 CHAPTER XXXI From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes. Eleanor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt, and before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and again, and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on Eleanor's side, the same impetuous feelings in varying opinions on Marianne's as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world. At another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform when it came to the point in avoiding where it was possible the presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs. Jennings entering into her sorrows with any compassion. No, no, no, it cannot be," she cried, she cannot feel, her kindness is not sympathy, her good nature is not tenderness, all that she wants is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it. Eleanor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable refinement of her own mind, and the two great importance placed by her on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself. Thus a circumstance occurred while the sisters were together in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs. Jennings still lower in her estimation, because, through her own weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill. With a letter in her outstretched hand and countenance gaily smiling, from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room, saying, "'Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good.'" Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her a letter from Willoughby full of tenderness and contrition, explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing, and instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room to enforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The handwriting of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her, and in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had never suffered. The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings, no language within her reach in her moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed, and now she could reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with passionate violence. A reproach, however, so entirely lost on its object, that after many expressions of pity she withdrew, still referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled every page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and relying as warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by Eleanor's application to entreat from Marianne greater openness towards them both, and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection for Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it. All her impatience to be at home again now returned. Her mother was dearer to her than ever, dearer through the very excess of her mistaken confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone. Eleanor, unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne to be in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of patience till their mother's wishes could be known, that at length she obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge. Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual, for she could not be easy till the Middletons and Palmer's were able to grieve as much as herself, and positively refusing Eleanor's offered attendance, went out alone for the rest of the morning. Eleanor with a very heavy heart, aware of the pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving by Marianne's letter how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat her directions for the future. While Marianne, who came into the drawing room on Mrs. Jennings going away, remained fixed at the table where Eleanor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly over its effect on her mother. In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was startled by a rap at the door. "'Who can this be?' cried Eleanor. "'So early, too. I thought we had been safe.' Marianne moved to the window. "'It is Colonel Brandon,' said she with vexation. "'We are never safe from him. He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home. I will not trust in that,' retreating to her own room. A man who has nothing to do with his own time, has no conscience in his intrusion on that of others.' The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on injustice and error, for Colonel Brandon did come in, and Eleanor, who was convinced that solicitude from Marianne, brought him thither, and who saw that solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his anxious, though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister for esteeming him so lightly. "'I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street,' said he after the first salutation, "'and she encouraged me to come on, and I was the more easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object—my wish—my soul-wish in desiring it—I hope—I believe it is—is to be a means of giving comfort—no, I must not say comfort—not present comfort—but conviction—last in conviction to your sister's mind. My regard for her—for yourself—for your mother—will you allow me to prove it by relating some circumstances which nothing but a very sincere regard—nothing but an earnest desire of being useful—I think I am justified—though where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?" He stopped. "'I understand you,' said Eleanor. "'You have something to tell me of Mr. Willoughby, that will open his character farther. You're telling it to be the greatest act of friendship that can be shown, Marianne. My gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to that end, and hers must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray, let me hear it.' You shall. And, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October—but this will give you no idea—I must go farther back. You will find me a very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood. I hardly know where to begin. A short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it shall be a short one. On such a subject, sighing heavily, can I have little temptation to be diffuse? He stopped a moment for recollection, and then, when another sigh went on. "'You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation. It is not to be supposed that it can make any impression on you. A conversation between us one evening at Barton Park. It was the evening of a dance, in which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling in some measure your sister Marianne.' "'Indeed,' answered Elinor, I have not forgotten it.' He looked pleased by this remembrance, and added, "'If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well in mind as person—the same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of fantasy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were play-fellows and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not love Eliza. And my affection for her, as we grew up, was such as perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you might think me incapable of ever having felt. Hers for me was, I believe, fervent, as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby, and it was, though from a different cause, no less unfortunate. At seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married, married against her inclination, to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one who was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her. He did not even love her. I had hoped that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for some time it did. But at last the misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though she had promised me that nothing. But how blindly I relate, I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousins made portrayed us. I was banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father's point was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too far, and the blow was a severe one. But had her marriage been happy, so young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at least I should not have now to lament it. This, however, was not the case. My brother had no regard for her. His pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation. And happy had it been, if she had not lived to overcome those regrets, which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or astrain her? For my father lived only a few months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies. She should fall. Had I remained in England, perhaps. But I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me, he continued in a voice of great agitation, was of trifling weight, was nothing to what I felt when I heard about two years afterwards of her divorce. It was that which threw this gloom, even now the recollection of what I suffered. He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about the room. More affected by his relation, and still more by his distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure. It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned to England. My first care, when I did arrive, was of course to seek for her, but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had been removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance and consequent distress had obliged her to dispose of it for some more immediate relief. At last, however, and after I had been six months in England, I did find her. Regard for a former servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to visit him in a sponging-house, where he was confined for debt. And there, the same house, under a similar confinement, was my unfortunate sister. So altered, so faded, worn down by acute suffering of every kind. Hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure before me to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom I had once doted—what I endured and so beholding her. But I have no right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it—I have pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the last stage of a consumption, was—yes, in such a situation, it was my greatest comfort—life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better preparation for death—and that was given. I saw her placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendance. I visited her every day during the rest of her short life. I was with her in her last moments. Again he stopped to recover himself, and Eleanor spoke her feelings in an exclamation of tender concern at the fate of his unfortunate friend. "'Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended,' said he, "'by the resemblance I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their fates, their fortunes, cannot be the same, and had the natural sweet disposition of the one being guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing you for nothing.' Harmist Dashwood, a subject such as this, untouched for fourteen years, it is dangerous to handle it at all. I will be more collected, more concise. She left to my care her only child, a little girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then about three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it with her. It was a valued, a precious trust to me, and gladly would I have discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her education myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it, but I had no family, no home, and my little Eliza was therefore placed at school. I saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my brother, which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the possession of the family property, she visited me at Delaford. I called her a distant relation, but I am well aware that I have been in general suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now three years ago—she had just reached her fourteenth year—that I removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very respectable woman residing in Dorseture, who had the charge of four or five other girls of about the same time of life, and for two years I had every reason to be pleased with the situation. But last February, almost a twelve-month back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed her—imprudently, as it is since turned out—at her earnest desire to go to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her father there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man, and I thought well of his daughter. Rather than she deserved, for with the most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would give no clue, though she certainly knew all. He her father a well-meaning but not quick-sighted man, could really, I believe, give no information, for he had been generally confined to the house, while the girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance they chose, and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was convinced himself, of his daughter's being entirely unconcerned in the business. In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone. All the rest, for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I thought, what I feared, may be imagined, and what I suffered, too. "'Good heavens!' cried Eleanor. "'Could it be? Could will it be?' The first news that reached me of her, he continued, came in a letter from herself last October. It was forwarded to me from Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party to Whitwell. And this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly, which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to everybody. And which, I believe, gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom he had made poor and miserable. But had he known it, what would it availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of your sister? No. He had already done that, which no man who can feel for another would do. He had left the girl, whose youth and innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with no creditable home, no help, no friends ignorant of his address. He had left her, promising to return. He neither returned nor wrote, nor relieved her. "'This is beyond everything,' exclaimed Eleanor. His character is now before you—expensive, dissipated, and worse than both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on being assured that she was to marry him? Guess what I must have felt for all your sakes? When I came to you last week and found you alone, I came determined to know the truth, though a resolute what to do when it was known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you, then, but now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived, to see your sister—but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering with success, and sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet reclaim him. But now, after such dishonourable usage, who can tell what his designs were on her? Whatever they may have been, however, she may now, and hereafter doubtless will turn with gratitude towards her own condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They proceed from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the contrary, every friend must be made still more her friend by them. Concern for her unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it, must strengthen every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in communicating to her what I have told you. You must know best what will be its effect. But had I not seriously, and from my heart, believed it might be of service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to trouble you with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital which may seem to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of others. Eleanor's thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness, attended, too, with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to Marianne, from the communication of what had passed. I have been more pained, said she, by her endeavours to acquit him than by all the rest, for it irritates her mind more than the most perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have you—she continued after a short silence. Ever seen, Mr. Willoughby, since you left him at Barton? Yes, he replied gravely. Once I have. One meeting was unavoidable. Eleanor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying, What! have you met him, too? I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most reluctantly, the name of her lover, and when he returned to town, which was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to defend I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the meeting, therefore, never got abroad. Eleanor sighed over the fancied necessity of this, but to a man and a soldier she presumed not to censure it. Such, said Colonel Brandon after a pause, has been the unhappy resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter, and so imperfectly have I discharged my trust. Is she still in town? No. As soon as she recovered from her lying in, for I found her near her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there she remains. Coming soon afterwards that he was probably dividing Eleanor from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion and esteem for him. CHAPTER XXXII When the particulars of this conversation were repeated by Miss Dashwood to her sister, as they very soon were, the effect on her was not entirely such as the former had hoped to see. Not that Marianne appeared to distrust the truth of any part of it, for she listened to it all with the most steady and submissive attention, made neither objection nor remark, attempted no vindication of Willoughby, and seemed to show by her tears that she felt it to be impossible. But though this behaviour assured Eleanor that the conviction of his guilt was carried home to her mind, though she saw with satisfaction the effect of it, in her no longer avoiding Colonel Brandon when he called, in her speaking to him, even voluntarily speaking, with a kind of compassionate respect, and though she saw her spirits less violently irritated than before, she did not see her less wretched. Her mind did become settled, but it was settled in a gloomy dejection. She felt the loss of Willoughby's character yet more heavily than she had felt the loss of his heart. His seduction and desertion of Miss Williams, the misery of that poor girl, and the doubt of what his designs might once have been on herself, prayed altogether so much on her spirits that she could not bring herself to speak of what she felt even to Eleanor, and brooding over her sorrows and silence gave more pain to her sister than could have been communicated by the most open and most frequent confession of them. To give the feelings or the language of Mrs. Dashwood on receiving and answering Eleanor's letter would be only to give a repetition of what her daughters had already felt and said, of a disappointment hardly less painful than Marianne's, and an indignation even greater than Eleanor's. Long letters from her, quickly succeeding each other, arrived to tell all that she suffered and thought, to express her anxious solicitude for Marianne, and in treat that she would bear up with fortitude under this misfortune. Bad indeed must be the nature of Marianne's affliction, when her mother could talk of mortifying and humiliating must be the origin of those regrets which she could wish her not to indulge. Against the interest of her own individual comfort, Mrs. Dashwood had determined that it would be better for Marianne to be anywhere at that time than at Barton, where everything within her view would be bringing back the past in the strongest and most afflicting manner by constantly placing Willoughby before her, such as she had always seen him there. She recommended it to her daughters therefore, by all means not to shorten their visit to Mrs. Jennings, the length of which, though never exactly fixed, had been expected by all to comprise at least five or six weeks. A variety of occupations of objects and of company which could not be procured at Barton would be inevitable there, and might yet she hoped cheat Marianne at times into some interest beyond herself, and even into some amusement, much as the ideas of both might now be spurned by her. From all danger of seeing Willoughby again, her mother considered her to be at least equally safe in town as in the country, since his acquaintance must now be dropped by all who called themselves her friends. Design could never bring them in each other's way, negligence could never leave them exposed to a surprise, and chance had less in its favour in the crowd of London than even in the retirement of Barton, where it might force him before her while paying that visit at Allen among his marriage, which Mrs. Dashwood, from foreseeing at first as a probable event, had brought herself to expect as a certain one. She had yet another reason for wishing her children to remain where they were. A letter from her son-in-law had told her that he and his wife were to be in town before the middle of February, and she judged it right that they should sometimes see their brother. Marianne had promised to be guided by her mother's opinion, and she submitted to it therefore without opposition, though it proved perfectly different from what she wished and expected, though she felt it to be entirely wrong, formed on mistaken grounds, and that by requiring her longer continuance in London it deprived her of the only possible alleviation of her wretchedness, the personal sympathy of her mother, and doomed her to such society and such scenes as must prevent her ever knowing a moment's rest. But it was a matter of great consolation to her that what brought evil to herself would bring good to her sister, and Eleanor, on the other hand, suspecting that it would not be in her power to avoid Edward entirely, comforted herself by thinking that though their longer stay would therefore militate against her own happiness, it would be better for Marianne than an immediate return into Devonshire. Her carefulness in guarding her sister from ever hearing Willoughby's name mentioned was not thrown away. Marianne, though without knowing it herself, reaped all its advantage, for neither Mrs. Jennings, nor Sir John, nor even Mrs. Palmer herself ever spoke of him before her. Eleanor wished that the same forbearance could have extended toward herself, but that was impossible, and she was obliged to listen day after day to the indignation of the marne. Sir John could not have thought it possible. A man of whom he had always had such reason to think well, such a good-natured fellow, he did not believe there was a bolder rider in England. It was an unaccountable business. He wished him at the devil with all his heart. He would not speak another word to him, meet him where he might for all the world. No, not if it were to be by the side of Barton Covert, and they were kept watching for two hours together. Such a scoundrel of a fellow, and such a deceitful dog! It was only the last time they had met that he had offered him one of Folly's puppies, and this was the end of it. Mrs. Palmer in her way was equally angry. She was determined to drop his acquaintance immediately, and she was very thankful that she had never been acquainted with him at all. She wished with all her heart Co-Magna was not so near Cleveland, but it did not signify, for it was a great deal too far off to visit. She hated him so much that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody she saw how good for nothing he was. The rest of Mrs. Palmer's sympathy was shown in procuring all the particulars in her power of the approaching marriage, and communicating them to Eleanor. She could soon tell at what coach-makers the new carriage was building, by what painter Mr. Willoughby's porter was drawn, and at what warehouse Miss Gray's clothes might be seen. The calm and polite unconcern of Lady Middleton on the occasion was a happy relief to Eleanor's spirits, oppressed as they often were by the clamorous kindness of the others. It was a great comfort to her to be sure of exciting no interest in one person at least among their circle of friends—a great comfort to know that there was one who would meet her without feeling any curiosity after particulars, or any anxiety for her sister's health. Every qualification is raised at times by the circumstances of the moment, to more than its real value, as she was sometimes worried down by a vicious condolence to rate good breeding as more indispensable to comfort than good nature. Lady Middleton expressed her sense of the affair about once a day, or twice, if the subject occurred very often, by saying, "'It is very shocking, indeed.' And by the means of this continual, though gentle, vent, was able not only to see the Miss Dashwoods from the first without the smallest emotion, but very soon to see them without recollecting a word of the matter. And having thus supported the dignity of her own sex, and spoken her decided censure of what was wrong in the other, she thought herself at liberty to attend to the interest of her own assemblies, and therefore determined, though rather against the opinion of Sir John, that as Mrs. Willoughby would at once be a woman of elegance and fortune, to leave her card with her as soon as she married. Colonel Brandon's delicate unobtrusive enquiries were never unwelcome to Miss Dashwood. He had abundantly earned the privilege of intimate discussion of her sister's disappointment, by the friendly zeal with which she had endeavored to soften it, and they always conversed with confidence. His chief reward for the painful exertion of disclosing past sorrows and present humiliations was given in the pitting eye with which Marianne sometimes observed him, and the gentleness of her voice whenever, though it did not often happen, she was obliged, or could oblige herself to speak to him. These assured him that his exertion had produced an increase of goodwill towards himself, and these gave Eleanor hopes of its being farther augmented hereafter. But Mrs. Jennings, who knew nothing of all this, who knew only that the Colonel continued as grave as ever, and that she could neither prevail on him to make the offer himself, nor commission her to make it for him, began at the end of two days, to think that, instead of Midsummer, they would not be married till Miclemus, and by the end of a week that it would not be a match at all. The good understanding between the Colonel and Miss Dashwood seemed rather to declare that the honors of the Mulberry Tree, the canal, and the U-arbor would all be made over to her, and Mrs. Jennings had, for some time, ceased to think at all of Mrs. Ferrors. Early in February within a fortnight from the receipt of Willoughby's letter, Eleanor had the painful office of informing her sister that he was married. She had taken care to have the intelligence conveyed to herself as soon as it was known that the ceremony was over, as she was desirous that Marianne should not receive the first notice of it from the public papers, which she saw her eagerly examining every morning. She received the news with resolute composure, made no observation on it, and at first shed no tears, but after a short time they would burst out, and for the rest of the day she was in a state hardly less pitiable than when she first learnt to expect the event. The Willoughby's left town as soon as they were married, and Eleanor now hoped, as there could be no danger of her seeing either of them, to prevail in her sister, who had never yet left the house since the first blow fell, to go out again by degrees as she had done before. At this time the two misteels, lately arrived at their cousin's house in Bartlett's buildings, Holburn, presented themselves again before their more grand relations in Conduit and Barkley streets, and were welcomed by them all with great cordiality. Eleanor only was sorry to see them. Their presence always gave her pain, and she hardly knew how to make a very gracious return to the overpowering delight of Lucy in finding her still in town. "'I should have been quite disappointed if I had not found you here still,' said she repeatedly, with a strong emphasis on the word. "'But I always thought I should. I was almost sure you would not leave London yet a while, though you told me you know it to Barton that you should not stay above a month. But I thought at the time that you would most likely change your mind when it came to the point. It would have been a great pity to have went away before your brother and sister came, and now to be sure you'll be in no hurry to be gone. I am amazingly glad you did not keep to your word." Laura perfectly understood her, and was forced to use all her self-command to make it appear that she did not. "'Well, my dear,' said Mrs. Jennings, "'and how did you travel?' "'Not in the stage, I assure you,' replied Miss Steel, with quick exultation. We came post all the way, and had a very smart bow to attend us. Dr. Davis was coming to town, and so we thought we'd join him in a post-share's, and he behaved very genteely, and paid ten or twelve shillings more than we did. "'No, oh,' cried Mrs. Jennings, "'very pretty indeed, and the doctor is a single man, I warrant you.'" "'There now,' said Miss Steel, effectively simpering, "'everybody laughs at me so about the doctor, and I cannot think why. My cousins say they are sure I have made a conquest, but for my part I declare I never think about them from one hour's end to the other. "'Lord, here comes your bow, Nancy,' my cousin said to other day, when she saw him crossing the street to the house. "'My bow, indeed,' said I, "'I cannot think who you mean, the doctor is no bow of mine.' "'I, I, that is very pretty talking, but it won't do, the doctor is the man, I see.' "'No, indeed,' replied her cousin, with affected earnestness, "'and I beg you will contradict it if you ever hear it talked of.'" Mrs. Jennings directly gave her the gratifying assurance that she certainly would not, and Miss Steel was made completely happy. "'I suppose you will go and stay with your brother and sister, Miss Dashwood, when they come to town,' said Lucy, returning after a cessation of hostile hints to the charge. "'No, I do not think we shall.' "'Oh, yes, I daresay you will,' Elinor would not humour her by father opposition. "'What a charming thing it is that Mrs. Dashwood can spare you both for so long a time together.' "'Long a time, indeed,' interposed Mrs. Jennings. "'Why, their visitor's spot just begun.'" Lucy was silenced. "'I am sorry we cannot see your sister, Miss Dashwood,' said Miss Steel. "'I am sorry she is not well.' For Marianne had left the room on their arrival. "'You are very good. My sister will be equally sorry to miss the pleasure of seeing you, but she has been very much plagued lately with nervous headaches, which make her unfit for company or conversation. "'Oh, dear, that is a great pity. But such old friends as Lucy and me, I think she might see us, and I am sure we would not speak a word.'" Elinor, with great civility, declined the proposal. Her sister was perhaps laid down upon the bed, or in her dressing-gown, and therefore not able to come to them. "'Oh, if that's all,' cried Miss Steel, "'we can just as well go and see her.'" Elinor began to find this impertinence too much for her temper, but she was saved the trouble of checking it by Lucy's sharp reprimand, which now, as on many occasions, though it did not give much sweetness to the manners of her sister, was of advantage in governing those of the other. CHAPTER XXXIII After some opposition, Marianne yielded to her sister's entreaties, and consented to go out with her and Mrs. Jennings one morning for half an hour. She expressly conditioned, however, for paying no visits, and would do no more than accompany them to Greys in Sackville Street, where Elinor was carrying on a negotiation for the exchange of a few old-fashioned jewels of her mother. When they stopped at the door, Mrs. Jennings recollected that there was a lady at the other end of the street on whom she ought to call, and as she had no business at Greys, it was resolved that while her young friends transacted theirs, she should pay her visit and return for them. On ascending the stairs, the Miss Dashwoods found so many people before them in the room that there was not a person at liberty to tender their orders, and they were obliged to wait. All that could be done was to sit down at that end of the counter which seemed to promise the quickest succession. One gentleman only was standing there, and it is probable that Elinor was not without hope of exciting his politeness to a quicker dispatch. But the correctness of his eye and the delicacy of his taste proved to be beyond his politeness. He was giving orders for a toothpick case for himself, and till its size, shape, and ornaments were determined, all of which, after examining and debating for a quarter of an hour over every toothpick case in the shop, were finally arranged by his own inventive fancy. He had no leisure to bestow any other attention on the two ladies, than what was comprised in three or four very broad stairs. A kind of notice which served to imprint on Elinor the remembrance of a person and face of strong, natural, sterling insignificance, though adorned in the first style of fashion. Marianne was spared from the troublesome feelings of contempt and resentment on this important examination of their features, and on the puppyism of his manner in deciding on all the different horrors of the different toothpick cases presented to his inspection, by remaining unconscious of it all, for she was as well able to collect her thoughts within herself and be as ignorant of what was passing around her in Mr. Gray's shop as in her own bedroom. At last the affair was decided. The ivory, the gold, and the pearls all received their appointment, and the gentleman having named the last day on which his existence could be continued without the possession of the toothpick case, drew on his gloves with leisurely care, and bestowing another glance on the Miss Dashwoods, but such a one, as seemed rather to demand than express admiration, walked off with a happy air of real conceit and effected indifference. Eleanor lost no time in bringing her business forward, was on the point of concluding it, when another gentleman presented himself at her side. She turned her eyes towards his face, and found him with some surprise, to be her brother. Their affection and pleasure in meeting was just enough to make a very credible appearance in Mr. Gray's shop. John Dashwood was really far from being sorry to see his sisters again, he'd rather gave them satisfaction, and his inquiries after their mother were respectful and attentive. They never found that he and Fanny had been in town two days. "'I wished very much to call upon you yesterday,' said he, "'but it was impossible, for we were obliged to take Harry to see the wild beasts at extra exchange, and we spent the rest of the day with Mrs. Ferris. Harry was vastly pleased. This morning I had fully intended to call on you, if I could possibly find a spare half-hour, but one has always so much to do on first coming to town. I am come here to bespeak Fanny a seal, but tomorrow I think I shall certainly be able to call in Barclay Street, and be introduced to your friend Mrs. Jennings. I understand she is a woman of very good fortune, and the Middletons, too, you must introduce me to them, as my mother-in-law's relations I shall be happy to show them every respect. They are excellent neighbours to you in the country, I understand." "'Excellent, indeed. Their attention to our comfort, their friendliness in every particular, is more than I can express.' "'Well, I am extremely glad to hear it, upon my word, extremely glad indeed. But so it ought to be. They are people of large fortune, they are related to you, and every civility in accommodation that can serve to make your situation pleasant might be reasonably expected. And so you are most comfortably settled in your little cottage and want for nothing. Edward brought us a most charming account of the place. The most complete thing of its kind he said that ever was, and you all seem to enjoy it beyond anything. It was a great satisfaction to us to hear it, I assure you." Eleanor did feel a little ashamed of her brother, and was not sorry to be spared the necessity of answering him, by the arrival of Mrs. Jennings' servant, who came to tell her that his mistress waited for them at the door. Mr. Dashwood attended them downstairs, was introduced to Mrs. Jennings at the door of her carriage, and repeating his hope of being able to call on them the next day, took leave. His visit was duly paid. He came with a pretence at an apology from their sister-in-law for not coming too. But she was so much engaged with her mother, that she really had no leisure for going anywhere. Mrs. Jennings, however, assured him directly that she should not stand upon ceremony, for they were all cousins, or something like it, and she should certainly wait on Mrs. John Dashwood very soon, and bring her sisters to see her. His matters to them, though calm, were perfectly kind. To Mrs. Jennings, most attentively civil, and on Colonel Brandon's coming in soon after himself, he eyed him with a curiosity which seemed to say that he only wanted to know him to be rich, to be equally civil to him. After staying with them half an hour, he asked Eleanor to walk with him to Condowood Street, and introduce him to Sir John and Lady Middleton. The weather was remarkably fine, and she readily consented. As soon as they were out of the house, his enquiries began. Who was Colonel Brandon? Is he a man of fortune? Yes, he has very good property in Dorsetshire. I am glad of it. He seems a most gentlemanlike man, and I think Eleanor I may congratulate you on the prospect of a very respectable establishment in life. Me, brother, what do you mean? He likes you. I observed him narrowly, and I am convinced of it. What is the amount of his fortune? I believe about two thousand a year. Two thousand a year? And then working himself up to a pitch of enthusiastic generosity, he added, Eleanor, I wish with all my heart it were twice as much for your sake. Indeed, I believe you," replied Eleanor, but I am very sure that Colonel Brandon has not the smallest wish of marrying me. You are mistaken, Eleanor. You are very much mistaken. A very little trouble on your side secures him. Perhaps just at present he may be undecided. The smallness of your fortune may make him hang back. His friends may all advise him against it. But some of those little attentions and encouragements which ladies can so easily give will fix him in spite of himself. And there can be no reason why you should not try for him. It is not to be supposed that any prior attachment on your side. In short, you know as to an attachment of that kind is quite out of the question. The objections are insurmountable. You have too much sense not to see all that. Colonel Brandon must be the man, and no civility shall be wanting on my part to make him pleased with you and your family. It is a match that must give universal satisfaction. In short, it is the kind of thing that, lowering his voice to an important whisper, will be exceedingly welcome to all parties." That is, I mean to say, your friends are all truly anxious to see you well settled, Fanny particularly, for she has your interest very much at heart, I assure you. And her mother, too, Mrs. Farrow, is a very good-natured woman, I am sure it will give her a great pleasure. She said as much the other day. Eleanor would not vouchsafe any answer. It will be something remarkable now," he continued, something drol if Fanny should have a brother and I a sister settling at the same time. And yet is not very unlikely. Is Mr. Edward Ferris, said Eleanor with resolution, going to be married? It is not actually settled, but there is such a thing in agitation. He has a most excellent mother. Mrs. Ferris, with the utmost liberality, will come forward and settle on him a thousand a year, if the match takes place. The lady is the honourable Miss Morton, only daughter of the late Lord Morton, with thirty thousand pounds, a very desirable connection on both sides, and I have not a doubt of its taking place in time. A thousand a year is a great deal for a mother to give away, to make over for ever, but Mrs. Ferris has a noble spirit. To give you another instance of her liberality, the other day, as soon as we came to town, aware that money could not be very plenty with us just now, she put banknotes into Fanny's hands to the amount of two hundred pounds—and extremely acceptable it is, for we must live at a great expense while we are here. He passed for her assent in compassion, and she forced herself to say, your expenses both in town and country must certainly be considerable, but your income is a large one. Not so large, I dare say, as many people suppose. I do not mean to complain, however. It is undoubtedly a comfortable one, and I hope in time will be better. The enclosure of Norland Common, now carrying on, is a most serious drain. And then I have made a little purchase within this half year—East Kingham Farm. You must remember the place, where old Gibson used to live. The land was so very desirable for me in every respect, so immediately adjoining my own property, that I felt at my duty to buy it. I could not have answered it to my conscience to let it fall into any other hands. A man must pay for his convenience, and it has cost me a vast deal of money. More than you think it really and intrinsically worth. Why, I hope not that. I might have sold it again the next day for more than I gave. But with regard to the purchase money, I might have been very unfortunate indeed, for the stocks were at that time so low, that if I had not happened to have the necessary sum in my bankers' hands, I must have sold out to a very great loss." Eleanor could only smile. Are the great and inevitable expenses, too, we have had, on first coming to Norland? Our respected father, as you well know, bequeathed all the stand-hill effects that remained at Norland, and very valuable they were, to your mother. Far be it from me to repine it as doing so. He had an undoubted right to dispose of his own properties he chose, but in consequence of it, we have been very obliged to make large purchases of linen and china, etc. To supply the place of what was taken away, you may guess, after all these expenses, how very far we must be from being rich, and how acceptable Mrs. Ferris' kindness is. "'Certainly,' said Eleanor, and assisted by her liberality, I hope you may yet live to be in easy circumstances." "'Another year or two may do much towards it,' he gravely replied, but however there is still a great deal to be done. There is not a stone-lade of Fanny's greenhouse, and nothing but the plan of the flower-garden marked out." "'Where is the greenhouse to be?' Upon the knoll behind the house, the old walnut-trees are all come down to make room for it. It will be a very fine object from many parts of the park, and the flower-garden will slope down just before it, and be exceedingly pretty. We have cleared away all the old thorns that grew in patches over the brow." Eleanor kept her concern at her censure to herself, and was very thankful that Marianne was not present to share the provocation. Everything now set enough to make his poverty clear, and to do away the necessity of buying a pair of earrings for each of his sisters in his next visit at Gray's, his thoughts took a cheerful return, and he began to congratulate Eleanor on having such a friend as Mrs. Jennings. She seems the most valuable woman indeed—her house, a style of living, all bespeak in exceeding good income—and it is an acquaintance that has not only been of great use to you hitherto, but in the end may prove materially advantageous. Her inviting you to town is certainly a vast thing in your favour, and indeed it speaks altogether so great a regard for you, that in all probability when she dies you will not be forgotten—she must have a great deal to leave. Nothing at all, I should rather suppose, for she has only her jointure, which will descend to her children. But it is not to be imagined that she lives up to her income—few people of common prudence will do that—and whatever she saves she will be able to dispose of. And do you not think it more likely that she should leave it to her daughters than to us? Her daughters are both exceedingly well married, and therefore I cannot perceive the necessity of her remembering them farther. Whereas in my opinion, by her taking so much notice of you, and treating you in this kind of way, she has given you a sort of claim on her future consideration, which a congenious woman would not disregard. Nothing can be kinder than her behaviour, and she could hardly do all this without being aware of the expectation it raises. But she raises none in those most concerned. Indeed, brother, your anxiety for our welfare and prosperity carries you too far." "'Why, to be sure?' said he, seeming to recollect himself. People have little—they have very little in their power. But my dear Eleanor, what is the matter with Marianne? She looks very unwell—has lost her colour and is grown quite thin. Is she ill?' She is not well. She has had a nervous complaint on her for several weeks. I am sorry for that. At her time of life, anything of an illness destroys the bloom for ever. Hers has been a very short one. She was as handsome a girl last September as I ever saw, and is likely to attract the man. There was something in her style of beauty to please them particularly. I remember Fanny used to say that she would marry sooner and better than you did. Not but what she is exceedingly fond of you, but so it happened to strike her. She will be mistaken, however, I question whether Marianne now will marry a man worth more than five or six hundred a year at the utmost, and I am very much deceived if you do not do better." "'Dorseture?' "'And a very little of dorseture. But my dear Eleanor, I shall be exceedingly glad to know more of it, and I think I can answer for your having Fanny and myself among the earliest and best pleased of your visitors.' Eleanor tried very seriously to convince him that there was no likelihood of her marrying Colonel Brandon, but it was an expectation of too much pleasure to himself be relinquished, and he was really resolved on seeking an intimacy with that gentleman, and promoting the marriage by every possible attention. He had just compunction enough for having done nothing for his sisters himself, to be exceedingly anxious that everybody else should do a great deal, and an offer from Colonel Brandon, or a legacy from Mrs. Jennings, was the easiest means of atoning for his own neglect. They were lucky enough to find Lady Middleton at home, and Sir John came in before their visit ended. Abundance of civilities passed on all sides. Sir John was ready to like anybody, and though Mr. Dashwood did not seem to know much about horses, he soon set him down as a very good-natured fellow, while Lady Middleton saw enough of fashion in his appearance to think his acquaintance worth having, and Mr. Dashwood went away delighted with both. "'I shall have a charming account to carry to Fanny,' said he as he walked back with his sister. Lady Middleton is really a most elegant woman, such a woman as I am sure Fanny will be glad to know. And Mrs. Jennings, too, an exceedingly well-behaved woman, though not so elegant as her daughter. Your sister need not have any scruple even of visiting her, which, to say the truth, has been a little of the case, and very naturally, for we only knew that Mrs. Jennings was the widow of a man who had got all his money in a lower way. And Fanny and Mrs. Ferros were both strongly prepossessed, that neither she nor her daughters were such kind of women as Fanny would like to associate with. But now I can carry her a most satisfactory account of both." CHAPTER 34 Mrs. John Dashwood had so much confidence in her husband's judgment, that she waited the very next day both on Mrs. Jennings and her daughter, and her confidence was rewarded by finding even the former, even the woman with whom her sisters were staying, by no means unworthy her notice, and as for Lady Middleton, she found her one of the most charming women in the world. Lady Middleton was equally pleased with Mrs. Dashwood. There was a kind of cold-hearted selfishness on both sides which mutually attracted them, and they sympathized with each other in an insipid propriety of demeanor and a general want of understanding. The same manners, however, which recommended Mrs. John Dashwood to the good opinion of Lady Middleton, did not suit the fancy of Mrs. Jennings, and to her she appeared nothing more than a little proud-looking woman of uncordial address, who met her husband's sisters without any affection, and almost without having anything to say to them. For of the quarter of an hour bestowed on Barkley Street, she sat at least seven minutes and a half in silence. Eleanor wanted very much to know, though she did not choose to ask, whether Edward was then in town. But nothing would have induced Fanny voluntarily to mention his name before her, till able to tell her that his marriage with Miss Morton was resolved on, or till her husband's expectations on Colonel Brandon were answered. Because she believed them still so very much attached to each other, that they could not be too sedulously divided in word and deed on every occasion. The intelligence, however, which she would not give, soon flowed from another quarter. See came very shortly to claim Eleanor's compassion on being unable to see Edward, though he had arrived in town with Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood. He dared not come to Bartlett's buildings for fear of detection, and though their mutual impatience to meet was not to be told, they could do nothing at present but write. Edward assured them himself of his being in town within a very short time, by calling twice in Barkley Street. Twice was his card found on the table when they returned from their morning's engagements. Or was pleased that he had called, and still more pleased that she had missed him. The Dashwoods were so prodigiously delighted with the Middletons, that though not much in the habit of giving anything, they determined to give them a dinner. And soon after their acquaintance began, invited them to Dine in Harley Street, where they had taken a very good house for three months. Their sisters and Mrs. Jennings were invited likewise, and John Dashwood was careful to secure Colonel Brandon, who, always glad to be where the Miss Dashwoods were, served his eager civilities with some surprise, but much more pleasure. They were to meet Mrs. Ferris, but Eleanor could not learn whether her sons were to be of the party. The expectation of seeing her, however, was enough to make her interested in the engagement. For though she could now meet Edward's mother without that strong anxiety which had once promised to attend such an introduction, though she could now see her with perfect indifference as to her opinion of herself, her desire of being in company with Mrs. Ferris, her curiosity to know what she was like, was as lively as ever. The interest with which she thus anticipated the party was soon afterwards increased, more powerfully than pleasantly, by her hearing that the Miss Steals were also to be at it. So well had they recommended themselves to Lady Middleton, so agreeable had their assiduities made them to her, that though Lucy was certainly not so elegant, and her sister not even genteel, she was as ready as Sir John to ask them to spend a week or two in Conduit Street, and it happened to be particularly convenient to the Miss Steals, as soon as the Dashwood's invitation was known, that their visit should begin a few days before the party took place. Their claims to the notice of Mrs. John Dashwood, as the nieces of the gentlemen who for many years had had the care of her brother, might not have done much, however, towards procuring them seats at her table. But as Lady Middleton's guests they must be welcome, and Lucy, who had long wanted to be personally known to the family, to have a nearer view of their characters and her own difficulties, and to have an opportunity of endeavouring to please them, had seldom been happier in her life than she was on receiving Mrs. John Dashwood's card. On Eleanor its effect was very different. She began immediately to determine that Edward, who lived with his mother, must be asked as his mother was, to a party given by his sister, and to see him for the first time, after all that passed, in the company of Lucy, she hardly knew how she could bear it. These apprehensions perhaps were not founded entirely on reason, and certainly not at all on truth. They were relieved, however, not by her own recollection, but by the goodwill of Lucy, who believed herself to be inflicting a severe disappointment when she told her that Edward certainly would not be in Harley Street on Tuesday, and even hoped to be carrying the pain still farther, by persuading her that he was kept away by the extreme affection for herself, which he could not conceal when they were together. The important Tuesday came that was to introduce the two young ladies to this formidable mother-in-law. "'Pitty me, my dear Miss Dashwood,' said Lucy, as they walked up the stairs together, for the Middletons arrived so directly after Mrs. Jennings, that they all followed the servant at the same time. "'There is nobody here but you that can feel for me. I declare I can hardly stand. Good gracious! In a moment I shall see the person that all my happiness depends on—that is, to be my mother.' Eleanor could have given her immediate relief by suggesting the possibility of its being Miss Morton's mother rather than her own, whom they were about to behold. But instead of doing that, she assured her, and with great sincerity, that she did pity her, to the utter amazement of Lucy, who, though really uncomfortable herself, hoped at least to be an object of irrepressible envy to Eleanor. Mrs. Farrer's was a little thin woman, upright even to formality in her figure, and serious even to sourness in her aspect. Her complexion was salo, and her features small, without beauty, and naturally without expression. But a lucky contraction of the brow had rescued her countenance from the disgrace of insipidity, by giving it the strong characters of pride and ill-nature. She was not a woman of many words, for unlike people in general she proportioned them to the number of her ideas, and of the few syllables that did escape her, not one fell to the share of Miss Dashwood, whom she eyed with the spirited determination of disliking her at all events. Eleanor could not now be made unhappy by this behaviour. A few months ago it would have hurt her exceedingly. But it was not in Mrs. Farrer's power to distress her by it now. And the difference of her manners to the Miss Steele's, a difference which seemed purposely made to humble her more, only amused her. She could not but smile to see the graciousness of both mother and daughter towards the very person, for Lucy was particularly distinguished. Some of all others, had they known as much as she did, they would have been most anxious to mortify, while herself, who had comparatively no power to wound them, sat pointedly slighted by both. But while she smiled at a graciousness so misapplied, she could not reflect on the mean spirited folly from which it sprung, nor observe the studied attentions with which the Miss Steele's courted its continuance without thoroughly despising them all for. Lucy was all exultation on being so honourably distinguished, and Miss Steele wanted only to be teased about Dr. Davis to be perfectly happy. The dinner was a grand one, the servants were numerous, and everything bespoke the mistress's inclination for show, and the master's ability to support it. In spite of the improvements and additions which were making to Norland estate, and in spite of its owner having once spent within some thousand pounds of being obliged to sell out at a loss, nothing gave any symptom of that indigence which he had tried to infer from it. No poverty of any kind, except of conversation, appeared. But there the deficiency was considerable. John Dashwood had not much to say for himself that was worth hearing, and his wife had still less. But there was no peculiar disgrace in this. For it was very much the case with the chief of their visitors, who almost all laboured under one or other of these disqualifications for being agreeable, want of sense, either natural or improved, want of elegance, want of spirits, or want of temper. When the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room after dinner, this poverty was particularly evident, for the gentlemen had supplied the discourse with some variety, the variety of politics in closing land and breaking horses. But then it was all over, and one subject only engaged the ladies till coffee came in, which was the comparative heights of Harry Dashwood and Lady Middleton's second son William, who were nearly of the same age. Had both the children been there, the affair might have been determined too easily by measuring them at once, but as only Harry was present, it was all conjectural assertion on both sides, and everybody had a right to be equally positive in their opinion, and to repeat it over and over again as often as they liked. The party stood thus. The two mothers, though each really convinced that her own son was the tallest, politely decided in favour of the other. The two grandmothers, with not less partiality but more sincerity, were equally earnest in support of their own descendant. Lucy, who was hardly less anxious to please one parent than the other, thought the boys were both remarkably tall for their age and could not conceive that there could be the smallest difference in the world between them, and Miss Steele, with yet greater address, gave it as fast as she could in favour of each. Eleanor, having once delivered her opinion on William's side, by which she offended Mrs. Farrer's and Fanny's still more, did not see the necessity of enforcing it by any farther assertion, and Marianne, when called on for hers, offended them all by declaring that she had no opinion to give, as she had never thought about it. Before her removing from Norland, Eleanor had painted a very pretty pair of screens for her sister-in-law, which being now just mounted and brought home, ornamented her present drawing-room, and these screens, catching the eye of John Dashwood on his following the other gentleman into the room, were officiously handed by him to Colonel Brandon for his admiration. "'These are done by my eldest sister,' said he. "'And you, as a man of taste, will, I dare say, be pleased with them. I do not know whether you have ever happened to see any of her performances before, but she is in general reckoned to draw extremely well.'" The Colonel, though disclaiming all pretensions to connoisseurship, warmly admired the screens, as he would have done anything painted by Mrs. Dashwood, and on the curiosity of the others being, of course, excited, they were handed round for general inspection. Mrs. Farrer is not aware of their being Eleanor's work, particularly requested to look at them, and after they had received gratifying testimony of Lady Middleton's approbation, Fanny presented them to her mother, considerably informing her, at the same time, that they were done by Mrs. Dashwood. "'Hmm,' said Mrs. Farrer's, "'very pretty,' and without regarding them at all returned them to her daughter. Perhaps Fanny thought for a moment that her mother had been quite rude enough, for colouring a little she immediately said, "'They are very pretty, ma'am, aren't they?' But then again the dread of having been too civil, to encouraging herself, probably came over her, for she presently added, "'And do not you think they are something in Miss Morton's style of painting, ma'am? She does paint most delightfully. How beautifully her last landscape is done!' "'Beautifully indeed. But she does everything well.'" Marianne could not bear this. She was already greatly displeased with Mrs. Farrer's, and such ill-timed praise of another at Eleanor's expense, though she had not any notion of what was principally meant by it, provoked her immediately to say with warmth, "'This is admiration of a very particular kind. What is Miss Morton to us? Who knows, or who cares for her? It is Eleanor of whom we think and speak.'" And so saying she took the screens out of her sister-in-law's hands, to admire them herself as they ought to be admired. Mrs. Farrer's looked exceedingly angry, and drawing herself up more stiffly than ever, pronounced in retort this bitter Philipic. "'Miss Morton is Lord Morton's daughter.'" Marianne looked very angry, too, and her husband was all in a fright at his sister's audacity. Eleanor was much more hurt by Marianne's warmth than she had been by what produced it. But Colonel Brandon's eyes, as they were fixed on Marianne, declared that he noticed only what was amiable in it—the affectionate heart which could not bear to see a sister slighted in the smallest point. Marianne's feelings did not stop here. The cold insolence of Mrs. Farrer's general behaviour to her sister seemed to her to foretell such difficulties and distresses to Eleanor as her own wounded heart taught her to think of with horror and urged by a strong impulse of affectionate sensibility. She moved after a moment to her sister's chair, and putting one arm round her neck and one cheek close to hers, sad in a low but eager voice. "'Dear, dear, Eleanor, don't mind them. Don't let them make you unhappy.'" She could say no more. Her spirits were quite overcome. And hiding her face on Eleanor's shoulder, she burst into tears. Everybody's attention was called, and almost everybody was concerned. Colonel Brandon rose up and went to them without knowing what he did. Mrs. Jennings, with a very intelligent— Ah! Poor dear! Immediately gave her salts, and Sir John felt so desperately enraged against the author of this nervous distress that he instantly changed his seat to one close by Lucy Steele, and gave her, in a whisper, a brief account of the whole shocking affair. In a few minutes, however, Marianne was recovered enough to put an end to the bustle, and sit down among the rest, though her spirits retained the impression of what had passed the whole evening. "'Poor Marianne,' said her brother to Colonel Brandon, in a low voice, as soon as he could secure his attention. She has not such good health as her sister. She is very nervous. She has not Eleanor's constitution. And one must allow that there is something very trying to a young woman who has been a beauty in the loss of her personal attractions. You would not think it, perhaps, when Marianne was remarkably handsome a few months ago—quite as handsome as Eleanor! Now you see! It is all gone." CHAPTER 35 Eleanor's curiosity to see Mrs. Ferris was satisfied. She had found in her everything that could tend to make a farther connection between the family's undesirable. She had seen enough of her pride, her meanness, and her determined prejudice against herself to comprehend all the difficulties that must have perplexed the engagement and retarded the marriage of Edward and herself, had he been otherwise free. And she had seen almost enough to be thankful for her own sake that one greater obstacle preserved her from suffering under any other of Mrs. Ferris' creation, preserved her from all dependence upon her caprice, or any solicitude for her good opinion. For at least, if she did not bring herself quite to rejoice in Edward's being fettered to Lucy, she determined that had Lucy been more amiable, she ought to have rejoiced. She wondered that Lucy's spirits could be so very much elevated by the civility of Mrs. Ferris, that her interest in her vanity should so very much blind her as to make the attention which seemed only paid her, because she was not Eleanor, appeared a compliment to herself, or to allow her to derive encouragement from a preference only given her, because her real situation was unknown. But that it was so had not only been declared by Lucy's eyes at the time, but it was declared over again the next morning more openly, for at her particular desire Lady Middleton set her down in Barkley Street on the chance of seeing Eleanor alone, to tell her how happy she was. The chance proved a lucky one, for a message from Mrs. Palmer soon after she arrived carried Mrs. Jennings away. My dear friend! cried Lucy as soon as they were by themselves. I come to talk to you of my happiness. Could anything be so flattering as Mrs. Ferris's way of treating me yesterday, so exceeding affable she was? You know how I dreaded the thoughts of seeing her, but the very moment I was introduced there was such an affability in her behaviour as really should seem to say she had quite took a fancy to me. Now was it not so? You saw it all, and was not you quite struck with it? She was certainly very civil to you. Civil? Did you see nothing but only civility? I saw a vast deal more. Such kindness has fell to the share of nobody but me. No pride, no auteur, and your sister does the same, all sweetness and affability." Eleanor wished to talk of something else, but Lucy still pressed her to own that she had reason for her happiness, and Eleanor was obliged to go on. Undoubtedly, if they had known your engagement, said she, nothing had been more flattering than their treatment of you, but as that was not the case. I guessed you would say so, replied Lucy quickly, but there was no reason in the world why Mrs. Ferris should seem to like me if she did not, and her liking me is everything. You shan't talk me out of my satisfaction. I am sure it will all end well, and there will be no difficulties at all to what I used to think. Mrs. Ferris is a charming woman, and so is your sister. They are both delightful women, indeed. I wonder I should never hear you say how agreeable Mrs. Dashwood was. To this Eleanor had no answer to make, and did not attempt any. Are you ill, Mrs. Dashwood? You seem low. You don't speak. Sure, you aren't well. I never was in better health. I am glad of it with all my heart, but really you did not look it. I should be sorry to have you ill, you that have been the greatest comfort to me in the world. Even knows what I should have done without your friendship. Eleanor tried to make a civil answer, though doubting her own success. But it seemed to satisfy Lucy, for she directly replied, Indeed, I am perfectly convinced of your regard for me, and next to Edward's love it is the greatest comfort I have. Poor Edward! But now there is one good thing we shall be able to meet, and meet pretty often, for Lady Middleton is delighted with Mrs. Dashwood, so we shall be a good deal in Harley Street, I daresay, and Edward spends half his time with his sister. Besides, Lady Middleton and Mrs. Ferris will visit now, and Mrs. Ferris and your sister were both so good to say more than once, they should be always glad to see me. They are such charming women. I am sure if ever you tell your sister what I think of her, you cannot speak too high. But Eleanor would not give her any encouragement to hope that she should tell her sister. Lucy continued. I am sure I should have seen it in a moment, if Mrs. Ferris had took a dislike to me, if she had only made me a formal curtsy, for instance, without saying a word, and never after had took any notice of me, and never looked at me in a pleasant way. You know what I mean. If I had been treated in that forbidding sort of way, I should have given it all up and despair. I could not have stood it. For where she does dislike, I know it is most violent." Eleanor was prevented from making any reply to this civil triumph, by the doors being thrown open, the servants announcing Mr. Ferris, and Edwards immediately walking in. It was a very awkward moment, and the countenance of each showed that it was so. They all looked exceedingly foolish, and Edwards seemed to have as great an inclination to walk out of the room again as to advance farther into it. The very circumstance in its unpleasantest form, which they would each have been most anxious to avoid, had fallen on them. They were not only all three together, but were together without the relief of any other person. The ladies recovered themselves first. It was not Lucy's business to put herself forward, and the appearance of secrecy must still be kept up. She could therefore only look her tenderness, and after slightly addressing him said no more. But Eleanor had more to do, and so anxious was she, for his sake and her own, to do it well, that she forced herself, after a moment's recollection, to welcome him with a look in manner that were almost easy and almost open, and another struggle, another effort, still improved them. She would not allow the presence of Lucy, nor the consciousness of some injustice towards herself, to deter her from saying that she was happy to see him, and that she had very much regretted being from home when he called before in Barkley Street. She would not be frightened from paying him those attentions which, as a friend and almost a relation, were his due, by the observant eyes of Lucy, though she soon perceived them to be narrowly watching her. Her manners gave some reassurance to Edwards, and he had courage enough to sit down, but his embarrassment still exceeded that of the ladies in a proportion, which the case rendered reasonable, though his sex might make it rare, for his heart had not the indifference of Lucy's, nor could his conscience have quite the ease of Eleanor's. Lucy, with a demure and settled air, seemed determined to make no contribution to the comfort of the others, and would not say a word, and almost everything that was said proceeded from Eleanor, who was obliged to volunteer all the information about her mother's health, there coming to town, etc., which Edward ought to have inquired about, but never did. Her exertions did not stop here, for she soon afterwards felt herself so heroically disposed as to determine, under pretence of fetching Marianne, to leave the others by themselves, and she really did it, and that in the handsomest manner, for she loitered away several minutes on the landing-place with the most high-minded fortitude before she went to her sister. When that was once done, however, it was time for the raptures of Edward to cease, for Marianne's joy hurried her into the drawing-room immediately. Her pleasure in seeing him was like every other of her feelings, strong in itself, and strongly spoken. She met him with a hand that would be taken, and a voice that expressed the affection of a sister. "'Dear Edward!' she cried. "'This is a moment of great happiness. This would almost make amends for everything!' Edward tried to return her kindness as it deserved, but before such witnesses he dared not say half of what he really felt. Again they all sat down, and for a moment or two all were silent, while Marianne was looking with the most speaking tenderness, sometimes at Edward and sometimes at Eleanor, regretting only that their delight in each other should be checked by Lucy's unwelcome presence. Edward was the first to speak, and it was to notice Marianne's altered looks, and express his fear of her not finding London agree with her. "'Oh, don't think of me!' she replied, with spirited earnestness, though her eyes were filled with tears as she spoke. "'Don't think of my health. Eleanor is well, you see. That must be enough for us both.' This remark was not calculated to make Edward or Eleanor more easy, nor to conciliate the goodwill of Lucy, who looked up at Marianne with no very benignant expression. "'Do you like London?' said Edward, willing to say anything that might introduce another subject. "'Not at all. I expected much pleasure in it, but I have found none. The sight of you, Edward, is the only comfort it has afforded, and thank heaven, you are what you always were.' She paused. No one spoke. "'I think, Eleanor,' she presently added, "'we must employ Edward to take care of us in our return to Barton. In a week or two, I suppose, we shall be going, and I trust Edward will be not very unwilling to accept the charge.' Poor Edward muttered something, but what it was nobody knew, not even himself. But Marianne, who saw his agitation, and could trace it easily to whatever cause best pleased herself, was perfectly satisfied, and soon talked of something else. We spent such a day, Edward, in Harley Street yesterday, so dull, so wretchedly dull, but I have much to say to you on that head, which cannot be said now. And with this admirable discretion did she defer the assurance of her finding their mutual relatives more disagreeable than ever, and of her being particularly disgusted with his mother, till they were more in private. "'But why were you not there, Edward? Why did you not come?' I was engaged elsewhere. Engaged? But what was that, when such friends were to be met?' "'Perhaps, Miss Marianne,' cried Lucy, eager to take some revenge on her. You think young men never stand upon engagements if they have no mind to keep them, little as well as great.' Eleanor was very angry, but Marianne seemed entirely insensible of the sting, for she calmly replied, "'Not so indeed. For seriously speaking, I am very sure that conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street, and I really believe he has the most delicate conscience in the world, the most scrupulous in performing every engagement, however minute, and however it may make against his interest or pleasure. He is the most fearful of giving pain, of wounding expectation, and the most incapable of being selfish of anybody I ever saw. Edward, it is so, and I will say it. What! You never to hear yourself praised? Then you must be no friend of mine, for those who will accept of my love and esteem must submit my open commendation." The nature of her commendation in the present case, however, happened to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two-thirds of her auditors, and was so very un-exilarating to Edward that he very soon got up to go away. "'Going so soon,' said Marianne, "'my dear Edward, this must not be.' And drawing him a little aside, she whispered her persuasion that Lucy could not stay much longer. But even this encouragement failed, for he would go, and Lucy, who would have outstayed him, had his visit last in two hours, soon afterwards went away. "'What can bring her here so often?' said Marianne, her leaving them. Could not she see that we wanted her gone? How teasing to Edward!' "'Why so? We were all his friends, and Lucy has been the longest known to him of any. It is but natural that he should like to see her as well as ourselves.' Marianne looked at her steadily and said, "'You know, Eleanor, that this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear. If you only hope to have your assertion contradicted, as I must suppose to be the case, you ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it. I cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances that are not really wanted.'" She then left the room, and Eleanor dared not follow her to say more, for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy, she could give no information that would convince Marianne. And painful as the consequences of her still continuing in an error might be, she was obliged to submit to it. All that she could hope was that Edward would not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing Marianne's mistake in warmth, nor to the repetition of any other part of the pain that had attended their recent meeting, and this she had every reason to expect. CHAPTER XXXVI Within a few days after this meeting, the newspapers announced to the world that the lady of Thomas Palmer, Esquire, was safely delivered of a son and heir. A very interesting and satisfactory paragraph, at least to all those intimate connections who knew it before. This event, highly important to Mrs. Jennings' happiness, produced a temporary alteration in the disposal of her time, and influenced in a like degree the engagements of her young friends, for as she wished to be as much as possible with Charlotte, she went thither every morning as soon as she was dressed, and did not return till late in the evening, and the Miss Dashwoods at the particular request of the Middletons spent the whole of every day in Conduit Street. For their own comfort they would much rather have remained at least all the morning in Mrs. Jennings' house, but it was not a thing to be urged against the wishes of everybody. Their hours were therefore made over to Lady Middleton and the two Miss Steals, by whom their company, in fact, was as little valued as it was professedly sought. They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former, and by the latter they were considered with a jealous eye as intruding on their ground, and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolize. Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to Eleanor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all. Because they neither flattered herself nor her children, she could not believe them good-natured, and because they were fond of reading, she fancied them satirical, perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical, but that did not signify. It was censure in common use, and easily given. Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy. It checked the idleness of one, and the business of the other. Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them, and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times, she feared they would despise her for offering. Miss Steal was the least discomposed of the three by their presence, and it was in their power to reconcile her to it entirely. Would either of them only have given her a full and minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr. Willoughby, she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the best place by the fire after dinner, which their arrival occasioned. But this conciliation was not granted. For though she often threw out expressions of pity for her sister to Eleanor, and more than once dropped a reflection on the inconstancy of bows before Marianne, no effect was produced, but a look of indifference from the former, or of disgust in the latter. An effort even yet lighter might have made her their friend. Would they only have laughed at her about the doctor? But so little were they, any more than the others, inclined to oblige her, that if Sir John dined from home, she might spend a whole day without hearing any other railery on the subject, than what she was kind enough to bestow on herself. All these jealousies and discontents, however, were so totally unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings, that she thought it a delightful thing for the girls to be together, and generally congratulated her young friends every night, on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long. She joined them sometimes at Sir John's, sometimes at her own house. But wherever it was, she always came in excellent spirits, full of delight and importance, attributing Charlotte's well-doing to her own care, and ready to give so exact, so minute a detail of her situation, as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire. One thing did disturb her, and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr. Palmer maintained the common but unfatherly opinion among his sex, of all infants being alike, and though she could plainly perceive, at different times, the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it, no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age, nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world. I come now to the relation of a misfortune, which about this time befell Mrs. John Dashwood. It so happened that while her two sisters with Mrs. Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street, another of her acquaintance had dropped in, a circumstance in itself not apparently likely to produce an evil to her, but while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one's happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance. In the present instance, this last arrived lady allowed her fancy to so far outrun truth and probability that on merely hearing the name of the Miss Dashwoods and understanding them to be Mr. Dashwood's sisters, she immediately concluded them to be staying in Harley Street, and this misconstruction, produced within a day or two afterwards, cards of invitation for them as well as for their brother and sister, to a small musical party at her house. The consequence of which was, that Mrs. John Dashwood was obliged to submit not only to the exceedingly great inconvenience of sending her carriage for the Miss Dashwoods, but what was still worse, must be subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing to treat them with attention, and who could tell that they might not expect to go out with her a second time? The power of disappointing them it was true must always be hers, but that was not enough, for when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of anything better from them. Marianne had now been brought by degrees so much into the habit of going out every day that it was become a matter of indifference to her whether she went or not, and she prepared quietly and mechanically for every evening's engagement, though without expecting the smallest amusement from any, and very often without knowing till the last moment where it was to take her. To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent, as not to bestow half the consideration on it during the whole of her toilet, which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of their being together, when it was finished. Nothing escaped her minute observation and general curiosity. She saw everything, and asked everything. Was never easy till she knew the price of every part of Marianne's dress, could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether with better judgment than Marianne herself, and was not without hopes of finding out before they parted how much her washing cost per week, and how much she had every year to spend upon herself. The impertinence of these kind of scrutiny's moreover was generally concluded with a compliment, which though meant as its due, sir, was considered by Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all, for after undergoing an examination into the value and make of her gown, the colour of her shoes and the arrangement of her hair, she was almost sure of being told that upon her words she looked vastly smart, and she dared to say she would make a great many conquests. With such encouragement as this, she was dismissed on the present occasion to her brother's carriage, which they were ready to enter five minutes after it stopped at the door, a punctuality not very agreeable to their sister-in-law, who had preceded them to the house of her acquaintance, and was there hoping for some delay on their part that might inconvenience either herself or her coachman. The events of this evening were not very remarkable. The party, like other musical parties, comprehended a great many people who had real taste for the performance, and a great many more who had none at all, and the performers themselves were, as usual, in their own estimation, and that of their immediate friends, the first private performers in England. As Eleanor was neither musical nor affecting to be so, she made no scruple of turning her eyes from the grand piano forte whenever it suited her, and unrestrained even by the presence of a harp and violin cello, would fix them at pleasure on any other object in the room. In one of these excursive glances she perceived among a group of young men the very he who had given them a lecture on toothpick cases at Grey's. She perceived him soon afterwards looking at herself, and speaking familiarly to her brother, and had just determined to find out his name from the latter, when they both came towards her, and Mr. Dash would introduce him to her as Mr. Robert Ferrars. He dressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. Happy had it been for her if her regard for Edward had depended less on his own merit than on the merit of his nearest relations, for then his brother's bow must have been the finishing stroke to what the ill humour of his mother and sister would have begun. But while she wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that the emptiness of conceit in the one put her out of all charity with the modesty and worth of the other. Why they were different, Robert exclaimed to her himself in the course of a quarter of an hour's conversation, for talking of his brother and lamenting the extreme gochere which he really believed kept him from mixing in proper society, he candidly and generously attributed it much less to any natural deficiency than to the misfortune of a private education. While he himself, though probably without any particular, any material superiority by nature, merely from the advantage of a public school, was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man. "'Upon my soul,' he added, "'I believe it is nothing more, and so I often tell my mother when she is grieving about it. My dear madam, I always say to her, you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own better judgment to place Edward under private tuition, at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent up to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been prevented. This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error.'" Eleanor would not oppose his opinion, because whatever might be her general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not think of Edward's abode in Mr. Pratt's family with any satisfaction. "'You reside in Devonshire, I think,' was his next observation. "'In a cottage near Dallish.'" Eleanor set him right as to its situation, and it seemed rather surprising to him that anybody could live in Devonshire without living near Dallish. He bestowed his hearty approbation, however, on their species of house. "'For my own part,' said he, "'I am excessively fond of a cottage. There is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest if I had money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me, and be happy. I advise everybody who was going to build to build a cottage. My friend, Lord Cortland, came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and laid before me three different plans of bonomies. I was to decide on the best of them. My dear Cortland,' said I, immediately throwing them into the fire, do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a cottage. And that, I fancy, will be the end of it. Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a cottage, but this is all a mistake. I was last month at my friend Elliot's near Dartford. Lady Elliot wished to give a dance. "'But how can it be done?' said she. My dear Ferris, do tell me how it is to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten couples, and where can the supper be?' I immediately thought that there could be no difficulty in it, so I said, "'My dear Lady Elliot, do not be uneasy. The dining parlor will admit eighteen couples with ease. Card tables may be placed in the drawing-room. The library may be open for tea and other refreshments, and let the supper be set out in the saloon.' Lady Elliot was delighted with the thought. We measured the dining-room, and found it would exactly hold eighteen couple, and the affair was arranged precisely after my plan. So that, in fact, you see, if people do but know how to set about it, every comfort may be as well enjoyed in a cottage as in the most spacious dwelling." Eleanor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the complement of rational opposition. As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister, his mind was equally at liberty to fix on anything else, and a thought struck him during the evening which he communicated to his wife for her approbation when they got home. The consideration of Mrs. Denison's mistake, in supposing his sister's, their guests, had suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such, while Mrs. Jennings' engagements kept her from home. The expense would be nothing, the inconvenience not more, and it was altogether an attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his father. Annie was startled at the proposal. "'I do not see how it can be done,' said she, without affronting Lady Middleton, for they spend every day with her, otherwise I should be exceedingly glad to do it. You know I am always ready to pay in them any attention in my power, as my taking them out this evening shows. But they are Lady Middleton's visitors. How can I ask them away from her?' Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her objection. They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the same number of days to such near relations. Fanny paused a moment, and then with fresh vigor said, "'My love, I would ask them with all my heart, if it was in my power. But I had just settled within myself to ask them as steels to spend a few days with us. They are very well behaved, good kind of girls, and I think the attention is due to them, as their uncle did so very well by Edward. We can ask your sisters some other year, you know, but the Miss Steels may not be in town any more. I am sure you will like them. Indeed, you do like them, you know, very much already, and so does my mother. And they are such favourites with Harry." Mr. Dashwood was convinced. He saw the necessity of inviting the Miss Steels immediately, and his conscience was pacified by the resolution of inviting his sisters another year. At the same time, however, slyly suspecting that another year would make the invitation needless by bringing Eleanor to town as Colonel Brandon's wife and Marianne as their visitor. Fanny, rejoicing in her escape and proud of the ready wit that had procured it, wrote the next morning to Lucy to request her company and her sisters for some days in Harley Street, as soon as Lady Middleton could spare them. This was enough to make Lucy really and reasonably happy. Mrs. Dashwood seemed actually working for her herself, cherishing all her hopes and promoting all her views. Such an opportunity of being with Edward and his family was, above all things, the most material to her interest, and such an invitation the most gratifying to her feelings. It was an advantage that could not be too gratefully acknowledged, nor too speedily made use of, and the visit to Lady Middleton, which had not before had any precise limits, was instantly discovered to have been always meant to end in two days' time. When the note was shown to Eleanor, as it was within ten minutes after its arrival, it gave her for the first time some share in the expectations of Lucy. For such a mark of uncommon kindness, vouchsafed on so short an acquaintance, seemed to declare that the good will towards her arose from something more than merely malice against herself, and might be brought, by time and address, to do everything that Lucy wished. Her flattery had already subdued the pride of Lady Middleton, and made an entry into the close heart of Mrs. John Dashwood, and these were effects that laid open the probability of greater. The Miss Steals were moved to Harley Street, and all that reached Eleanor of their influence there strengthened her expectation of the event. Sir John, who called on them more than once, brought home such accounts of the favour they were in, as must be universally striking. Mrs. Dashwood had never been so much pleased with any young women in her life as she was with them, and given each of them a needle-book made by some immigrant, called Lucy by her Christian name, and did not know whether she should ever be able to part with them. CHAPTER 37 Mrs. Palmer was so well at the end of a fortnight, that her mother felt it no longer necessary to give up the whole of her time to her, and contenting herself with visiting her once or twice a day, returned from that period to her own home, and her own habits, in which she found the Miss Dashwoods very ready to resume their former share. About the third or fourth morning after their being thus resettled in Barkley Street, Mrs. Jennings, on returning from her ordinary visit to Mrs. Palmer, entered the drawing-room where Eleanor was sitting by herself, with an air of such hurrying importance as prepared her to hear something wonderful, and giving her time only to form that idea, began directly to justify it by saying, Lord! my dear Miss Dashwood, have you heard the news? No, Mum, what is it? Something so strange! But you shall hear it all. When I got to Mr. Palmer's, I found Charlotte quite in a fuss about the child. She was sure it was very ill, it cried, and threatened, and was all over pimples. So I looked at it directly, and, Lord, my dear, says I, it is nothing in the world with the red gum. And Nurse said just the same. But Charlotte she would not be satisfied, so Mr. Donovan was sent for, and luckily he happened to just come in from Harley Street, so he stepped over directly, and as soon as ever he saw the child, he said just as we did, that it was nothing in the world with the red gum. And then Charlotte was easy. And so, just as he was going away again, it came into my head—I am sure I do not know how I happened to think of it—but it came into my head to ask him if there was any news. So upon that, he smirked, and simpered, and looked grave, and seemed to know something or other, and at last he said in a whisper, for fear any unpleasant report should reach the young ladies under your care, as to their sisters in disposition. I think it advisable to say that I believe there is no great reason for alarm. I hope Mrs. Dashwood will do very well. What! Is Fanny ill? That is exactly what I said, my dear. Lord, says I, is Mrs. Dashwood ill? So then it all came out, and the long and the short of the matter, by all I can learn, seems to be this—Mr. Edward Ferris, the very young man I used to joke with you about—but, however, as it turns out, I am monstrous glad there was never anything in it—Mr. Edward Ferris, it seems, has been engaged above this twelve-month to my cousin Lucy. There's for you, my dear! And not a creature knowing a syllable of the matter except Nancy. Could you have believed such a thing possible? There is no great wonder in there liking one another, but that matter should be brought so forward between them, and nobody suspect it. That is strange. I never happened to see them together, and I am sure I should have found it out directly. Well, and so this was kept a great secret for fear of Mrs. Ferris, and neither she nor your brother or sister suspected a word of the matter. Till this morning, poor Nancy, who you know is a very well-meaning creature, but no conjurer, popped it all out. Lord! thinks she to herself. They are all so fond of Lucy to be sure they will make no difficulty about it. And so away she went to your sister, who was sitting all alone at her carpet work, little suspecting what was to come, for she had just been saying to your brother only five minutes before that she thought to make a match between Edward and some Lord's daughter or other. I forget who. So you may think what a blow it was to all her vanity and pride. She fell into violent hysterics immediately, with such screams as reached your brother's ears as he was sitting in his own dressing-room downstairs, thinking about writing a letter to his steward in the country. So up he flew directly, and a terrible scene took place, for Lucy was come to them by that time, little dreaming what was going on. Poor soul! I pity her. And I must say, I think she was used very hardly, for your sister scalded like any fury, and soon drove her into a fainting fit. Nancy she fell upon her knees, and cried bitterly, and your brother he walked about the room, and said he did not know what to do. Mrs. Dashwood declared they should not stay a minute longer in the house, and your brother was forced to go down upon his knees, too, to persuade her to let them stay that they had packed up their clothes. Then she fell into hysterics again, and he was so frightened that he would send for Mr. Donovan, and Mr. Donovan found the house all in this uproar. The carriage was at the door ready to take my poor cousins away, and they were just stepping in as he came off. Paul, Lucy, in such a condition he says she could hardly walk. And Nancy, she was almost as bad. I declare I have no patience with your sister, and I hope with all my heart will be a match in spite of her. Lord, what a taking poor Mr. Redwood will be when he hears of it. To have his love used so scornfully, for they say he is monstrous fond of her as well he may. I should not wonder if he was to be in the greatest passion, and Mr. Donovan thinks just the same. He and I had a great deal of talk about it. And the best of all is that he has gone back again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs. Ferris is told of it, for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins left the house, for your sister was sure she would be in hysterics, too, and so she may, for what I care. I have no pity for either of them. I have no notion of people's making such a to-do about money and greatness. There is no reason on earth why Mr. Redwood and Lucy should not marry, for I am sure Mrs. Ferris may afford to do very well by her son, and though Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than anybody how to make the most of everything. I daresay, if Mrs. Ferris would only allow him five hundred a year, she would make as good an appearance with it as anybody else would with eight. Lord, how snug they might live, and in such another cottage is yours—or a little bigger—with two maids and two men! And I believe I could help them to a housemaid, for my betty has a sister out of place that would fit them exactly. Here Mrs. Jennings ceased, and as Eleanor had had time enough to collect her thoughts, she was able to give such an answer and make such observations as the subject might naturally be supposed to produce. Happy to find that she was not suspected of any extraordinary interest in it, that Mrs. Jennings, as she had of late often hoped might be the case, had ceased to imagine her at all attached to Edward, and happy above all the rest in the absence of Marianne, she felt very well able to speak of the affair without embarrassment, and to give her judgment, as she believed, with impartiality on the conduct of every one concerned in it. She could hardly determine what her own expectation of its event really was, though she earnestly tried to drive away the notion of its being possible to end otherwise at last, than in the marriage of Edward and Lucy. What Mrs. Ferris would say and do, though there could not be a doubt of its nature, she was anxious to hear, and still more anxious to know how Edward would conduct himself. For him she felt much compassion, for Lucy very little, and it cost her some pains to procure that little, for the rest of the party none at all. As Mrs. Jennings could talk on no other subject, Eleanor soon saw the necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion. No time was to be lost in undeceiving her, and making her acquainted with the real truth, and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others, without betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister, or any resentment against Edward. Eleanor's office was a painful one. She was going to remove what she really believed to be her sister's chief consolation, to give such particulars of Edward as she feared would ruin him forever in her good opinion, and to make Marianne, by a resemblance in their situations, which to her fancy would seem strong, feel all her own disappointment over again. But unwelcome as such a task must be, it was necessary to be done, and Eleanor therefore hastened to perform it. She was very far from wishing to dwell on her own feelings, or to represent herself as suffering much, any otherwise than as the self-command she had practised since her first knowledge of Edward's engagement, might suggest a hint of what was practicable to Marianne. Her narration was clear and simple, and though it could not be given without emotion, it was not accompanied by violent agitation, nor impetuous grief. That belonged rather to the hearer, for Marianne listened with horror and cried excessively. Eleanor was to be the comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs, and all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but of imprudence, was readily offered. But Marianne for some time would give credit to neither. Edward seemed a second Willoughby, and acknowledging as Eleanor did that she had loved him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself? As for Lucy Steele, she considered her so totally unamable, so absolutely incapable of attaching a sensible man, that she could not be persuaded at first to believe, and afterwards to pardon, any former affection of Edward for her. She would not even admit it to have been natural, and Eleanor left her to be convinced that it was so, by that which only could convince her a better knowledge of mankind. Her first communication had reached no farther than to state the fact of the engagement, and the length of time it had existed. Marianne's feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of detail, and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her distress, lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment. The first question on her side which led to further particulars was, How long has this been known to you, Eleanor? Has he written to you? I have known it these four months. When Lucy first came to Barton Park last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement. At these words Marianne's eyes expressed the astonishment which her lips could not utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed, Four months! Have you known of this for four months? Eleanor confirmed it. What! While attending me in all my misery, has this been on your heart? And I have reproached you for being happy. It was not fit that you should know then how much I was the reverse. Four months! cried Marianne again. So calm! So cheerful! How have you been supported? By feeling that I was doing my duty, my promise to Lucy obliged me to be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of the truth, and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in them a solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to satisfy. Marianne seemed much struck. I very often wished to undercede yourself and my mother, added Eleanor, and once or twice I have attempted it, but without betraying my trust I never could have convinced you. Four months! And yet you loved him. Yes. But I did not love only him, and while the comfort of others was dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt. Now I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I would not have you suffer on my account, for I assure you I no longer suffer materially myself. I have many things to support me. I am not conscious of having provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own. I have borne it as much as possible without spreading it farther. I acquit Edward of essential misconduct. I wish him very happy, and I am so sure of his always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour some regret, in the end he must become so. Lucy does not want sense, and that is the foundation on which everything good may be built. And after all, Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and constant attachment, and all that can be said of one's happiness depending entirely on one particular person, it is not meant, it is not fit, it is not possible that it should be so. Edward will marry Lucy. He will marry a woman superior in person and understanding to half a sex, and time and habit will teach him to forget that he ever thought another superior to her. If such is your way of thinking, said Marianne, if the loss of what is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your resolution, your self-command are perhaps a little less to be wondered at. They are brought more within my comprehension. I understand you. You do not suppose that I have ever felt much. For four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature. Knowing that it would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least, it was told me, it was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior engagement ruined all my prospects, and told me as I thought with triumph. This person's suspicions therefore I have had to oppose, by endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply interested, and it is not only been once, I have had her hopes and exultation to listen to again and again. I have known myself to be divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that could make me less desire the connection. Nothing has proved him unworthy, nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I have had to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of his mother, and have suffered the punishment of an attachment without enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at a time when, as you know too well, has not been my only unhappiness. If you can think me capable of ever feeling—surely you may suppose that I have suffered now. The composure of mind with which I have brought myself to present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful exertion. They did not spring up of themselves. They did not occur to relieve my spirits at first. No, Marianne. Then, if I had not been bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely, but even what I owed to my dearest friends, from openly showing that I was very unhappy. Marianne was quite subdued. Oh, Eleanor! she cried. You have made me hate myself for ever. How barbarous have I been to you! You who have been my only comfort, who have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only suffering for me! Is this my gratitude? Is this the only return I can make you? Because your merit cries out upon myself I have been trying to do it away. The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In such a frame of mind as she was now in, Eleanor had no difficulty in obtaining from her whatever promise she required, and at her request Marianne engaged never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of bitterness, to meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of dislike to her, and even to see Edward himself it of chance should bring them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality. These were great concessions, but where Marianne felt that she had injured, no reparation could be too much for her to make. She performed her promise of being discreet to admiration. She attended to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard three times to say, Yes, ma'am. She listened to her praise of Lucy with only moving from one chair to another, and when Mrs. Jennings talked of Edward's affection, it cost her only a spasm in her throat. Such advances towards heroism in her sister made Eleanor feel equal to anything herself. The next morning brought a further trial of it, in a visit from their brother, who came with the most serious aspect to talk over the dreadful affair, and bring them news of his wife. You have heard, I suppose, said he with great solemnity as soon as he was seated, of the very shocking discovery that took place under our roof yesterday. They all looked their assent. It seemed too awful a moment for speech. Your sister, he continued, has suffered dreadfully. Mrs. Ferrer's, too. In short, it has been a scene of such complicated distress. But I will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us quite overcome. Poor Fanny! She was in hysterics all yesterday. But I would not alarm you too much. Jonathan says there is nothing materially to be apprehended. Her constitution is a good one, and her resolution equal to anything. She has borne at all with the fortitude of an angel. She says she shall never think well of any body again, and one cannot wonder at it after being so deceived. Meeting with such ingratitude, where so much kindness had been shown, so much confidence had been placed. It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart that she had asked these young women to her house. Only because she thought they deserved some attention, were harmless, well-behaved girls, and would be pleasant companions. For otherwise we both wished very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your kind friend there was attending her daughter. And now to be so rewarded! I wish, with all my heart, says poor Fanny in her affectionate way, that we had asked your sisters instead of them. Here he starved to be thanked, which being done, he went on. But poor Mrs. Ferris suffered, when first Fanny broke it to her, is not to be described. While she, with the truest affection, had been planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person? Such a suspicion could never have entered her head, if she suspected any pre-possession elsewhere it could not be in that quarter. There, to be sure, said she, I might have thought myself safe. She was quite in an agony. She consulted together, however, as what should be done, and at last she determined to send for Edward. He came. But I am sorry to relate what ensued. All that Mrs. Ferris could say to make him put an end to the engagement, assisted too, as you may well suppose, by my arguments and Fanny's entreaties, was of no avail. Duty, affection, every thing was disregarded. I never thought Edward so stubborn, so unfeeling before. His mother explained to him her liberal designs, in case of his marrying Miss Morton. Called him, she would settle on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land tax, brings in a good thousand a year, offered even, when matters grew desperate, to make it twelve hundred. In opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low connection, represented to him the certain penery that must attend the match. His own two thousand pound she protested should be his all. She would never see him again, and so far would she be from affording him the smallest assistance, that if he were to enter into any profession with a view of better support, she would do all in her power to prevent him advancing in it. Here Marianne, in an ecstasy of indignation, clapped her hands together and cried, Gracious God, can this be possible? Well may you wonder, Marianne, replied her brother, at the obstinacy which could resist such arguments as these, your exclamation is very natural. Marianne was going to retort, but she remembered her promises and forebore. All this, however, he continued, was urged in vain. Edward said very little, but what he did say was in the most determined manner. Nothing should prevail on him to give up his engagement. He would stand to it, cost him what it might. Then, kind Mrs. Jennings, with blunt sincerity no longer able to be silent, he has acted like an honest man. I beg your pardon, Mr. Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise I should have thought him a rascal. I have some little concern in the business, as well as yourself, for Lucy Steele is my cousin, and I believe there is not a better kind of girl in the world, nor one who deserves more a good husband. John Dashwood was greatly astonished, but his nature was calm, not open to provocation, and he never wished to offend anybody, especially anybody of good fortune. He therefore replied without any resentment. I would by no means speak disrespectfully of any relation of yours, madam. Miss Lucy Steele is, I dare say, a very deserving young woman, but in the present case, you know, the connection must be impossible, and have entered into a secret engagement with a young man under her uncle's care, the son of a woman especially of such very large fortune as Mrs. Ferres, is perhaps altogether a little extraordinary. In short, I do not mean to reflect upon the behaviour of any person whom you have regard for, Mrs. Jennings. We all wish her extremely happy, and Mrs. Ferres, conduct throughout the whole, has been such as every conscientious good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt. It has been dignified and liberal. Edward has drawn his own lot, and I fear it will be a bad one." Mary Ann sighed out her similar apprehension, and Eleanor's heart rung for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother's threats for a woman who could not reward him. "'Well, sir,' said Mrs. Jennings, "'how did it end?' I am sorry to say, ma'am, in a most unhappy rupture. Edward is dismissed for ever from his mother's notice. He left her house yesterday. But where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do not know, for we, of course, can make no inquiry." Oh! poor young man! And what has to become of him? What indeed, ma'am! It is a melancholy consideration. Born to the prospect of such affluence, I cannot conceive a situation more deplorable—the interest of two thousand pounds. How can a man live on it? And when did that has added the recollection that he might, but for his own folly, within three months have been in the receipt of two thousand five hundred a year? For Miss Morton has thirty thousand pounds. I cannot picture it to myself a more wretched condition. We must all feel for him, and them also, because it is totally out of our power to assist him. Oh! poor young man! cried Mrs. Jennings. I am sure he should be very welcome to bed and board at my house, and so I would tell him if I could see him. It is not fit that he should be living about at his own charge now, at lodgings, at taverns." Eleanor's heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she could not forbear smiling at the form of it. He would only have done as well by himself, said John Dashwood, as all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have been in his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing. But as it is, it must be out of anybody's power to assist him. And there is one thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all. His mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle that estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward's, on proper conditions. I left her this morning with a lawyer talking over the business. Well! said Mrs. Jennings, that is her revenge. Everybody has a way of their own, but I don't think mine would be to make one son independent, because another had plagued me. Mary Ann got up and walked about the room. Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man? continued John, than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might have been his own. Poor Edward! I feel for him sincerely. A few minutes more spent in the same kind of effusion concluded his visit, and with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really believed there was no material danger in Fanny's indisposition, and that they need not therefore be very uneasy about it, he went away, leaving the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present occasion, as far at least as it regarded Mrs. Ferrer's conduct, the Dashwoods, and Edwards. Mary Ann's indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room, and as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Eleanor and unnecessary in Mrs. Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the party. End of Chapter 37