Sense and Sensibility
me to be so, while I see you so wretched!”
“Forgive me, forgive me,” throwing her arms round her sister’s neck; “I
know you feel for me; I know what a heart you have; but yet you are—you
must be happy; Edward loves you—what, oh what, can do away such
happiness as that?”
“Many, many circumstances,” said Elinor, solemnly.
“No, no, no,” cried Marianne wildly, “he loves you, and only you. You
_can_ have no grief.”
“I can have no pleasure while I see you in this state.”
“And you will never see me otherwise. Mine is a misery which nothing
can do away.”
“You must not talk so, Marianne. Have you no comforts? no friends? Is
your loss such as leaves no opening for consolation? Much as you suffer
now, think of what you would have suffered if the discovery of his
character had been delayed to a later period—if your engagement had
been carried on for months and months, as it might have been, before he
chose to put an end to it. Every additional day of unhappy confidence,
on your side, would have made the blow more dreadful.”
“Engagement!” cried Marianne, “there has been no engagement.”
“No engagement!”
“No, he is not so unworthy as you believe him. He has broken no faith
with me.”
“But he told you that he loved you.”
“Yes—no—never absolutely. It was every day implied, but never
professedly declared. Sometimes I thought it had been, but it never
was.”
“Yet you wrote to him?”
“Yes: could that be wrong after all that had passed? But I cannot
talk.”
Elinor said no more, and turning again to the three letters which now
raised a much stronger curiosity than before, directly ran over the
contents of all. The first, which was what her sister had sent him on
their arrival in town, was to this effect.
Berkeley Street, January.
“How surprised you will be, Willoughby, on receiving this; and I think
you will feel something more than surprise, when you know that I am in
town. An opportunity of coming hither, though with Mrs. Jennings, was a
temptation we could not resist. I wish you may receive this in time to
come here to-night, but I will not depend on it. At any rate I shall
expect you to-morrow. For the present, adieu.
“M.D.”
Her second note, which had been written on the morning after the dance
at the Middletons’, was in these words:—
“I cannot express my disappointment in having missed you the day before
yesterday, nor my astonishment at not having received any answer to a
note which I sent you above a week ago. I have been expecting to hear
from you, and still more to see you, every hour of the day. Pray call
again as soon as possible, and explain the reason of my having expected
this in vain. You had better come earlier another time, because we are
generally out by one. We were last night at Lady Middleton’s, where
there was a dance. I have been told that you were asked to be of the
party. But could it be so? You must be very much altered indeed since
we parted, if that could be the case, and you not there. But I will not
suppose this possible, and I hope very soon to receive your personal
assurance of its being otherwise.
“M.D.”
The contents of her last note to him were these:—
“What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your behaviour last night? Again
I demand an explanation of it. I was prepared to meet you with the
pleasure which our separation naturally produced, with the familiarity
which our intimacy at Barton appeared to me to justify. I was repulsed
indeed! I have passed a wretched night in endeavouring to excuse a
conduct which can scarcely be called less than insulting; but though I
have not yet been able to form any reasonable apology for your
behaviour, I am perfectly ready to hear your justification of it. You
have perhaps been misinformed, or purposely deceived, in something
concerning me, which may have lowered me in your opinion. Tell me what
it is, explain the grounds on which you acted, and I shall be
satisfied, in being able to satisfy you. It would grieve me indeed to
be obliged to think ill of you; but if I am to do it, if I am to learn
that you are not what we have hitherto believed you, that your regard
for us all was insincere, that your behaviour to me was intended only
to deceive, let it be told as soon as possible. My feelings are at
present in a state of dreadful indecision; I wish to acquit you, but
certainty on either side will be ease to what I now suffer. If your
sentiments are no longer what they were, you will return my notes, and
the lock of my hair which is in your possession.
“M.D.”
That such letters, so full of affection and confidence, could have been
so answered, Elinor, for Willoughby’s sake, would have been unwilling
to believe. But her condemnation of him did not blind her to the
impropriety of their having been written at all; and she was silently
grieving over the imprudence which had hazarded such unsolicited proofs
of tenderness, not warranted by anything preceding, and most severely
condemned by the event, when Marianne, perceiving that she had finished
the letters, observed to her that they contained nothing but what any
one would have written in the same situation.
“I felt myself,” she added, “to be as solemnly engaged to him, as if
the strictest legal covenant had bound us to each other.”
“I can believe it,” said Elinor; “but unfortunately he did not feel the
same.”
“He _did_ feel the same, Elinor—for weeks and weeks he felt it. I know
he did. Whatever may have changed him now, (and nothing but the
blackest art employed against me can have done it), I was once as dear
to him as my own soul could wish. This lock of hair, which now he can
so readily give up, was begged of me with the most earnest
supplication. Had you seen his look, his manner, had you heard his
voice at that moment! Have you forgot the last evening of our being
together at Barton? The morning that we parted too! When he told me
that it might be many weeks before we met again—his distress—can I ever
forget his distress?”
For a moment or two she could say no more; but when this emotion had
passed away, she added, in a firmer tone,
“Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not by Willoughby.”
“Dearest Marianne, who but himself? By whom can he have been
instigated?”
“By all the world, rather than by his own heart. I could rather believe
every creature of my acquaintance leagued together to ruin me in his
opinion, than believe his nature capable of such cruelty. This woman of
whom he writes—whoever she be—or any one, in short, but your own dear
self, mama, and Edward, may have been so barbarous to bely me. Beyond
you three, is there a creature in the world whom I would not rather
suspect of evil than Willoughby, whose heart I know so well?”
Elinor would not contend, and only replied, “Whoever may have been so
detestably your enemy, let them be cheated of their malignant triumph,
my dear sister, by seeing how nobly the consciousness of your own
innocence and good intentions supports your spirits. It is a reasonable
and laudable pride which resists such malevolence.”
“No, no,” cried Marianne, “misery such as mine has no pride. I care not
who knows that I am wretched. The triumph of seeing me so may be open
to all the world. Elinor, Elinor, they who suffer little may be proud
and independent as they like—may resist insult, or return
mortification—but I cannot. I must feel—I must be wretched—and they are
welcome to enjoy the consciousness of it that can.”
“But for my mother’s sake and mine—”
“I would do more than for my own. But to appear happy when I am so
miserable—Oh! who can require it?”
Again they were both silent. Elinor was employed in walking
thoughtfully from the fire to the window, from the window to the fire,
without knowing that she received warmth from one, or discerning
objects through the other; and Marianne, seated at the foot of the bed,
with her head leaning against one of its posts, again took up
Willoughby’s letter, and, after shuddering over every sentence,
exclaimed,—
“It is too much! Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, could this be yours!
Cruel, cruel—nothing can acquit you. Elinor, nothing can. Whatever he
might have heard against me—ought he not to have suspended his belief?
ought he not to have told me of it, to have given me the power of
clearing myself? ‘The lock of hair, (repeating it from the letter,)
which you so obligingly bestowed on me’—That is unpardonable.
Willoughby, where was your heart when you wrote those words? Oh,
barbarously insolent!—Elinor, can he be justified?”
“No, Marianne, in no possible way.”
“And yet this woman—who knows what her art may have been?—how long it
may have been premeditated, and how deeply contrived by her!—Who is
she?—Who can she be?—Whom did I ever hear him talk of as young and
attractive among his female acquaintance?—Oh! no one, no one—he talked
to me only of myself.”
Another pause ensued; Marianne was greatly agitated, and it ended thus.
“Elinor, I must go home. I must go and comfort mama. Can not we be gone
to-morrow?”
“To-morrow, Marianne!”
“Yes, why should I stay here? I came only for Willoughby’s sake—and now
who cares for me? Who regards me?”
“It would be impossible to go to-morrow. We owe Mrs. Jennings much more
than civility; and civility of the commonest kind must prevent such a
hasty removal as that.”
“Well then, another day or two, perhaps; but I cannot stay here long, I
cannot stay to endure the questions and remarks of all these people.
The Middletons and Palmers—how am I to bear their pity? The pity of
such a woman as Lady Middleton! Oh, what would _he_ say to that!”
Elinor advised her to lie down again, and for a moment she did so; but
no attitude could give her ease; and in restless pain of mind and body
she moved from one posture to another, till growing more and more
hysterical, her sister could with difficulty keep her on the bed at
all, and for some time was fearful of being constrained to call for
assistance. Some lavender drops, however, which she was at length
persuaded to take, were of use; and from that time till Mrs. Jennings
returned, she continued on the bed quiet and motionless.
CHAPTER XXX.
Mrs. Jennings came immediately to their room on her return, and without
waiting to have her request of admittance answered, opened the door and
walked in with a look of real concern.
“How do you do my dear?”—said she in a voice of great compassion to
Marianne, who turned away her face without attempting to answer.
“How is she, Miss Dashwood? Poor thing! she looks very bad. No wonder.
Ay, it is but too true. He is to be married very soon—a
good-for-nothing fellow! I have no patience with him. Mrs. Taylor told
me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular friend
of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed it; and
I was almost ready to sink as it was. Well, said I, all I can say is,
that if this be true, he has used a young lady of my acquaintance
abominably ill, and I wish with all my soul his wife may plague his
heart out. And so I shall always say, my dear, you may depend on it. I
have no notion of men’s going on in this way; and if ever I meet him
again, I will give him such a dressing as he has not had this many a
day. But there is one comfort, my dear Miss Marianne; he is not the
only young man in the world worth having; and with your pretty face you
will never want admirers. Well, poor thing! I won’t disturb her any
longer, for she had better have her cry out at once and have done with.
The Parrys and Sandersons luckily are coming tonight you know, and that
will amuse her.”
She then went away, walking on tiptoe out of the room, as if she
supposed her young friend’s affliction could be increased by noise.