Marianne's illness, though weakening in its kind, had not been long
enough to make her recovery slow; and with youth, natural strength,
and her mother's presence in aid, it proceeded so smoothly as to
enable her to remove, within four days after the arrival of the
latter, into Mrs. Palmer's dressing-room. When there, at her own
particular request, for she was impatient to pour forth her thanks to
him for fetching her mother, Colonel Brandon was invited to visit her.
His emotion on entering the room, in seeing her altered looks, and in
receiving the pale hand which she immediately held out to him, was
such, as, in Elinor's conjecture, must arise from something more than
his affection for Marianne, or the consciousness of its being known to
others; and she soon discovered in his melancholy eye and varying
complexion as he looked at her sister, the probable recurrence of many
past scenes of misery to his mind, brought back by that resemblance
between Marianne and Eliza already acknowledged, and now strengthened
by the hollow eye, the sickly skin, the posture of reclining weakness,
and the warm acknowledgment of peculiar obligation.
Mrs. Dashwood, not less watchful of what passed than her daughter, but
with a mind very differently influenced, and therefore watching to
very different effect, saw nothing in the Colonel's behaviour but what
arose from the most simple and self-evident sensations, while in the
actions and words of Marianne she persuaded herself to think that
something more than gratitude already dawned.
At the end of another day or two, Marianne growing visibly stronger
every twelve hours, Mrs. Dashwood, urged equally by her own and her
daughter's wishes, began to talk of removing to Barton. On _her_
measures depended those of her two friends; Mrs. Jennings could not
quit Cleveland during the Dashwoods' stay; and Colonel Brandon was
soon brought, by their united request, to consider his own abode there
as equally determinate, if not equally indispensable. At his and Mrs.
Jennings's united request in return, Mrs. Dashwood was prevailed on to
accept the use of his carriage on her journey back, for the better
accommodation of her sick child; and the Colonel, at the joint
invitation of Mrs. Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings, whose active
good-nature made her friendly and hospitable for other people as well
as herself, engaged with pleasure to redeem it by a visit at the
cottage, in the course of a few weeks.
The day of separation and departure arrived; and Marianne, after
taking so particular and lengthened a leave of Mrs. Jennings, one so
earnestly grateful, so full of respect and kind wishes as seemed due
to her own heart from a secret acknowledgment of past inattention, and
bidding Colonel Brandon farewell with a cordiality of a friend, was
carefully assisted by him into the carriage, of which he seemed
anxious that she should engross at least half. Mrs. Dashwood and
Elinor then followed, and the others were left by themselves, to talk
of the travellers, and feel their own dullness, till Mrs. Jennings
was summoned to her chaise to take comfort in the gossip of her maid
for the loss of her two young companions; and Colonel Brandon
immediately afterwards took his solitary way to Delaford.
The Dashwoods were two days on the road, and Marianne bore her journey
on both, without essential fatigue. Every thing that the most zealous
affection, the most solicitous care could do to render her
comfortable, was the office of each watchful companion, and each found
their reward in her bodily ease, and her calmness of spirits. To
Elinor, the observation of the latter was particularly grateful. She,
who had seen her week after week so constantly suffering, oppressed by
anguish of heart which she had neither courage to speak of, nor
fortitude to conceal, now saw with a joy, which no other could equally
share, an apparent composure of mind, which, in being the result as
she trusted of serious reflection, must eventually lead her to
contentment and cheerfulness.
As they approached Barton, indeed, and entered on scenes of which
every field and every tree brought some peculiar, some painful
recollection, she grew silent and thoughtful, and turning away her
face from their notice, sat earnestly gazing through the window. But
here, Elinor could neither wonder nor blame; and when she saw, as she
assisted Marianne from the carriage, that she had been crying, she saw
only an emotion too natural in itself to raise any thing less tender
than pity, and in its unobtrusiveness entitled to praise. In the whole
of her subsequent manner, she traced the direction of a mind awakened
to reasonable exertion; for no sooner had they entered their common
sitting-room, than Marianne turned her eyes around it with a look of
resolute firmness, as if determined at once to accustom herself to the
sight of every object with which the remembrance of Willoughby could
be connected. She said little, but every sentence aimed at
cheerfulness, and though a sigh sometimes escaped her, it never passed
away without the atonement of a smile. After dinner she would try her
piano-forte. She went to it; but the music on which her eye first
rested was an opera, procured for her by Willoughby, containing some
of their favourite duets, and bearing on its outward leaf her own name
in his hand-writing. That would not do. She shook her head, put the
music aside, and after running over the keys for a minute, complained
of feebleness in her fingers, and closed the instrument again;
declaring however with firmness as she did so, that she should in
future practice much.
The next morning produced no abatement in these happy symptoms. On the
contrary, with a mind and body alike strengthened by rest, she looked
and spoke with more genuine spirit, anticipating the pleasure of
Margaret's return, and talking of the dear family party which would
then be restored, of their mutual pursuits and cheerful society, as
the only happiness worth a wish.
"When the weather is settled, and I have recovered my strength," said
she, "we will take long walks together every day. We will walk to the
farm at the edge of the down, and see how the children go on; we will
walk to Sir John's new plantations at Barton Cross, and the Abbeyland;
and we will often go the old ruins of the Priory, and try to trace its
foundations as far as we are told they once reached. I know we shall
be happy. I know the summer will pass happily away. I mean never to be
later in rising than six, and from that time till dinner I shall
divide every moment between music and reading. I have formed my plan,
and am determined to enter on a course of serious study. Our own
library is too well known to me, to be resorted to for any thing
beyond mere amusement. But there are many works well worth reading at
the Park; and there are others of more modern production which I know
I can borrow of Colonel Brandon. By reading only six hours a-day, I
shall gain in the course of a twelvemonth a great deal of instruction
which I now feel myself to want."
Elinor honoured her for a plan which originated so nobly as this;
though smiling to see the same eager fancy which had been leading her
to the extreme of languid indolence and selfish repining, now at work
in introducing excess into a scheme of such rational employment and
virtuous self-control. Her smile however changed to a sigh when she
remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled, and feared
she had that to communicate which might again unsettle the mind of
Marianne, and ruin at least for a time this fair prospect of busy
tranquillity. Willing therefore to delay the evil hour, she resolved
to wait till her sister's health were more secure, before she
appointed it. But the resolution was made only to be broken.
[Illustration: "_And see how the children go on._"]
Marianne had been two or three days at home, before the weather was
fine enough for an invalid like herself to venture out. But at last a
soft, genial morning appeared; such as might tempt the daughter's
wishes and the mother's confidence; and Marianne, leaning on Elinor's
arm, was authorised to walk as long as she could without fatigue, in
the lane before the house.
The sisters set out at a pace, slow as the feebleness of Marianne in
an exercise hitherto untried since her illness required;--and they had
advanced only so far beyond the house as to admit a full view of the
hill, the important hill behind, when pausing with her eyes turned
towards it, Marianne calmly said--
"There, exactly there,"--pointing with one hand, "on that projecting
mound,--there I fell; and there I first saw Willoughby."
Her voice sunk with the word, but presently reviving she added,
"I am thankful to find that I can look with so little pain on the
spot! shall we ever talk on that subject, Elinor?" hesitatingly it was
said. "Or will it be wrong? I can talk of it now, I hope, as I ought
to do."
Elinor tenderly invited her to be open.
"As for regret," said Marianne, "I have done with that, as far as _he_
is concerned. I do not mean to talk to you of what my feelings have
been for him, but what they are _now._ At present, if I could be
satisfied on one point, if I could be allowed to think that he was not
_always_ acting a part, not _always_ deceiving me; but above all, if I
could be assured that he never was so _very_ wicked as my fears have
sometimes fancied him, since the story of that unfortunate girl--"
She stopped. Elinor joyfully treasured her words as she answered--
"If you could be assured of that, you think you should be easy."
"Yes. My peace of mind is doubly involved in it; for not only is it
horrible to suspect a person, who has been what _he_ has been to _me_,
of such designs, but what must it make me appear to myself? What in a
situation like mine, but a most shamefully unguarded affection could
expose me to--"
"How then," asked her sister, "would you account for his behaviour?"
"I would suppose him--Oh, how gladly would I suppose him!--only
fickle, very, very fickle."
Elinor said no more. She was debating within herself on the
eligibility of beginning her story directly, or postponing it till
Marianne were in stronger health; and they crept on for a few minutes
in silence.
"I am not wishing him too much good," said Marianne at last with a
sigh, "when I wish his secret reflections may be no more unpleasant
than my own. He will suffer enough in them."
"Do you compare your conduct with his?"
"No. I compare it with what it ought to have been; I compare it with
yours."
"Our situations have borne little resemblance."
"They have borne more than our conduct. Do not, my dearest Elinor, let
your kindness defend what I know your judgment must censure. My illness
has made me think. It has given me leisure and calmness for serious
recollection. Long before I was enough recovered to talk, I was
perfectly able to reflect. I considered the past: I saw in my own
behaviour, since the beginning of our acquaintance with him last autumn,
nothing but a series of imprudence towards myself, and want of kindness
to others. I saw that my own feelings had prepared my sufferings, and
that my want of fortitude under them had almost led me to the grave. My
illness, I well knew, had been entirely brought on by myself by such
negligence of my own health, as I had felt even at the time to be wrong.
Had I died, it would have been self-destruction. I did not know my
danger till the danger was removed; but with such feelings as these
reflections gave me, I wonder at my recovery,--wonder that the very
eagerness of my desire to live, to have time for atonement to my God,
and to you all, did not kill me at once. Had I died, in what peculiar
misery should I have left you, my nurse, my friend, my sister! You, who
had seen all the fretful selfishness of my latter days; who had known
all the murmurings of my heart! How should I have lived in _your_
remembrance! My mother too! How could you have consoled her! I cannot
express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever I looked towards the past,
I saw some duty neglected, or some failing indulged. Every body seemed
injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I
had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers,
the Steeles, to every common acquaintance even, I had been insolent and
unjust; with a heart hardened against their merits, and a temper
irritated by their very attention. To John, to Fanny, yes, even to them,
little as they deserve, I had given less than their due. But you, you
above all, above my mother, had been wronged by me. I, and only I, knew
your heart and its sorrows; yet to what did it influence me?--not to any
compassion that could benefit you or myself. Your example was before me;
but to what avail? Was I more considerate of you and your comfort? Did I
imitate your forbearance, or lessen your restraints, by taking any part
in those offices of general complaisance or particular gratitude which
you had hitherto been left to discharge alone? No; not less when I knew
you to be unhappy, than when I had believed you at ease, did I turn away
from every exertion of duty or friendship; scarcely allowing sorrow to
exist but with me, regretting only _that_ heart which had deserted and
wronged me, and leaving you, for whom I professed an unbounded
affection, to be miserable for my sake."
Here ceased the rapid flow of her self-reproving spirit; and Elinor,
impatient to soothe, though too honest to flatter, gave her instantly
that praise and support which her frankness and her contrition so well
deserved. Marianne pressed her hand and replied--
"You are very good. The future must be my proof. I have laid down my
plan, and if I am capable of adhering to it--my feelings shall be
governed and my temper improved. They shall no longer worry others,
nor torture myself. I shall now live solely for my family. You, my
mother, and Margaret, must henceforth be all the world to me; you will
share my affections entirely between you. From you, from my home, I
shall never again have the smallest incitement to move; and if I do
mix in other society, it will be only to show that my spirit is
humbled, my heart amended, and that I can practise the civilities, the
lesser duties of life, with gentleness and forbearance. As for
Willoughby--to say that I shall soon or that I shall ever forget him,
would be idle. His remembrance can be overcome by no change of
circumstances or opinions. But it shall be regulated, it shall be
checked by religion, by reason, by constant employment."
She paused--and added in a low voice, "If I could but know _his_
heart, everything would become easy."
Elinor, who had now been for some time reflecting on the propriety or
impropriety of speedily hazarding her narration, without feeling at
all nearer decision than at first, heard this; and perceiving that as
reflection did nothing, resolution must do all, soon found herself
leading to the fact.
She managed the recital, as she hoped, with address; prepared her
anxious listener with caution; related simply and honestly the chief
points on which Willoughby grounded his apology; did justice to his
repentance, and softened only his protestations of present regard.
Marianne said not a word. She trembled, her eyes were fixed on the
ground, and her lips became whiter than even sickness had left them. A
thousand inquiries sprung up from her heart, but she dared not urge
one. She caught every syllable with panting eagerness; her hand,
unknowingly to herself, closely pressed her sister's, and tears
covered her cheeks.
Elinor, dreading her being tired, led her towards home; and till they
reached the door of the cottage, easily conjecturing what her
curiosity must be though no question was suffered to speak it, talked
of nothing but Willoughby, and their conversation together; and was
carefully minute in every particular of speech and look, where
minuteness could be safely indulged. As soon as they entered the
house, Marianne with a kiss of gratitude and these two words just
articulate through her tears, "Tell mama," withdrew from her sister
and walked slowly up stairs. Elinor would not attempt to disturb a
solitude so reasonable as what she now sought; and with a mind
anxiously pre-arranging its result, and a resolution of reviving the
subject again, should Marianne fail to do it, she turned into the
parlour to fulfill her parting injunction.