Sense and Sensibility

CHAPTER 7

Bar­ton Park was about half a mile from the cot­tage. The ladies had passed near it in their way along the val­ley, but it was screened from their view at home by the pro­jec­tion of a hill. The house was large and hand­some; and the Mid­dle­tons lived in a style of equal hos­pi­tal­ity and el­egance. The for­mer was for Sir John’s grat­ifi­ca­tion, the lat­ter for that of his la­dy. They were scarce­ly ev­er with­out some friends stay­ing with them in the house, and they kept more com­pa­ny of ev­ery kind than any oth­er fam­ily in the neigh­bour­hood. It was nec­es­sary to the hap­pi­ness of both; for how­ev­er dis­sim­ilar in tem­per and out­ward be­haviour, they strong­ly re­sem­bled each oth­er in that to­tal want of tal­ent and taste which con­fined their em­ploy­ments, un­con­nect­ed with such as so­ci­ety pro­duced, with­in a very nar­row com­pass. Sir John was a sports­man, La­dy Mid­dle­ton a moth­er. He hunt­ed and shot, and she hu­moured her chil­dren; and these were their on­ly re­sources. La­dy Mid­dle­ton had the ad­van­tage of be­ing able to spoil her chil­dren all the year round, while Sir John’s in­de­pen­dent em­ploy­ments were in ex­is­tence on­ly half the time. Con­tin­ual en­gage­ments at home and abroad, how­ev­er, sup­plied all the de­fi­cien­cies of na­ture and ed­uca­tion; sup­port­ed the good spir­its of Sir John, and gave ex­er­cise to the good breed­ing of his wife.

La­dy Mid­dle­ton piqued her­self up­on the el­egance of her ta­ble, and of all her do­mes­tic ar­range­ments; and from this kind of van­ity was her great­est en­joy­ment in any of their par­ties. But Sir John’s sat­is­fac­tion in so­ci­ety was much more re­al; he de­light­ed in col­lect­ing about him more young peo­ple than his house would hold, and the nois­ier they were the bet­ter was he pleased. He was a bless­ing to all the ju­ve­nile part of the neigh­bour­hood, for in sum­mer he was for ev­er form­ing par­ties to eat cold ham and chick­en out of doors, and in win­ter his pri­vate balls were nu­mer­ous enough for any young la­dy who was not suf­fer­ing un­der the un­sa­tiable ap­petite of fif­teen.

The ar­rival of a new fam­ily in the coun­try was al­ways a mat­ter of joy to him, and in ev­ery point of view he was charmed with the in­hab­itants he had now pro­cured for his cot­tage at Bar­ton. The Miss Dash­woods were young, pret­ty, and un­af­fect­ed. It was enough to se­cure his good opin­ion; for to be un­af­fect­ed was all that a pret­ty girl could want to make her mind as cap­ti­vat­ing as her per­son. The friend­li­ness of his dis­po­si­tion made him hap­py in ac­com­mo­dat­ing those, whose sit­ua­tion might be con­sid­ered, in com­par­ison with the past, as un­for­tu­nate. In show­ing kind­ness to his cousins there­fore he had the re­al sat­is­fac­tion of a good heart; and in set­tling a fam­ily of fe­males on­ly in his cot­tage, he had all the sat­is­fac­tion of a sports­man; for a sports­man, though he es­teems on­ly those of his sex who are sports­men like­wise, is not of­ten de­sirous of en­cour­ag­ing their taste by ad­mit­ting them to a res­idence with­in his own manor.

Mrs. Dash­wood and her daugh­ters were met at the door of the house by Sir John, who wel­comed them to Bar­ton Park with un­af­fect­ed sin­cer­ity; and as he at­tend­ed them to the draw­ing room re­peat­ed to the young ladies the con­cern which the same sub­ject had drawn from him the day be­fore, at be­ing un­able to get any smart young men to meet them. They would see, he said, on­ly one gen­tle­man there be­sides him­self; a par­tic­ular friend who was stay­ing at the park, but who was nei­ther very young nor very gay. He hoped they would all ex­cuse the small­ness of the par­ty, and could as­sure them it should nev­er hap­pen so again. He had been to sev­er­al fam­ilies that morn­ing in hopes of procur­ing some ad­di­tion to their num­ber, but it was moon­light and ev­ery body was full of en­gage­ments. Luck­ily La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s moth­er had ar­rived at Bar­ton with­in the last hour, and as she was a very cheer­ful agree­able wom­an, he hoped the young ladies would not find it so very dull as they might imag­ine. The young ladies, as well as their moth­er, were per­fect­ly sat­is­fied with hav­ing two en­tire strangers of the par­ty, and wished for no more.

Mrs. Jen­nings, La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s moth­er, was a good-​hu­moured, mer­ry, fat, el­der­ly wom­an, who talked a great deal, seemed very hap­py, and rather vul­gar. She was full of jokes and laugh­ter, and be­fore din­ner was over had said many wit­ty things on the sub­ject of lovers and hus­bands; hoped they had not left their hearts be­hind them in Sus­sex, and pre­tend­ed to see them blush whether they did or not. Mar­ianne was vexed at it for her sis­ter’s sake, and turned her eyes to­wards Eli­nor to see how she bore these at­tacks, with an earnest­ness which gave Eli­nor far more pain than could arise from such com­mon-​place raillery as Mrs. Jen­nings’s.

Colonel Bran­don, the friend of Sir John, seemed no more adapt­ed by re­sem­blance of man­ner to be his friend, than La­dy Mid­dle­ton was to be his wife, or Mrs. Jen­nings to be La­dy Mid­dle­ton’s moth­er. He was silent and grave. His ap­pear­ance how­ev­er was not un­pleas­ing, in spite of his be­ing in the opin­ion of Mar­ianne and Mar­garet an ab­so­lute old bach­elor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thir­ty; but though his face was not hand­some, his coun­te­nance was sen­si­ble, and his ad­dress was par­tic­ular­ly gen­tle­man­like.

There was noth­ing in any of the par­ty which could rec­om­mend them as com­pan­ions to the Dash­woods; but the cold in­si­pid­ity of La­dy Mid­dle­ton was so par­tic­ular­ly re­pul­sive, that in com­par­ison of it the grav­ity of Colonel Bran­don, and even the bois­ter­ous mirth of Sir John and his moth­er-​in-​law was in­ter­est­ing. La­dy Mid­dle­ton seemed to be roused to en­joy­ment on­ly by the en­trance of her four noisy chil­dren af­ter din­ner, who pulled her about, tore her clothes, and put an end to ev­ery kind of dis­course ex­cept what re­lat­ed to them­selves.

In the evening, as Mar­ianne was dis­cov­ered to be mu­si­cal, she was in­vit­ed to play. The in­stru­ment was un­locked, ev­ery body pre­pared to be charmed, and Mar­ianne, who sang very well, at their re­quest went through the chief of the songs which La­dy Mid­dle­ton had brought in­to the fam­ily on her mar­riage, and which per­haps had lain ev­er since in the same po­si­tion on the pi­anoforte, for her la­dy­ship had cel­ebrat­ed that event by giv­ing up mu­sic, al­though by her moth­er’s ac­count, she had played ex­treme­ly well, and by her own was very fond of it.

Mar­ianne’s per­for­mance was high­ly ap­plaud­ed. Sir John was loud in his ad­mi­ra­tion at the end of ev­ery song, and as loud in his con­ver­sa­tion with the oth­ers while ev­ery song last­ed. La­dy Mid­dle­ton fre­quent­ly called him to or­der, won­dered how any one’s at­ten­tion could be di­vert­ed from mu­sic for a mo­ment, and asked Mar­ianne to sing a par­tic­ular song which Mar­ianne had just fin­ished. Colonel Bran­don alone, of all the par­ty, heard her with­out be­ing in rap­tures. He paid her on­ly the com­pli­ment of at­ten­tion; and she felt a re­spect for him on the oc­ca­sion, which the oth­ers had rea­son­ably for­feit­ed by their shame­less want of taste. His plea­sure in mu­sic, though it amount­ed not to that ec­stat­ic de­light which alone could sym­pa­thize with her own, was es­timable when con­trast­ed against the hor­ri­ble in­sen­si­bil­ity of the oth­ers; and she was rea­son­able enough to al­low that a man of five and thir­ty might well have out­lived all acute­ness of feel­ing and ev­ery exquisite pow­er of en­joy­ment. She was per­fect­ly dis­posed to make ev­ery al­lowance for the colonel’s ad­vanced state of life which hu­man­ity re­quired.