CHAPTER 29

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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. Jenning'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. Jenning'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.