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 XXXVI.
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, in fact was 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 monopolize.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 dropt 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.
All these jealousies and discontents, however,were so totally unsuspected by Mrs. Jennings,that she thought it a delightful thing for the girls to be together;and generally congratulated her young friends every night,on having escaped the company of a stupid old woman so long.She joined them sometimes at Sir John’s,sometimes at her own house; but wherever it was,she always came in excellent spirits,full of delight and importance,attributing Charlotte’s well doing to her own care,and ready to give so exact,so minute a detail of her situation,as only Miss Steele had curiosity enough to desire.One thing _did_ disturb her;and of that she made her daily complaint. Mr.Palmer maintained the common,but unfatherly opinion among his sex,of all infants being alike;and though she could plainly perceive,at different times,the most striking resemblance between this baby and every one of his relations on both sides, there was no convincing his father of it; no persuading him to believe that it was not exactly like every other baby of the same age; nor could he even be brought to acknowledge the simple proposition of its being the finest child in the world.
I come now to the relation of a misfortune,which about this time befell Mrs. John Dashwood.It so happened that while her two sisters with Mrs.Jennings were first calling on her in Harley Street,another of her acquaintance had dropt in—a circumstance in itself not apparently likely to produce evil to her. But while the imaginations of other people will carry them away to form wrong judgments of our conduct, and to decide on it by slight appearances, one’s happiness must in some measure be always at the mercy of chance. In the present instance, this last-arrived lady allowed her fancy to so far outrun truth and probability, that on merely hearing the name of the Miss Dashwoods, and understanding them to be Mr. Dashwood’s sisters, she immediately concluded them to be staying in Harley Street; and this misconstruction produced within a day or two afterwards, cards of invitation for them as well as for their brother and sister, to a small musical party at her house. The consequence of which was, that Mrs. John Dashwood was obliged to submit not only to the exceedingly great inconvenience of sending her carriage for the Miss Dashwoods, but, what was still worse, must be subject to all the unpleasantness of appearing to treat them with attention: and who could tell that they might not expect to go out with her a second time?The power of disappointing them, it was true,must always be hers. But that was not enough;for when people are determined on a mode of conduct which they know to be wrong, they feel injured by the expectation of any thing better from them.
Marianne had now been brought by degrees,so much into the habit of going out every day,that it was become a matter of indifference to her,whether she went or not:and she prepared quietly and mechanically for every evening’s engagement,though without expecting the smallest amusement from any,and very often without knowing, till the last moment,where it was to take her.
To her dress and appearance she was grown so perfectly indifferent,as not to bestow half the consideration on it,during the whole of her toilet,which it received from Miss Steele in the first five minutes of their being together, when it was finished. Nothing escaped _her_ minute observation and general curiosity; she saw every thing, and asked every thing; was never easy till she knew the price of every part of Marianne’s dress; could have guessed the number of her gowns altogether with better judgment than Marianne herself, and was not without hopes of finding out before they parted, how much her washing cost per week, and how much she had every year to spend upon herself. The impertinence of these kind of scrutinies, moreover, was generally concluded with a compliment, which though meant as its douceur, was considered by Marianne as the greatest impertinence of all; for after undergoing an examination into the value and make of her gown, the colour of her shoes, and the arrangement of her hair, she was almost sure of being told that upon “her word she looked vastly smart, and she dared to say she would make a great many conquests.”