Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 50

Af­ter a prop­er re­sis­tance on the part of Mrs. Fer­rars, just so vi­olent and so steady as to pre­serve her from that re­proach which she al­ways seemed fear­ful of in­cur­ring, the re­proach of be­ing too ami­able, Ed­ward was ad­mit­ted to her pres­ence, and pro­nounced to be again her son.

Her fam­ily had of late been ex­ceed­ing­ly fluc­tu­at­ing. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and an­ni­hi­la­tion of Ed­ward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the sim­ilar an­ni­hi­la­tion of Robert had left her for a fort­night with­out any; and now, by the re­sus­ci­ta­tion of Ed­ward, she had one again.

In spite of his be­ing al­lowed once more to live, how­ev­er, he did not feel the con­tin­uance of his ex­is­tence se­cure, till he had re­vealed his present en­gage­ment; for the pub­li­ca­tion of that cir­cum­stance, he feared, might give a sud­den turn to his con­sti­tu­tion, and car­ry him off as rapid­ly as be­fore. With ap­pre­hen­sive cau­tion there­fore it was re­vealed, and he was lis­tened to with un­ex­pect­ed calm­ness. Mrs. Fer­rars at first rea­son­ably en­deav­oured to dis­suade him from mar­ry­ing Miss Dash­wood, by ev­ery ar­gu­ment in her pow­er;–told him, that in Miss Mor­ton he would have a wom­an of high­er rank and larg­er for­tune;– and en­forced the as­ser­tion, by ob­serv­ing that Miss Mor­ton was the daugh­ter of a no­ble­man with thir­ty thou­sand pounds, while Miss Dash­wood was on­ly the daugh­ter of a pri­vate gen­tle­man with no more than THREE; but when she found that, though per­fect­ly ad­mit­ting the truth of her rep­re­sen­ta­tion, he was by no means in­clined to be guid­ed by it, she judged it wis­est, from the ex­pe­ri­ence of the past, to sub­mit–and there­fore, af­ter such an un­gra­cious de­lay as she owed to her own dig­ni­ty, and as served to pre­vent ev­ery sus­pi­cion of good-​will, she is­sued her de­cree of con­sent to the mar­riage of Ed­ward and Eli­nor.

What she would en­gage to do to­wards aug­ment­ing their in­come was next to be con­sid­ered; and here it plain­ly ap­peared, that though Ed­ward was now her on­ly son, he was by no means her el­dest; for while Robert was in­evitably en­dowed with a thou­sand pounds a-​year, not the small­est ob­jec­tion was made against Ed­ward’s tak­ing or­ders for the sake of two hun­dred and fifty at the ut­most; nor was any­thing promised ei­ther for the present or in fu­ture, be­yond the ten thou­sand pounds, which had been giv­en with Fan­ny.

It was as much, how­ev­er, as was de­sired, and more than was ex­pect­ed, by Ed­ward and Eli­nor; and Mrs. Fer­rars her­self, by her shuf­fling ex­cus­es, seemed the on­ly per­son sur­prised at her not giv­ing more.

With an in­come quite suf­fi­cient to their wants thus se­cured to them, they had noth­ing to wait for af­ter Ed­ward was in pos­ses­sion of the liv­ing, but the readi­ness of the house, to which Colonel Bran­don, with an ea­ger de­sire for the ac­com­mo­da­tion of Eli­nor, was mak­ing con­sid­er­able im­prove­ments; and af­ter wait­ing some time for their com­ple­tion, af­ter ex­pe­ri­enc­ing, as usu­al, a thou­sand dis­ap­point­ments and de­lays from the un­ac­count­able dila­tori­ness of the work­men, Eli­nor, as usu­al, broke through the first pos­itive res­olu­tion of not mar­ry­ing till ev­ery thing was ready, and the cer­emo­ny took place in Bar­ton church ear­ly in the au­tumn.

The first month af­ter their mar­riage was spent with their friend at the Man­sion-​house; from whence they could su­per­in­tend the progress of the Par­son­age, and di­rect ev­ery thing as they liked on the spot;– could chuse pa­pers, project shrub­beries, and in­vent a sweep. Mrs. Jen­nings’s prophe­cies, though rather jum­bled to­geth­er, were chiefly ful­filled; for she was able to vis­it Ed­ward and his wife in their Par­son­age by Michael­mas, and she found in Eli­nor and her hus­band, as she re­al­ly be­lieved, one of the hap­pi­est cou­ples in the world. They had in fact noth­ing to wish for, but the mar­riage of Colonel Bran­don and Mar­ianne, and rather bet­ter pas­turage for their cows.

They were vis­it­ed on their first set­tling by al­most all their re­la­tions and friends. Mrs. Fer­rars came to in­spect the hap­pi­ness which she was al­most ashamed of hav­ing au­tho­rised; and even the Dash­woods were at the ex­pense of a jour­ney from Sus­sex to do them hon­our.

“I will not say that I am dis­ap­point­ed, my dear sis­ter,” said John, as they were walk­ing to­geth­er one morn­ing be­fore the gates of De­laford House, “THAT would be say­ing too much, for cer­tain­ly you have been one of the most for­tu­nate young wom­en in the world, as it is. But, I con­fess, it would give me great plea­sure to call Colonel Bran­don broth­er. His prop­er­ty here, his place, his house, ev­ery thing is in such re­spectable and ex­cel­lent con­di­tion!–and his woods!–I have not seen such tim­ber any where in Dorset­shire, as there is now stand­ing in De­laford Hang­er!–And though, per­haps, Mar­ianne may not seem ex­act­ly the per­son to at­tract him– yet I think it would al­to­geth­er be ad­vis­able for you to have them now fre­quent­ly stay­ing with you, for as Colonel Bran­don seems a great deal at home, no­body can tell what may hap­pen–for, when peo­ple are much thrown to­geth­er, and see lit­tle of any­body else–and it will al­ways be in your pow­er to set her off to ad­van­tage, and so forth;– in short, you may as well give her a chance–You un­der­stand me.”–

But though Mrs. Fer­rars DID come to see them, and al­ways treat­ed them with the make-​be­lieve of de­cent af­fec­tion, they were nev­er in­sult­ed by her re­al favour and pref­er­ence. THAT was due to the fol­ly of Robert, and the cun­ning of his wife; and it was earned by them be­fore many months had passed away. The self­ish sagac­ity of the lat­ter, which had at first drawn Robert in­to the scrape, was the prin­ci­pal in­stru­ment of his de­liv­er­ance from it; for her re­spect­ful hu­mil­ity, as­sid­uous at­ten­tions, and end­less flat­ter­ies, as soon as the small­est open­ing was giv­en for their ex­er­cise, rec­on­ciled Mrs. Fer­rars to his choice, and re-​es­tab­lished him com­plete­ly in her favour.

The whole of Lucy’s be­haviour in the af­fair, and the pros­per­ity which crowned it, there­fore, may be held forth as a most en­cour­ag­ing in­stance of what an earnest, an un­ceas­ing at­ten­tion to self-​in­ter­est, how­ev­er its progress may be ap­par­ent­ly ob­struct­ed, will do in se­cur­ing ev­ery ad­van­tage of for­tune, with no oth­er sac­ri­fice than that of time and con­science. When Robert first sought her ac­quain­tance, and pri­vate­ly vis­it­ed her in Bartlett’s Build­ings, it was on­ly with the view im­put­ed to him by his broth­er. He mere­ly meant to per­suade her to give up the en­gage­ment; and as there could be noth­ing to over­come but the af­fec­tion of both, he nat­ural­ly ex­pect­ed that one or two in­ter­views would set­tle the mat­ter. In that point, how­ev­er, and that on­ly, he erred;–for though Lucy soon gave him hopes that his elo­quence would con­vince her in TIME, an­oth­er vis­it, an­oth­er con­ver­sa­tion, was al­ways want­ed to pro­duce this con­vic­tion. Some doubts al­ways lin­gered in her mind when they part­ed, which could on­ly be re­moved by an­oth­er half hour’s dis­course with him­self. His at­ten­dance was by this means se­cured, and the rest fol­lowed in course. In­stead of talk­ing of Ed­ward, they came grad­ual­ly to talk on­ly of Robert,–a sub­ject on which he had al­ways more to say than on any oth­er, and in which she soon be­trayed an in­ter­est even equal to his own; and in short, it be­came speed­ily ev­ident to both, that he had en­tire­ly sup­plant­ed his broth­er. He was proud of his con­quest, proud of trick­ing Ed­ward, and very proud of mar­ry­ing pri­vate­ly with­out his moth­er’s con­sent. What im­me­di­ate­ly fol­lowed is known. They passed some months in great hap­pi­ness at Dawlish; for she had many re­la­tions and old ac­quain­tances to cut–and he drew sev­er­al plans for mag­nif­icent cot­tages;– and from thence re­turn­ing to town, pro­cured the for­give­ness of Mrs. Fer­rars, by the sim­ple ex­pe­di­ent of ask­ing it, which, at Lucy’s in­sti­ga­tion, was adopt­ed. The for­give­ness, at first, in­deed, as was rea­son­able, com­pre­hend­ed on­ly Robert; and Lucy, who had owed his moth­er no du­ty and there­fore could have trans­gressed none, still re­mained some weeks longer un­par­doned. But per­se­ver­ance in hu­mil­ity of con­duct and mes­sages, in self-​con­dem­na­tion for Robert’s of­fence, and grat­itude for the un­kind­ness she was treat­ed with, pro­cured her in time the haughty no­tice which over­came her by its gra­cious­ness, and led soon af­ter­wards, by rapid de­grees, to the high­est state of af­fec­tion and in­flu­ence. Lucy be­came as nec­es­sary to Mrs. Fer­rars, as ei­ther Robert or Fan­ny; and while Ed­ward was nev­er cor­dial­ly for­giv­en for hav­ing once in­tend­ed to mar­ry her, and Eli­nor, though su­pe­ri­or to her in for­tune and birth, was spo­ken of as an in­trud­er, SHE was in ev­ery thing con­sid­ered, and al­ways open­ly ac­knowl­edged, to be a favourite child. They set­tled in town, re­ceived very lib­er­al as­sis­tance from Mrs. Fer­rars, were on the best terms imag­in­able with the Dash­woods; and set­ting aside the jeal­ousies and ill-​will con­tin­ual­ly sub­sist­ing be­tween Fan­ny and Lucy, in which their hus­bands of course took a part, as well as the fre­quent do­mes­tic dis­agree­ments be­tween Robert and Lucy them­selves, noth­ing could ex­ceed the har­mo­ny in which they all lived to­geth­er.

What Ed­ward had done to for­feit the right of el­dest son, might have puz­zled many peo­ple to find out; and what Robert had done to suc­ceed to it, might have puz­zled them still more. It was an ar­range­ment, how­ev­er, jus­ti­fied in its ef­fects, if not in its cause; for noth­ing ev­er ap­peared in Robert’s style of liv­ing or of talk­ing to give a sus­pi­cion of his re­gret­ting the ex­tent of his in­come, as ei­ther leav­ing his broth­er too lit­tle, or bring­ing him­self too much;–and if Ed­ward might be judged from the ready dis­charge of his du­ties in ev­ery par­tic­ular, from an in­creas­ing at­tach­ment to his wife and his home, and from the reg­ular cheer­ful­ness of his spir­its, he might be sup­posed no less con­tent­ed with his lot, no less free from ev­ery wish of an ex­change.

Eli­nor’s mar­riage di­vid­ed her as lit­tle from her fam­ily as could well be con­trived, with­out ren­der­ing the cot­tage at Bar­ton en­tire­ly use­less, for her moth­er and sis­ters spent much more than half their time with her. Mrs. Dash­wood was act­ing on mo­tives of pol­icy as well as plea­sure in the fre­quen­cy of her vis­its at De­laford; for her wish of bring­ing Mar­ianne and Colonel Bran­don to­geth­er was hard­ly less earnest, though rather more lib­er­al than what John had ex­pressed. It was now her dar­ling ob­ject. Pre­cious as was the com­pa­ny of her daugh­ter to her, she de­sired noth­ing so much as to give up its con­stant en­joy­ment to her val­ued friend; and to see Mar­ianne set­tled at the man­sion-​house was equal­ly the wish of Ed­ward and Eli­nor. They each felt his sor­rows, and their own obli­ga­tions, and Mar­ianne, by gen­er­al con­sent, was to be the re­ward of all.

With such a con­fed­er­acy against her–with a knowl­edge so in­ti­mate of his good­ness–with a con­vic­tion of his fond at­tach­ment to her­self, which at last, though long af­ter it was ob­serv­able to ev­ery­body else–burst on her–what could she do?

Mar­ianne Dash­wood was born to an ex­traor­di­nary fate. She was born to dis­cov­er the false­hood of her own opin­ions, and to coun­ter­act, by her con­duct, her most favourite max­ims. She was born to over­come an af­fec­tion formed so late in life as at sev­en­teen, and with no sen­ti­ment su­pe­ri­or to strong es­teem and live­ly friend­ship, vol­un­tar­ily to give her hand to an­oth­er!–and THAT oth­er, a man who had suf­fered no less than her­self un­der the event of a for­mer at­tach­ment, whom, two years be­fore, she had con­sid­ered too old to be mar­ried,–and who still sought the con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guard of a flan­nel waist­coat!

But so it was. In­stead of falling a sac­ri­fice to an ir­re­sistible pas­sion, as once she had fond­ly flat­tered her­self with ex­pect­ing,–in­stead of re­main­ing even for ev­er with her moth­er, and find­ing her on­ly plea­sures in re­tire­ment and study, as af­ter­wards in her more calm and sober judg­ment she had de­ter­mined on,– she found her­self at nine­teen, sub­mit­ting to new at­tach­ments, en­ter­ing on new du­ties, placed in a new home, a wife, the mis­tress of a fam­ily, and the pa­troness of a vil­lage.

Colonel Bran­don was now as hap­py, as all those who best loved him, be­lieved he de­served to be;–in Mar­ianne he was con­soled for ev­ery past af­flic­tion;–her re­gard and her so­ci­ety re­stored his mind to an­ima­tion, and his spir­its to cheer­ful­ness; and that Mar­ianne found her own hap­pi­ness in form­ing his, was equal­ly the per­sua­sion and de­light of each ob­serv­ing friend. Mar­ianne could nev­er love by halves; and her whole heart be­came, in time, as much de­vot­ed to her hus­band, as it had once been to Willough­by.

Willough­by could not hear of her mar­riage with­out a pang; and his pun­ish­ment was soon af­ter­wards com­plete in the vol­un­tary for­give­ness of Mrs. Smith, who, by stat­ing his mar­riage with a wom­an of char­ac­ter, as the source of her clemen­cy, gave him rea­son for be­liev­ing that had he be­haved with hon­our to­wards Mar­ianne, he might at once have been hap­py and rich. That his re­pen­tance of mis­con­duct, which thus brought its own pun­ish­ment, was sin­cere, need not be doubt­ed;–nor that he long thought of Colonel Bran­don with en­vy, and of Mar­ianne with re­gret. But that he was for ev­er in­con­solable, that he fled from so­ci­ety, or con­tract­ed an ha­bit­ual gloom of tem­per, or died of a bro­ken heart, must not be de­pend­ed on–for he did nei­ther. He lived to ex­ert, and fre­quent­ly to en­joy him­self. His wife was not al­ways out of hu­mour, nor his home al­ways un­com­fort­able; and in his breed of hors­es and dogs, and in sport­ing of ev­ery kind, he found no in­con­sid­er­able de­gree of do­mes­tic fe­lic­ity.

For Mar­ianne, how­ev­er–in spite of his in­ci­vil­ity in sur­viv­ing her loss–he al­ways re­tained that de­cid­ed re­gard which in­ter­est­ed him in ev­ery thing that be­fell her, and made her his se­cret stan­dard of per­fec­tion in wom­an;– and many a ris­ing beau­ty would be slight­ed by him in af­ter-​days as bear­ing no com­par­ison with Mrs. Bran­don.

Mrs. Dash­wood was pru­dent enough to re­main at the cot­tage, with­out at­tempt­ing a re­moval to De­laford; and for­tu­nate­ly for Sir John and Mrs. Jen­nings, when Mar­ianne was tak­en from them, Mar­garet had reached an age high­ly suit­able for danc­ing, and not very in­el­igi­ble for be­ing sup­posed to have a lover.

Be­tween Bar­ton and De­laford, there was that con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion which strong fam­ily af­fec­tion would nat­ural­ly dic­tate;–and among the mer­its and the hap­pi­ness of Eli­nor and Mar­ianne, let it not be ranked as the least con­sid­er­able, that though sis­ters, and liv­ing al­most with­in sight of each oth­er, they could live with­out dis­agree­ment be­tween them­selves, or pro­duc­ing cool­ness be­tween their hus­bands.

THE END

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