Sense and Sensibility
reproved herself, felt that to _his_ sufferings and _his_ constancy far
more than to his rival’s, the reward of her sister was due, and wished
any thing rather than Mrs. Willoughby’s death.
The shock of Colonel Brandon’s errand at Barton had been much softened
to Mrs. Dashwood by her own previous alarm; for so great was her
uneasiness about Marianne, that she had already determined to set out
for Cleveland on that very day, without waiting for any further
intelligence, and had so far settled her journey before his arrival,
that the Careys were then expected every moment to fetch Margaret away,
as her mother was unwilling to take her where there might be infection.
Marianne continued to mend every day, and the brilliant cheerfulness of
Mrs. Dashwood’s looks and spirits proved her to be, as she repeatedly
declared herself, one of the happiest women in the world. Elinor could
not hear the declaration, nor witness its proofs without sometimes
wondering whether her mother ever recollected Edward. But Mrs.
Dashwood, trusting to the temperate account of her own disappointment
which Elinor had sent her, was led away by the exuberance of her joy to
think only of what would increase it. Marianne was restored to her from
a danger in which, as she now began to feel, her own mistaken judgment
in encouraging the unfortunate attachment to Willoughby, had
contributed to place her;—and in her recovery she had yet another
source of joy unthought of by Elinor. It was thus imparted to her, as
soon as any opportunity of private conference between them occurred.
“At last we are alone. My Elinor, you do not yet know all my happiness.
Colonel Brandon loves Marianne. He has told me so himself.”
Her daughter, feeling by turns both pleased and pained, surprised and
not surprised, was all silent attention.
“You are never like me, dear Elinor, or I should wonder at your
composure now. Had I sat down to wish for any possible good to my
family, I should have fixed on Colonel Brandon’s marrying one of you as
the object most desirable. And I believe Marianne will be the most
happy with him of the two.”
Elinor was half inclined to ask her reason for thinking so, because
satisfied that none founded on an impartial consideration of their age,
characters, or feelings, could be given;—but her mother must always be
carried away by her imagination on any interesting subject, and
therefore instead of an inquiry, she passed it off with a smile.
“He opened his whole heart to me yesterday as we travelled. It came out
quite unawares, quite undesignedly. I, you may well believe, could talk
of nothing but my child;—he could not conceal his distress; I saw that
it equalled my own, and he perhaps, thinking that mere friendship, as
the world now goes, would not justify so warm a sympathy—or rather, not
thinking at all, I suppose—giving way to irresistible feelings, made me
acquainted with his earnest, tender, constant, affection for Marianne.
He has loved her, my Elinor, ever since the first moment of seeing
her.”
Here, however, Elinor perceived,—not the language, not the professions
of Colonel Brandon, but the natural embellishments of her mother’s
active fancy, which fashioned every thing delightful to her as it
chose.
“His regard for her, infinitely surpassing anything that Willoughby
ever felt or feigned, as much more warm, as more sincere or
constant—which ever we are to call it—has subsisted through all the
knowledge of dear Marianne’s unhappy prepossession for that worthless
young man!—and without selfishness—without encouraging a hope!—could he
have seen her happy with another—Such a noble mind!—such openness, such
sincerity!—no one can be deceived in _him_.”
“Colonel Brandon’s character,” said Elinor, “as an excellent man, is
well established.”
“I know it is,”—replied her mother seriously, “or after such a warning,
_I_ should be the last to encourage such affection, or even to be
pleased by it. But his coming for me as he did, with such active, such
ready friendship, is enough to prove him one of the worthiest of men.”
“His character, however,” answered Elinor, “does not rest on _one_ act
of kindness, to which his affection for Marianne, were humanity out of
the case, would have prompted him. To Mrs. Jennings, to the Middletons,
he has been long and intimately known; they equally love and respect
him; and even my own knowledge of him, though lately acquired, is very
considerable; and so highly do _I_ value and esteem him, that if
Marianne can be happy with him, I shall be as ready as yourself to
think our connection the greatest blessing to us in the world. What
answer did you give him?—Did you allow him to hope?”
“Oh! my love, I could not then talk of hope to him or to myself.
Marianne might at that moment be dying. But he did not ask for hope or
encouragement. His was an involuntary confidence, an irrepressible
effusion to a soothing friend, not an application to a parent. Yet
after a time I _did_ say, for at first I was quite overcome, that if
she lived, as I trusted she might, my greatest happiness would lie in
promoting their marriage; and since our arrival, since our delightful
security, I have repeated it to him more fully, have given him every
encouragement in my power. Time, a very little time, I tell him, will
do everything; Marianne’s heart is not to be wasted for ever on such a
man as Willoughby. His own merits must soon secure it.”
“To judge from the Colonel’s spirits, however, you have not yet made
him equally sanguine.”
“No. He thinks Marianne’s affection too deeply rooted for any change in
it under a great length of time, and even supposing her heart again
free, is too diffident of himself to believe, that with such a
difference of age and disposition he could ever attach her. There,
however, he is quite mistaken. His age is only so much beyond hers as
to be an advantage, as to make his character and principles fixed; and
his disposition, I am well convinced, is exactly the very one to make
your sister happy. And his person, his manners too, are all in his
favour. My partiality does not blind me; he certainly is not so
handsome as Willoughby; but at the same time, there is something much
more pleasing in his countenance. There was always a something, if you
remember, in Willoughby’s eyes at times, which I did not like.”
Elinor could _not_ remember it; but her mother, without waiting for her
assent, continued,
“And his manners, the Colonel’s manners are not only more pleasing to
me than Willoughby’s ever were, but they are of a kind I well know to
be more solidly attaching to Marianne. Their gentleness, their genuine
attention to other people, and their manly unstudied simplicity is much
more accordant with her real disposition, than the liveliness, often
artificial, and often ill-timed of the other. I am very sure myself,
that had Willoughby turned out as really amiable, as he has proved
himself the contrary, Marianne would yet never have been so happy with
_him_ as she will be with Colonel Brandon.”
She paused.—Her daughter could not quite agree with her, but her
dissent was not heard, and therefore gave no offence.
“At Delaford, she will be within an easy distance of me,” added Mrs.
Dashwood, “even if I remain at Barton; and in all probability,—for I
hear it is a large village,—indeed there certainly _must_ be some small
house or cottage close by, that would suit us quite as well as our
present situation.”
Poor Elinor!—here was a new scheme for getting her to Delaford!—but her
spirit was stubborn.
“His fortune too!—for at my time of life you know, everybody cares
about _that;_—and though I neither know nor desire to know, what it
really is, I am sure it must be a good one.”
Here they were interrupted by the entrance of a third person, and
Elinor withdrew to think it all over in private, to wish success to her
friend, and yet in wishing it, to feel a pang for Willoughby.
CHAPTER XLVI.
Marianne’s illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long
enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength, and
her mother’s presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to enable her
to remove, within four days after the arrival of the latter, into Mrs.
Palmer’s dressing-room. When there, at her own particular request, for
she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to him for fetching her
mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.
His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in
receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was
such, as, in Elinor’s conjecture, must arise from something more than
his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to
others; and she soon discovered in his melancholy eye and varying
complexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many
past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance
between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened
by the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness,
and the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.
Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter, but
with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to very
different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel’s behaviour but what arose
from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the actions
and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that something
more than gratitude already dawned.
At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger
every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her
daughter’s wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton. On _her_
measures depended those of her two friends; Mrs. Jennings could not
quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods’ stay; and Colonel Brandon was soon
brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there as
equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs.
Jennings’s united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to
accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better
accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint
invitation of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active good-nature
made her friendly and hospitable for other people as well as herself,
engaged with pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the cottage, in the
course of a few weeks.
The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after taking
so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so earnestly
grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due to her own
heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and bidding
Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was carefully
assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed anxious that she
should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and Elinor then followed,
and the others were left by themselves, to talk of the travellers, and
feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings was summoned to her chaise
to take comfort in the gossip of her maid for the loss of her two young
companions; and Colonel Brandon immediately afterwards took his
solitary way to Delaford.
The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey
on both, without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous
affection, the most solicitous care could do to render her comfortable,
was the office of each watchful companion, and each found their reward
in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To Elinor, the
observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She, who had seen
her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by anguish of
heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor fortitude to