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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
by Jane Austen (1811)
Chapter 39
The Miss Dashwoods had now been rather more
than two months in town, and Marianne's
impatience to be gone increased every day.
She sighed for the air, the liberty, the
quiet of the country; and fancied that if
any place could give her ease, Barton must
Elinor was hardly less anxious than herself
for their removal, and only so much less
bent on its being effected immediately, as
that she was conscious of the difficulties
of so long a journey, which Marianne could
not be brought to acknowledge.
She began, however, seriously to turn her
thoughts towards its accomplishment, and
had already mentioned their wishes to their
kind hostess, who resisted them with all
the eloquence of her good-will, when a plan
was suggested, which, though detaining them
from home yet a few weeks longer, appeared
to Elinor altogether much more eligible
than any other.
The Palmers were to remove to Cleveland
about the end of March, for the Easter
holidays; and Mrs. Jennings, with both her
friends, received a very warm invitation
from Charlotte to go with them.
This would not, in itself, have been
sufficient for the delicacy of Miss
Dashwood;--but it was inforced with so much
real politeness by Mr. Palmer himself, as,
joined to the very great amendment of his
manners towards them since her sister had
been known to be unhappy, induced her to
accept it with pleasure.
When she told Marianne what she had done,
however, her first reply was not very
auspicious.
"Cleveland!"--she cried, with great
agitation.
"No, I cannot go to Cleveland."--
"You forget," said Elinor gently, "that its
situation is not...that it is not in the
neighbourhood of..."
"But it is in Somersetshire.--I cannot go
into Somersetshire.--There, where I looked
forward to going...No, Elinor, you cannot
expect me to go there."
Elinor would not argue upon the propriety
of overcoming such feelings;--she only
endeavoured to counteract them by working
on others;--represented it, therefore, as a
measure which would fix the time of her
returning to that dear mother, whom she so
much wished to see, in a more eligible,
more comfortable manner, than any other
plan could do, and perhaps without any
greater delay.
From Cleveland, which was within a few
miles of Bristol, the distance to Barton
was not beyond one day, though a long day's
journey; and their mother's servant might
easily come there to attend them down; and
as there could be no occasion of their
staying above a week at Cleveland, they
might now be at home in little more than
three weeks' time.
As Marianne's affection for her mother was
sincere, it must triumph with little
difficulty, over the imaginary evils she
had started.
Mrs. Jennings was so far from being weary
of her guests, that she pressed them very
earnestly to return with her again from
Cleveland.
Elinor was grateful for the attention, but
it could not alter her design; and their
mother's concurrence being readily gained,
every thing relative to their return was
arranged as far as it could be;--and
Marianne found some relief in drawing up a
statement of the hours that were yet to
divide her from Barton.
"Ah! Colonel, I do not know what you and I
shall do without the Miss Dashwoods;"--was
Mrs. Jennings's address to him when he
first called on her, after their leaving
her was settled--"for they are quite
resolved upon going home from the Palmers;-
-and how forlorn we shall be, when I come
back!--Lord! we shall sit and gape at one
another as dull as two cats."
Perhaps Mrs. Jennings was in hopes, by this
vigorous sketch of their future ennui, to
provoke him to make that offer, which might
give himself an escape from it;--and if so,
she had soon afterwards good reason to
think her object gained; for, on Elinor's
moving to the window to take more
expeditiously the dimensions of a print,
which she was going to copy for her friend,
he followed her to it with a look of
particular meaning, and conversed with her
there for several minutes.
The effect of his discourse on the lady
too, could not escape her observation, for
though she was too honorable to listen, and
had even changed her seat, on purpose that
she might NOT hear, to one close by the
piano forte on which Marianne was playing,
she could not keep herself from seeing that
Elinor changed colour, attended with
agitation, and was too intent on what he
said to pursue her employment.-- Still
farther in confirmation of her hopes, in
the interval of Marianne's turning from one
lesson to another, some words of the
Colonel's inevitably reached her ear, in
which he seemed to be apologising for the
badness of his house.
This set the matter beyond a doubt.
She wondered, indeed, at his thinking it
necessary to do so; but supposed it to be
the proper etiquette.
What Elinor said in reply she could not
distinguish, but judged from the motion of
her lips, that she did not think THAT any
material objection;--and Mrs. Jennings
commended her in her heart for being so
honest.
They then talked on for a few minutes
longer without her catching a syllable,
when another lucky stop in Marianne's
performance brought her these words in the
Colonel's calm voice,--
"I am afraid it cannot take place very
soon."
Astonished and shocked at so unlover-like a
speech, she was almost ready to cry out,
"Lord! what should hinder it?"--but
checking her desire, confined herself to
this silent ***.
"This is very strange!--sure he need not
wait to be older."
This delay on the Colonel's side, however,
did not seem to offend or mortify his fair
companion in the least, for on their
breaking up the conference soon afterwards,
and moving different ways, Mrs. Jennings
very plainly heard Elinor say, and with a
voice which shewed her to feel what she
said,
"I shall always think myself very much
obliged to you."
Mrs. Jennings was delighted with her
gratitude, and only wondered that after
hearing such a sentence, the Colonel should
be able to take leave of them, as he
immediately did, with the utmost sang-
froid, and go away without making her any
reply!--She had not thought her old friend
could have made so indifferent a suitor.
What had really passed between them was to
this effect.
"I have heard," said he, with great
compassion, "of the injustice your friend
Mr. Ferrars has suffered from his family;
for if I understand the matter right, he
has been entirely cast off by them for
persevering in his engagement with a very
deserving young woman.-- Have I been
rightly informed?--Is it so?--"
Elinor told him that it was.
"The cruelty, the impolitic cruelty,"--he
replied, with great feeling,--"of dividing,
or attempting to divide, two young people
long attached to each other, is terrible.--
Mrs. Ferrars does not know what she may be
doing--what she may drive her son to.
I have seen Mr. Ferrars two or three times
in Harley Street, and am much pleased with
him.
He is not a young man with whom one can be
intimately acquainted in a short time, but
I have seen enough of him to wish him well
for his own sake, and as a friend of yours,
I wish it still more.
I understand that he intends to take
orders.
Will you be so good as to tell him that the
living of Delaford, now just vacant, as I
am informed by this day's post, is his, if
he think it worth his acceptance--but THAT,
perhaps, so unfortunately circumstanced as
he is now, it may be nonsense to appear to
doubt; I only wish it were more valuable.-
- It is a rectory, but a small one; the
late incumbent, I believe, did not make
more than 200 L per annum, and though it is
certainly capable of improvement, I fear,
not to such an amount as to afford him a
very comfortable income.
Such as it is, however, my pleasure in
presenting him to it, will be very great.
Pray assure him of it."
Elinor's astonishment at this commission
could hardly have been greater, had the
Colonel been really making her an offer of
his hand.
The preferment, which only two days before
she had considered as hopeless for Edward,
was already provided to enable him to
marry;--and SHE, of all people in the
world, was fixed on to bestow it!--Her
emotion was such as Mrs. Jennings had
attributed to a very different cause;--but
whatever minor feelings less pure, less
pleasing, might have a share in that
emotion, her esteem for the general
benevolence, and her gratitude for the
particular friendship, which together
prompted Colonel Brandon to this act, were
strongly felt, and warmly expressed.
She thanked him for it with all her heart,
spoke of Edward's principles and
disposition with that praise which she knew
them to deserve; and promised to undertake
the commission with pleasure, if it were
really his wish to put off so agreeable an
office to another.
But at the same time, she could not help
thinking that no one could so well perform
it as himself.
It was an office in short, from which,
unwilling to give Edward the pain of
receiving an obligation from HER, she would
have been very glad to be spared herself;--
but Colonel Brandon, on motives of equal
delicacy, declining it likewise, still
seemed so desirous of its being given
through her means, that she would not on
any account make farther opposition.
Edward, she believed, was still in town,
and fortunately she had heard his address
from Miss Steele.
She could undertake therefore to inform him
of it, in the course of the day.
After this had been settled, Colonel
Brandon began to talk of his own advantage
in securing so respectable and agreeable a
neighbour, and THEN it was that he
mentioned with regret, that the house was
small and indifferent;--an evil which
Elinor, as Mrs. Jennings had supposed her
to do, made very light of, at least as far
as regarded its size.
"The smallness of the house," said she, "I
cannot imagine any inconvenience to them,
for it will be in proportion to their
family and income."
By which the Colonel was surprised to find
that SHE was considering Mr. Ferrars's
marriage as the certain consequence of the
presentation; for he did not suppose it
possible that Delaford living could supply
such an income, as anybody in his style of
life would venture to settle on--and he
said so.
"This little rectory CAN do no more than
make Mr. Ferrars comfortable as a bachelor;
it cannot enable him to marry.
I am sorry to say that my patronage ends
with this; and my interest is hardly more
extensive.
If, however, by an unforeseen chance it
should be in my power to serve him farther,
I must think very differently of him from
what I now do, if I am not as ready to be
useful to him then as I sincerely wish I
could be at present.
What I am now doing indeed, seems nothing
at all, since it can advance him so little
towards what must be his principal, his
only object of happiness.
His marriage must still be a distant good;-
-at least, I am afraid it cannot take place
very soon.--"
Such was the sentence which, when
misunderstood, so justly offended the
delicate feelings of Mrs. Jennings; but
after this narration of what really passed
between Colonel Brandon and Elinor, while
they stood at the window, the gratitude
expressed by the latter on their parting,
may perhaps appear in general, not less
reasonably excited, nor less properly
worded than if it had arisen from an offer
of marriage.