felt their own er­ror, wished to avoid any sur­vey of the past that might weak­en her sis­ter’s spir­its; she, there­fore, pur­su­ing the first sub­ject, im­me­di­ate­ly con­tin­ued,

“One ob­ser­va­tion may, I think, be fair­ly drawn from the whole of the sto­ry–that all Willough­by’s dif­fi­cul­ties have arisen from the first of­fence against virtue, in his be­haviour to Eliza Williams. That crime has been the ori­gin of ev­ery less­er one, and of all his present dis­con­tents.”

Mar­ianne as­sent­ed most feel­ing­ly to the re­mark; and her moth­er was led by it to an enu­mer­ation of Colonel Bran­don’s in­juries and mer­its, warm as friend­ship and de­sign could unit­ed­ly dic­tate. Her daugh­ter did not look, how­ev­er, as if much of it were heard by her.

Eli­nor, ac­cord­ing to her ex­pec­ta­tion, saw on the two or three fol­low­ing days, that Mar­ianne did not con­tin­ue to gain strength as she had done; but while her res­olu­tion was un­sub­dued, and she still tried to ap­pear cheer­ful and easy, her sis­ter could safe­ly trust to the ef­fect of time up­on her health.

Mar­garet re­turned, and the fam­ily were again all re­stored to each oth­er, again qui­et­ly set­tled at the cot­tage; and if not pur­su­ing their usu­al stud­ies with quite so much vigour as when they first came to Bar­ton, at least plan­ning a vig­or­ous pros­ecu­tion of them in fu­ture.

Eli­nor grew im­pa­tient for some tid­ings of Ed­ward. She had heard noth­ing of him since her leav­ing Lon­don, noth­ing new of his plans, noth­ing cer­tain even of his present abode. Some let­ters had passed be­tween her and her broth­er, in con­se­quence of Mar­ianne’s ill­ness; and in the first of John’s, there had been this sen­tence:– “We know noth­ing of our un­for­tu­nate Ed­ward, and can make no en­quiries on so pro­hib­it­ed a sub­ject, but con­clude him to be still at Ox­ford;” which was all the in­tel­li­gence of Ed­ward af­ford­ed her by the cor­re­spon­dence, for his name was not even men­tioned in any of the suc­ceed­ing let­ters. She was not doomed, how­ev­er, to be long in ig­no­rance of his mea­sures.

Their man-​ser­vant had been sent one morn­ing to Ex­eter on busi­ness; and when, as he wait­ed at ta­ble, he had sat­is­fied the in­quiries of his mis­tress as to the event of his er­rand, this was his vol­un­tary com­mu­ni­ca­tion–

“I sup­pose you know, ma’am, that Mr. Fer­rars is mar­ried.”

Mar­ianne gave a vi­olent start, fixed her eyes up­on Eli­nor, saw her turn­ing pale, and fell back in her chair in hys­ter­ics. Mrs. Dash­wood, whose eyes, as she an­swered the ser­vant’s in­quiry, had in­tu­itive­ly tak­en the same di­rec­tion, was shocked to per­ceive by Eli­nor’s coun­te­nance how much she re­al­ly suf­fered, and a mo­ment af­ter­wards, alike dis­tressed by Mar­ianne’s sit­ua­tion, knew not on which child to be­stow her prin­ci­pal at­ten­tion.

The ser­vant, who saw on­ly that Miss Mar­ianne was tak­en ill, had sense enough to call one of the maids, who, with Mrs. Dash­wood’s as­sis­tance, sup­port­ed her in­to the oth­er room. By that time, Mar­ianne was rather bet­ter, and her moth­er leav­ing her to the care of Mar­garet and the maid, re­turned to Eli­nor, who, though still much dis­or­dered, had so far re­cov­ered the use of her rea­son and voice as to be just be­gin­ning an in­quiry of Thomas, as to the source of his in­tel­li­gence. Mrs. Dash­wood im­me­di­ate­ly took all that trou­ble on her­self; and Eli­nor had the ben­efit of the in­for­ma­tion with­out the ex­er­tion of seek­ing it.

“Who told you that Mr. Fer­rars was mar­ried, Thomas?”

“I see Mr. Fer­rars my­self, ma’am, this morn­ing in Ex­eter, and his la­dy too, Miss Steele as was. They was stop­ping in a chaise at the door of the New Lon­don Inn, as I went there with a mes­sage from Sal­ly at the Park to her broth­er, who is one of the post-​boys. I hap­pened to look up as I went by the chaise, and so I see di­rect­ly it was the youngest Miss Steele; so I took off my hat, and she knew me and called to me, and in­quired af­ter you, ma’am, and the young ladies, es­pe­cial­ly Miss Mar­ianne, and bid me I should give her com­pli­ments and Mr. Fer­rars’s, their best com­pli­ments and ser­vice, and how sor­ry they was they had not time to come on and see you, but they was in a great hur­ry to go for­wards, for they was go­ing fur­ther down for a lit­tle while, but how­sev­er, when they come back, they’d make sure to come and see you.”

“But did she tell you she was mar­ried, Thomas?”

“Yes, ma’am. She smiled, and said how she had changed her name since she was in these parts. She was al­ways a very af­fa­ble and free-​spo­ken young la­dy, and very civ­il be­haved. So, I made free to wish her joy.”

“Was Mr. Fer­rars in the car­riage with her?”

“Yes, ma’am, I just see him lean­ing back in it, but he did not look up;–he nev­er was a gen­tle­man much for talk­ing.”

Eli­nor’s heart could eas­ily ac­count for his not putting him­self for­ward; and Mrs. Dash­wood prob­ably found the same ex­pla­na­tion.

“Was there no one else in the car­riage?”

“No, ma’am, on­ly they two.”

“Do you know where they came from?”

“They come straight from town, as Miss Lucy– Mrs. Fer­rars told me.”

“And are they go­ing far­ther west­ward?”

“Yes, ma’am–but not to bide long. They will soon be back again, and then they’d be sure and call here.”

Mrs. Dash­wood now looked at her daugh­ter; but Eli­nor knew bet­ter than to ex­pect them. She recog­nised the whole of Lucy in the mes­sage, and was very con­fi­dent that Ed­ward would nev­er come near them. She ob­served in a low voice, to her moth­er, that they were prob­ably go­ing down to Mr. Pratt’s, near Ply­mouth.

Thomas’s in­tel­li­gence seemed over. Eli­nor looked as if she wished to hear more.

“Did you see them off, be­fore you came away?”

“No, ma’am–the hors­es were just com­ing out, but I could not bide any longer; I was afraid of be­ing late.”

“Did Mrs. Fer­rars look well?”

“Yes, ma’am, she said how she was very well; and to my mind she was al­ways a very hand­some young la­dy–and she seemed vast­ly con­tent­ed.”

Mrs. Dash­wood could think of no oth­er ques­tion, and Thomas and the table­cloth, now alike need­less, were soon af­ter­wards dis­missed. Mar­ianne had al­ready sent to say, that she should eat noth­ing more. Mrs. Dash­wood’s and Eli­nor’s ap­petites were equal­ly lost, and Mar­garet might think her­self very well off, that with so much un­easi­ness as both her sis­ters had late­ly ex­pe­ri­enced, so much rea­son as they had of­ten had to be care­less of their meals, she had nev­er been obliged to go with­out her din­ner be­fore.

When the dessert and the wine were ar­ranged, and Mrs. Dash­wood and Eli­nor were left by them­selves, they re­mained long to­geth­er in a sim­ilar­ity of thought­ful­ness and si­lence. Mrs. Dash­wood feared to haz­ard any re­mark, and ven­tured not to of­fer con­so­la­tion. She now found that she had erred in re­ly­ing on Eli­nor’s rep­re­sen­ta­tion of her­self; and just­ly con­clud­ed that ev­ery thing had been ex­press­ly soft­ened at the time, to spare her from an in­crease of un­hap­pi­ness, suf­fer­ing as she then had suf­fered for Mar­ianne. She found that she had been mis­led by the care­ful, the con­sid­er­ate at­ten­tion of her daugh­ter, to think the at­tach­ment, which once she had so well un­der­stood, much slighter in re­al­ity, than she had been wont to be­lieve, or than it was now proved to be. She feared that un­der this per­sua­sion she had been un­just, inat­ten­tive, nay, al­most un­kind, to her Eli­nor;– that Mar­ianne’s af­flic­tion, be­cause more ac­knowl­edged, more im­me­di­ate­ly be­fore her, had too much en­grossed her ten­der­ness, and led her away to for­get that in Eli­nor she might have a daugh­ter suf­fer­ing al­most as much, cer­tain­ly with less self-​provo­ca­tion, and greater for­ti­tude.