He coloured,and stammered out an unintelligible reply.Elinor's lips had moved with her mother's,and when the moment of action was over,she wished that she had shaken hands with him too.But it was then too late,and with a countenance meaning to be open,she sat down again and talked of the weather.
Marianne had retreated as much as possible out of sight to conceal her distress;and Margaret,understanding some part,but not the whole,of the case,thought it incumbent on her to be dignified,and therefore took a seat as far from him as she could,and maintained a strict silence.
When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season,a very awful pause took place.It was put an end to by Mrs Dashwood,who felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs Ferrars very well.In a hurried manner,he replied in the affirmative.
Another pause.
Elinor,resolving to exert herself,though fearing the sound of her own voice,now said-
‘Is Mrs Ferrars at Longstaple?’
‘At Longstaple!’-he replied,with an air of surprise.‘No,my mother is in town.’
‘I meant,’said Elinor,taking up some work from the table,‘to inquire after Mrs Edward Ferrars.’
She dared not look up;-but her mother and Marianne both turned their eyes on him.He coloured,seemed perplexed,looked doubtingly,and,after some hesitation said-
‘Perhaps you mean-my brother-you mean Mrs-Mrs Robert Ferrars.’
‘Mrs Robert Ferrars!’-was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an accent of the utmost amazement,-and though Elinor could not speak,even her eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder.He rose from his seat and walked to the window,apparently from not knowing what to do;took up a pair of scissors that lay there,and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke,said,in a hurried voice-
‘Perhaps you do not know-you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to-to the youngest-to Miss Lucy Steele.’
His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor,who sat with her head leaning over her work,in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was.
‘Yes,’said he,‘they were married last week and are now at Dawlish.’
Elinor could sit it no longer.She almost ran out of the room,and as soon as the door was closed,burst into tears of joy,which at first she thought would never cease.Edward,who had till then looked anywhere rather than at her,saw her hurry away,and perhaps saw-or even heard-her emotion;for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie,which no remarks,no inquiries,no affectionate address of Mrs Dashwood could penetrate,and at last,without saying a word,quitted the room,and walked out towards the village,leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation so wonderful and so sudden-a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.
Chapter 49
Unaccountable,however,as the circumstances of his release might appear to the whole family,it was certain that Edward was free;and to what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily predetermined by all;for after experiencing the blessings of one imprudent engagement,contracted without his mother's consent,as he had already done for more than four years,nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of that,than the immediate contraction of another.
His errand at Barton,in fact,was a simple one.It was only to ask Elinor to marry him;and considering that he was not altogether inexperienced in such a question,it might be strange that he should feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did,so much in need of encouragement and fresh air.
How soon he had walked himself into the proper resolution,however,how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred,in what manner he expressed himself,and how he was received,need not be particularly told.This only need be said:-that when they all sat down to table at four o'clock,about three hours after his arrival,he had secured his lady,engaged her mother's consent,and was not only in the rapturous profession of the lover,but in the reality of reason and truth,one of the happiest of men.His situation indeed was more than commonly joyful.He had more than the ordinary triumph of accepted love to swell his heart,and raise his spirits.He was released,without any reproach to himself,from an entanglement which had long formed his misery,from a woman whom he had long ceased to love-and elevated at once to that security with another,which he must have thought of almost with despair,as soon as he had learnt to consider it with desire.He was brought,not from doubt or suspense,but from misery to happiness;-and the change was openly spoken in such a genuine,flowing,grateful cheerfulness,as his friends had never witnessed in him before.
His heart was now open to Elinor-all its weaknesses,all its errors confessed,and his first boyish attachment to Lucy treated with all the philosophic dignity of twenty-four.
