Sense and Sensibility
to persuade her to let them stay till they had packed up their clothes.
_Then_ she fell into hysterics again, and he was so frightened that he
would send for Mr. Donavan, and Mr. Donavan found the house in all 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; poor 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, it will be a match in spite of her. Lord! what a
taking poor Mr. Edward will be in 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. Donavan thinks just the same. He and I had a great
deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is gone back
again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs. Ferrars 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. Edward and Lucy should not marry; for I
am sure Mrs. Ferrars may afford to do very well by her son, and though
Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than any body how to
make the most of every thing; I dare say, if Mrs. Ferrars would only
allow him five hundred a-year, she would make as good an appearance
with it as any body else would with eight. Lord! how snug they might
live in such another cottage as 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 Elinor 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. Ferrars 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, Elinor soon saw the
necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion. No time was to be
lost in undeceiving her, in 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.
Elinor’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 for ever 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 Elinor 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. Elinor 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 Elinor did, that she _had_
loved him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself! As for Lucy
Steele, she considered her so totally unamiable, 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
Elinor 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 farther particulars, was,—
“How long has this been known to you, Elinor? 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 four months?”
Elinor 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 then know 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 have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother,” added
Elinor; “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 every thing 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 any 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 her
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 has not been only 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, it 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 at 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—not even
what I owed to my dearest friends—from openly showing that I was _very_
unhappy.”
Marianne was quite subdued.
“Oh! Elinor,” 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, Elinor 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, if 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 Elinor feel
equal to any thing herself.
The next morning brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their