‘I would not wish to disturb them — ’

‘They can walk at any time. They would much rather see you, I am sure,’ she said.

I followed her into the cottage.

‘And has Mrs Ferrars restored him to the position of an elder son?’ I asked.

‘No, that would be too much to hope for. She has promised him ten thousand pounds, which is the sum she gave to Fanny on her marriage, but other than that she is content for him to take holy orders for the sake of two hundred and fifty pounds a year. And this, when his brother has a thousand a year! But it is enough. Now that Elinor has Edward, she needs nothing more to be happy.’

Mrs Dashwood and her daughters returned at that point, and the subject was much discussed.

‘Edward meant to tell you himself. He intended to call at Delaford on his way here,’ said Elinor.

‘I should have waited for him, but I was eager to discover the news.’

‘And I admire you for it,’ said Marianne warmly. ‘Where our friends are concerned, how can we abide any delay which will prevent us from learning of their happiness?’

‘Edward is expected here in a few days’ time,’ said Elinor. ‘You must stay and see him.’

‘Thank you, I will. And then you must all come to Delaford. You will be able to see the parsonage, and,’ turning to Elinor, ‘tell me what improvements you would like me to make.’

‘You are very kind, Colonel. I can think of nothing I would like better,’ she said.

I waved her thanks aside, and Mrs Dashwood said that she and her family would be glad to accept my invitation.

And so I am to have them at Delaford! Marianne is to see my home for the first time. And, perhaps, if fortune favours me, it will be her home soon, too.



Friday 2 June

Sir John called at the cottage this morning to invite the Dashwoods to dinner. Mrs Jennings was with him.

‘What a time we’ve all been having!’ she said. ‘Was there ever such news! Lucy engaged to Mr Edward Ferrars and then marrying his brother instead! And you, my dear,’ to Elinor, ‘you are to marry Edward, and never a thing did I suspect! How you must have laughed at me.’

‘I assure you — ’

‘You young people with your assurances. I never was more taken in, though I should have known. “His name begins with an F,” Miss Margaret said. And I never thought, when I met Mr Ferrars, that he was an F! And you, Miss Marianne, looking blooming, when I thought Willoughby had killed you. Ah, was there ever such a scoundrel, leading you on when all the time he was engaged to someone else.’

‘He did sincerely love Marianne,’ said Elinor, with a glance at her sister. ‘He came to see her when she was ill, and he confided his feelings to me.’

I had never suspected it, but in a few words she said that Willoughby had arrived at Cleveland when I had gone to fetch Mrs Dashwood, and that he had protested his affection for Marianne, saying that he had always loved her but that he had been forced into marriage with Miss Grey by poverty as Mrs Smith, hearing of his behaviour towards Eliza, had disinherited him.

Mrs Jennings was horrified, though whether she was more horrified to discover that Willoughby had seduced an innocent or that she had not been apprised of the gossip, it would have been difficult to say. But now that Marianne was no longer in danger she was willing to forgive him.

‘Ah, well, I dare say it was not his fault,’ she said.

‘No indeed. Nothing is ever Willoughby’s fault,’ said Marianne, with surprising asperity. ‘I have heard all his excuses, for he was good enough to make them to Elinor when I lay ill and in danger because of his behaviour, and they are compelling indeed. It was not his fault that he seduced an orphan; instead it was her fault for not being a saint. It was not his fault for leaving her without giving her his address; for, if she had had any common sense, she could have discovered it for herself.

‘It was not his fault for refusing to marry her when his relation, Mrs Smith, discovered his conduct and told him he must, for how could he be expected to marry a young woman who could bring him nothing except the child he had given her, and of whom he had already tired? Only a woman of Mrs Smith’s purity, and with her ignorance of the world, could have expected such a ridiculous thing.

‘And it was not his fault that he made love to me whilst Eliza was alone and discarded in London; nor that he abandoned me when Mrs Smith disinherited him and ran off to London, where he married the first heiress who would have him.’

‘My dear ...’ began Mrs Dashwood in surprise.

‘No, Mama, I must speak. I have given the matter a great deal of thought, and though to begin with I was soothed by his race to my bedside, I soon saw that it was all of a piece with his earlier behaviour. If a man were judged by words, then Willoughby would be a great man indeed. But his actions, what of them? When he came to my bedside, he was already married to another woman, and he was betraying her trust by visiting me, as he had earlier betrayed mine by leaving me. And yet did he see this betrayal? No. He saw only what he always saw, that he had been cruelly used by everyone about him, and that he himself was innocent. The orphan who had not resisted his determined seduction; the benefactress who expected him, oh! how unreasonably! to marry the mother of his child; the wife who did not love him; and the wild young girl in Devonshire who threw herself at his head, driving around the countryside with him unchaperoned and giving him a lock of her hair; all these conspired against him. There could be no blame attached to him, for if they had behaved in such reprehensible ways, then what could they expect?’

‘Marianne, you do not know that he has said any such thing about you!’ said her sister. ‘He loved you, I am sure of it.’

‘Or so he said to you, but what did he say to his wife, and to his London friends? How did he explain my behaviour at the party? As the distress of a young girl he had encouraged and then abandoned, or as the wild behaviour of an unprincipled girl whose family were careless of her honour? A man who can blacken the character of one woman behind her back can do the same to another.

‘I was deceived in him because I saw what I wanted to see. I used no judgement, no discretion ... I was so young; I, who thought myself grown up. Willoughby was my idea of perfection, and yet, for all his handsome face, he was nothing but a libertine, concerned with his own pleasure and careless of anything else.’

‘Well!’ said Mrs Jennings.

‘Ay, he was a rogue, for all he had a pretty little bitch of a pointer,’ said Sir John. ‘I wonder if he might sell her?’

‘Never did I think I would see the day when she would speak so of Mr Willoughby,’ said Mrs Jennings, ignoring Sir John. ‘However, it is just as well, for he is not a young man I would like to see attached to one of my family. And now, I have been thinking: Sir John, we must invite Miss Steele to stay, for she is all alone now her sister has married, and as the doctor hasn’t come up to scratch, we must find her another beau.’

He was delighted with the idea and said they must invite her at once.

‘Have you really recovered from Willoughby?’ I asked Marianne as, Sir John and Mrs Jennings departing, we set out for a walk, falling some way behind the others.

‘I am. I feel I can see him now with perfect clarity, and I am ashamed that I almost died because of him. I have matured, I hope, since then, and discovered that unbridled sensibility is not the good I once thought it to be, for it clouds wisdom, judgement and common sense. I allowed myself to fall in love with Willoughby without truly knowing him. And once he left me, I gave way to my sensibility again, making myself ill, so that I almost died. And for whom did I almost die? A man who did not deserve my love.

‘I mean to become more rational in the future; indeed, I have already sketched out a programme of self-improvement. I mean to rise at six and spend my time between music and reading. Our own library is too well known to me to be resorted to for anything beyond mere amusement, but there are many works well worth reading at the Park and you have been kind enough to say that I may borrow some books from your library. 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.’

‘It does not all have to be study,’ I said to her. ‘You must have some amusement as well.’

‘I never want to slip back into my old ways, and this is how I mean to avoid it.’

‘You never will. You have experience to temper you, and friends to help you. Keep some of your sensibility, Marianne. Your warm and open nature brings a great deal of pleasure to your friends. You look surprised. But it is not given to everyone to enjoy life as you do. Your vitality lights up the morning as the sun lights up the sky. Where would we be without it?’

‘Willoughby said many pretty things to me but none, I think, as pretty as that,’ she said, looking at me warmly. ‘He recited poetry and so his compliments were other men’s words in his mouth. They could have been said by anyone, to anyone. But your words are about me and me alone. And they are from the heart.’

I was about to speak, but at that moment the others turned back and hailed us, saying, ‘We have walked far enough for one day. Margaret is tired.’

‘I am not!’ said Margaret, though she was dragging her feet.

‘Very well then, I am tired,’ said Elinor.

We fell in with them and returned to the house. I stayed for tea, and then made my way back to the Park.