No More Learning

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.



CHAPTER 30


Mrs. Jennings came immediately to their room on her return, and without
waiting to have her request of admittance answered, opened the door and
walked in with a look of real concern.

"How do you do my dear? "--said she in a voice of great compassion to
Marianne, who turned away her face without attempting to answer.

"How is she, Miss Dashwood? --Poor thing! she looks very bad. -- No
wonder. Ay, it is but too true. He is to be married very soon--a
good-for-nothing fellow! I have no patience with him. Mrs. Taylor
told me of it half an hour ago, and she was told it by a particular
friend of Miss Grey herself, else I am sure I should not have believed
it; and I was almost ready to sink as it was. Well, said I, all I can
say is, that if this be true, he has used a young lady of my
acquaintance abominably ill, and I wish with all my soul his wife may
plague his heart out. And so I shall always say, my dear, you may
depend on it. I have no notion of men's going on in this way; and if
ever I meet him again, I will give him such a dressing as he has not
had this many a day. But there is one comfort, my dear Miss Marianne;
he is not the only young man in the world worth having; and with your
pretty face you will never want admirers. Well, poor thing! I won't
disturb her any longer, for she had better have her cry out at once and
have done with. The Parrys and Sandersons luckily are coming tonight
you know, and that will amuse her. "

She then went away, walking on tiptoe out of the room, as if she
supposed her young friend's affliction could be increased by noise.

Marianne, to the surprise of her sister, determined on dining with
them. Elinor even advised her against it. But "no, she would go down;
she could bear it very well, and the bustle about her would be less. "
Elinor, pleased to have her governed for a moment by such a motive,
though believing it hardly possible that she could sit out the dinner,
said no more; and adjusting her dress for her as well as she could,
while Marianne still remained on the bed, was ready to assist her into
the dining room as soon as they were summoned to it.

When there, though looking most wretchedly, she ate more and was calmer
than her sister had expected. Had she tried to speak, or had she been
conscious of half Mrs. Jennings's well-meant but ill-judged attentions
to her, this calmness could not have been maintained; but not a
syllable escaped her lips; and the abstraction of her thoughts
preserved her in ignorance of every thing that was passing before her.

Elinor, who did justice to Mrs. Jennings's kindness, though its
effusions were often distressing, and sometimes almost ridiculous, made
her those acknowledgments, and returned her those civilities, which her
sister could not make or return for herself. Their good friend saw
that Marianne was unhappy, and felt that every thing was due to her
which might make her at all less so. She treated her therefore, with
all the indulgent fondness of a parent towards a favourite child on the
last day of its holidays. Marianne was to have the best place by the
fire, was to be tempted to eat by every delicacy in the house, and to
be amused by the relation of all the news of the day. Had not Elinor,
in the sad countenance of her sister, seen a check to all mirth, she
could have been entertained by Mrs. Jennings's endeavours to cure a
disappointment in love, by a variety of sweetmeats and olives, and a
good fire. As soon, however, as the consciousness of all this was
forced by continual repetition on Marianne, she could stay no longer.
With a hasty exclamation of Misery, and a sign to her sister not to
follow her, she directly got up and hurried out of the room.

"Poor soul! " cried Mrs. Jennings, as soon as she was gone, "how it
grieves me to see her! And I declare if she is not gone away without
finishing her wine! And the dried cherries too! Lord! nothing seems
to do her any good. I am sure if I knew of any thing she would like, I
would send all over the town for it. Well, it is the oddest thing to
me, that a man should use such a pretty girl so ill! But when there is
plenty of money on one side, and next to none on the other, Lord bless
you! they care no more about such things! --"

"The lady then--Miss Grey I think you called her--is very rich? "

"Fifty thousand pounds, my dear. Did you ever see her? a smart,
stylish girl they say, but not handsome. I remember her aunt very
well, Biddy Henshawe; she married a very wealthy man. But the family
are all rich together. Fifty thousand pounds! and by all accounts, it
won't come before it's wanted; for they say he is all to pieces. No
wonder! dashing about with his curricle and hunters! Well, it don't
signify talking; but when a young man, be who he will, comes and makes
love to a pretty girl, and promises marriage, he has no business to fly
off from his word only because he grows poor, and a richer girl is
ready to have him. Why don't he, in such a case, sell his horses, let
his house, turn off his servants, and make a thorough reform at once? I
warrant you, Miss Marianne would have been ready to wait till matters
came round. But that won't do now-a-days; nothing in the way of
pleasure can ever be given up by the young men of this age. "

"Do you know what kind of a girl Miss Grey is? Is she said to be
amiable? "

"I never heard any harm of her; indeed I hardly ever heard her
mentioned; except that Mrs. Taylor did say this morning, that one day
Miss Walker hinted to her, that she believed Mr. and Mrs. Ellison would
not be sorry to have Miss Grey married, for she and Mrs. Ellison could
never agree. "--

"And who are the Ellisons? "

"Her guardians, my dear. But now she is of age and may choose for
herself; and a pretty choice she has made! --What now," after pausing a
moment--"your poor sister is gone to her own room, I suppose, to moan
by herself. Is there nothing one can get to comfort her? Poor dear,
it seems quite cruel to let her be alone. Well, by-and-by we shall
have a few friends, and that will amuse her a little. What shall we
play at? She hates whist I know; but is there no round game she cares
for? "

"Dear ma'am, this kindness is quite unnecessary. Marianne, I dare say,
will not leave her room again this evening. I shall persuade her if I
can to go early to bed, for I am sure she wants rest. "

"Aye, I believe that will be best for her. Let her name her own
supper, and go to bed. Lord! no wonder she has been looking so bad and
so cast down this last week or two, for this matter I suppose has been
hanging over her head as long as that. And so the letter that came
today finished it! Poor soul! I am sure if I had had a notion of it,
I would not have joked her about it for all my money. But then you
know, how should I guess such a thing? I made sure of its being
nothing but a common love letter, and you know young people like to be
laughed at about them. Lord! how concerned Sir John and my daughters
will be when they hear it! If I had my senses about me I might have
called in Conduit Street in my way home, and told them of it. But I
shall see them tomorrow. "

"It would be unnecessary I am sure, for you to caution Mrs. Palmer and
Sir John against ever naming Mr. Willoughby, or making the slightest
allusion to what has passed, before my sister. Their own good-nature
must point out to them the real cruelty of appearing to know any thing
about it when she is present; and the less that may ever be said to
myself on the subject, the more my feelings will be spared, as you my
dear madam will easily believe. "

"Oh! Lord! yes, that I do indeed. It must be terrible for you to hear
it talked of; and as for your sister, I am sure I would not mention a
word about it to her for the world. You saw I did not all dinner time.
No more would Sir John, nor my daughters, for they are all very
thoughtful and considerate; especially if I give them a hint, as I
certainly will. For my part, I think the less that is said about such
things, the better, the sooner 'tis blown over and forgot. And what
does talking ever do you know? "

"In this affair it can only do harm; more so perhaps than in many cases
of a similar kind, for it has been attended by circumstances which, for
the sake of every one concerned in it, make it unfit to become the
public conversation. I must do THIS justice to Mr. Willoughby--he has
broken no positive engagement with my sister. "

"Law, my dear! Don't pretend to defend him. No positive engagement
indeed! after taking her all over Allenham House, and fixing on the
very rooms they were to live in hereafter! "

Elinor, for her sister's sake, could not press the subject farther, and
she hoped it was not required of her for Willoughby's; since, though
Marianne might lose much, he could gain very little by the enforcement
of the real truth. After a short silence on both sides, Mrs. Jennings,
with all her natural hilarity, burst forth again.

"Well, my dear, 'tis a true saying about an ill-wind, for it will be
all the better for Colonel Brandon. He will have her at last; aye,
that he will. Mind me, now, if they an't married by Mid-summer. Lord!
how he'll chuckle over this news! I hope he will come tonight. It
will be all to one a better match for your sister. Two thousand a year
without debt or drawback--except the little love-child, indeed; aye, I
had forgot her; but she may be 'prenticed out at a small cost, and then
what does it signify?
Delaford is a nice place, I can tell you;
exactly what I call a nice old fashioned place, full of comforts and
conveniences; quite shut in with great garden walls that are covered
with the best fruit-trees in the country; and such a mulberry tree in
one corner! Lord! how Charlotte and I did stuff the only time we were
there! Then, there is a dove-cote, some delightful stew-ponds, and a
very pretty canal; and every thing, in short, that one could wish for;
and, moreover, it is close to the church, and only a quarter of a mile
from the turnpike-road, so 'tis never dull, for if you only go and sit
up in an old yew arbour behind the house, you may see all the carriages
that pass along. Oh! 'tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the
village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw. To my fancy,
a thousand times prettier than Barton Park, where they are forced to
send three miles for their meat, and have not a neighbour nearer than
your mother. Well, I shall spirit up the Colonel as soon as I can.
One shoulder of mutton, you know, drives another down. If we CAN but
put Willoughby out of her head! "

"Ay, if we can do THAT, Ma'am," said Elinor, "we shall do very well
with or without Colonel Brandon. " And then rising, she went away to
join Marianne, whom she found, as she expected, in her own room,
leaning, in silent misery, over the small remains of a fire, which,
till Elinor's entrance, had been her only light.

"You had better leave me," was all the notice that her sister received
from her.

"I will leave you," said Elinor, "if you will go to bed. " But this,
from the momentary perverseness of impatient suffering, she at first
refused to do. Her sister's earnest, though gentle persuasion,
however, soon softened her to compliance, and Elinor saw her lay her
aching head on the pillow, and as she hoped, in a way to get some quiet
rest before she left her.

In the drawing-room, whither she then repaired, she was soon joined by
Mrs. Jennings, with a wine-glass, full of something, in her hand.

"My dear," said she, entering, "I have just recollected that I have
some of the finest old Constantia wine in the house that ever was
tasted, so I have brought a glass of it for your sister. My poor
husband! how fond he was of it! Whenever he had a touch of his old
colicky gout, he said it did him more good than any thing else in the
world. Do take it to your sister. "

"Dear Ma'am," replied Elinor, smiling at the difference of the
complaints for which it was recommended, "how good you are! But I have
just left Marianne in bed, and, I hope, almost asleep; and as I think
nothing will be of so much service to her as rest, if you will give me
leave, I will drink the wine myself. "

Mrs. Jennings, though regretting that she had not been five minutes
earlier, was satisfied with the compromise; and Elinor, as she
swallowed the chief of it, reflected, that though its effects on a
colicky gout were, at present, of little importance to her, its healing
powers, on a disappointed heart might be as reasonably tried on herself
as on her sister.

Colonel Brandon came in while the party were at tea, and by his manner
of looking round the room for Marianne, Elinor immediately fancied that
he neither expected nor wished to see her there, and, in short, that he
was already aware of what occasioned her absence. Mrs. Jennings was
not struck by the same thought; for soon after his entrance, she walked
across the room to the tea-table where Elinor presided, and whispered--
"The Colonel looks as grave as ever you see. He knows nothing of it;
do tell him, my dear. "

He shortly afterwards drew a chair close to hers, and, with a look
which perfectly assured her of his good information, inquired after her
sister.

"Marianne is not well," said she. "She has been indisposed all day,
and we have persuaded her to go to bed. "

"Perhaps, then," he hesitatingly replied, "what I heard this morning
may be--there may be more truth in it than I could believe possible at
first. "

"What did you hear? "

"That a gentleman, whom I had reason to think--in short, that a man,
whom I KNEW to be engaged--but how shall I tell you? If you know it
already, as surely you must, I may be spared. "

"You mean," answered Elinor, with forced calmness, "Mr. Willoughby's
marriage with Miss Grey. Yes, we DO know it all. This seems to have
been a day of general elucidation, for this very morning first unfolded
it to us. Mr. Willoughby is unfathomable! Where did you hear it? "

"In a stationer's shop in Pall Mall, where I had business. Two ladies
were waiting for their carriage, and one of them was giving the other
an account of the intended match, in a voice so little attempting
concealment, that it was impossible for me not to hear all. The name
of Willoughby, John Willoughby, frequently repeated, first caught my
attention; and what followed was a positive assertion that every thing
was now finally settled respecting his marriage with Miss Grey--it was
no longer to be a secret--it would take place even within a few weeks,
with many particulars of preparations and other matters. One thing,
especially, I remember, because it served to identify the man still
more:--as soon as the ceremony was over, they were to go to Combe
Magna, his seat in Somersetshire. My astonishment! --but it would be
impossible to describe what I felt. The communicative lady I learnt,
on inquiry, for I stayed in the shop till they were gone, was a Mrs.
Ellison, and that, as I have been since informed, is the name of Miss
Grey's guardian. "

"It is. But have you likewise heard that Miss Grey has fifty thousand
pounds? In that, if in any thing, we may find an explanation. "

"It may be so; but Willoughby is capable--at least I think"--he stopped
a moment; then added in a voice which seemed to distrust itself, "And
your sister--how did she--"

"Her sufferings have been very severe. I have only to hope that they
may be proportionately short. It has been, it is a most cruel
affliction. Till yesterday, I believe, she never doubted his regard;
and even now, perhaps--but I am almost convinced that he never was
really attached to her. He has been very deceitful! and, in some
points, there seems a hardness of heart about him. "

"Ah! " said Colonel Brandon, "there is, indeed! But your sister does
not--I think you said so--she does not consider quite as you do? "

"You know her disposition, and may believe how eagerly she would still
justify him if she could. "

He made no answer; and soon afterwards, by the removal of the
tea-things, and the arrangement of the card parties, the subject was
necessarily dropped. Mrs. Jennings, who had watched them with pleasure
while they were talking, and who expected to see the effect of Miss
Dashwood's communication, in such an instantaneous gaiety on Colonel
Brandon's side, as might have become a man in the bloom of youth, of
hope and happiness, saw him, with amazement, remain the whole evening
more serious and thoughtful than usual.



CHAPTER 31


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 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, "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.