CHAPTER XXXVII.
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
Berkeley Street, Mrs. Jennings, on returning from her ordinary visit to Mrs.
Palmer, entered the drawing-room, where Elinor 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, ma’am. 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 fretted, and was all over pimples. So I looked at
it directly, and, ‘Lord! my dear,’ says I, ‘it is nothing in the world, but the
red gum;’ and nurse said just the same. But Charlotte, she would not be
satisfied, so Mr. Donavan 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 but
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
sister’s indisposition, 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 Ferrars, the very young man I used
to joke with you about (but however, as it turns out, I am monstrous glad
there was never any thing in it), Mr. Edward Ferrars, it seems, has been
engaged above this twelvemonth 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
their liking one another; but that matters should be brought so forward
between them, and nobody suspect it! That is strange! I never happened to
see them together, or I am sure I should have found it out directly. Well, and
so this was kept a great secret, for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, and neither she nor
your brother or sister suspected a word of the matter: till this very morning,
poor Nancy, who, you know, is a well-meaning creature, but no conjurer,
popt 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 down stairs, 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 scolded 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 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 brother,
who came with a 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. Ferrars 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. Donavan says there is nothing materially to be
apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution equal to any
thing. She has borne it all, with the fortitude of an angel! She says she never
shall think well of anybody 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; merely 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 stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.
“What poor Mrs. Ferrars 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 prepossession 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. We consulted together,
however, as to 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.
Ferrars 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; told 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; and in opposition to this, if he still persisted in this low
connection, represented to him the certain penury that must attend the
match. His own two thousand pounds 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
forbore.
“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,” cried 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 more deserves 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 to
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.
Ferrars, is perhaps, altogether a little extraordinary. In short, I do not mean
to reflect upon the behaviour of any person whom you have a regard for,
Mrs. Jennings. We all wish her extremely happy; and Mrs. Ferrars’s 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.”
Marianne sighed out her similar apprehension; and Elinor’s heart wrung
for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother’s threats, for a woman
who could not reward him.
“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Jennings, “and 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.”
“Poor young man!—and what is 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 to that is 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 to
myself a more wretched condition. We must all feel for him; and the more
so, because it is totally out of our power to assist him.”
“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 and taverns.”
Elinor’s heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she
could not forbear smiling at the form of it.
“If 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 her 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.”
Marianne 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. Ferrars’s conduct, the Dashwoods’, and Edward’s.
Marianne’s indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room; and as
her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in Mrs.
Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the party.
