‘Not so,indeed;for,seriously speaking,I am very sure that conscience only kept Edward from Harley Street.And I really believe he has the most delicate conscience in the world;the most scrupulous in performing every engagement,however minute,and however it may make against his interest or pleasure.He is the most fearful of giving pain,of wounding expectation,and the most incapable of being selfish of anybody I ever saw.Edward,it is so,and I will say it.What!are you never to hear yourself praised?Then you must be no friend of mine;for those who will accept of my love and esteem,must submit to my open commendation.’
The nature of her commendation in the present case,however,happened to be particularly ill-suited to the feelings of two-thirds of her auditors,and was so very unexhilarating to Edward,that he very soon got up to go away.
‘Going so soon!’said Marianne;‘my dear Edward,this must not be.’
And drawing him a little aside,she whispered her persuasion that Lucy could not stay much longer.But even this encouragement failed,for he would go;and Lucy,who would have outstayed him had his visit lasted two hours,soon afterwards went away.
‘What can bring her here so often!’said Marianne,on her leaving them.‘Could she not see that we wanted her gone!How teasing to Edward!’
‘Why so?-we were all his friends,and Lucy has been the longest known to him of any.It is but natural that he should like to see her as well as ourselves.’
Marianne looked at her steadily,and said,‘You know,Elinor,that this is a kind of talking which I cannot bear.If you only hope to have your assertion contradicted,as I must suppose to be the case,you ought to recollect that I am the last person in the world to do it.I cannot descend to be tricked out of assurances that are not really wanted.’
She then left the room;and Elinor dared not follow her to say more,for bound as she was by her promise of secrecy to Lucy,she could give no information that would convince Marianne;and painful as the consequences of her still continuing in an error might be,she was obliged to submit to it.All that she could hope was that Edward would not often expose her or himself to the distress of hearing Marianne's mistaken warmth,nor to the repetition of any other part of the pain that had attended their recent meeting-and this she had every reason to expect.
Chapter 36
Within a few days after this meeting,the newspapers announced to the world,that the lady of Thomas Palmer,Esq.,was safely delivered of a son and heir;a very interesting and satisfactory paragraph,at least to all those intimate connections who knew it before.
This event,highly important to Mrs Jennings's happiness,produced a temporary alteration in the disposal of her time,and influenced in a like degree the engagements of her young friends;for as she wished to be as much as possible with Charlotte,she went thither every morning as soon as she was dressed,and did not return till late in the evening;and the Miss Dashwoods,at the particular request of the Middletons,spent the whole of every day in Conduit Street.For their own comfort they would much rather have remained,at least all the morning,in Mrs Jennings's house;but it was not a thing to be urged against the wishes of everybody.Their hours were therefore made over to Lady Middleton and the two Miss Steeles,by whom their company was in fact as little valued,as it was professedly sought.
They had too much sense to be desirable companions to the former;and by the latter they were considered with a jealous eye,as intruding on their ground,and sharing the kindness which they wanted to monopolise.Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to Elinor and Marianne,she did not really like them at all.Because they neither flattered herself nor her children,she could not believe them good-natured;and because they were fond of reading,she fancied them satirical:perhaps without exactly knowing what it was to be satirical;but that did not signify.It was censure in common use,and easily given.
Their presence was a restraint both on her and on Lucy.It checked the idleness of one,and the business of the other.Lady Middleton was ashamed of doing nothing before them,and the flattery which Lucy was proud to think of and administer at other times,she feared they would despise her for offering.Miss Steele was the least discomposed of the three by their presence;and it was in their power to reconcile her to it entirely.Would either of them only have given her a full and minute account of the whole affair between Marianne and Mr Willoughby,she would have thought herself amply rewarded for the sacrifice of the best place by the fire after dinner,which their arrival occasioned.But this conciliation was not granted;for though she often threw out expressions of pity for her sister to Elinor,and more than once dropped a reflection on the inconstancy of beaux before Marianne,no effect was produced,but a look of indifference from the former or of disgust in the latter.An effort even yet lighter might have made her their friend.Would they only have laughed at her about the Doctor!But so little were they,any more than the others,inclined to oblige her,that if Sir John dined from home,she might spend a whole day without hearing any other raillery on the subject than what she was kind enough to bestow on herself.
