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SENSE AND SENSIBILITY
by Jane Austen (1811)
Chapter 29
Before the house-maid had lit their fire
the next day, or the sun gained any power
over a cold, gloomy morning in January,
Marianne, only half dressed, was kneeling
against one of the window-seats for the
sake of all the little light she could
command from it, and writing as fast as a
continual flow of tears would permit her.
In this situation, Elinor, roused from
sleep by her agitation and sobs, first
perceived her; and after observing her for
a few moments with silent anxiety, said, in
a tone of the most considerate gentleness,
"Marianne, may I ask-?"
"No, Elinor," she replied, "ask nothing;
you will soon know all."
The sort of desperate calmness with which
this was said, lasted no longer than while
she spoke, and was immediately followed by
a return of the same excessive affliction.
It was some minutes before she could go on
with her letter, and the frequent bursts of
grief which still obliged her, at
intervals, to withhold her pen, were proofs
enough of her feeling how more than
probable it was that she was writing for
the last time to Willoughby.
Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive
attention in her power; and she would have
tried to sooth and tranquilize her still
more, had not Marianne entreated her, with
all the eagerness of the most nervous
irritability, not to speak to her for the
world.
In such circumstances, it was better for
both that they should not be long together;
and the restless state of Marianne's mind
not only prevented her from remaining in
the room a moment after she was dressed,
but requiring at once solitude and
continual change of place, made her wander
about the house till breakfast time,
avoiding the sight of every body.
At breakfast she neither ate, nor attempted
to eat any thing; and Elinor's attention
was then all employed, not in urging her,
not in pitying her, nor in appearing to
regard her, but in endeavouring to engage
Mrs. Jennings's notice entirely to herself.
As this was a favourite meal with Mrs.
Jennings, it lasted a considerable time,
and they were just setting themselves,
after it, round the common working table,
when a letter was delivered to Marianne,
which she eagerly caught from the servant,
and, turning of a death-like paleness,
instantly ran out of the room.
Elinor, who saw as plainly by this, as if
she had seen the direction, that it must
come from Willoughby, felt immediately such
a sickness at heart as made her hardly able
to hold up her head, and sat in such a
general tremour as made her fear it
impossible to escape Mrs. Jennings's
notice.
That good lady, however, saw only that
Marianne had received a letter from
Willoughby, which appeared to her a very
good joke, and which she treated
accordingly, by hoping, with a laugh, that
she would find it to her liking.
Of Elinor's distress, she was too busily
employed in measuring lengths of worsted
for her rug, to see any thing at all; and
calmly continuing her talk, as soon as
Marianne disappeared, she said,
"Upon my word, I never saw a young woman so
desperately in love in my life!
MY girls were nothing to her, and yet they
used to be foolish enough; but as for Miss
Marianne, she is quite an altered creature.
I hope, from the bottom of my heart, he
won't keep her waiting much longer, for it
is quite grievous to see her look so ill
and forlorn.
Pray, when are they to be married?"
Elinor, though never less disposed to speak
than at that moment, obliged herself to
answer such an attack as this, and,
therefore, trying to smile, replied, "And
have you really, Ma'am, talked yourself
into a persuasion of my sister's being
engaged to Mr. Willoughby?
I thought it had been only a joke, but so
serious a question seems to imply more; and
I must beg, therefore, that you will not
deceive yourself any longer.
I do assure you that nothing would surprise
me more than to hear of their being going
to be married."
"For shame, for shame, Miss Dashwood! how
can you talk so?
Don't we all know that it must be a match,
that they were over head and ears in love
with each other from the first moment they
met?
Did not I see them together in Devonshire
every day, and all day long; and did not I
know that your sister came to town with me
on purpose to buy wedding clothes?
Come, come, this won't do.
Because you are so sly about it yourself,
you think nobody else has any senses; but
it is no such thing, I can tell you, for it
has been known all over town this ever so
long.
I tell every body of it and so does
Charlotte."
"Indeed, Ma'am," said Elinor, very
seriously, "you are mistaken.
Indeed, you are doing a very unkind thing
in spreading the report, and you will find
that you have though you will not believe
me now."
Mrs. Jennings laughed again, but Elinor had
not spirits to say more, and eager at all
events to know what Willoughby had written,
hurried away to their room, where, on
opening the door, she saw Marianne
stretched on the bed, almost choked by
grief, one letter in her hand, and two or
three others laying by her.
Elinor drew near, but without saying a
word; and seating herself on the bed, took
her hand, kissed her affectionately several
times, and then gave way to a burst of
tears, which at first was scarcely less
violent than Marianne's.
The latter, though unable to speak, seemed
to feel all the tenderness of this
behaviour, and after some time thus spent
in joint affliction, she put all the
letters into Elinor's hands; and then
covering her face with her handkerchief,
almost screamed with agony.
Elinor, who knew that such grief, shocking
as it was to witness it, must have its
course, watched by her till this excess of
suffering had somewhat spent itself, and
then turning eagerly to Willoughby's
letter, read as follows:
"Bond Street, January.
"MY DEAR MADAM,
"I have just had the honour of receiving
your letter, for which I beg to return my
sincere acknowledgments.
I am much concerned to find there was
anything in my behaviour last night that
did not meet your approbation; and though I
am quite at a loss to discover in what
point I could be so unfortunate as to
offend you, I entreat your forgiveness of
what I can assure you to have been
perfectly unintentional.
I shall never reflect on my former
acquaintance with your family in Devonshire
without the most grateful pleasure, and
flatter myself it will not be broken by any
mistake or misapprehension of my actions.
My esteem for your whole family is very
sincere; but if I have been so unfortunate
as to give rise to a belief of more than I
felt, or meant to express, I shall reproach
myself for not having been more guarded in
my professions of that esteem.
That I should ever have meant more you will
allow to be impossible, when you understand
that my affections have been long engaged
elsewhere, and it will not be many weeks, I
believe, before this engagement is
fulfilled.
It is with great regret that I obey your
commands in returning the letters with
which I have been honoured from you, and
the lock of hair, which you so obligingly
bestowed on me.
"I am, dear Madam, "Your most obedient
"humble servant, "JOHN WILLOUGHBY."
With what indignation such a letter as this
must be read by Miss Dashwood, may be
imagined.
Though aware, before she began it, that it
must bring a confession of his inconstancy,
and confirm their separation for ever, she
was not aware that such language could be
suffered to announce it; nor could she have
supposed Willoughby capable of departing so
far from the appearance of every honourable
and delicate feeling--so far from the
common decorum of a gentleman, as to send a
letter so impudently cruel: a letter which,
instead of bringing with his desire of a
release any professions of regret,
acknowledged no breach of faith, denied all
peculiar affection whatever--a letter of
which every line was an insult, and which
proclaimed its writer to be deep in
hardened villainy.
She paused over it for some time with
indignant astonishment; then read it again
and again; but every perusal only served to
increase her abhorrence of the man, and so
bitter were her feelings against him, that
she dared not trust herself to speak, lest
she might wound Marianne still deeper by
treating their disengagement, not as a loss
to her of any possible good but as an
escape from the worst and most irremediable
of all evils, a connection, for life, with
an unprincipled man, as a deliverance the
most real, a blessing the most important.
In her earnest meditations on the contents
of the letter, on the depravity of that
mind which could dictate it, and probably,
on the very different mind of a very
different person, who had no other
connection whatever with the affair than
what her heart gave him with every thing
that passed, Elinor forgot the immediate
distress of her sister, forgot that she had
three letters on her lap yet unread, and so
entirely forgot how long she had been in
the room, that when on hearing a carriage
drive up to the door, she went to the
window to see who could be coming so
unreasonably early, she was all
astonishment to perceive Mrs. Jennings's
chariot, which she knew had not been
ordered till one.
Determined not to quit Marianne, though
hopeless of contributing, at present, to
her ease, she hurried away to excuse
herself from attending Mrs. Jennings, on
account of her sister being indisposed.
Mrs. Jennings, with a thoroughly good-
humoured concern for its cause, admitted
the excuse most readily, and Elinor, after
seeing her safe off, returned to Marianne,
whom she found attempting to rise from the
bed, and whom she reached just in time to
prevent her from falling on the floor,
faint and giddy from a long want of proper
rest and food; for it was many days since
she had any appetite, and many nights since
she had really slept; and now, when her
mind was no longer supported by the fever
of suspense, the consequence of all this
was felt in an aching head, a weakened
stomach, and a general nervous faintness.
A glass of wine, which Elinor procured for
her directly, made her more comfortable,
and she was at last able to express some
sense of her kindness, by saying,
"Poor Elinor! how unhappy I make you!"
"I only wish," replied her sister, "there
were any thing I COULD do, which might be
of comfort to you."
This, as every thing else would have been,
was too much for Marianne, who could only
exclaim, in the anguish of her heart, "Oh!
Elinor, I am miserable, indeed," before her
voice was entirely lost in sobs.
Elinor could no longer witness this torrent
of unresisted grief in silence.
"Exert yourself, dear Marianne," she cried,
"if you would not kill yourself and all who
love you.
Think of your mother; think of her misery
while YOU suffer: for her sake you must
exert yourself."
"I cannot, I cannot," cried Marianne;
"leave me, leave me, if I distress you;
leave me, hate me, forget me! but do not
torture me so.
Oh! how easy for those, who have no sorrow
of their own to talk of exertion!
Happy, happy Elinor, YOU cannot have an
idea of what I suffer."
"Do you call ME happy, Marianne?
Ah! if you knew!--And can you believe me to
be so, while I see you so wretched!"
"Forgive me, forgive me," throwing her arms
round her sister's neck; "I know you feel
for me; I know what a heart you have; but
yet you are--you must be happy; Edward
loves you--what, oh what, can do away such
happiness as that?"
"Many, many circumstances," said Elinor,
solemnly.
"No, no, no," cried Marianne wildly, "he
loves you, and only you.
You CAN have no grief."
"I can have no pleasure while I see you in
this state."
"And you will never see me otherwise.
Mine is a misery which nothing can do
away."
"You must not talk so, Marianne.
Have you no comforts? no friends?
Is your loss such as leaves no opening for
consolation?
Much as you suffer now, think of what you
would have suffered if the discovery of his
character had been delayed to a later
period--if your engagement had been carried
on for months and months, as it might have
been, before he chose to put an end to it.
Every additional day of unhappy confidence,
on your side, would have made the blow more
dreadful."
"Engagement!" cried Marianne, "there has
been no engagement."
"No engagement!"
"No, he is not so unworthy as you believe
him.
He has broken no faith with me."
"But he told you that he loved you."
"Yes--no--never absolutely.
It was every day implied, but never
professedly declared.
Sometimes I thought it had been--but it
never was."
"Yet you wrote to him?"--
"Yes--could that be wrong after all that
had passed?-- But I cannot talk."
Elinor said no more, and turning again to
the three letters which now raised a much
stronger curiosity than before, directly
ran over the contents of all.
The first, which was what her sister had
sent him on their arrival in town, was to
this effect.
Berkeley Street, January.
"How surprised you will be, Willoughby, on
receiving this; and I think you will feel
something more than surprise, when you know
that I am in town.
An opportunity of coming hither, though
with Mrs. Jennings, was a temptation we
could not resist.
I wish you may receive this in time to come
here to-night, but I will not depend on it.
At any rate I shall expect you to-morrow.
For the present, adieu.
"M.D."
Her second note, which had been written on
the morning after the dance at the
Middletons', was in these words:--
"I cannot express my disappointment in
having missed you the day before yesterday,
nor my astonishment at not having received
any answer to a note which I sent you above
a week ago.
I have been expecting to hear from you, and
still more to see you, every hour of the
day.
Pray call again as soon as possible, and
explain the reason of my having expected
this in vain.
You had better come earlier another time,
because we are generally out by one.
We were last night at Lady Middleton's,
where there was a dance.
I have been told that you were asked to be
of the party.
But could it be so?
You must be very much altered indeed since
we parted, if that could be the case, and
you not there.
But I will not suppose this possible, and I
hope very soon to receive your personal
assurance of its being otherwise.
"M.D."
The contents of her last note to him were
these:--
"What am I to imagine, Willoughby, by your
behaviour last night?
Again I demand an explanation of it.
I was prepared to meet you with the
pleasure which our separation naturally
produced, with the familiarity which our
intimacy at Barton appeared to me to
justify.
I was repulsed indeed!
I have passed a wretched night in
endeavouring to excuse a conduct which can
scarcely be called less than insulting; but
though I have not yet been able to form any
reasonable apology for your behaviour, I am
perfectly ready to hear your justification
of it.
You have perhaps been misinformed, or
purposely deceived, in something concerning
me, which may have lowered me in your
opinion.
Tell me what it is, explain the grounds on
which you acted, and I shall be satisfied,
in being able to satisfy you.
It would grieve me indeed to be obliged to
think ill of you; but if I am to do it, if
I am to learn that you are not what we have
hitherto believed you, that your regard for
us all was insincere, that your behaviour
to me was intended only to deceive, let it
be told as soon as possible.
My feelings are at present in a state of
dreadful indecision; I wish to acquit you,
but certainty on either side will be ease
to what I now suffer.
If your sentiments are no longer what they
were, you will return my notes, and the
lock of my hair which is in your
possession.
"M.D."
That such letters, so full of affection and
confidence, could have been so answered,
Elinor, for Willoughby's sake, would have
been unwilling to believe.
But her condemnation of him did not blind
her to the impropriety of their having been
written at all; and she was silently
grieving over the imprudence which had
hazarded such unsolicited proofs of
tenderness, not warranted by anything
preceding, and most severely condemned by
the event, when Marianne, perceiving that
she had finished the letters, observed to
her that they contained nothing but what
any one would have written in the same
situation.
"I felt myself," she added, "to be as
solemnly engaged to him, as if the
strictest legal covenant had bound us to
each other."
"I can believe it," said Elinor; "but
unfortunately he did not feel the same."
"He DID feel the same, Elinor--for weeks
and weeks he felt it.
I know he did.
Whatever may have changed him now, (and
nothing but the blackest art employed
against me can have done it), I was once as
dear to him as my own soul could wish.
This lock of hair, which now he can so
readily give up, was begged of me with the
most earnest supplication.
Had you seen his look, his manner, had you
heard his voice at that moment!
Have you forgot the last evening of our
being together at Barton?
The morning that we parted too!
When he told me that it might be many weeks
before we met again--his distress--can I
ever forget his distress?"
For a moment or two she could say no more;
but when this emotion had passed away, she
added, in a firmer tone,
"Elinor, I have been cruelly used; but not
by Willoughby."
"Dearest Marianne, who but himself?
By whom can he have been instigated?"
"By all the world, rather than by his own
heart.
I could rather believe every creature of my
acquaintance leagued together to ruin me in
his opinion, than believe his nature
capable of such cruelty.
This woman of whom he writes--whoever she
be--or any one, in short, but your own dear
self, mama, and Edward, may have been so
barbarous to bely me.
Beyond you three, is there a creature in
the world whom I would not rather suspect
of evil than Willoughby, whose heart I know
so well?"
Elinor would not contend, and only replied,
"Whoever may have been so detestably your
enemy, let them be cheated of their
malignant triumph, my dear sister, by
seeing how nobly the consciousness of your
own innocence and good intentions supports
your spirits.
It is a reasonable and laudable pride which
resists such malevolence."
"No, no," cried Marianne, "misery such as
mine has no pride.
I care not who knows that I am wretched.
The triumph of seeing me so may be open to
all the world.
Elinor, Elinor, they who suffer little may
be proud and independent as they like--may
resist insult, or return mortification--but
I cannot.
I must feel--I must be wretched--and they
are welcome to enjoy the consciousness of
it that can."
"But for my mother's sake and mine--"
"I would do more than for my own.
But to appear happy when I am so miserable-
-Oh! who can require it?"
Again they were both silent.
Elinor was employed in walking thoughtfully
from the fire to the window, from the
window to the fire, without knowing that
she received warmth from one, or discerning
objects through the other; and Marianne,
seated at the foot of the bed, with her
head leaning against one of its posts,
again took up Willoughby's letter, and,
after shuddering over every sentence,
exclaimed--
"It is too much!
Oh, Willoughby, Willoughby, could this be
yours!
Cruel, cruel--nothing can acquit you.
Elinor, nothing can.
Whatever he might have heard against me--
ought he not to have suspended his belief?
ought he not to have told me of it, to have
given me the power of clearing myself?
'The lock of hair, (repeating it from the
letter,) which you so obligingly bestowed
on me'--That is unpardonable.
Willoughby, where was your heart when you
wrote those words?
Oh, barbarously insolent!--Elinor, can he
be justified?"
"No, Marianne, in no possible way."
"And yet this woman--who knows what her art
may have been?--how long it may have been
premeditated, and how deeply contrived by
her!--Who is she?--Who can she be?--Whom
did I ever hear him talk of as young and
attractive among his female acquaintance?--
Oh! no one, no one--he talked to me only of
myself."
Another pause ensued; Marianne was greatly
agitated, and it ended thus.
"Elinor, I must go home.
I must go and comfort mama.
Can not we be gone to-morrow?"
"To-morrow, Marianne!"
"Yes, why should I stay here?
I came only for Willoughby's sake--and now
who cares for me?
Who regards me?"
"It would be impossible to go to-morrow.
We owe Mrs. Jennings much more than
civility; and civility of the commonest
kind must prevent such a hasty removal as
that."
"Well then, another day or two, perhaps;
but I cannot stay here long, I cannot stay
to endure the questions and remarks of all
these people.
The Middletons and Palmers--how am I to
bear their pity?
The pity of such a woman as Lady Middleton!
Oh, what would HE say to that!"
Elinor advised her to lie down again, and
for a moment she did so; but no attitude
could give her ease; and in restless pain
of mind and body she moved from one posture
to another, till growing more and more
hysterical, her sister could with
difficulty keep her on the bed at all, and
for some time was fearful of being
constrained to call for assistance.
Some lavender drops, however, which she was
at length persuaded to take, were of use;
and from that time till Mrs. Jennings
returned, she continued on the bed quiet
and motionless.