Kabanata Kabanata 39 · The Miss Dashwoods had now been rather more than two months in town,

. 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 do it. 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 ejaculation.

“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 showed 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£

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 it to him, 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.