Sense and Sensibility
have given her, and on those still more severe which might await her in
its probable consequence, she could not reflect without the deepest
concern. Her own situation gained in the comparison; for while she
could _esteem_ Edward as much as ever, however they might be divided in
future, her mind might be always supported. But every circumstance that
could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of
Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby—in an immediate and
irreconcilable rupture with him.
CHAPTER XXIX.
Before the housemaid had lit their fire the next day, or the sun gained
any power over a cold, gloomy morning in January, Marianne, only half
dressed, was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of
all the little light she could command from it, and writing as fast as
a continual flow of tears would permit her. In this situation, Elinor,
roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs, first perceived her; and
after observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety, said, in a
tone of the most considerate gentleness,
“Marianne, may I ask—?”
“No, Elinor,” she replied, “ask nothing; you will soon know all.”
The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said, lasted no
longer than while she spoke, and was immediately followed by a return
of the same excessive affliction. It was some minutes before she could
go on with her letter, and the frequent bursts of grief which still
obliged her, at intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs enough of
her feeling how more than probable it was that she was writing for the
last time to Willoughby.
Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power; and
she would have tried to sooth and tranquilize her still more, had not
Marianne entreated her, with all the eagerness of the most nervous
irritability, not to speak to her for the world. In such circumstances,
it was better for both that they should not be long together; and the
restless state of Marianne’s mind not only prevented her from remaining
in the room a moment after she was dressed, but requiring at once
solitude and continual change of place, made her wander about the house
till breakfast time, avoiding the sight of every body.
At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted to eat any thing; and
Elinor’s attention was then all employed, not in urging her, not in
pitying her, nor in appearing to regard her, but in endeavouring to
engage Mrs. Jennings’s notice entirely to herself.
As this was a favourite meal with Mrs. Jennings, it lasted a
considerable time, and they were just setting themselves, after it,
round the common working table, when a letter was delivered to
Marianne, which she eagerly caught from the servant, and, turning of a
death-like paleness, instantly ran out of the room. Elinor, who saw as
plainly by this, as if she had seen the direction, that it must come
from Willoughby, felt immediately such a sickness at heart as made her
hardly able to hold up her head, and sat in such a general tremour as
made her fear it impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings’s notice. That good
lady, however, saw only that Marianne had received a letter from
Willoughby, which appeared to her a very good joke, and which she
treated accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that she would find it to
her liking. Of Elinor’s distress, she was too busily employed in
measuring lengths of worsted for her rug, to see any thing at all; and
calmly continuing her talk, as soon as Marianne disappeared, she said,
“Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so desperately in love in my
life! _My_ girls were nothing to her, and yet they used to be foolish
enough; but as for Miss Marianne, she is quite an altered creature. I
hope, from the bottom of my heart, he won’t keep her waiting much
longer, for it is quite grievous to see her look so ill and forlorn.
Pray, when are they to be married?”
Elinor, though never less disposed to speak than at that moment,
obliged herself to answer such an attack as this, and, therefore,
trying to smile, replied, “And have you really, Ma’am, talked yourself
into a persuasion of my sister’s being engaged to Mr. Willoughby? I
thought it had been only a joke, but so serious a question seems to
imply more; and I must beg, therefore, that you will not deceive
yourself any longer. I do assure you that nothing would surprise me
more than to hear of their being going to be married.”
“For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how can you talk so? Don’t we all
know that it must be a match, that they were over head and ears in love
with each other from the first moment they met? Did not I see them
together in Devonshire every day, and all day long; and did not I know
that your sister came to town with me on purpose to buy wedding
clothes? Come, come, this won’t do. Because you are so sly about it
yourself, you think nobody else has any senses; but it is no such
thing, I can tell you, for it has been known all over town this ever so
long. I tell every body of it and so does Charlotte.”
“Indeed, Ma’am,” said Elinor, very seriously, “you are mistaken.
Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing in spreading the report, and
you will find that you have though you will not believe me now.”
Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had not spirits to say more,
and eager at all events to know what Willoughby had written, hurried
away to their room, where, on opening the door, she saw Marianne
stretched on the bed, almost choked by grief, one letter in her hand,
and two or three others lying by her. Elinor drew near, but without
saying a word; and seating herself on the bed, took her hand, kissed
her affectionately several times, and then gave way to a burst of
tears, which at first was scarcely less violent than Marianne’s. The
latter, though unable to speak, seemed to feel all the tenderness of
this behaviour, and after some time thus spent in joint affliction, she
put all the letters into Elinor’s hands; and then covering her face
with her handkerchief, almost screamed with agony. Elinor, who knew
that such grief, shocking as it was to witness it, must have its
course, watched by her till this excess of suffering had somewhat spent
itself, and then turning eagerly to Willoughby’s letter, read as
follows:
“Bond Street, January.
MY DEAR MADAM,
“I have just had the honour of receiving your letter, for which I
beg to return my sincere acknowledgments. I am much concerned to
find there was anything in my behaviour last night that did not
meet your approbation; and though I am quite at a loss to discover
in what point I could be so unfortunate as to offend you, I entreat
your forgiveness of what I can assure you to have been perfectly
unintentional. I shall never reflect on my former acquaintance with
your family in Devonshire without the most grateful pleasure, and
flatter myself it will not be broken by any mistake or
misapprehension of my actions. My esteem for your whole family is
very sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate as to give rise to
a belief of more than I felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach
myself for not having been more guarded in my professions of that
esteem. That I should ever have meant more you will allow to be
impossible, when you understand that my affections have been long
engaged elsewhere, and it will not be many weeks, I believe, before
this engagement is fulfilled. It is with great regret that I obey
your commands in returning the letters with which I have been
honoured from you, and the lock of hair, which you so obligingly
bestowed on me.
“I am, dear Madam,
“Your most obedient
“humble servant,
“JOHN WILLOUGHBY.”
With what indignation such a letter as this must be read by Miss
Dashwood, may be imagined. Though aware, before she began it, that it
must bring a confession of his inconstancy, and confirm their
separation for ever, she was not aware that such language could be
suffered to announce it; nor could she have supposed Willoughby capable
of departing so far from the appearance of every honourable and
delicate feeling—so far from the common decorum of a gentleman, as to
send a letter so impudently cruel: a letter which, instead of bringing
with his desire of a release any professions of regret, acknowledged no
breach of faith, denied all peculiar affection whatever—a letter of
which every line was an insult, and which proclaimed its writer to be
deep in hardened villainy.
She paused over it for some time with indignant astonishment; then read
it again and again; but every perusal only served to increase her
abhorrence of the man, and so bitter were her feelings against him,
that she dared not trust herself to speak, lest she might wound
Marianne still deeper by treating their disengagement, not as a loss to
her of any possible good but as an escape from the worst and most
irremediable of all evils, a connection, for life, with an unprincipled
man, as a deliverance the most real, a blessing the most important.
In her earnest meditations on the contents of the letter, on the
depravity of that mind which could dictate it, and probably, on the
very different mind of a very different person, who had no other
connection whatever with the affair than what her heart gave him with
every thing that passed, Elinor forgot the immediate distress of her
sister, forgot that she had three letters on her lap yet unread, and so
entirely forgot how long she had been in the room, that when on hearing
a carriage drive up to the door, she went to the window to see who
could be coming so unreasonably early, she was all astonishment to
perceive Mrs. Jennings’s chariot, which she knew had not been ordered
till one. Determined not to quit Marianne, though hopeless of
contributing, at present, to her ease, she hurried away to excuse
herself from attending Mrs. Jennings, on account of her sister being
indisposed. Mrs. Jennings, with a thoroughly good-humoured concern for
its cause, admitted the excuse most readily, and Elinor, after seeing
her safe off, returned to Marianne, whom she found attempting to rise
from the bed, and whom she reached just in time to prevent her from
falling on the floor, faint and giddy from a long want of proper rest
and food; for it was many days since she had any appetite, and many
nights since she had really slept; and now, when her mind was no longer
supported by the fever of suspense, the consequence of all this was
felt in an aching head, a weakened stomach, and a general nervous
faintness. A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for her directly,
made her more comfortable, and she was at last able to express some
sense of her kindness, by saying,
“Poor Elinor! how unhappy I make you!”
“I only wish,” replied her sister, “there were any thing I _could_ do,
which might be of comfort to you.”
This, as every thing else would have been, was too much for Marianne,
who could only exclaim, in the anguish of her heart, “Oh! Elinor, I am
miserable, indeed,” before her voice was entirely lost in sobs.
Elinor could no longer witness this torrent of unresisted grief in
silence.
“Exert yourself, dear Marianne,” she cried, “if you would not kill
yourself and all who love you. Think of your mother; think of her
misery while _you_ suffer: for her sake you must exert yourself.”
“I cannot, I cannot,” cried Marianne; “leave me, leave me, if I
distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not torture me so.
Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow of their own to talk of
exertion! Happy, happy Elinor, _you_ cannot have an idea of what I
suffer.”
“Do you call _me_ happy, Marianne? Ah! if you knew!—And can you believe