CHAPTER XLIX.
Unaccountable, however, as the circumstances of his release might
appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to what
purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined by all;
—for after experiencing the blessings of one imprudent engagement,
contracted without his mother’s consent, as he had already done for more
than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of that,
than the immediate contraction of another.
His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one. It was only to ask Elinor
to marry him;—and considering that he was not altogether inexperienced in
such a question, it might be strange that he should feel so uncomfortable in
the present case as he really did, so much in need of encouragement and
fresh air.
How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution, however,
how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he
expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly told.
This only need be said;—that when they all sat down to table at four
o’clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his lady, engaged
her mother’s consent, and was not only in the rapturous profession of the
lover, but, in the reality of reason and truth, one of the happiest of men. His
situation indeed was more than commonly joyful. He had more than the
ordinary triumph of accepted love to swell his heart, and raise his spirits. He
was released without any reproach to himself, from an entanglement which
had long formed his misery, from a woman whom he had long ceased to
love;—and elevated at once to that security with another, which he must
have thought of almost with despair, as soon as he had learnt to consider it
with desire. He was brought, not from doubt or suspense, but from misery
to happiness;—and the change was openly spoken in such a genuine,
flowing, grateful cheerfulness, as his friends had never witnessed in him
before.
His heart was now open to Elinor, all its weaknesses, all its errors
confessed, and his first boyish attachment to Lucy treated with all the
philosophic dignity of twenty-four.
“It was a foolish, idle inclination on my side,” said he, “the consequence
of ignorance of the world, and want of employment. Had my mother given
me some active profession when I was removed at eighteen from the care of
Mr. Pratt, I think, nay, I am sure, it would never have happened; for though
I left Longstaple with what I thought, at the time, a most unconquerable
preference for his niece, yet had I then had any pursuit, any object to
engage my time and keep me at a distance from her for a few months, I
should very soon have outgrown the fancied attachment, especially by
mixing more with the world, as in such case I must have done. But instead
of having any thing to do, instead of having any profession chosen for me,
or being allowed to chuse any myself, I returned home to be completely
idle; and for the first twelvemonth afterwards I had not even the nominal
employment, which belonging to the university would have given me; for I
was not entered at Oxford till I was nineteen. I had therefore nothing in the
world to do, but to fancy myself in love; and as my mother did not make my
home in every respect comfortable, as I had no friend, no companion in my
brother, and disliked new acquaintance, it was not unnatural for me to be
very often at Longstaple, where I always felt myself at home, and was
always sure of a welcome; and accordingly I spent the greatest part of my
time there from eighteen to nineteen: Lucy appeared everything that was
amiable and obliging. She was pretty too—at least I thought so then; and I
had seen so little of other women, that I could make no comparisons, and
see no defects. Considering everything, therefore, I hope, foolish as our
engagement was, foolish as it has since in every way been proved, it was
not at the time an unnatural or an inexcusable piece of folly.”
The change which a few hours had wrought in the minds and the
happiness of the Dashwoods, was such—so great—as promised them all,
the satisfaction of a sleepless night. Mrs. Dashwood, too happy to be
comfortable, knew not how to love Edward, nor praise Elinor enough, how
to be enough thankful for his release without wounding his delicacy, nor
how at once to give them leisure for unrestrained conversation together, and
yet enjoy, as she wished, the sight and society of both.
Marianne could speak her happiness only by tears. Comparisons would
occur—regrets would arise; and her joy, though sincere as her love for her
sister, was of a kind to give her neither spirits nor language.
But Elinor—how are her feelings to be described? From the moment of
learning that Lucy was married to another, that Edward was free, to the
moment of his justifying the hopes which had so instantly followed, she
was every thing by turns but tranquil. But when the second moment had
passed, when she found every doubt, every solicitude removed, compared
her situation with what so lately it had been,—saw him honourably released
from his former engagement,—saw him instantly profiting by the release, to
address herself and declare an affection as tender, as constant as she had
ever supposed it to be,—she was oppressed, she was overcome by her own
felicity; and happily disposed as is the human mind to be easily familiarized
with any change for the better, it required several hours to give sedateness
to her spirits, or any degree of tranquillity to her heart.
Edward was now fixed at the cottage at least for a week;—for whatever
other claims might be made on him, it was impossible that less than a week
should be given up to the enjoyment of Elinor’s company, or suffice to say
half that was to be said of the past, the present, and the future;—for though
a very few hours spent in the hard labor of incessant talking will despatch
more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational
creatures, yet with lovers it is different. Between them no subject is
finished, no communication is even made, till it has been made at least
twenty times over.
Lucy’s marriage, the unceasing and reasonable wonder among them all,
formed of course one of the earliest discussions of the lovers;—and Elinor’s
particular knowledge of each party made it appear to her in every view, as
one of the most extraordinary and unaccountable circumstances she had
ever heard. How they could be thrown together, and by what attraction
Robert could be drawn on to marry a girl, of whose beauty she had herself
heard him speak without any admiration,—a girl too already engaged to his
brother, and on whose account that brother had been thrown off by his
family—it was beyond her comprehension to make out. To her own heart it
was a delightful affair, to her imagination it was even a ridiculous one, but
to her reason, her judgment, it was completely a puzzle.
Edward could only attempt an explanation by supposing, that, perhaps, at
first accidentally meeting, the vanity of the one had been so worked on by
the flattery of the other, as to lead by degrees to all the rest. Elinor
remembered what Robert had told her in Harley Street, of his opinion of
what his own mediation in his brother’s affairs might have done, if applied
to in time. She repeated it to Edward.
“That was exactly like Robert,” was his immediate observation. “And
that,” he presently added, “might perhaps be in his head when the
acquaintance between them first began. And Lucy perhaps at first might
think only of procuring his good offices in my favour. Other designs might
afterward arise.”
How long it had been carrying on between them, however, he was
equally at a loss with herself to make out; for at Oxford, where he had
remained for choice ever since his quitting London, he had had no means of
hearing of her but from herself, and her letters to the very last were neither
less frequent, nor less affectionate than usual. Not the smallest suspicion,
therefore, had ever occurred to prepare him for what followed;—and when
at last it burst on him in a letter from Lucy herself, he had been for some
time, he believed, half stupified between the wonder, the horror, and the joy
of such a deliverance. He put the letter into Elinor’s hands.
“DEAR SIR,
“Being very sure I have long lost your affections, I have
thought myself at liberty to bestow my own on another, and
have no doubt of being as happy with him as I once used to
think I might be with you; but I scorn to accept a hand while
the heart was another’s. Sincerely wish you happy in your
choice, and it shall not be my fault if we are not always good
friends, as our near relationship now makes proper. I can
safely say I owe you no ill-will, and am sure you will be too
generous to do us any ill offices. Your brother has gained my
affections entirely, and as we could not live without one
another, we are just returned from the altar, and are now on
our way to Dawlish for a few weeks, which place your dear
brother has great curiosity to see, but thought I would first
trouble you with these few lines, and shall always remain,
“Your sincere well-wisher, friend, and sister,
“LUCY FERRARS.
“I have burnt all your letters, and will return your picture the first
opportunity. Please to destroy my scrawls—but the ring with my hair you
are very welcome to keep.”
Elinor read and returned it without any comment.
“I will not ask your opinion of it as a composition,” said Edward.—“For
worlds would not I have had a letter of hers seen by you in former days.—
In a sister it is bad enough, but in a wife!—how I have blushed over the
pages of her writing!—and I believe I may say that since the first half year
of our foolish—business—this is the only letter I ever received from her, of
which the substance made me any amends for the defect of the style.”
“However it may have come about,” said Elinor, after a pause,—“they
are certainly married. And your mother has brought on herself a most
appropriate punishment. The independence she settled on Robert, through
resentment against you, has put it in his power to make his own choice; and
she has actually been bribing one son with a thousand a-year, to do the very
deed which she disinherited the other for intending to do. She will hardly be
less hurt, I suppose, by Robert’s marrying Lucy, than she would have been
by your marrying her.”
“She will be more hurt by it, for Robert always was her favourite.—She
will be more hurt by it, and on the same principle will forgive him much
sooner.”
In what state the affair stood at present between them, Edward knew not,
for no communication with any of his family had yet been attempted by
him. He had quitted Oxford within four and twenty hours after Lucy’s letter
arrived, and with only one object before him, the nearest road to Barton,
had had no leisure to form any scheme of conduct, with which that road did
not hold the most intimate connection. He could do nothing till he were
assured of his fate with Miss Dashwood; and by his rapidity in seeking that
fate, it is to be supposed, in spite of the jealousy with which he had once
thought of Colonel Brandon, in spite of the modesty with which he rated his
own deserts, and the politeness with which he talked of his doubts, he did
not, upon the whole, expect a very cruel reception. It was his business,
however, to say that he did, and he said it very prettily. What he might say
on the subject a twelvemonth after, must be referred to the imagination of
husbands and wives.
That Lucy had certainly meant to deceive, to go off with a flourish of
malice against him in her message by Thomas, was perfectly clear to
Elinor; and Edward himself, now thoroughly enlightened on her character,
had no scruple in believing her capable of the utmost meanness of wanton
ill-nature. Though his eyes had been long opened, even before his
acquaintance with Elinor began, to her ignorance and a want of liberality in
some of her opinions—they had been equally imputed, by him, to her want
of education; and till her last letter reached him, he had always believed her
to be a well-disposed, good-hearted girl, and thoroughly attached to
himself. Nothing but such a persuasion could have prevented his putting an
end to an engagement, which, long before the discovery of it laid him open
to his mother’s anger, had been a continual source of disquiet and regret to
him.
“I thought it my duty,” said he, “independent of my feelings, to give her
the option of continuing the engagement or not, when I was renounced by
my mother, and stood to all appearance without a friend in the world to
assist me. In such a situation as that, where there seemed nothing to tempt
the avarice or the vanity of any living creature, how could I suppose, when
she so earnestly, so warmly insisted on sharing my fate, whatever it might
be, that any thing but the most disinterested affection was her inducement?
And even now, I cannot comprehend on what motive she acted, or what
fancied advantage it could be to her, to be fettered to a man for whom she
had not the smallest regard, and who had only two thousand pounds in the
world. She could not foresee that Colonel Brandon would give me a living.”
“No; but she might suppose that something would occur in your favour;
that your own family might in time relent. And at any rate, she lost nothing
by continuing the engagement, for she has proved that it fettered neither her
inclination nor her actions. The connection was certainly a respectable one,
and probably gained her consideration among her friends; and, if nothing
more advantageous occurred, it would be better for her to marry you than be
single.”
Edward was, of course, immediately convinced that nothing could have
been more natural than Lucy’s conduct, nor more self-evident than the
motive of it.
Elinor scolded him, harshly as ladies always scold the imprudence which
compliments themselves, for having spent so much time with them at
Norland, when he must have felt his own inconstancy.
“Your behaviour was certainly very wrong,” said she; “because—to say
nothing of my own conviction, our relations were all led away by it to fancy
and expect what, as you were then situated, could never be.”
He could only plead an ignorance of his own heart, and a mistaken
confidence in the force of his engagement.
“I was simple enough to think, that because my faith was plighted to
another, there could be no danger in my being with you; and that the
consciousness of my engagement was to keep my heart as safe and sacred
as my honour. I felt that I admired you, but I told myself it was only
friendship; and till I began to make comparisons between yourself and
Lucy, I did not know how far I was got. After that, I suppose, I was wrong
in remaining so much in Sussex, and the arguments with which I reconciled
myself to the expediency of it, were no better than these:—The danger is
my own; I am doing no injury to anybody but myself.”
Elinor smiled, and shook her head.
Edward heard with pleasure of Colonel Brandon’s being expected at the
Cottage, as he really wished not only to be better acquainted with him, but
to have an opportunity of convincing him that he no longer resented his
giving him the living of Delaford—“Which, at present,” said he, “after
thanks so ungraciously delivered as mine were on the occasion, he must
think I have never forgiven him for offering.”
Now he felt astonished himself that he had never yet been to the place.
But so little interest had he taken in the matter, that he owed all his
knowledge of the house, garden, and glebe, extent of the parish, condition
of the land, and rate of the tithes, to Elinor herself, who had heard so much
of it from Colonel Brandon, and heard it with so much attention, as to be
entirely mistress of the subject.
One question after this only remained undecided, between them, one
difficulty only was to be overcome. They were brought together by mutual
affection, with the warmest approbation of their real friends; their intimate
knowledge of each other seemed to make their happiness certain—and they
only wanted something to live upon. Edward had two thousand pounds, and
Elinor one, which, with Delaford living, was all that they could call their
own; for it was impossible that Mrs. Dashwood should advance anything;
and they were neither of them quite enough in love to think that three
hundred and fifty pounds a-year would supply them with the comforts of
life.
Edward was not entirely without hopes of some favourable change in his
mother towards him; and on that he rested for the residue of their income.
But Elinor had no such dependence; for since Edward would still be unable
to marry Miss Morton, and his chusing herself had been spoken of in Mrs.
Ferrars’s flattering language as only a lesser evil than his chusing Lucy
Steele, she feared that Robert’s offence would serve no other purpose than
to enrich Fanny.
About four days after Edward’s arrival Colonel Brandon appeared, to
complete Mrs. Dashwood’s satisfaction, and to give her the dignity of
having, for the first time since her living at Barton, more company with her
than her house would hold. Edward was allowed to retain the privilege of
first comer, and Colonel Brandon therefore walked every night to his old
quarters at the Park; from whence he usually returned in the morning, early
enough to interrupt the lovers’ first tête-à-tête before breakfast.
A three weeks’ residence at Delaford, where, in his evening hours at
least, he had little to do but to calculate the disproportion between thirty-six
and seventeen, brought him to Barton in a temper of mind which needed all
the improvement in Marianne’s looks, all the kindness of her welcome, and
all the encouragement of her mother’s language, to make it cheerful.
Among such friends, however, and such flattery, he did revive. No rumour
of Lucy’s marriage had yet reached him:—he knew nothing of what had
passed; and the first hours of his visit were consequently spent in hearing
and in wondering. Every thing was explained to him by Mrs. Dashwood,
and he found fresh reason to rejoice in what he had done for Mr. Ferrars,
since eventually it promoted the interest of Elinor.
It would be needless to say, that the gentlemen advanced in the good
opinion of each other, as they advanced in each other’s acquaintance, for it
could not be otherwise. Their resemblance in good principles and good
sense, in disposition and manner of thinking, would probably have been
sufficient to unite them in friendship, without any other attraction; but their
being in love with two sisters, and two sisters fond of each other, made that
mutual regard inevitable and immediate, which might otherwise have
waited the effect of time and judgment.
The letters from town, which a few days before would have made every
nerve in Elinor’s body thrill with transport, now arrived to be read with less
emotion than mirth. Mrs. Jennings wrote to tell the wonderful tale, to vent
her honest indignation against the jilting girl, and pour forth her compassion
towards poor Mr. Edward, who, she was sure, had quite doted upon the
worthless hussy, and was now, by all accounts, almost broken-hearted, at
Oxford. “I do think,” she continued, “nothing was ever carried on so sly; for
it was but two days before Lucy called and sat a couple of hours with me.
Not a soul suspected anything of the matter, not even Nancy, who, poor
soul! came crying to me the day after, in a great fright for fear of Mrs.
Ferrars, as well as not knowing how to get to Plymouth; for Lucy it seems
borrowed all her money before she went off to be married, on purpose we
suppose to make a show with, and poor Nancy had not seven shillings in the
world; so I was very glad to give her five guineas to take her down to
Exeter, where she thinks of staying three or four weeks with Mrs. Burgess,
in hopes, as I tell her, to fall in with the Doctor again. And I must say that
Lucy’s crossness not to take them along with them in the chaise is worse
than all. Poor Mr. Edward! I cannot get him out of my head, but you must
send for him to Barton, and Miss Marianne must try to comfort him.”
Mr. Dashwood’s strains were more solemn. Mrs. Ferrars was the most
unfortunate of women—poor Fanny had suffered agonies of sensibility—
and he considered the existence of each, under such a blow, with grateful
wonder. Robert’s offence was unpardonable, but Lucy’s was infinitely
worse. Neither of them were ever again to be mentioned to Mrs. Ferrars;
and even, if she might hereafter be induced to forgive her son, his wife
should never be acknowledged as her daughter, nor be permitted to appear
in her presence. The secrecy with which everything had been carried on
between them, was rationally treated as enormously heightening the crime,
because, had any suspicion of it occurred to the others, proper measures
would have been taken to prevent the marriage; and he called on Elinor to
join with him in regretting that Lucy’s engagement with Edward had not
rather been fulfilled, than that she should thus be the means of spreading
misery farther in the family. He thus continued:—
“Mrs. Ferrars has never yet mentioned Edward’s name, which does not
surprise us; but, to our great astonishment, not a line has been received from
him on the occasion. Perhaps, however, he is kept silent by his fear of
offending, and I shall, therefore, give him a hint, by a line to Oxford, that
his sister and I both think a letter of proper submission from him, addressed
perhaps to Fanny, and by her shown to her mother, might not be taken
amiss; for we all know the tenderness of Mrs. Ferrars’s heart, and that she
wishes for nothing so much as to be on good terms with her children.”
This paragraph was of some importance to the prospects and conduct of
Edward. It determined him to attempt a reconciliation, though not exactly in
the manner pointed out by their brother and sister.
“A letter of proper submission!” repeated he; “would they have me beg
my mother’s pardon for Robert’s ingratitude to her, and breach of honour to
me? I can make no submission. I am grown neither humble nor penitent by
what has passed. I am grown very happy; but that would not interest. I
know of no submission that is proper for me to make.”
“You may certainly ask to be forgiven,” said Elinor, “because you have
offended;—and I should think you might now venture so far as to profess
some concern for having ever formed the engagement which drew on you
your mother’s anger.”
He agreed that he might.
“And when she has forgiven you, perhaps a little humility may be
convenient while acknowledging a second engagement, almost as
imprudent in her eyes as the first.”
He had nothing to urge against it, but still resisted the idea of a letter of
proper submission; and therefore, to make it easier to him, as he declared a
much greater willingness to make mean concessions by word of mouth than
on paper, it was resolved that, instead of writing to Fanny, he should go to
London, and personally intreat her good offices in his favour. “And if they
really do interest themselves,” said Marianne, in her new character of
candour, “in bringing about a reconciliation, I shall think that even John and
Fanny are not entirely without merit.”
After a visit on Colonel Brandon’s side of only three or four days, the
two gentlemen quitted Barton together. They were to go immediately to
Delaford, that Edward might have some personal knowledge of his future
home, and assist his patron and friend in deciding on what improvements
were needed to it; and from thence, after staying there a couple of nights, he
was to proceed on his journey to town.
