This hint was enough;Lucy recollected herself instantly and replied,‘Indeed，you are very much mistaken,Lady Middleton;I am only waiting to know whether you can make your party without me,or I should have been at my filigree already.I would not disappoint the little angel for all the world；and if you want me at the card-table now,I am resolved to finish the basket after supper.’
‘You are very good;I hope it won't hurt your eyes-will you ring the bell for some working candles?My poor little girl would be sadly disappointed,I know,if the basket was not finished tomorrow,for though I told her it certainly would not,I am sure she depends upon having it done.’
Lucy directly drew her work-table near her,and reseated herself with an alacrity and cheerfulness which seemed to infer that she could taste no greater delight than in making a filigree basket for a spoilt child.
Lady Middleton proposed a rubber of casino to the others.No one made any objection but Marianne,who,with her usual inattention to the forms of general civility,exclaimed,‘Your Ladyship will have the goodness to excuse me-you know I detest cards.I shall go to the piano-forte;I have not touched it since it was tuned.’And without further ceremony,she turned away and walked to the instrument.
Lady Middleton looked as if she thanked heaven that she had never made so rude a speech.
‘Marianne can never keep long from that instrument,you know,ma'am,’said Elinor,endeavouring to smooth away the offence;‘and I do not much wonder at it,for it is the very best-toned pianoforte I ever heard.’
The remaining five were now to draw their cards.
‘Perhaps,’continued Elinor,‘if I should happen to cut out,I may be of some use to Miss Lucy Steele,in rolling her papers for her;and there is so much still to be done to the basket,that it must be impossible,I think,for her labour singly,to finish it this evening.I should like the work exceedingly,if she would allow me a share in it.’
‘Indeed I shall be very much obliged to you for your help,’cried Lucy,‘for I find there is more to be done to it than I thought there was;and it would be a shocking thing to disappoint dear Annamaria after all.’
‘Oh!that would be terrible,indeed,’said Miss Steele.‘Dear little soul,how I do love her!’
‘You are very kind,’said Lady Middleton to Elinor;‘and as you really like the work,perhaps you will be as well pleased not to cut in till another rubber,or will you take your chance now?’
Elinor joyfully profited by the first of these proposals,and thus,by a little of that address which Marianne could never condescend to practise,gained her own end and pleased Lady Middleton at the same time.Lucy made room for her with ready attention,and the two fair rivals were thus seated side by side at the same table,and with the utmost harmony engaged in forwarding the same work.The pianoforte,at which Marianne,wrapt up in her own music and her own thoughts,had by this time forgotten that anybody was in the room besides herself,was luckily so near them that Miss Dashwood now judged she might safely,under the shelter of its noise,introduce the interesting subject,without any risk of being heard at the card-table.
Chapter 24
In a firm,though cautious tone,Elinor thus began-
‘I should be undeserving of the confidence you have honoured me with,if I felt no desire for its continuance,or no farther curiosity on its subject.I will not apologise therefore for bringing it forward again.’
‘Thank you,’cried Lucy warmly,‘for breaking the ice;you have set my heart at ease by it;for I was somehow or other afraid I had offended you by what I told you that Monday.’
‘Offended me!How could you suppose so?Believe me,’and Elinor spoke it with the truest sincerity,‘nothing could be farther from my intention than to give you such an idea.Could you have a motive for the trust that was not honourable and flattering to me?’
‘And yet I do assure you,’replied Lucy,her little sharp eyes full of meaning,‘there seemed to me to be a coldness and displeasure in your manner that made me quite uncomfortable.I felt sure that you was angry with me;and have been quarrelling with myself ever since,for having took such a liberty as to trouble you with my affairs.But I am very glad to find it was only my own fancy,and that you do not really blame me.If you knew what a consolation it was to me to relieve my heart by speaking to you of what I am always thinking of every moment of my life,your compassion would make you overlook everything else，I am sure.’
‘Indeed I can easily believe that it was a very great relief to you to acknowledge your situation to me,and be assured that you shall never have reason to repent it.Your case is a very unfortunate one;you seem to me to be surrounded with difficulties,and you will have need of all your mutual affection to support you under them.Mr Ferrars,I believe,is entirely dependent on his mother.’
‘He has only two thousand pounds of his own;it would be madness to marry upon that,though for my own part I could give up every prospect of more without a sigh.I have been always used to a very small income,and could struggle with any poverty for him;but I love him too well to be the selfish means of robbing him,perhaps,of all that his mother might give him if he married to please her.We must wait,it may be for many years.With almost every other man in the world,it would be an alarming prospect;but Edward's affection and constancy nothing can deprive me of,I know.’
‘That conviction must be everything to you;and he is undoubtedly supported by the same trust in yours.If the strength of your reciprocal attachment had failed,as between many people and under many circumstances it naturally would during a four years’engagement,your situation would have been pitiable indeed.’
Lucy here looked up;but Elinor was careful in guarding her countenance from every expression that could give her words a suspicious tendency.
