Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

DELAFORD

‘ M argaret writes that John and Fanny expect to return to Norland after the wedding.' Elinor had been reading her sister's latest letter to Marianne who was sitting before the fire in the drawing room, listless and pale. ‘It is so strange, is it not, that after all her protests, Meg should after all find a husband the first time she leaves home. I suppose it is John she must thank, for this Ambrose is his friend, I believe. Do you recall how we laughed when she left, that Fanny would make a lady of her?'

‘Yes,' replied Marianne with a wan smile, ‘but is it not said, "From the country a lass you may taketh, but ne'er lady maketh"? I suspect our Meg will always be little wild.'

‘But she must now be tamed enough to find herself a husband—and I suppose it is Fanny's doing. Only think, our Meg wearing her gloves and stockings for more than an hour at a time! '

‘Yes,' agreed Marianne thoughtfully. ‘I only hope it will be a union to bring happiness to them both. I hope that she is in love—just as she ought to be at her age! She should have no cares, no anxieties to press upon her, but only bliss in finding a kindred spirit in whom to take shelter.' Marianne sighed.

Elinor put down the letter. ‘You ought to lie down, dearest—you look tired and drawn. Are you certain you won't have a draught sent for?'

‘I do not need any draught, Elinor, but I will perhaps take a nap, after I have played with the children a little—I shall sleep when Nanny comes to take Philip away.'

Marianne smiled weakly at her sister, but her smile quickly changed to a sigh. She had spent the best part of an hour on the sofa before the fire, in the little parlour which was her own, with the little girls playing about her. Since she had come home to Delaford, she had made more of an effort with Clara and Eloise, and had even insisted that little Philip be left with her for an hour or so every day, in order for her to play with him and hold him. Now, the little boy was a distraction she welcomed while waiting for word from her husband whom had been abroad above six weeks.

She held the sturdy little fellow on her knee now, as he clung to a cloth teething toy, but her attitude was one of melancholy distraction, rather than of calm. ‘I wonder when we will see her—Meg, I mean—I suppose they will come as soon as they can. I suppose a tour of the counties and visiting her new family will take some weeks. But I should like to see her—I miss her very much!'

Elinor, very round now about the middle, and her aprons let out to accommodate her changing figure, sat opposite, the letter still in her hand. She smiled. ‘So do the children. She was with us so much that we all feel her absence—but it is in such a good cause, that I cannot mind that she has been gone several months. '

‘What is the hour, Elinor? I think Nanny is going to fetch the girls for their tea presently.'

‘It is gone one o' clock. I heard the hall clock strike the hour only a few minutes ago. Teddy and William will be finished their lesson soon—they will have something sent to them in the kitchen—Teddy likes so much to eat his meals there now. I think he has quite taken to cook, and she to him. Shall I ask cook to send you in something—some soup perhaps?'

Teddy had been sent outdoors with William, in the care of the groom, to take their riding lesson. Marianne was grateful that William was not often indoors, and glad that young Teddy had a companion. She had been kind to William since her return, and perhaps due to retentive feelings of guilt, kinder than ever before, but still, his being at Delaford was a reminder of her husband's lack of regard for her feelings, and the boy's presence could not help but remind her of her repressed resentment. She wondered what poor Willoughby, denied twice the one thing that might have given him true solace, was making of his life now that his child was gone and with only his cold wife for company. But she could not help him now; she had asked it of her husband, and been repelled, and she would never ask again.

‘I am not hungry, Elinor—perhaps later, when Mama comes down, and after I have rested.'

Marianne had been returned to Delaford for four weeks, and Brandon had been abroad for seven. She had, to Elinor's great consternation, eaten very little since she had returned home, and when she did eat, it was only to please dear Mama, who had begged her to take something lest she fall ill. Therefore, her complexion was pale, and her strength failing, and most of the day she alternated between states of restless agitation and deathly calm, either sitting in the garden when the weather allowed it, while Elinor read to her, or sitting at the common worktable with Mama, making feeble attempts to appear busy at her stitching .

Feeling ashamed of her feebleness, she suddenly started up. Handing Philip to Elinor, she said with more force than usual, ‘I am so tired of myself! I have coddled myself enough, Elinor! I believe I shall be better taking a brisk long walk along the hills than to take yet another nap! Yes, I believe it is what will cure me more than anything of this dreadful languor! Will you call Nanny to take Philip?'

‘Of course, dearest, if you feel up to walk? I would come with you but?—'

‘You are in a worse state than I, for walking a long distance, Elinor! You shall rest just as you have been told to, and I will only walk for an hour or two, and be back in time for Mama.'

‘But it looks quite cold out, and there is a wind—do wrap warmly, and don't go too far, dearest!'

Marianne gave her a scornful look. ‘Have I ever cared about the cold, Elinor? I should much prefer it, in any case. It will enliven me, more than sitting here endlessly can do!'

‘You will care very much about the cold when you come back with a red tip to your nose!' replied her sister, laughing, but Marianne was determined.

Soon she was leaving the house, cloaked and bonneted, and rejoicing in the crisp breeze which brushed over her face. ‘This is just what I needed,' she cried to the wind, ‘before I go mad sitting before a fire!'

Walking briskly, her limbs were soon warm, and coming to a hill, she took it at pace, a new energy running through her veins. So long she had confined herself to stuffy drawing rooms and fires, that she forgotten the felicity of walking alone, with the wind at her face, and the sky racing her to the top of the hill. She crested the little hill and looked down upon the valley, dotted with sheep, and trees.

Here, the land broke away sharply, and care was needed when negotiating the path downhill for the ground had broken away in places and the terrain in some spots was unsteady and crumbling. A small icy brook, not very wide and about as deep as one's waist, rushed busily near the bottom, sharp with stone and rocks, where the children sometimes liked to pretend to fish. Now she took the path with care, and was almost at the bottom when, striking a rock with her boot, her ankle turned awkwardly, and striving to catch herself, she missed her footing and slid down the remainder of the embankment into the water.

Casting herself around in order to find purchase on one of the rough banks, she managed to gain a footing, but almost immediately slipped again on a rock and a second dowsing meant that she was now almost entirely drenched in the chill water. She dragged her heavy skirts upward, and somehow managed to pull herself onto the other side, but not before her boots were full of the icy water, and her cape and gown were thoroughly muddy and wet through.

She dared not remove her boots, and weighed down with the water-logged garments, she carried on, her stockings and undergarments now just as wet as her overclothes. Shivering with a violence she barely acknowledged, and in shock, she managed to drag herself upwards and eventually gained the road, where she walked on doggedly, her wet boots blistering her feet, until an astonished passing farmer insisted ‘poor Missus Brandon' ride in the back of his hay-cart, and be dropped outside the gates of Delaford House.

Elinor was in a great anxiety when she spied her sister being supported inside to the drawing room by the two footmen who had seen her coming. Mrs Dashwood, whose terror on seeing her daughter being almost carried into the house by two servants, had been hysterical, but Marianne managed a weak smile as she was deposited into a chair by the fire. ‘I am f-fine, Mama, I am only a little damp now—the wind has q-quite dried me out!'

Elinor looked her horror at the sight of her muddied and bedraggled sister and ordered the servants to assist Marianne to her room. ‘You should not have gone out at all, dearest! I should not have allowed it!'

When Marianne had been placed upon a comfortable chair in her own room, in front of the fire which was now being made up again by the maid, Mrs Dashwood, most agitated, exclaimed, ‘This entire situation is all due to the Colonel's prolonged absence—I am vexed, for he ought to be here! How he can stay away so long I cannot understand at all! If only he had been here in the first place!'

Marianne, however, would allow no angry sentiment against her husband. ‘How can it be my husband's fault? He did not push me into the brook, Mama! Besides, he must have been kept away by something very terrible—you must not say anything against him! If anyone has erred, it is I! I have not been fair—I have not been the wife he wished for—I have not?—'

‘Marianne, you must not say such things!' interrupted Elinor with compassion. ‘The Colonel, I am sure, loves you just as much as ever—there is some urgent and pressing matter to make him stay away, or I am sure he would have returned by now!'

Elinor and Mrs Dashwood began to peel off the wet stockings and shoes, while Marianne shivered again.

‘I hope you are right, but I confess that I have almost given up hope. Don't look at me in that way, Elinor—I must get used to the idea that he no longer loves me and wishes to remain abroad on my account.' Her tone was unusually hard. ‘Mama, I think I might have a bath, and go to bed for a little while. I—I confess I am feeling a little ill.'

Elinor, in some alarm, immediately had the maid servant make up a bath for her sister. ‘Oh Marianne, how can my nerves endure seeing you carried inside this house, not once, but twice now! You must have pity on me, dearest girl!'

Marianne subsequently bathed and went straight to her bed, but by morning she had caught a severe chill which she could not shake off, and by midday had a high fever which would not be lowered despite all the prescriptions, palliatives and poultices she was made to ingest, rub on her skin, and hold to her head. She remained in a feverish state all through that day and into the next, and although she asked to see ‘the dear little ones', Elinor forbade it in case she should tire herself out too much.

Mr Abernathy was called when the following day her fever had not abated. ‘I'm afraid that since her health has been so fragile these past months, she has not the sturdiness to withstand anything very great, and the shock of the cold water has induced a serious reaction. I shall leave you some draughts to help her sleep, and I shall bleed her now to bring down the fever, but she will need constant care in the coming days.'

Mrs Dashwood immediately claimed the place of nurse to a beloved child, and insisted that she would sit up with Marianne that night. Elinor, in compliance with her mother's commands that she was not to tire herself in her condition, returned to the Parsonage and ate her dinner with Edward, but neither of them could be comfortable until they had sent a note to request that the Great House send word immediately if Elinor was needed in the night.

Marianne tossed and turned in her bed for three days, her fever growing worse, and complained of aches in her limbs and a bad headache. When by the fourth morning she was no better, and refused to take even a thin gruel, or a basin of goat's milk and bread, nor could rise from her bed without assistance, even Elinor began to wish most violently that Colonel Brandon would return home. For some hours she began to harbour a real and unusual resentment in her breast, decrying his absence almost as warmly as Marianne had defended him, and failing to understand his continued absence. Marianne's descent into ill health and ill spirits had begun with his departure from Delaford to Whitwell and she was certain that only his return would restore her sister to her former health and vitality. If only he would come home !

Mrs Dashwood, fraught and anxious with worry, the health of her darling Marianne in deep peril, was almost ready to set out for France herself, to find the Colonel and bring him home, until Elinor begged her to refrain from such ill logic, and that she would send Edward, if they did not hear from the Colonel in the next three days.

Mrs Dashwood was beside herself. ‘It is most uncaring of him, and I cannot understand his coldness—when here there are tragedies upon tragedies and he not here to comfort either you nor Edward over your unfortunate losses, nor be here for his wife, his infant children—and you almost due to have another! It is too bad of him, Elinor!'

‘Mama, Edward and I are now quite resigned to the loss of Edward's fortune. You must not think of it, for we ourselves hardly talk of it now. I know that we shall lack for nothing, for the Colonel has always been so kind. When Teddy was born, he gave Edward five pounds for the provision of clothes and to furnish the nursery! Before he went away he promised he would do the same for this one, and with his help and what we have put aside we will go on just as we always have.'

Mrs Dashwood sighed. ‘I have always thought the Colonel to be the worthiest of men. His regard for Marianne has been constant. But my dear, I confess myself astonished at his disregard for Marianne. I cannot believe that he has abandoned her—and us, his unswerving friends—and yet, I cannot at all account for his coldness, his staying away so long, his apparent abandonment of our dear girl.'

‘I hope you are wrong, Mama. I believe you must be wrong. Something most urgent and pressing must be keeping him from England, although I cannot guess what it is. But I am very sure he will return soon, and the breach, however terrible, shall be repaired. It must be!'

‘I am afraid for Marianne,' Mrs Dashwood confided in a low voice, her heart full. ‘I dare not think of the last time she was ill—so ill that we almost lost her!' She choked on a sob.

‘Mama,' cautioned Elinor calmly, ‘you must not think of that dreadful time. That fever and this are different entirely—she has a bad cold, but she is in no danger. You must not worry yourself.'

‘Still, I cannot help but feel vexed beyond anything that the Colonel has treated my girl in such a way. Marianne's health has suffered greatly since he went away to France!'

‘In truth, Mama,' replied Elinor gravely, ‘I feel that there was some rift between them even before that—some dreadful rupture, long before he left on his mysterious business abroad—and it has caused her so much unhappiness that her health has become weak as a result.'

‘Why did you not tell me this when you suspected it so long ago?'

‘I did not want to worry you, Mama,' replied Elinor. ‘I had hoped—we all had hoped—that the Colonel and Marianne would find their way back to each other—but alas, things have only become more drawn out and more desperate. I believe I understand more fully than ever now that passage in the holy book which encourages us "not to let the sun go down upon an angry word"—both Marianne and the Colonel have allowed this to carry on so long that now it festers and erupts like an angry boil on their marriage, and I fear for them, Mama. I cannot guess what has passed between them, for Marianne would not tell me anything when she returned from town, only that she had seen the Colonel briefly, that he was weighed down with some terrible business that took him from England and that she felt that she had disappointed him, but she would not give me the particulars. It is just like her to be so secretive!'

Mrs Dashwood was silent some moments, then spoke. ‘And yet, Colonel Brandon's character is well established in all our minds, and those of his friends—he has always been—he is —the most excellent of men, and I cannot think him indifferent to her even now, even though she may have done something to offend him greatly. A man like our dear Philip does not take any blow to his pride lightly. I believe, however, that he will return, in time and make his peace with her. I must believe it!'

Elinor, too, believed such sentiments in her heart of hearts, and yet the fact that Colonel Brandon did not return, and had not sent word to any of them, told her that either delicate feelings prevented his returning to them, or that some dreadful fate had befallen him.

That night, while sitting alone with a sleeping Marianne for some time, she presently took her sister's hand, and said with great fervency, ‘Let me be wrong about everything , oh let me be wrong!'