He made no reply;his complexion changed and all his embarrassment returned;but as if,on catching the eye of the young lady with whom he had been previously talking,he felt the necessity of instant exertion,he recovered himself again,and after saying,‘Yes,I had the pleasure of receiving the information of your arrival in town,which you were so good as to send to me,’turned hastily away with a slight bow and joined his friend.
Marianne,now looking dreadfully white,and unable to stand,sunk into her chair,and Elinor,expecting every moment to see her faint,tried to screen her from the observation of others,while reviving her with lavender water.
‘Go to him,Elinor,’she said,as soon as she could speak,‘and force him to come to me.Tell him I must see him again-must speak to him instantly.I cannot rest-I shall not have a moment's peace till this is explained-some dreadful misapprehension or other.Oh,go to him this moment.’
‘How can that be done?No,my dearest Marianne,you must wait.This is not a place for explanations.Wait only till tomorrow.’
With difficulty,however,could she prevent her from following him herself;and to persuade her to check her agitation-to wait,at least,with the appearance of composure-till she might speak to him with more privacy and more effect,was impossible;for Marianne continued incessantly to give way in a low voice to the misery of her feelings,by exclamations of wretchedness.In a short time Elinor saw Willoughby quit the room by the door towards the staircase,and telling Marianne that he was gone,urged the impossibility of speaking to him again that evening,as a fresh argument for her to be calm.She instantly begged her sister would entreat Lady Middleton to take them home,as she was too miserable to stay a minute longer.
Lady Middleton,though in the middle of a rubber,on being informed that Marianne was unwell,was too polite to object for a moment to her wish of going away,and making over her cards to a friend,they departed as soon as the carriage could be found.Scarcely a word was spoken during their return to Berkeley Street.Marianne was in a silent agony,too much oppressed even for tears;but as Mrs Jennings was luckily not come home,they could go directly to their own room,where hartshorn restored her a little to herself.She was soon undressed and in bed,and as she seemed desirous of being alone,her sister then left her,and while she waited the return of Mrs Jennings,had leisure enough for thinking over the past.
That some kind of engagement had subsisted between Willoughby and Marianne,she could not doubt;and that Willoughby was weary of it,seemed equally clear;for however Marianne might still feed her own wishes,she could not attribute such behaviour to mistake or misapprehension of any kind.Nothing but a thorough change of sentiment could account for it.Her indignation would have been still stronger than it was,had she not witnessed that embarrassment which seemed to speak a consciousness of his own misconduct,and prevented her from believing him so unprincipled as to have been sporting with the affections of her sister from the first,without any design that would bear investigation.Absence might have weakened his regard,and convenience might have determined him to overcome it,but that such a regard had formerly existed she could not bring herself to doubt.
As for Marianne,on the pangs which so unhappy a meeting must already have given her,and on those still more severe which might await her in its probable consequence,she could not reflect without the deepest concern.Her own situation gained in the comparison;for while she could esteem Edward as much as ever,however they might be divided in future,her mind might be always supported.But every circumstance that could embitter such an evil seemed uniting to heighten the misery of Marianne in a final separation from Willoughby-in an immediate and irreconcilable rupture with him.
Chapter 29
Before the house-maid had lit their fire the next day,or the sun gained any power over a cold,gloomy morning in January,Marianne,only half-dressed,was kneeling against one of the window-seats for the sake of all the little light she could command from it,and writing as fast as a continual flow of tears would permit her.In this situation,Elinor,roused from sleep by her agitation and sobs,first perceived her;and after observing her for a few moments with silent anxiety,said,in a tone of the most considerate gentleness-
‘Marianne,may I ask-?’
‘No,Elinor,’she replied,‘ask nothing;you will soon know all.’
The sort of desperate calmness with which this was said lasted no longer than while she spoke,and was immediately followed by a return of the same excessive affliction.It was some minutes before she could go on with her letter,and the frequent bursts of grief which still obliged her,at intervals,to withhold her pen,were proofs enough of her feeling how more than probable it was that she was writing for the last time to Willoughby.
Elinor paid her every quiet and unobtrusive attention in her power;and she would have tried to soothe and tranquillise her still more,had not Marianne entreated her,with all the eagerness of the most nervous irritability,not to speak to her for the world.In such circumstances,it was better for both that they should not be long together;and the restless state of Marianne's mind not only prevented her from remaining in the room a moment after she was dressed,but requiring at once solitude and continual change of place,made her wander about the house till breakfast-time,avoiding the sight of everybody.
At breakfast she neither ate nor attempted to eat anything;and Elinor's attention was then all employed,not in urging her,not in pitying her,nor in appearing to regard her,but in endeavouring to engage Mrs Jennings's notice entirely to herself.
