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 shewing 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 shewn, 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,