‘His character is now before you — expensive, dissipated, and worse than both. When I came to you last week and found you alone, I came determined to know the truth, though irresolute what to do when it was known. My behaviour must have seemed strange to you then, but now you will comprehend it. To suffer you all to be so deceived; to see your sister — but what could I do? I had no hope of interfering with success, and sometimes I thought your sister’s influence might yet reclaim him. But now, I only hope that she may turn with gratitude towards her own condition when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza.’
‘I am very grateful to you, Colonel, for having spoken. I have been more pained by her endeavours to acquit him than by all the rest, for it irritates her mind more than the most perfect conviction of his unworthiness can do. Now, though at first she will suffer much, I am sure she will soon become easier,’ she said with gratitude.
‘Thank you, you relieve my mind,’ I said.
‘Is Eliza still in town?’ she asked me kindly, showing a genuine interest in my dear Eliza’s fate.
‘No; as soon as she recovered from her lying-in, I removed her and her child into the country, and there she remains.’
Recollecting then that I was probably keeping Miss Dashwood from her sister, I left her, hoping that she could now give some solace to Marianne.
Friday 27 January
I called on Mrs Jennings today and was warmly received.
‘Ah, Colonel, you have done her good,’ were Mrs Jennings’s first words to me. ‘You have your chance, now. She is yours for a few kind words.’
I had thought about it over and over again, and although I wanted nothing more than to win her, I did not want to do so when she was weak and unable to resist. I wanted her love, not just her acquiescence, and she was in no condition to give it.
‘Oh, I know how it will be!’ she went on. ‘A summer wedding, and the two of you made happy.’
‘Please, I beg you, do not talk of it,’ I said, for I did not want her to distress Marianne.
‘We will all be talking of it soon!’ she said.
Fortunately, she was on her way out and so she could not talk about it any more.
I was announced, and when I went in, I saw Marianne sitting by the fire. I expected her to look disappointed at my arrival as she usually did, but instead she rose and came towards me with an expression of such sweet feeling that I was almost unmanned.
‘How good of you to call,’ she said, with a voice full of compassionate respect. ‘I never knew, never suspected, that you had had such a tragedy in your life. I always thought you a dry and soulless man. How easily we are deceived! And Eliza ... how is she?’
‘She is well, thank you,’ I said, thinking how good she was to trouble herself with Eliza when she herself was suffering.
‘I am glad of it,’ she said sincerely.
She made no further allusion to Eliza, but she asked me if I was enjoying my stay in London, and talked to me for a quarter of an hour. In all that time, she spoke to me as though I was her fellow sufferer in grief, and I felt a pang at her heartfelt generosity, for I had had many years to get over my tragedy, whilst she had had only a day to accustom herself to hers.
Saturday 28 January
I called on Mrs Jennings again this morning and found her from home, but Miss Dashwood was there, whilst Marianne was lying down with a headache.
‘I am worried for her,’ said Miss Dashwood, ‘for although her mind is settled, it is settled in gloomy dejection.’
‘If she should wish to go home before your visit to Mrs Jennings draws to an end, I will be very happy to escort her, and you, of course,’ I said. ‘I am entirely at your disposal.’
‘You are very kind, but we have decided to stay. My mother thinks it for the best, for here in London there are things to distract my sister, whereas at home there is no society or occupation, and every corner will remind her of Willoughby. I hope that, in a few days, she might be able to visit the shops, or go for a walk in the park, and the bustle of the scene will help to distract her thoughts. Then, too, our brother John will be in town before the middle of February, and my mother wishes us to see him.’
‘I think you are wise. Diversion must eventually lift her spirits. I only wish there was more I could do to help.’
‘You have already done a great deal. She no longer tries to excuse Willoughby, and this has given some rest to her thoughts. Then, too, in comparing her situation to Eliza’s, she realizes she is fortunate, which is a further source of — I will not say happiness, for she feels very deeply for your ward — but gratitude.’
Sir John and his wife called at that moment with the Palmers, and they joined in our conversation. Sir John was loud in his indignation.
‘I had always thought so well of the fellow, for I do not believe there is a bolder rider in England! It is an unaccountable business, but I may tell you, Miss Dashwood, I wish him at the devil with all my heart. I will not speak another word to him, meet him where I might, for all the world! No, not if it were to be by the side of Barton covert, and we were kept waiting for two hours together. Such a scoundrel of a fellow! Such a deceitful dog! Why, it was only the last time we met that I offered him one of Folly’s puppies! And this is the end of it!’
Mrs Palmer, too, was angry.
‘I am determined to drop his acquaintance immediately, and I am very thankful that I had never been acquainted with him at all. I wish with all my heart Combe Magna was not so near Cleveland; but it does not signify, for it is a great deal too far off to visit; indeed, I hate him so much that I am resolved never to mention his name again, and I am determined to tell everyone I see what a good-for-nothing he is. And to think, he is having his portrait painted and buying a new carriage and a new suit of clothes, whilst your sister is cast down in misery because of him.’
I could tell that such talk, though kindly meant, was distressing to Miss Dashwood, and so I turned the conversation on to less sensitive topics.
The visitors rose at last to take their leave, and I went with them. On the street outside the house, we met Mrs Jennings, just returning from her outing.
‘So, Colonel, have you been proposing to Miss Marianne?’ she asked.
I endeavoured to smile at her sally, but I fear it was more of a grimace.
‘No.’
‘Ah, me, I thought you would be married by Midsummer, but if you do not look sharp, it will not be until Michaelmas!’
Friday 3 February
And so Willoughby is married, and to neither of the young women whom he ought, by rights, to have wed.
They have had a narrow escape. And he, I hope, will think riches a sufficient recompense for the sweetness of the young women he has lost.
Saturday 4 February
I called on Mrs Jennings again today, hoping to learn from Miss Dashwood how her sister had taken the news of Willoughby’s wedding, and I found on arrival that there had been an addition to the party, for some young relatives of Mrs Jennings had just arrived. I was pleased, for I hoped that they might be able to divert Miss Marianne.
‘You must let me introduce you, Colonel. Miss Steele and her sister, Miss Lucy Steele. We met in Exeter, and lord! Wouldn’t you know it, we found out we were distant cousins. So Lucy and Nancy came to stay with us at Barton after you left, and it did my heart good to see all the young people together, Nancy, Lucy, Elinor and Marianne. Well, my dears,’ said Mrs Jennings to her two young cousins, ‘and how did you travel?’
‘Not in the stage, I assure you,’ replied Miss Steele, with quick exultation. ‘We came post all the way, and had a very smart beau to attend us. Dr Davies was coming to town, and so we thought we’d join him in a post-chaise; and he behaved very genteelly, and paid ten or twelve shillings more than we did.’