Mrs. Palmer was so well at the end of a fortnight, that her mother felt
it no longer necessary to give up the whole of her time to her; and,
contenting herself with visiting her once or twice a day, returned from
that period to her own home, and her own habits, in which she found the
Miss Dashwoods very ready to resume their former share.

About the third or fourth morning after their being thus resettled in
Berkeley Street, Mrs. Jennings, on returning from her ordinary visit to
Mrs. Palmer, entered the drawing-room, where Elinor was sitting by
herself, with an air of such hurrying importance as prepared her to
hear something wonderful; and giving her time only to form that idea,
began directly to justify it, by saying,

“Lord! my dear Miss Dashwood! have you heard the news?”

“No, ma’am. What is it?”

“Something so strange! But you shall hear it all. When I got to Mr.
Palmer’s, I found Charlotte quite in a fuss about the child. She was
sure it was very ill—it cried, and fretted, and was all over pimples.
So I looked at it directly, and, ‘Lord! my dear,’ says I, ‘it is
nothing in the world, but the red gum;’ and nurse said just the same.
But Charlotte, she would not be satisfied, so Mr. Donavan was sent for;
and luckily he happened to just come in from Harley Street, so he
stepped over directly, and as soon as ever he saw the child, he said
just as we did, that it was nothing in the world but the red gum, and
then Charlotte was easy. And so, just as he was going away again, it
came into my head, I am sure I do not know how I happened to think of
it, but it came into my head to ask him if there was any news. So upon
that, he smirked, and simpered, and looked grave, and seemed to know
something or other, and at last he said in a whisper, ‘For fear any
unpleasant report should reach the young ladies under your care as to
their sister’s indisposition, I think it advisable to say, that I
believe there is no great reason for alarm; I hope Mrs. Dashwood will
do very well.’”

“What! is Fanny ill?”

“That is exactly what I said, my dear. ‘Lord!’ says I, ‘is Mrs.
Dashwood ill?’ So then it all came out; and the long and the short of
the matter, by all I can learn, seems to be this. Mr. Edward Ferrars,
the very young man I used to joke with you about (but however, as it
turns out, I am monstrous glad there was never any thing in it), Mr.
Edward Ferrars, it seems, has been engaged above this twelvemonth to my
cousin Lucy!—There’s for you, my dear! And not a creature knowing a
syllable of the matter, except Nancy! Could you have believed such a
thing possible? There is no great wonder in their liking one another;
but that matters should be brought so forward between them, and nobody
suspect it! _That_ is strange! I never happened to see them together,
or I am sure I should have found it out directly. Well, and so this was
kept a great secret, for fear of Mrs. Ferrars, and neither she nor your
brother or sister suspected a word of the matter: till this very
morning, poor Nancy, who, you know, is a well-meaning creature, but no
conjurer, popt it all out. ‘Lord!’ thinks she to herself, ‘they are all
so fond of Lucy, to be sure they will make no difficulty about it;’ and
so, away she went to your sister, who was sitting all alone at her
carpet-work, little suspecting what was to come—for she had just been
saying to your brother, only five minutes before, that she thought to
make a match between Edward and some Lord’s daughter or other, I forget
who. So you may think what a blow it was to all her vanity and pride.
She fell into violent hysterics immediately, with such screams as
reached your brother’s ears, as he was sitting in his own dressing-room
down stairs, thinking about writing a letter to his steward in the
country. So up he flew directly, and a terrible scene took place, for
Lucy was come to them by that time, little dreaming what was going on.
Poor soul! I pity _her_. And I must say, I think she was used very
hardly; for your sister scolded like any fury, and soon drove her into
a fainting fit. Nancy, she fell upon her knees, and cried bitterly; and
your brother, he walked about the room, and said he did not know what
to do. Mrs. Dashwood declared they should not stay a minute longer in
the house, and your brother was forced to go down upon _his_ knees too,
to persuade her to let them stay till they had packed up their clothes.
_Then_ she fell into hysterics again, and he was so frightened that he
would send for Mr. Donavan, and Mr. Donavan found the house in all this
uproar. The carriage was at the door ready to take my poor cousins
away, and they were just stepping in as he came off; poor Lucy in such
a condition, he says, she could hardly walk; and Nancy, she was almost
as bad. I declare, I have no patience with your sister; and I hope,
with all my heart, it will be a match in spite of her. Lord! what a
taking poor Mr. Edward will be in when he hears of it! To have his love
used so scornfully! for they say he is monstrous fond of her, as well
he may. I should not wonder, if he was to be in the greatest
passion!—and Mr. Donavan thinks just the same. He and I had a great
deal of talk about it; and the best of all is, that he is gone back
again to Harley Street, that he may be within call when Mrs. Ferrars is
told of it, for she was sent for as soon as ever my cousins left the
house, for your sister was sure _she_ would be in hysterics too; and so
she may, for what I care. I have no pity for either of them. I have no
notion of people’s making such a to-do about money and greatness. There
is no reason on earth why Mr. Edward and Lucy should not marry; for I
am sure Mrs. Ferrars may afford to do very well by her son, and though
Lucy has next to nothing herself, she knows better than any body how to
make the most of every thing; I dare say, if Mrs. Ferrars would only
allow him five hundred a-year, she would make as good an appearance
with it as any body else would with eight. Lord! how snug they might
live in such another cottage as yours—or a little bigger—with two
maids, and two men; and I believe I could help them to a housemaid, for
my Betty has a sister out of place, that would fit them exactly.”

Here Mrs. Jennings ceased, and as Elinor had had time enough to collect
her thoughts, she was able to give such an answer, and make such
observations, as the subject might naturally be supposed to produce.
Happy to find that she was not suspected of any extraordinary interest
in it; that Mrs. Jennings (as she had of late often hoped might be the
case) had ceased to imagine her at all attached to Edward; and happy
above all the rest, in the absence of Marianne, she felt very well able
to speak of the affair without embarrassment, and to give her judgment,
as she believed, with impartiality on the conduct of every one
concerned in it.

She could hardly determine what her own expectation of its event really
was; though she earnestly tried to drive away the notion of its being
possible to end otherwise at last, than in the marriage of Edward and
Lucy. What Mrs. Ferrars would say and do, though there could not be a
doubt of its nature, she was anxious to hear; and still more anxious to
know how Edward would conduct himself. For _him_ she felt much
compassion;—for Lucy very little—and it cost her some pains to procure
that little;—for the rest of the party none at all.

As Mrs. Jennings could talk on no other subject, Elinor soon saw the
necessity of preparing Marianne for its discussion. No time was to be
lost in undeceiving her, in making her acquainted with the real truth,
and in endeavouring to bring her to hear it talked of by others,
without betraying that she felt any uneasiness for her sister, or any
resentment against Edward.

Elinor’s office was a painful one.—She was going to remove what she
really believed to be her sister’s chief consolation,—to give such
particulars of Edward as she feared would ruin him for ever in her good
opinion,-and to make Marianne, by a resemblance in their situations,
which to _her_ fancy would seem strong, feel all her own disappointment
over again. But unwelcome as such a task must be, it was necessary to
be done, and Elinor therefore hastened to perform it.

She was very far from wishing to dwell on her own feelings, or to
represent herself as suffering much, any otherwise than as the
self-command she had practised since her first knowledge of Edward’s
engagement, might suggest a hint of what was practicable to Marianne.
Her narration was clear and simple; and though it could not be given
without emotion, it was not accompanied by violent agitation, nor
impetuous grief. _That_ belonged rather to the hearer, for Marianne
listened with horror, and cried excessively. Elinor was to be the
comforter of others in her own distresses, no less than in theirs; and
all the comfort that could be given by assurances of her own composure
of mind, and a very earnest vindication of Edward from every charge but
of imprudence, was readily offered.

But Marianne for some time would give credit to neither. Edward seemed
a second Willoughby; and acknowledging as Elinor did, that she _had_
loved him most sincerely, could she feel less than herself! As for Lucy
Steele, she considered her so totally unamiable, so absolutely
incapable of attaching a sensible man, that she could not be persuaded
at first to believe, and afterwards to pardon, any former affection of
Edward for her. She would not even admit it to have been natural; and
Elinor left her to be convinced that it was so, by that which only
could convince her, a better knowledge of mankind.

Her first communication had reached no farther than to state the fact
of the engagement, and the length of time it had existed.—Marianne’s
feelings had then broken in, and put an end to all regularity of
detail; and for some time all that could be done was to soothe her
distress, lessen her alarms, and combat her resentment. The first
question on her side, which led to farther particulars, was,—

“How long has this been known to you, Elinor? has he written to you?”

“I have known it these four months. When Lucy first came to Barton Park
last November, she told me in confidence of her engagement.”

At these words, Marianne’s eyes expressed the astonishment which her
lips could not utter. After a pause of wonder, she exclaimed—

“Four months!—Have you known of this four months?”

Elinor confirmed it.

“What! while attending me in all my misery, has this been on your
heart? And I have reproached you for being happy!”

“It was not fit that you should then know how much I was the reverse!”

“Four months!” cried Marianne again. “So calm! so cheerful! How have
you been supported?”

“By feeling that I was doing my duty.—My promise to Lucy, obliged me to
be secret. I owed it to her, therefore, to avoid giving any hint of the
truth; and I owed it to my family and friends, not to create in them a
solicitude about me, which it could not be in my power to satisfy.”

Marianne seemed much struck.

“I have very often wished to undeceive yourself and my mother,” added
Elinor; “and once or twice I have attempted it;—but without betraying
my trust, I never could have convinced you.”

“Four months! and yet you loved him!”

“Yes. But I did not love only him; and while the comfort of others was
dear to me, I was glad to spare them from knowing how much I felt. Now,
I can think and speak of it with little emotion. I would not have you
suffer on my account; for I assure you I no longer suffer materially
myself. I have many things to support me. I am not conscious of having
provoked the disappointment by any imprudence of my own, I have borne
it as much as possible without spreading it farther. I acquit Edward of
essential misconduct. I wish him very happy; and I am so sure of his
always doing his duty, that though now he may harbour some regret, in
the end he must become so. Lucy does not want sense, and that is the
foundation on which every thing good may be built. And after all,
Marianne, after all that is bewitching in the idea of a single and
constant attachment, and all that can be said of one’s happiness
depending entirely on any particular person, it is not meant—it is not
fit—it is not possible that it should be so. Edward will marry Lucy; he
will marry a woman superior in person and understanding to half her
sex; and time and habit will teach him to forget that he ever thought
another superior to _her_.”

“If such is your way of thinking,” said Marianne, “if the loss of what
is most valued is so easily to be made up by something else, your
resolution, your self-command, are, perhaps, a little less to be
wondered at.—They are brought more within my comprehension.”

“I understand you. You do not suppose that I have ever felt much. For
four months, Marianne, I have had all this hanging on my mind, without
being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature; knowing that it
would make you and my mother most unhappy whenever it were explained to
you, yet unable to prepare you for it in the least. It was told me,—it
was in a manner forced on me by the very person herself, whose prior
engagement ruined all my prospects; and told me, as I thought, with
triumph. This person’s suspicions, therefore, I have had to oppose, by
endeavouring to appear indifferent where I have been most deeply
interested; and it has not been only once; I have had her hopes and
exultation to listen to again and again. I have known myself to be
divided from Edward for ever, without hearing one circumstance that
could make me less desire the connection. Nothing has proved him
unworthy; nor has anything declared him indifferent to me. I have had
to contend against the unkindness of his sister, and the insolence of
his mother; and have suffered the punishment of an attachment, without
enjoying its advantages. And all this has been going on at a time,
when, as you know too well, it has not been my only unhappiness. If you
can think me capable of ever feeling, surely you may suppose that I
have suffered _now_. The composure of mind with which I have brought
myself at present to consider the matter, the consolation that I have
been willing to admit, have been the effect of constant and painful
exertion; they did not spring up of themselves; they did not occur to
relieve my spirits at first. No, Marianne. _Then_, if I had not been
bound to silence, perhaps nothing could have kept me entirely—not even
what I owed to my dearest friends—from openly showing that I was _very_
unhappy.”

Marianne was quite subdued.

“Oh! Elinor,” she cried, “you have made me hate myself for ever.—How
barbarous have I been to you!—you, who have been my only comfort, who
have borne with me in all my misery, who have seemed to be only
suffering for me!—Is this my gratitude?—Is this the only return I can
make you?—Because your merit cries out upon myself, I have been trying
to do it away.”

The tenderest caresses followed this confession. In such a frame of
mind as she was now in, Elinor had no difficulty in obtaining from her
whatever promise she required; and at her request, Marianne engaged
never to speak of the affair to any one with the least appearance of
bitterness; to meet Lucy without betraying the smallest increase of
dislike to her; and even to see Edward himself, if chance should bring
them together, without any diminution of her usual cordiality. These
were great concessions; but where Marianne felt that she had injured,
no reparation could be too much for her to make.

She performed her promise of being discreet, to admiration.—She
attended to all that Mrs. Jennings had to say upon the subject, with an
unchanging complexion, dissented from her in nothing, and was heard
three times to say, “Yes, ma’am.”—She listened to her praise of Lucy
with only moving from one chair to another, and when Mrs. Jennings
talked of Edward’s affection, it cost her only a spasm in her
throat.—Such advances towards heroism in her sister, made Elinor feel
equal to any thing herself.

The next morning brought a farther trial of it, in a visit from their
brother, who came with a most serious aspect to talk over the dreadful
affair, and bring them news of his wife.

“You have heard, I suppose,” said he with great solemnity, as soon as
he was seated, “of the very shocking discovery that took place under
our roof yesterday.”

They all looked their assent; it seemed too awful a moment for speech.

“Your sister,” he continued, “has suffered dreadfully. Mrs. Ferrars
too—in short it has been a scene of such complicated distress—but I
will hope that the storm may be weathered without our being any of us
quite overcome. Poor Fanny! she was in hysterics all yesterday. But I
would not alarm you too much. Donavan says there is nothing materially
to be apprehended; her constitution is a good one, and her resolution
equal to any thing. She has borne it all, with the fortitude of an
angel! She says she never shall think well of anybody again; and one
cannot wonder at it, after being so deceived!—meeting with such
ingratitude, where so much kindness had been shown, so much confidence
had been placed! It was quite out of the benevolence of her heart, that
she had asked these young women to her house; merely because she
thought they deserved some attention, were harmless, well-behaved
girls, and would be pleasant companions; for otherwise we both wished
very much to have invited you and Marianne to be with us, while your
kind friend there, was attending her daughter. And now to be so
rewarded! ‘I wish, with all my heart,’ says poor Fanny in her
affectionate way, ‘that we had asked your sisters instead of them.’”

Here he stopped to be thanked; which being done, he went on.

“What poor Mrs. Ferrars suffered, when first Fanny broke it to her, is
not to be described. While she with the truest affection had been
planning a most eligible connection for him, was it to be supposed that
he could be all the time secretly engaged to another person!—such a
suspicion could never have entered her head! If she suspected _any_
prepossession elsewhere, it could not be in _that_ quarter. ‘_There_,
to be sure,’ said she, ‘I might have thought myself safe.’ She was
quite in an agony. We consulted together, however, as to what should be
done, and at last she determined to send for Edward. He came. But I am
sorry to relate what ensued. All that Mrs. Ferrars could say to make
him put an end to the engagement, assisted too as you may well suppose
by my arguments, and Fanny’s entreaties, was of no avail. Duty,
affection, every thing was disregarded. I never thought Edward so
stubborn, so unfeeling before. His mother explained to him her liberal
designs, in case of his marrying Miss Morton; told him she would settle
on him the Norfolk estate, which, clear of land-tax, brings in a good
thousand a-year; offered even, when matters grew desperate, to make it
twelve hundred; and in opposition to this, if he still persisted in
this low connection, represented to him the certain penury that must
attend the match. His own two thousand pounds she protested should be
his all; she would never see him again; and so far would she be from
affording him the smallest assistance, that if he were to enter into
any profession with a view of better support, she would do all in her
power to prevent him advancing in it.”

Here Marianne, in an ecstasy of indignation, clapped her hands
together, and cried, “Gracious God! can this be possible!”

“Well may you wonder, Marianne,” replied her brother, “at the obstinacy
which could resist such arguments as these. Your exclamation is very
natural.”

Marianne was going to retort, but she remembered her promises, and
forbore.

“All this, however,” he continued, “was urged in vain. Edward said very
little; but what he did say, was in the most determined manner. Nothing
should prevail on him to give up his engagement. He would stand to it,
cost him what it might.”

“Then,” cried Mrs. Jennings with blunt sincerity, no longer able to be
silent, “he has acted like an honest man! I beg your pardon, Mr.
Dashwood, but if he had done otherwise, I should have thought him a
rascal. I have some little concern in the business, as well as
yourself, for Lucy Steele is my cousin, and I believe there is not a
better kind of girl in the world, nor one who more deserves a good
husband.”

John Dashwood was greatly astonished; but his nature was calm, not open
to provocation, and he never wished to offend anybody, especially
anybody of good fortune. He therefore replied, without any resentment,

“I would by no means speak disrespectfully of any relation of yours,
madam. Miss Lucy Steele is, I dare say, a very deserving young woman,
but in the present case you know, the connection must be impossible.
And to have entered into a secret engagement with a young man under her
uncle’s care, the son of a woman especially of such very large fortune
as Mrs. Ferrars, is perhaps, altogether a little extraordinary. In
short, I do not mean to reflect upon the behaviour of any person whom
you have a regard for, Mrs. Jennings. We all wish her extremely happy;
and Mrs. Ferrars’s conduct throughout the whole, has been such as every
conscientious, good mother, in like circumstances, would adopt. It has
been dignified and liberal. Edward has drawn his own lot, and I fear it
will be a bad one.”

Marianne sighed out her similar apprehension; and Elinor’s heart wrung
for the feelings of Edward, while braving his mother’s threats, for a
woman who could not reward him.

“Well, sir,” said Mrs. Jennings, “and how did it end?”

“I am sorry to say, ma’am, in a most unhappy rupture:—Edward is
dismissed for ever from his mother’s notice. He left her house
yesterday, but where he is gone, or whether he is still in town, I do
not know; for _we_ of course can make no inquiry.”

“Poor young man!—and what is to become of him?”

“What, indeed, ma’am! It is a melancholy consideration. Born to the
prospect of such affluence! I cannot conceive a situation more
deplorable. The interest of two thousand pounds—how can a man live on
it?—and when to that is added the recollection, that he might, but for
his own folly, within three months have been in the receipt of two
thousand, five hundred a-year (for Miss Morton has thirty thousand
pounds,) I cannot picture to myself a more wretched condition. We must
all feel for him; and the more so, because it is totally out of our
power to assist him.”

“Poor young man!” cried Mrs. Jennings, “I am sure he should be very
welcome to bed and board at my house; and so I would tell him if I
could see him. It is not fit that he should be living about at his own
charge now, at lodgings and taverns.”

Elinor’s heart thanked her for such kindness towards Edward, though she
could not forbear smiling at the form of it.

“If he would only have done as well by himself,” said John Dashwood,
“as all his friends were disposed to do by him, he might now have been
in his proper situation, and would have wanted for nothing. But as it
is, it must be out of anybody’s power to assist him. And there is one
thing more preparing against him, which must be worse than all—his
mother has determined, with a very natural kind of spirit, to settle
_that_ estate upon Robert immediately, which might have been Edward’s,
on proper conditions. I left her this morning with her lawyer, talking
over the business.”

“Well!” said Mrs. Jennings, “that is _her_ revenge. Everybody has a way
of their own. But I don’t think mine would be, to make one son
independent, because another had plagued me.”

Marianne got up and walked about the room.

“Can anything be more galling to the spirit of a man,” continued John,
“than to see his younger brother in possession of an estate which might
have been his own? Poor Edward! I feel for him sincerely.”

A few minutes more spent in the same kind of effusion, concluded his
visit; and with repeated assurances to his sisters that he really
believed there was no material danger in Fanny’s indisposition, and
that they need not therefore be very uneasy about it, he went away;
leaving the three ladies unanimous in their sentiments on the present
occasion, as far at least as it regarded Mrs. Ferrars’s conduct, the
Dashwoods’, and Edward’s.

Marianne’s indignation burst forth as soon as he quitted the room; and
as her vehemence made reserve impossible in Elinor, and unnecessary in
Mrs. Jennings, they all joined in a very spirited critique upon the
party.