CHAPTER XLIV.
Elinor, starting back with a look of horror at the sight of him, obeyed the
first impulse of her heart in turning instantly to quit the room, and her hand
was already on the lock, when its action was suspended by his hastily
advancing, and saying, in a voice rather of command than supplication,
“Miss Dashwood, for half an hour—for ten minutes—I entreat you to
stay.”
“No, sir,” she replied with firmness, “I shall not stay. Your business
cannot be with me. The servants, I suppose, forgot to tell you that Mr.
Palmer was not in the house.”
“Had they told me,” he cried with vehemence, “that Mr. Palmer and all
his relations were at the devil, it would not have turned me from the door.
My business is with you, and only you.”
“With me!”—in the utmost amazement—“well, sir,—be quick—and if
you can—less violent.”
“Sit down, and I will be both.”
She hesitated; she knew not what to do. The possibility of Colonel
Brandon’s arriving and finding her there, came across her. But she had
promised to hear him, and her curiosity no less than her honor was engaged.
After a moment’s recollection, therefore, concluding that prudence required
dispatch, and that her acquiescence would best promote it, she walked
silently towards the table, and sat down. He took the opposite chair, and for
half a minute not a word was said by either.
“Pray be quick, sir,”—said Elinor, impatiently;—“I have no time to
spare.”
He was sitting in an attitude of deep meditation, and seemed not to hear
her.
“Your sister,” said he, with abruptness, a moment afterwards—“is out of
danger. I heard it from the servant. God be praised!—But is it true? is it
really true?”
Elinor would not speak. He repeated the inquiry with yet greater
eagerness.
“For God’s sake tell me, is she out of danger, or is she not?”
“We hope she is.”
He rose up, and walked across the room.
“Had I known as much half an hour ago;—but since I am here,” speaking
with a forced vivacity as he returned to his seat,—“what does it signify? For
once, Miss Dashwood—it will be the last time, perhaps—let us be cheerful
together. I am in a fine mood for gaiety. Tell me honestly” a deeper glow
overspreading his cheeks, “do you think me most a knave or a fool?”
Elinor looked at him with greater astonishment than ever. She began to
think that he must be in liquor;—the strangeness of such a visit, and of such
manners, seemed no otherwise intelligible; and with this impression she
immediately rose, saying,
“Mr. Willoughby, I advise you at present to return to Combe. I am not at
leisure to remain with you longer. Whatever your business may be with me,
it will be better recollected and explained to-morrow.”
“I understand you,” he replied, with an expressive smile, and a voice
perfectly calm; “yes, I am very drunk. A pint of porter with my cold beef at
Marlborough was enough to over-set me.”
“At Marlborough!”—cried Elinor, more and more at a loss to understand
what he would be at.
“Yes,—I left London this morning at eight o’clock, and the only ten
minutes I have spent out of my chaise since that time procured me a
nuncheon at Marlborough.”
The steadiness of his manner, and the intelligence of his eye as he spoke,
convincing Elinor, that whatever other unpardonable folly might bring him
to Cleveland, he was not brought there by intoxication, she said, after a
moment’s recollection,
“Mr. Willoughby, you ought to feel, and I certainly do, that after what has
passed, your coming here in this manner, and forcing yourself upon my
notice, requires a very particular excuse. What is it, that you mean by it?”
“I mean,” said he, with serious energy, “if I can, to make you hate me one
degree less than you do now. I mean to offer some kind of explanation,
some kind of apology, for the past; to open my whole heart to you, and by
convincing you, that though I have been always a blockhead, I have not
been always a rascal, to obtain something like forgiveness from Ma— from
your sister.”
“Is this the real reason of your coming?”
“Upon my soul it is,”—was his answer, with a warmth which brought all
the former Willoughby to her remembrance, and in spite of herself made her
think him sincere.
“If that is all, you may be satisfied already; for Marianne does, she has
long forgiven you.”
“Has she?” he cried, in the same eager tone. “Then she has forgiven me
before she ought to have done it. But she shall forgive me again, and on
more reasonable grounds. Now will you listen to me?”
Elinor bowed her assent.
“I do not know,” said he, after a pause of expectation on her side, and
thoughtfulness on his own, “how you may have accounted for my behaviour
to your sister, or what diabolical motive you may have imputed to me.
Perhaps you will hardly think the better of me,—it is worth the trial
however, and you shall hear every thing. When I first became intimate in
your family, I had no other intention, no other view in the acquaintance than
to pass my time pleasantly while I was obliged to remain in Devonshire,
more pleasantly than I had ever done before. Your sister’s lovely person and
interesting manners could not but please me; and her behaviour to me
almost from the first, was of a kind—it is astonishing, when I reflect on
what it was, and what she was, that my heart should have been so
insensible! But at first I must confess, my vanity only was elevated by it.
Careless of her happiness, thinking only of my own amusement, giving way
to feelings which I had always been too much in the habit of indulging, I
endeavoured, by every means in my power, to make myself pleasing to her,
without any design of returning her affection.”
Miss Dashwood, at this point, turning her eyes on him with the most
angry contempt, stopped him, by saying,
“It is hardly worth while, Mr. Willoughby, for you to relate, or for me to
listen any longer. Such a beginning as this cannot be followed by any thing.
Do not let me be pained by hearing any thing more on the subject.”
“I insist on you hearing the whole of it,” he replied, “My fortune was
never large, and I had always been expensive, always in the habit of
associating with people of better income than myself. Every year since my
coming of age, or even before, I believe, had added to my debts; and though
the death of my old cousin, Mrs. Smith, was to set me free; yet that event
being uncertain, and possibly far distant, it had been for some time my
intention to re-establish my circumstances by marrying a woman of fortune.
To attach myself to your sister, therefore, was not a thing to be thought of;
and with a meanness, selfishness, cruelty, which no indignant, no
contemptuous look, even of yours, Miss Dashwood, can ever reprobate too
much,—I was acting in this manner, trying to engage her regard, without a
thought of returning it. But one thing may be said for me: even in that
horrid state of selfish vanity, I did not know the extent of the injury I
meditated, because I did not then know what it was to love. But have I ever
known it? Well may it be doubted; for, had I really loved, could I have
sacrificed my feelings to vanity, to avarice? or, what is more, could I have
sacrificed hers? But I have done it. To avoid a comparative poverty, which
her affection and her society would have deprived of all its horrors, I have,
by raising myself to affluence, lost every thing that could make it a
blessing.”
“You did then,” said Elinor, a little softened, “believe yourself at one
time attached to her?”
“To have resisted such attractions, to have withstood such tenderness! Is
there a man on earth who could have done it? Yes, I found myself, by
insensible degrees, sincerely fond of her; and the happiest hours of my life
were what I spent with her when I felt my intentions were strictly
honourable, and my feelings blameless. Even then, however, when fully
determined on paying my addresses to her, I allowed myself most
improperly to put off, from day to day, the moment of doing it, from an
unwillingness to enter into an engagement while my circumstances were so
greatly embarrassed. I will not reason here—nor will I stop for you to
expatiate on the absurdity, and the worse than absurdity, of scrupling to
engage my faith where my honour was already bound. The event has
proved, that I was a cunning fool, providing with great circumspection for a
possible opportunity of making myself contemptible and wretched for ever.
At last, however, my resolution was taken, and I had determined, as soon as
I could engage her alone, to justify the attentions I had so invariably paid
her, and openly assure her of an affection which I had already taken such
pains to display. But in the interim—in the interim of the very few hours
that were to pass, before I could have an opportunity of speaking with her in
private—a circumstance occurred—an unlucky circumstance, to ruin all my
resolution, and with it all my comfort. A discovery took place,”—here he
hesitated and looked down. “Mrs. Smith had somehow or other been
informed, I imagine by some distant relation, whose interest it was to
deprive me of her favour, of an affair, a connection—but I need not explain
myself farther,” he added, looking at her with an heightened colour and an
enquiring eye,—“your particular intimacy—you have probably heard the
whole story long ago.”
“I have,” returned Elinor, colouring likewise, and hardening her heart
anew against any compassion for him, “I have heard it all. And how you
will explain away any part of your guilt in that dreadful business, I confess
is beyond my comprehension.”
“Remember,” cried Willoughby, “from whom you received the account.
Could it be an impartial one? I acknowledge that her situation and her
character ought to have been respected by me. I do not mean to justify
myself, but at the same time cannot leave you to suppose that I have
nothing to urge—that because she was injured she was irreproachable, and
because I was a libertine, she must be a saint. If the violence of her
passions, the weakness of her understanding—I do not mean, however, to
defend myself. Her affection for me deserved better treatment, and I often,
with great self-reproach, recall the tenderness which, for a very short time,
had the power of creating any return. I wish—I heartily wish it had never
been. But I have injured more than herself; and I have injured one, whose
affection for me (may I say it?) was scarcely less warm than hers; and
whose mind—Oh! how infinitely superior!”
“Your indifference, however, towards that unfortunate girl—I must say it,
unpleasant to me as the discussion of such a subject may well be—your
indifference is no apology for your cruel neglect of her. Do not think
yourself excused by any weakness, any natural defect of understanding on
her side, in the wanton cruelty so evident on yours. You must have known,
that while you were enjoying yourself in Devonshire pursuing fresh
schemes, always gay, always happy, she was reduced to the extremest
indigence.”
“But, upon my soul, I did not know it,” he warmly replied; “I did not
recollect that I had omitted to give her my direction; and common sense
might have told her how to find it out.”
“Well, sir, and what said Mrs. Smith?”
“She taxed me with the offence at once, and my confusion may be
guessed. The purity of her life, the formality of her notions, her ignorance
of the world—every thing was against me. The matter itself I could not
deny, and vain was every endeavour to soften it. She was previously
disposed, I believe, to doubt the morality of my conduct in general, and was
moreover discontented with the very little attention, the very little portion
of my time that I had bestowed on her, in my present visit. In short, it ended
in a total breach. By one measure I might have saved myself. In the height
of her morality, good woman! she offered to forgive the past, if I would
marry Eliza. That could not be—and I was formally dismissed from her
favour and her house. The night following this affair—I was to go the next
morning—was spent by me in deliberating on what my future conduct
should be. The struggle was great—but it ended too soon. My affection for
Marianne, my thorough conviction of her attachment to me—it was all
insufficient to outweigh that dread of poverty, or get the better of those false
ideas of the necessity of riches, which I was naturally inclined to feel, and
expensive society had increased. I had reason to believe myself secure of
my present wife, if I chose to address her, and I persuaded myself to think
that nothing else in common prudence remained for me to do. A heavy
scene however awaited me, before I could leave Devonshire;—I was
engaged to dine with you on that very day; some apology was therefore
necessary for my breaking this engagement. But whether I should write this
apology, or deliver it in person, was a point of long debate. To see
Marianne, I felt, would be dreadful, and I even doubted whether I could see
her again, and keep to my resolution. In that point, however, I undervalued
my own magnanimity, as the event declared; for I went, I saw her, and saw
her miserable, and left her miserable—and left her hoping never to see her
again.”
“Why did you call, Mr. Willoughby?” said Elinor, reproachfully; “a note
would have answered every purpose. Why was it necessary to call?”
“It was necessary to my own pride. I could not bear to leave the country
in a manner that might lead you, or the rest of the neighbourhood, to
suspect any part of what had really passed between Mrs. Smith and myself
—and I resolved therefore on calling at the cottage, in my way to Honiton.
The sight of your dear sister, however, was really dreadful; and, to heighten
the matter, I found her alone. You were all gone I do not know where. I had
left her only the evening before, so fully, so firmly resolved within my self
on doing right! A few hours were to have engaged her to me for ever; and I
remember how happy, how gay were my spirits, as I walked from the
cottage to Allenham, satisfied with myself, delighted with every body! But
in this, our last interview of friendship, I approached her with a sense of
guilt that almost took from me the power of dissembling. Her sorrow, her
disappointment, her deep regret, when I told her that I was obliged to leave
Devonshire so immediately—I never shall forget it—united too with such
reliance, such confidence in me!—Oh, God!—what a hard-hearted rascal I
was!”
They were both silent for a few moments. Elinor first spoke.
“Did you tell her that you should soon return?”
“I do not know what I told her,” he replied, impatiently; “less than was
due to the past, beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more than was
justified by the future. I cannot think of it.—It won’t do.—Then came your
dear mother to torture me farther, with all her kindness and confidence.
Thank Heaven! it did torture me. I was miserable. Miss Dashwood, you
cannot have an idea of the comfort it gives me to look back on my own
misery. I owe such a grudge to myself for the stupid, rascally folly of my
own heart, that all my past sufferings under it are only triumph and
exultation to me now. Well, I went, left all that I loved, and went to those to
whom, at best, I was only indifferent. My journey to town—travelling with
my own horses, and therefore so tediously—no creature to speak to—my
own reflections so cheerful—when I looked forward every thing so
inviting!—when I looked back at Barton, the picture so soothing!—oh, it
was a blessed journey!”
He stopped.
“Well, sir,” said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for his
departure, “and this is all?”
“All!—no:—have you forgot what passed in town? That infamous letter?
Did she show it you?”
“Yes, I saw every note that passed.”
“When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was in
town the whole time,) what I felt is—in the common phrase, not to be
expressed; in a more simple one—perhaps too simple to raise any emotion
—my feelings were very, very painful.—Every line, every word was—in
the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would
forbid—a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town was—in
the same language—a thunderbolt.—Thunderbolts and daggers!—what a
reproof would she have given me!—her taste, her opinions—I believe they
are better known to me than my own,—and I am sure they are dearer.”
Elinor’s heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this
extraordinary conversation, was now softened again;—yet she felt it her
duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last.
“This is not right, Mr. Willoughby.—Remember that you are married.
Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear.”
“Marianne’s note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in
former days,—that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been
separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith in the
constancy of mine as ever,—awakened all my remorse. I say awakened,
because time and London, business and dissipation, had in some measure
quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened villain, fancying myself
indifferent to her, and chusing to fancy that she too must have become
indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment as a mere idle,
trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders in proof of its being so, and
silencing every reproach, overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now
and then, ‘I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well married.’ But this note
made me know myself better. I felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than
any other woman in the world, and that I was using her infamously. But
every thing was then just settled between Miss Grey and me. To retreat was
impossible. All that I had to do, was to avoid you both. I sent no answer to
Marianne, intending by that to preserve myself from her farther notice; and
for some time I was even determined not to call in Berkeley Street;—but at
last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a cool, common acquaintance than
anything else, I watched you all safely out of the house one morning, and
left my name.”
“Watched us out of the house!”
“Even so. You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how
often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered many a shop
to avoid your sight, as the carriage drove by. Lodging as I did in Bond
Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse of one or
other of you; and nothing but the most constant watchfulness on my side, a
most invariably prevailing desire to keep out of your sight, could have
separated us so long. I avoided the Middletons as much as possible, as well
as everybody else who was likely to prove an acquaintance in common. Not
aware of their being in town, however, I blundered on Sir John, I believe,
the first day of his coming, and the day after I had called at Mrs. Jennings’s.
He asked me to a party, a dance at his house in the evening. Had he not told
me as an inducement that you and your sister were to be there, I should
have felt it too certain a thing, to trust myself near him. The next morning
brought another short note from Marianne—still affectionate, open, artless,
confiding—everything that could make my conduct most hateful. I could
not answer it. I tried—but could not frame a sentence. But I thought of her,
I believe, every moment of the day. If you can pity me, Miss Dashwood,
pity my situation as it was then. With my head and heart full of your sister, I
was forced to play the happy lover to another woman! Those three or four
weeks were worse than all. Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you were
forced on me; and what a sweet figure I cut! what an evening of agony it
was! Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me Willoughby in
such a tone! Oh, God! holding out her hand to me, asking me for an
explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such speaking solicitude
on my face! and Sophia, jealous as the devil on the other hand, looking all
that was—Well, it does not signify; it is over now. Such an evening! I ran
away from you all as soon as I could; but not before I had seen Marianne’s
sweet face as white as death. That was the last, last look I ever had of her;
the last manner in which she appeared to me. It was a horrid sight! yet when
I thought of her to-day as really dying, it was a kind of comfort to me to
imagine that I knew exactly how she would appear to those, who saw her
last in this world. She was before me, constantly before me, as I travelled,
in the same look and hue.”
A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded. Willoughby first
rousing himself, broke it thus:
“Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sister is certainly better,
certainly out of danger?”
“We are assured of it.”
“Your poor mother, too!—doting on Marianne.”
“But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing to
say about that?”
“Yes, yes, that in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, you know, the
very next morning. You saw what she said. I was breakfasting at the
Ellisons,—and her letter, with some others, was brought to me there from
my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia’s eye before it caught mine—and
its size, the elegance of the paper, the hand-writing altogether, immediately
gave her a suspicion. Some vague report had reached her before of my
attachment to some young lady in Devonshire, and what had passed within
her observation the preceding evening had marked who the young lady was,
and made her more jealous than ever. Affecting that air of playfulness,
therefore, which is delightful in a woman one loves, she opened the letter
directly, and read its contents. She was well paid for her impudence. She
read what made her wretched. Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her
passion—her malice—At all events it must be appeased. And, in short—
what do you think of my wife’s style of letter-writing?—delicate—tender—
truly feminine—was it not?”
“Your wife!—The letter was in your own hand-writing.”
“Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as I
was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own—her own
happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do!—we were engaged,
every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed—But I am talking like a
fool. Preparation! Day! In honest words, her money was necessary to me,
and in a situation like mine, any thing was to be done to prevent a rupture.
And after all, what did it signify to my character in the opinion of Marianne
and her friends, in what language my answer was couched? It must have
been only to one end. My business was to declare myself a scoundrel, and
whether I did it with a bow or a bluster was of little importance. ‘I am
ruined for ever in their opinion,’ said I to myself: ‘I am shut out for ever
from their society, they already think me an unprincipled fellow, this letter
will only make them think me a blackguard one.’ Such were my reasonings,
as, in a sort of desperate carelessness, I copied my wife’s words, and parted
with the last relics of Marianne. Her three notes,—unluckily they were all
in my pocketbook, or I should have denied their existence, and hoarded
them for ever,—I was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them.
And the lock of hair—that too I had always carried about me in the same
pocket-book, which was now searched by Madam with the most
ingratiating virulence,—the dear lock,—all, every memento was torn from
me.”
“You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable,” said Elinor, while
her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion; “you
ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You
had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim
to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be attached to you, or
she would not have married you. To treat her with unkindness, to speak of
her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne—nor can I suppose it a relief to
your own conscience.”
“Do not talk to me of my wife,” said he with a heavy sigh; “she does not
deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we
married. Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be
happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay. And now do you pity me,
Miss Dashwood? Or have I said all this to no purpose? Am I,—be it only
one degree,—am I less guilty in your opinion than I was before? My
intentions were not always wrong. Have I explained away any part of my
guilt?”
“Yes, you have certainly removed something—a little. You have proved
yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have proved
your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly know—the misery
that you have inflicted—I hardly know what could have made it worse.”
“Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have been
telling you?—Let me be a little lightened too in her opinion as well as in
yours. You tell me that she has forgiven me already. Let me be able to fancy
that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present feelings, will draw
from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more gentle, less dignified,
forgiveness. Tell her of my misery and my penitence—tell her that my heart
was never inconstant to her, and if you will, that at this moment she is
dearer to me than ever.”
“I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be called,
your justification. But you have not explained to me the particular reason of
your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness.”
“Last night, in Drury Lane lobby, I ran against Sir John Middleton, and
when he saw who I was, for the first time these two months, he spoke to
me. That he had cut me ever since my marriage, I had seen without surprise
or resentment. Now, however, his good-natured, honest, stupid soul, full of
indignation against me, and concern for your sister, could not resist the
temptation of telling me what he knew ought to, though probably he did not
think it would, vex me horridly. As bluntly as he could speak it, therefore,
he told me that Marianne Dashwood was dying of a putrid fever at
Cleveland—a letter that morning received from Mrs. Jennings declared her
danger most imminent—the Palmers are all gone off in a fright, &c. I was
too much shocked to be able to pass myself off as insensible even to the
undiscerning Sir John. His heart was softened in seeing mine suffer; and so
much of his ill-will was done away, that when we parted, he almost shook
me by the hand while he reminded me of an old promise about a pointer
puppy. What I felt on hearing that your sister was dying, and dying too,
believing me the greatest villain upon earth, scorning, hating me in her
latest moments—for how could I tell what horrid projects might not have
been imputed? One person I was sure would represent me as capable of
anything—What I felt was dreadful! My resolution was soon made, and at
eight o’clock this morning I was in my carriage. Now you know all.”
Elinor made no answer. Her thoughts were silently fixed on the
irreparable injury which too early an independence and its consequent
habits of idleness, dissipation, and luxury, had made in the mind, the
character, the happiness, of a man who, to every advantage of person and
talents, united a disposition naturally open and honest, and a feeling,
affectionate temper. The world had made him extravagant and vain—
Extravagance and vanity had made him cold-hearted and selfish. Vanity,
while seeking its own guilty triumph at the expense of another, had
involved him in a real attachment, which extravagance, or at least its
offspring, necessity, had required to be sacrificed. Each faulty propensity in
leading him to evil, had led him likewise to punishment. The attachment,
from which against honour, against feeling, against every better interest he
had outwardly torn himself, now, when no longer allowable, governed
every thought; and the connection, for the sake of which he had, with little
scruple, left her sister to misery, was likely to prove a source of unhappiness
to himself of a far more incurable nature. From a reverie of this kind she
was recalled at the end of some minutes by Willoughby, who, rousing
himself from a reverie at least equally painful, started up in preparation for
going, and said—
“There is no use in staying here; I must be off.”
“Are you going back to town?”
“No—to Combe Magna. I have business there; from thence to town in a
day or two. Good bye.”
He held out his hand. She could not refuse to give him hers;—he pressed
it with affection.
“And you do think something better of me than you did?” said he, letting
it fall, and leaning against the mantel-piece as if forgetting he was to go.
Elinor assured him that she did;—that she forgave, pitied, wished him
well—was even interested in his happiness—and added some gentle
counsel as to the behaviour most likely to promote it. His answer was not
very encouraging.
“As to that,” said he, “I must rub through the world as well as I can.
Domestic happiness is out of the question. If, however, I am allowed to
think that you and yours feel an interest in my fate and actions, it may be
the means—it may put me on my guard—at least, it may be something to
live for. Marianne to be sure is lost to me for ever. Were I even by any
blessed chance at liberty again—”
Elinor stopped him with a reproof.
“Well,”—he replied—“once more good bye. I shall now go away and
live in dread of one event.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your sister’s marriage.”
“You are very wrong. She can never be more lost to you than she is now.”
“But she will be gained by some one else. And if that some one should be
the very he whom, of all others, I could least bear—but I will not stay to rob
myself of all your compassionate goodwill, by showing that where I have
most injured I can least forgive. Good bye,—God bless you!”
And with these words, he almost ran out of the room.
