Kabanata Kabanata 31 · From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the

. From a night of more sleep than she had expected, Marianne awoke the

next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had

closed her eyes.

Elinor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt; and

before breakfast was ready, they had gone through the subject again and

again; and with the same steady conviction and affectionate counsel on

Elinor’s side, the same impetuous feelings and varying opinions on

Marianne’s, as before. Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as

unfortunate and as innocent as herself, and at others, lost every

consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him. At one moment she

was absolutely indifferent to the observation of all the world, at

another she would seclude herself from it for ever, and at a third

could resist it with energy. In one thing, however, she was uniform,

when it came to the point, in avoiding, where it was possible, the

presence of Mrs. Jennings, and in a determined silence when obliged to

endure it. Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs. Jennings’s

entering into her sorrows with any compassion.

“No, no, no, it cannot be,” she cried; “she cannot feel. Her kindness

is not sympathy; her good-nature is not tenderness. All that she wants

is gossip, and she only likes me now because I supply it.”

Elinor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her

sister was often led in her opinion of others, by the irritable

refinement of her own mind, and the too great importance placed by her

on the delicacies of a strong sensibility, and the graces of a polished

manner. Like half the rest of the world, if more than half there be

that are clever and good, Marianne, with excellent abilities and an

excellent disposition, was neither reasonable nor candid. She expected

from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own, and she

judged of their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on

herself. Thus a circumstance occurred, while the sisters were together

in their own room after breakfast, which sunk the heart of Mrs.

Jennings still lower in her estimation; because, through her own

weakness, it chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself, though

Mrs. Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.

With a letter in her outstretched hand, and countenance gaily smiling,

from the persuasion of bringing comfort, she entered their room,

saying,

“Now, my dear, I bring you something that I am sure will do you good.”

Marianne heard enough. In one moment her imagination placed before her

a letter from Willoughby, full of tenderness and contrition,

explanatory of all that had passed, satisfactory, convincing; and

instantly followed by Willoughby himself, rushing eagerly into the room

to inforce, at her feet, by the eloquence of his eyes, the assurances

of his letter. The work of one moment was destroyed by the next. The

hand writing of her mother, never till then unwelcome, was before her;

and, in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an

ecstasy of more than hope, she felt as if, till that instant, she had

never suffered.

The cruelty of Mrs. Jennings no language, within her reach in her

moments of happiest eloquence, could have expressed; and now she could

reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with

passionate violence—a reproach, however, so entirely lost on its

object, that after many expressions of pity, she withdrew, still

referring her to the letter of comfort. But the letter, when she was

calm enough to read it, brought little comfort. Willoughby filled every

page. Her mother, still confident of their engagement, and relying as

warmly as ever on his constancy, had only been roused by Elinor’s

application, to intreat from Marianne greater openness towards them

both; and this, with such tenderness towards her, such affection for

Willoughby, and such a conviction of their future happiness in each

other, that she wept with agony through the whole of it.

All her impatience to be at home again now returned; her mother was

dearer to her than ever; dearer through the very excess of her mistaken

confidence in Willoughby, and she was wildly urgent to be gone. Elinor,

unable herself to determine whether it were better for Marianne to be

in London or at Barton, offered no counsel of her own except of

patience till their mother’s wishes could be known; and at length she

obtained her sister’s consent to wait for that knowledge.

Mrs. Jennings left them earlier than usual; for she could not be easy

till the Middletons and Palmers were able to grieve as much as herself;

and positively refusing Elinor’s offered attendance, went out alone for

the rest of the morning. Elinor, with a very heavy heart, aware of the

pain she was going to communicate, and perceiving, by Marianne’s

letter, how ill she had succeeded in laying any foundation for it, then

sat down to write her mother an account of what had passed, and entreat

her directions for the future; while Marianne, who came into the

drawing-room on Mrs. Jennings’s going away, remained fixed at the table

where Elinor wrote, watching the advancement of her pen, grieving over

her for the hardship of such a task, and grieving still more fondly

over its effect on her mother.

In this manner they had continued about a quarter of an hour, when

Marianne, whose nerves could not then bear any sudden noise, was

startled by a rap at the door.

“Who can this be?” cried Elinor. “So early too! I thought we _had_ been

safe.”

Marianne moved to the window.

“It is Colonel Brandon!” said she, with vexation. “We are never safe

from _him_.”

“He will not come in, as Mrs. Jennings is from home.”

“I will not trust to _that_,” retreating to her own room. “A man who

has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in his intrusion

on that of others.”

The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on

injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon _did_ come in; and Elinor, who

was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who

saw _that_ solicitude in his disturbed and melancholy look, and in his

anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister

for esteeming him so lightly.

“I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street,” said he, after the first

salutation, “and she encouraged me to come on; and I was the more

easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you

alone, which I was very desirous of doing. My object—my wish—my sole

wish in desiring it—I hope, I believe it is—is to be a means of giving

comfort;—no, I must not say comfort—not present comfort—but conviction,

lasting conviction to your sister’s mind. My regard for her, for

yourself, for your mother—will you allow me to prove it, by relating

some circumstances which nothing but a _very_ sincere regard—nothing

but an earnest desire of being useful—I think I am justified—though

where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am

right, is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong?” He stopped.

“I understand you,” said Elinor. “You have something to tell me of Mr.

Willoughby, that will open his character farther. Your telling it will

be the greatest act of friendship that can be shown Marianne. _My_

gratitude will be insured immediately by any information tending to

that end, and _hers_ must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray let me

hear it.”

“You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,—but

this will give you no idea—I must go farther back. You will find me a

very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A

short account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it _shall_

be a short one. On such a subject,” sighing heavily, “can I have little

temptation to be diffuse.”

He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went

on.

“You have probably entirely forgotten a conversation—(it is not to be

supposed that it could make any impression on you)—a conversation

between us one evening at Barton Park—it was the evening of a dance—in

which I alluded to a lady I had once known, as resembling, in some

measure, your sister Marianne.”

“Indeed,” answered Elinor, “I have _not_ forgotten it.” He looked

pleased by this remembrance, and added,

“If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender

recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well

in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the same eagerness of

fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan

from her infancy, and under the guardianship of my father. Our ages

were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were playfellows

and friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not love Eliza; and

my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as perhaps, judging from

my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you might think me incapable

of having ever felt. Hers, for me, was, I believe, fervent as the

attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and it was, though from a

different cause, no less unfortunate. At seventeen she was lost to me

for ever. She was married—married against her inclination to my

brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered.

And this, I fear, is all that can be said for the conduct of one, who

was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her; he

did not even love her. I had hoped that her regard for me would support

her under any difficulty, and for some time it did; but at last the

misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame

all her resolution, and though she had promised me that nothing—but how

blindly I relate! I have never told you how this was brought on. We

were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland. The

treachery, or the folly, of my cousin’s maid betrayed us. I was

banished to the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no

liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father’s point was gained. I

had depended on her fortitude too far, and the blow was a severe

one—but had her marriage been happy, so young as I then was, a few

months must have reconciled me to it, or at least I should not have now

to lament it. This however was not the case. My brother had no regard

for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and from

the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind

so young, so lively, so inexperienced as Mrs. Brandon’s, was but too

natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her

situation; and happy had it been if she had not lived to overcome those

regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that,

with such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to

advise or restrain her (for my father lived only a few months after

their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she

should fall? Had I remained in England, perhaps—but I meant to promote

the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that

purpose had procured my exchange. The shock which her marriage had

given me,” he continued, in a voice of great agitation, “was of

trifling weight—was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two

years afterwards, of her divorce. It was _that_ which threw this

gloom,—even now the recollection of what I suffered—”

He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few minutes about

the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his

distress, could not speak. He saw her concern, and coming to her, took

her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few

minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.

“It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned

to England. My first care, when I _did_ arrive, was of course to seek

for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was melancholy. I could

not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to

fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper in a life of

sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor

sufficient for her comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my

brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months

before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it,

that her extravagance, and consequent distress, had obliged her to

dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I

had been six months in England, I _did_ find her. Regard for a former

servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to

visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and

there, in the same house, under a similar confinement, was my

unfortunate sister. So altered—so faded—worn down by acute suffering of

every kind! hardly could I believe the melancholy and sickly figure

before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl,

on whom I had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her—but I have

no right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe it—I have

pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the

last stage of a consumption, was—yes, in such a situation it was my

greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for

a better preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her placed in

comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I visited her every

day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her last

moments.”

Again he stopped to recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in

an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate

friend.

“Your sister, I hope, cannot be offended,” said he, “by the resemblance

I have fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation. Their fates,

their fortunes, cannot be the same; and had the natural sweet

disposition of the one been guarded by a firmer mind, or a happier

marriage, she might have been all that you will live to see the other

be. But to what does all this lead? I seem to have been distressing you

for nothing. Ah! Miss Dashwood—a subject such as this—untouched for

fourteen years—it is dangerous to handle it at all! I _will_ be more

collected—more concise. She left to my care her only child, a little

girl, the offspring of her first guilty connection, who was then about

three years old. She loved the child, and had always kept it with her.

It was a valued, a precious trust to me; and gladly would I have

discharged it in the strictest sense, by watching over her education

myself, had the nature of our situations allowed it; but I had no

family, no home; and my little Eliza was therefore placed at school. I

saw her there whenever I could, and after the death of my brother,

(which happened about five years ago, and which left to me the

possession of the family property,) she visited me at Delaford. I

called her a distant relation; but I am well aware that I have in

general been suspected of a much nearer connection with her. It is now

three years ago (she had just reached her fourteenth year,) that I

removed her from school, to place her under the care of a very

respectable woman, residing in Dorsetshire, who had the charge of four

or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I

had every reason to be pleased with her situation. But last February,

almost a twelvemonth back, she suddenly disappeared. I had allowed her,

(imprudently, as it has since turned out,) at her earnest desire, to go

to Bath with one of her young friends, who was attending her father

there for his health. I knew him to be a very good sort of man, and I

thought well of his daughter—better than she deserved, for, with a most

obstinate and ill-judged secrecy, she would tell nothing, would give no

clue, though she certainly knew all. He, her father, a well-meaning,

but not a quick-sighted man, could really, I believe, give no

information; for he had been generally confined to the house, while the

girls were ranging over the town and making what acquaintance they

chose; and he tried to convince me, as thoroughly as he was convinced

himself, of his daughter’s being entirely unconcerned in the business.

In short, I could learn nothing but that she was gone; all the rest,

for eight long months, was left to conjecture. What I thought, what I

feared, may be imagined; and what I suffered too.”

“Good heavens!” cried Elinor, “could it be—could Willoughby!”—

“The first news that reached me of her,” he continued, “came in a

letter from herself, last October. It was forwarded to me from

Delaford, and I received it on the very morning of our intended party

to Whitwell; and this was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly,

which I am sure must at the time have appeared strange to every body,

and which I believe gave offence to some. Little did Mr. Willoughby

imagine, I suppose, when his looks censured me for incivility in

breaking up the party, that I was called away to the relief of one whom

he had made poor and miserable; but _had_ he known it, what would it

have availed? Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles

of your sister? No, he had already done that, which no man who _can_

feel for another would do. He had left the girl whose youth and

innocence he had seduced, in a situation of the utmost distress, with

no creditable home, no help, no friends, ignorant of his address! He

had left her, promising to return; he neither returned, nor wrote, nor

relieved her.”

“This is beyond every thing!” exclaimed Elinor.

“His character is now before you; expensive, dissipated, and worse than

both. Knowing all this, as I have now known it many weeks, guess what I

must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever, and on

being assured that she was to marry him: guess what I must have felt

for all your sakes. When I came to you last week and found you alone, I

came determined to know the truth; though irresolute what to do when it

_was_ known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then; but now

you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to see

your sister—but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering with

success; and sometimes I thought your sister’s influence might yet

reclaim him. But now, after such dishonorable usage, who can tell what

were his designs on her. Whatever they may have been, however, she may

now, and hereafter doubtless _will_ turn with gratitude towards her own

condition, when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza, when she

considers the wretched and hopeless situation of this poor girl, and

pictures her to herself, with an affection for him so strong, still as

strong as her own, and with a mind tormented by self-reproach, which

must attend her through life. Surely this comparison must have its use

with her. She will feel her own sufferings to be nothing. They proceed

from no misconduct, and can bring no disgrace. On the contrary, every

friend must be made still more her friend by them. Concern for her

unhappiness, and respect for her fortitude under it, must strengthen

every attachment. Use your own discretion, however, in communicating to

her what I have told you. You must know best what will be its effect;

but had I not seriously, and from my heart believed it might be of

service, might lessen her regrets, I would not have suffered myself to

trouble you with this account of my family afflictions, with a recital

which may seem to have been intended to raise myself at the expense of

others.”

Elinor’s thanks followed this speech with grateful earnestness;

attended too with the assurance of her expecting material advantage to

Marianne, from the communication of what had passed.

“I have been more pained,” said she, “by her endeavors to acquit him

than by all the rest; for it irritates her mind more than the most

perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she

will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier. Have you,” she

continued, after a short silence, “ever seen Mr. Willoughby since you

left him at Barton?”

“Yes,” he replied gravely, “once I have. One meeting was unavoidable.”

Elinor, startled by his manner, looked at him anxiously, saying,

“What? have you met him to—”

“I could meet him no other way. Eliza had confessed to me, though most

reluctantly, the name of her lover; and when he returned to town, which

was within a fortnight after myself, we met by appointment, he to

defend, I to punish his conduct. We returned unwounded, and the

meeting, therefore, never got abroad.”

Elinor sighed over the fancied necessity of this; but to a man and a

soldier she presumed not to censure it.

“Such,” said Colonel Brandon, after a pause, “has been the unhappy

resemblance between the fate of mother and daughter! and so imperfectly

have I discharged my trust!”

“Is she still in town?”

“No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, for I found her near

her delivery, I removed her and her child into the country, and there

she remains.”

Recollecting, soon afterwards, that he was probably dividing Elinor

from her sister, he put an end to his visit, receiving from her again

the same grateful acknowledgments, and leaving her full of compassion

and esteem for him.