Sense and Sensibility (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (50 page)

They were both silent for a few moments. Elinor first spoke.

“Did you tell her that you should soon return?”

“I do not know what I told her,” he replied, impatiently; “less than was due to the past, beyond a doubt, and in all likelihood much more than was justified by the future. I cannot think of it. It won’t do. Then came your dear mother to torture me farther, with all her kindness and confidence. Thank Heaven! it
did
torture me. I was miserable. Miss Dashwood, you cannot have an idea of the comfort it gives me to look back on my own misery. I owe such a grudge to myself for the stupid, rascally folly of my own heart, that all my past sufferings under it are only triumph and exultation to me now. Well, I went, left all that I loved, and went to those to whom, at best, I was only indifferent. My journey to town — travelling with my own horses, and therefore so tediously — no creature to speak to — my own reflections so cheerful — when I looked forward every thing so inviting! — when I looked back at Barton, the picture so soothing! — oh, it was a blessed journey!”

He stopped.

“Well, sir,” said Elinor, who, though pitying him, grew impatient for his departure, “and this is all?”

“Ah! — no, — have you forgot what passed in town? That infamous letter? Did she show it you?”

“Yes, I saw every note that passed.”

“When the first of hers reached me (as it immediately did, for I was in town the whole time,) what I felt is, in the common phrase, not to be expressed; in a more simple one — perhaps too simple to raise any emotion, my feelings were very, very painful. Every line, every word was — in the hackneyed metaphor which their dear writer, were she here, would forbid — a dagger to my heart. To know that Marianne was in town was, in the same language, a thunderbolt. Thunderbolts and daggers! what a reproof would she have given me! her taste, her opinions — I believe they are better known to me than my own, and I am sure they are dearer.”

Elinor’s heart, which had undergone many changes in the course of this extraordinary conversation, was now softened again; — yet she felt it her duty to check such ideas in her companion as the last.

“This is not right, Mr. Willoughby. Remember that you are married. Relate only what in your conscience you think necessary for me to hear.”

“Marianne’s note, by assuring me that I was still as dear to her as in former days, that in spite of the many, many weeks we had been separated, she was as constant in her own feelings, and as full of faith in the constancy of mine as ever, awakened all my remorse. I say awakened, because time and London, business and dissipation, had in some measure quieted it, and I had been growing a fine hardened villain, fancying myself indifferent to her, and choosing to fancy that she too must have become indifferent to me; talking to myself of our past attachment as a mere idle, trifling business, shrugging up my shoulders in proof of its being so, and silencing every reproach, overcoming every scruple, by secretly saying now and then, ‘I shall be heartily glad to hear she is well married.’ But this note made me know myself better. I felt that she was infinitely dearer to me than any other woman in the world, and that I was using her infamously. But every thing was then just settled between Miss Grey and me. To retreat was impossible. All that I had to do, was to avoid you both. I sent no answer to Marianne, intending by that to preserve myself from her farther notice; and for some time I was even determined not to call in Berkeley Street; but at last, judging it wiser to affect the air of a cool, common acquaintance than anything else, I watched you all safely out of the house one morning, and left my name.”

“Watched us out of the house!”

“Even so. You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered many a shop to avoid your sight, as the carriage drove by. Lodging as I did in Bond Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse of one or other of you; and nothing but the most constant watchfulness on my side, a most invariably prevailing desire to keep out of your sight, could have separated us so long. I avoided the Middletons as much as possible, as well as everybody else who was likely to prove an acquaintance in common. Not aware of their being in town, however, I blundered on Sir John, I believe, the first day of his coming, and the day after I had called at Mrs. Jennings’s. He asked me to a party, a dance at his house in the evening. Had he
not
told me as an inducement that you and your sister were to be there, I should have felt it too certain a thing, to trust myself near him. The next morning brought another short note from Marianne — still affectionate, open, artless, confiding — everything that could make
my
conduct most hateful. I could not answer it. I tried — but could not frame a sentence. But I thought of her, I believe, every moment of the day. If you
can
pity me, Miss Dashwood, pity my situation as it was
then.
With my head and heart full of your sister, I was forced to play the happy lover to another woman! Those three or four weeks were worse than all. Well, at last, as I need not tell you, you were forced on me; and what a sweet figure I cut! what an evening of agony it was! Marianne, beautiful as an angel on one side, calling me Willoughby in such a tone! Oh, God! holding out her hand to me, asking me for an explanation, with those bewitching eyes fixed in such speaking solicitude on my face! and Sophia, jealous as the devil on the other hand, looking all that was — Well, it does not signify; it is over now. Such an evening!”

Elinor, though satisfied that Willoughby was speaking the truth, knew he was also withholding one rather significant detail of the events of that infamous evening, and could not stop herself from broaching the subject. “Such an evening, indeed, Mr. Willoughby.” She leveled her gaze directly at him. “You are forgetting, I believe, that Marianne and I are in the strictest confidence with one another and that she has informed me of all that has passed between you — which does not exclude what took place outside the party that evening.”

Willoughby coloured but did not look away. He nodded and said, “I do not wish for you to believe me to be untruthful in what I tell you tonight, so therefore I must acknowledge your accusation and confess that you are correct. I tried to walk away from Marianne that evening — to leave her thinking me indifferent was surely better than her learning the real truth! — but she followed me, calling out my name and grasping my heart. As I have told you already, I was in quite a state of regret and solemnity over the choices I had made, and I simply could not resist her, though I knew I should. She and I have a connection that is … well, it is not possible to put into words, and I was powerless against it. I am certain you think me despicable and unworthy of any woman’s affection, especially your sister’s, and I understand your position, but it’s all I can do to promise that I only acted out of love.”

Elinor chose to remain silent. She wanted to hate this man — and she did, in many ways — but she understood better than he could possibly imagine what it was like to give in to love and the intensity of a connection with another, despite it not being the proper thing to do.

“As our encounter drew to a close,” Willoughby continued, “I tried to tell her the truth of my engagement, but my words did not come out the way I wished they would, and Marianne ran from me before I knew how to explain properly. Her sweet face as white as death …
that
was the last, last look I ever had of her; the last manner in which she appeared to me. It was a horrid sight! yet when I thought of her to-day as really dying, it was a kind of comfort to me to imagine that I knew exactly how she would appear to those, who saw her last in this world. She was before me, constantly before me, as I travelled, in the same look and hue.”

A short pause of mutual thoughtfulness succeeded. Willoughby first rousing himself, broke it thus:

“Well, let me make haste and be gone. Your sister is certainly better, certainly out of danger?”

“We are assured of it.”

“Your poor mother, too! — doting on Marianne.”

“But the letter, Mr. Willoughby, your own letter; have you any thing to say about that?”

“Yes, yes,
that
in particular. Your sister wrote to me again, you know, the very next morning. You saw what she said. I was breakfasting at the Ellisons, — and her letter, with some others, was brought to me there from my lodgings. It happened to catch Sophia’s eye before it caught mine; — and its size, the elegance of the paper, the hand-writing altogether, immediately gave her a suspicion. Some vague report had reached her before of my attachment to some young lady in Devonshire, and what had passed within her observation the preceding evening had marked who the young lady was, and made her more jealous than ever. Affecting that air of playfulness, therefore, which is delightful in a woman one loves, she opened the letter directly, and read its contents. She was well paid for her impudence. She read what made her wretched. Her wretchedness I could have borne, but her passion — her malice — at all events it must be appeased. And, in short, what do you think of my wife’s style of letter-writing? — delicate — tender — truly feminine — was it not?”

“Your wife! The letter was in your own hand-writing.”

“Yes, but I had only the credit of servilely copying such sentences as I was ashamed to put my name to. The original was all her own — her own happy thoughts and gentle diction. But what could I do! we were engaged, every thing in preparation, the day almost fixed — but I am talking like a fool. Preparation! Day! In honest words, her money was necessary to me, and in a situation like mine, any thing was to be done to prevent a rupture. And after all, what did it signify to my character in the opinion of Marianne and her friends, in what language my answer was couched? It must have been only to one end. My business was to declare myself a scoundrel, and whether I did it with a bow or a bluster was of little importance. ‘I am ruined for ever in their opinion,’ said I to myself; ‘I am shut out for ever from their society, they already think me an unprincipled fellow, this letter will only make them think me a blackguard one.’ Such were my reasonings, as, in a sort of desperate carelessness, I copied my wife’s words, and parted with the last relics of Marianne. Her three notes — unluckily they were all in my pocket-book, or I should have denied their existence, and hoarded them for ever — I was forced to put them up, and could not even kiss them. And the lock of hair — that too I had always carried about me in the same pocket-book, which was now searched by Madam with the most ingratiating virulence, — the dear lock — all, every memento was torn from me.”

“You are very wrong, Mr. Willoughby, very blamable,” said Elinor, while her voice, in spite of herself, betrayed her compassionate emotion; “you ought not to speak in this way, either of Mrs. Willoughby or my sister. You had made your own choice. It was not forced on you. Your wife has a claim to your politeness, to your respect, at least. She must be attached to you, or she would not have married you. To treat her with unkindness, to speak of her slightingly is no atonement to Marianne — nor can I suppose it a relief to your own conscience.”

“Do not talk to me of my wife,” said he with a heavy sigh. “She does not deserve your compassion. She knew I had no regard for her when we married. Well, married we were, and came down to Combe Magna to be happy, and afterwards returned to town to be gay. And now do you pity me, Miss Dashwood? or have I said all this to no purpose? Am I, — be it only one degree, — am I less guilty in your opinion than I was before? My intentions were not always wrong. Have I explained away any part of my guilt?”

“Yes, you have certainly removed something — a little. You have proved yourself, on the whole, less faulty than I had believed you. You have proved your heart less wicked, much less wicked. But I hardly know — the misery that you have inflicted — I hardly know what could have made it worse.”

“Will you repeat to your sister when she is recovered, what I have been telling you? — Let me be a little lightened too in her opinion as well as in yours. You tell me that she has forgiven me already. Let me be able to fancy that a better knowledge of my heart, and of my present feelings, will draw from her a more spontaneous, more natural, more gentle, less dignified, forgiveness. Tell her of my misery and my penitence — tell her that my heart was never inconstant to her, and if you will, that at this moment she is dearer to me than ever.”

“I will tell her all that is necessary to what may comparatively be called, your justification. But you have not explained to me the particular reason of your coming now, nor how you heard of her illness.”

“Last night, in Drury Lane lobby, I ran against Sir John Middleton, and when he saw who I was, for the first time these two months — he spoke to me. That he had cut me ever since my marriage, I had seen without surprise or resentment. Now, however, his good-natured, honest, stupid soul, full of indignation against me, and concern for your sister, could not resist the temptation of telling me what he knew ought to, though probably he did not think it
would
, vex me horridly. As bluntly as he could speak it, therefore, he told me that Marianne Dashwood was dying of a putrid fever at Cleveland — a letter that morning received from Mrs. Jennings declared her danger most imminent — the Palmers are all gone off in a fright, &c. I was too much shocked to be able to pass myself off as insensible even to the undiscerning Sir John. His heart was softened in seeing mine suffer; and so much of his ill-will was done away, that when we parted, he almost shook me by the hand while he reminded me of an old promise about a pointer puppy. What I felt on hearing that your sister was dying, and dying too, believing me the greatest villain upon earth, scorning, hating me in her latest moments — for how could I tell what horrid projects might not have been imputed?
One
person I was sure would represent me as capable of any thing. What I felt was dreadful! My resolution was soon made, and at eight o’clock this morning I was in my carriage. Now you know all.”