Very early in April, and tolerably early in the day,the two parties from Hanover Square and Berkeley Street set out from their respective homes, to meet, by appointment, on the road. For the convenience of Charlotte and her child, they were to be more than two days on their journey, and Mr. Palmer, travelling more expeditiously with Colonel Brandon, was to join them at Cleveland soon after their arrival.
Marianne, few as had been her hours of comfort in London,and eager as she had long been to quit it, could not,when it came to the point,bid adieu to the house in which she had for the last time enjoyed those hopes,and that confidence, in Willoughby,which were now extinguished for ever,without great pain.Nor could she leave the place in which Willoughby remained,busy in new engagements, and new schemes,in which _she_ could have no share,without shedding many tears.
Elinor’s satisfaction, at the moment of removal,was more positive. She had no such object for her lingering thoughts to fix on,she left no creature behind,from whom it would give her a moment’s regret to be divided for ever,she was pleased to be free herself from the persecution of Lucy’s friendship,she was grateful for bringing her sister away unseen by Willoughby since his marriage, and she looked forward with hope to what a few months of tranquility at Barton might do towards restoring Marianne’s peace of mind, and confirming her own.
Their journey was safely performed.The second day brought them into the cherished,or the prohibited, county of Somerset,for as such was it dwelt on by turns in Marianne’s imagination;and in the forenoon of the third they drove up to Cleveland.
Cleveland was a spacious, modern-built house,situated on a sloping lawn. It had no park,but the pleasure-grounds were tolerably extensive;and like every other place of the same degree of importance,it had its open shrubbery, and closer wood walk,a road of smooth gravel winding round a plantation,led to the front, the lawn was dotted over with timber,the house itself was under the guardianship of the fir,the mountain-ash, and the acacia,and a thick screen of them altogether,interspersed with tall Lombardy poplars,shut out the offices.
Marianne entered the house with a heart swelling with emotion from the consciousness of being only eighty miles from Barton, and not thirty from Combe Magna; and before she had been five minutes within its walls, while the others were busily helping Charlotte to show her child to the housekeeper, she quitted it again, stealing away through the winding shrubberies, now just beginning to be in beauty, to gain a distant eminence; where, from its Grecian temple, her eye, wandering over a wide tract of country to the south-east, could fondly rest on the farthest ridge of hills in the horizon, and fancy that from their summits Combe Magna might be seen.
In such moments of precious, invaluable misery,she rejoiced in tears of agony to be at Cleveland;and as she returned by a different circuit to the house,feeling all the happy privilege of country liberty,of wandering from place to place in free and luxurious solitude,she resolved to spend almost every hour of every day while she remained with the Palmers, in the indulgence of such solitary rambles.
She returned just in time to join the others as they quitted the house,on an excursion through its more immediate premises;and the rest of the morning was easily whiled away,in lounging round the kitchen garden,examining the bloom upon its walls,and listening to the gardener’s lamentations upon blights,in dawdling through the green-house,where the loss of her favourite plants,unwarily exposed, and nipped by the lingering frost,raised the laughter of Charlotte,—and in visiting her poultry-yard, where,in the disappointed hopes of her dairy-maid,by hens forsaking their nests,or being stolen by a fox,or in the rapid decrease of a promising young brood,she found fresh sources of merriment.
The morning was fine and dry, and Marianne,in her plan of employment abroad,had not calculated for any change of weather during their stay at Cleveland.With great surprise therefore,did she find herself prevented by a settled rain from going out again after dinner. She had depended on a twilight walk to the Grecian temple, and perhaps all over the grounds, and an evening merely cold or damp would not have deterred her from it; but a heavy and settled rain even _she_ could not fancy dry or pleasant weather for walking.
Their party was small,and the hours passed quietly away. Mrs.Palmer had her child, and Mrs.Jennings her carpet-work;they talked of the friends they had left behind,arranged Lady Middleton’s engagements,and wondered whether Mr.Palmer and Colonel Brandon would get farther than Reading that night.Elinor, however little concerned in it,joined in their discourse; and Marianne,who had the knack of finding her way in every house to the library,however it might be avoided by the family in general,soon procured herself a book.
Nothing was wanting on Mrs.Palmer’s side that constant and friendly good humour could do,to make them feel themselves welcome.The openness and heartiness of her manner more than atoned for that want of recollection and elegance which made her often deficient in the forms of politeness; her kindness, recommended by so pretty a face, was engaging; her folly, though evident was not disgusting, because it was not conceited; and Elinor could have forgiven every thing but her laugh.
The two gentlemen arrived the next day to a very late dinner,affording a pleasant enlargement of the party,and a very welcome variety to their conversation,which a long morning of the same continued rain had reduced very low.