CHAPTER IX

rom 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

irritablerefinement 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, lastingconvict ion 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 shewn

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, "I can 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. Her's, 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