A Barton Vignette

To Guy--without whom, etc.

[Part Two--Resolution]

Part One--Anguish

Mrs. Dashwood's picnic party, organized in late March when the sun was warm but the breeze was that temperature that might be called invigorating by some and chilly by others, was judged by all present to be a tremendous success. Her kitchen produced such quantities of foodstuffs both savory and sweet that everybody was certain she must have doubled it in size, and threatened, to her alarm, to invade the house and see for themselves. All the immediate neighborhood attended, some two dozen guests of varying ages--the Middletons with their brood, the Careys with theirs, the Whitakers with theirs, and the seven members of a new family, the Trevors; with these last the Dashwoods had quickly become acquainted thanks to Sir John's thoughtfulness in inviting them to every party in the area, whether or not he himself was host. So many young persons in one location set an interesting challenge before Mrs. Jennings. That worthy lady, having recently married off a niece and a god-daughter in London, was now arranging all the local romances with equal industry, and Marianne thought herself very fortunate that Mrs. Jennings had finally come to regard her as quite a confirmed spinster and therefore not a subject for her schemes.

Mr. Whitaker, however, almost twenty-one years of age, and the eldest Miss Trevor, who had just turned seventeen, hardly needed Mrs. Jennings' aid. Unless directly addressed they spoke to no one but each other, and changed their seats often, huddling first to one side of the gathering and then another, in the hope that no one should notice how much time they spent in each other's company. Everybody expected that he would offer for her as soon as he came of age and into the possession of the small estate that had been willed to him by an uncle.

"Were Willoughby and I as bad as that?" Marianne asked her sister, who had just sat down beside her on the blanket with a plate of cakes.

"Worse," Elinor replied emphatically. "The two of you did not even pretend to observe the proprieties."

Marianne helped herself to a cake. "I cannot imagine what they can be talking about. He has hardly one original thought in his head." And yet she observed the couple with a certain wistfulness, trying not to envy them the life they would soon embrace.

"He seems to have no political or literary aspirations, and to run an estate does not necessarily require original thought. Consider brother John."

Marianne burst into laughter, and then leaned nearer to say in a low voice, "Beware, Elinor--your condition is loosening your tongue. I believe you are positively ill-bred. Mrs. Ferrars would have apoplexy if she but knew."

"Then I pray you will not inform her," Elinor said dryly, "for she might feel obligated to confirm your report in person."

Marianne's rejoinder was interrupted by the clop-clop of hoof beats in the road. Quickly she rose to her knees to see over the heads of the guests; but it was only a tradesman on his way to the Park, and she sighed, a frown of worry creasing her forehead.

"The colonel is only later leaving Delaford than he intended," Elinor said, when Marianne had sunk back down on the blanket and begun to pick at the remains of her cake. "Probably he was delayed by some business."

"But he is hours late--there might have been an accident. You know he often rides here rather than use his carriage--he might have had a fall. Perhaps I should send Thomas to search for him--"

"Such a vivid imagination, Marianne," said Edward, seating himself next to his wife and favoring her with a solicitous glance before proceeding to tease Marianne. "It is not enough for you that his horse might simply have thrown a shoe and required a stop at a blacksmith's. No, he must have been pitched from his saddle while plunging up a muddy bank, and even now lies half-drowned in the cold river."

"Oh, Edward, do not jest. It might have happened just as you say!"

"But it did not, for there he is." Marianne sought the rail at the bottom of the hill just as Colonel Brandon's familiar dignified form was dismounting from his horse. Edward's eyes twinkled. "You see, all your fretting was completely without reason."

"You saw him riding in but chose to mock me instead of relieving my fears. Is that suitable behavior for a clergyman?" Edward, however, was unrepentant, and Marianne gave an exasperated but amused sigh and hastened to join her mother in greeting their long-awaited friend.

He at once assured them of his safety and offered apologies for his tardiness. "The Plaxford bridge has at last rotted through, and I found myself with the unenviable choice of arriving punctually but soaking wet, or late but presentable. I chose the latter, and came by way of Stinton."

"There is not one inn on that road," Marianne said. "You must be hungry."

"Famished," he replied with a laugh, and she took charge of him, summoning Betsy with a plate and a cup. Margaret, hoop and stick in hand, skipped up to him and announced that they had made sure to prepare all his favorite foods. He expressed a proper gratitude to them all for this consideration, though his glance, slightly questioning, briefly touched Marianne's. He thanked her for her assistance and watched as she returned to her seat, only then making his own way among the guests, carefully avoiding among so many relative strangers any appearance of particular interest in Marianne. Mrs. Jennings, whose speculative gaze seemed to follow him about, was much too near for comfort.

Marianne at this point found herself in a predicament. The space at her right hand, which in her own mind she had of course assigned to Colonel Brandon, had just been occupied by the eldest of the Trevor boys, a fair, smiling lad of nineteen. But he was not talking to her, having determined on several earlier occasions that she did not think him very fascinating, but to the younger Miss Carey at his other side. As she could not ask Elinor to take herself away, she could only hope that Miss Carey would accept Mr. Trevor's invitation to a stroll on the lawn and that no one else would sit down before the colonel could extricate himself from other conversation. She could just catch snippets of his remarks to the Whitakers about the roads, to the Middletons about horses, to the Trevors about politics, and to all of them about their children, skillfully turning aside impertinent queries about why he had not passed the season in town looking for a wife with compliments about young William's height or little Jane's fine new pony. At last he joined them, just as Mr. Trevor succeeded in his object--he had hardly left his space before the colonel claimed it. Mrs. Dashwood, having seen that her guests were stuffed full of every delicacy, also came to sit with them, and the five enjoyed the typical conversation of good friends, covering many subjects and one mood, that of convivial cheer.

At length, with many effusive expressions of thanks--they had never in their lives passed a finer afternoon, there could be no more generous neighbor in the world than Mrs. Dashwood, etc.--the guests began to depart in their various family groups. Upon seeing Colonel Brandon accompanying the Middletons and Mrs. Jennings to their carriage--for Lady Middleton would not walk even the half-mile from the Park--Marianne asked, "Do you go as well, Colonel?" in a voice that declared she wished he would not. "You have only just come."

It was more than two hours since he had arrived and he had passed most of that time at her side, but his heart swelled to know that she considered this insufficient attention. "I should be delighted to stay if you are not too tired of playing the hostess."

"I do not need to play the hostess with you--you are as family to us."

"Of course you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Dashwood, with an undertone of meaning of which Marianne was unaware.

"Stay and let the ladies pamper you," Sir John commanded with a hearty laugh. "We will see you for supper--a late supper," he added, giving his full stomach a pat.

"Perhaps a short walk?" The Colonel looked around at all the family, but did not think it very strange that Elinor should plead fatigue, Edward express a proper husbandly obligation, and Mrs. Dashwood wave helplessly at the food and linens strewn about the lawn.

"May I come?" Margaret inquired, but her hopes were dashed by her mother's insistence that she was desperately needed in the kitchen.

"I shall be back soon to help," Marianne called to them as they all started up the hill, leaving her with Colonel Brandon at the bottom of the path. "Shall we walk by the estuary?"

This they did, carefully avoiding the mud among the reeds where the tide had begun to ebb. "I was pleased to meet the Trevors after hearing so much of them from Sir John," the colonel remarked. "Young Charles seems pleasant enough."

"All the pleasantness in the world cannot hide a weak mind. He has read very little and his opinions are not judicious, and yet he is astonished when I disagree with them. And this from a young man who has had a tutor these eight years!"

He found her dismissive portrait of the unsuspecting Mr. Trevor very encouraging to his own aspirations. He was as anxious as a lovesick boy adoring from afar, knowing it was much too soon to profess his own feelings but terrified that each new arrival might steal his love's affections. But in these last few months he had come to believe that he did not hope in vain. Not only did Marianne spurn all the young men of the neighborhood and, according to Mrs. Dashwood, who kept him apprised of such matters, all the young men who approached her in Exeter, she did not pine to go husband-hunting in London and had even declined an invitation for that purpose from Mrs. Jennings. Upon his asking her why she had chosen to remain in the country, she had informed him that the activities of the season struck her as frivolous and superficial, and that she could hardly be expected to marry a man with whom she had traded three sentences in the middle of a dance. She actively sought his company when she visited Delaford, and, if Mrs. Dashwood was to be believed, was usually the instigator of her mother's frequent invitations to Barton. Perhaps in a few months' time he might at last address her. Perhaps this summer would be a joyous one.

Suddenly she hopped down a short, sloping peninsula to the water's edge. She bent down to pluck something from the black mud, rinsed her fingers, and then rejoined him, reaching out as she scrambled back to the path for his supporting hand as if she knew it would be there--as it was. She held out for his inspection a pretty pink shell. "Margaret will like this for her collection. I am almost certain she has not one exactly this color. --Why do you look at me with a smile?"

His eyebrows lifted at her ingenuous query. How could he not smile to look at her, so lovely with her hair in disarray, her cheeks flushed with exertion, her eyes aglow with enthusiasm? "I am simply sharing your mood. You seem in high spirits today."

She gave a contented sigh and looked out over the water; when she started forward again he fell into step beside her. "I suppose I am. Do you know that at this time a year past I thought that I should never be happy again?"

"You are more resilient than you knew."

This possibility had not occurred to her. "Perhaps so. I should like to think that I have redeemed myself for my earlier weakness. And of course I have had loving family and good friends to support me."

Her smile was very warm, and he returned it. "I am so pleased that I was able to be useful--"

"'Useful!'" she repeated, in a tone that indicated very clearly that the word was an enormous understatement. "Colonel--I have been wanting to ask you something--"

Her voice trailed off and she began to turn the shell over and over in her hands, and he wondered at her uncertainty when during these last months they had formed the habit of frank conversation. "Why do you hesitate?" He leaned a little toward her. "You know I can deny you nothing."

She smiled sweetly at this delicate, and to her ears no doubt wholly inconsequential, bit of flirtation, but she had taken several more steps before she replied. "I am afraid you will assign it a significance it does not warrant--that you will think I spend my days brooding about--about a particular subject--"

"That is unlikely, for I know that you are no longer so inclined to brood." Still she said nothing. "Please, Miss Dashwood, you must ask it now, or I shall perish from unsatisfied curiosity."

This time his witticism failed to elicit her usual appreciative response, and by the time she sat down on a bench and began to pick at the rough wood with her fingernail he was truly puzzled. He could not in his most pessimistic moments have imagined what she was about to say.

"Will you tell me about the--about your--encounter--with Willoughby?"

He stepped back as if she had struck him. He could not quite take a full breath. Never--not on a single occasion--had she spoken to him of Willoughby. What could her query signify? "Miss Dashwood--you do not realize--please do not ask me to describe that scene--"

"You must not try to protect me from unpleasantness, Colonel," she said firmly. If she had been more fully aware of the blows that life could deal she might not have lost her heart so swiftly or so completely to one who was unworthy of it. "You must think it shocking and very unladylike of me to ask, but you are the only one to whom I can turn--"

She loved Willoughby. Still she loved the villain. He saw it now. He had convinced himself that she was done with him, that she had fixed him in the past where he could hurt her no more. But the blackguard still held sway over her heart. This one thing about him she did not know, and that she sought the answer from him told him that she sensed nothing of his regard for her, that she felt nothing of the same for him. And he had flattered himself that she might soon welcome more serious attentions from him. Not within a few months. Not ever.

His neckcloth was choking him and his flesh was hot as if feverish; the air was cold on the perspiration that moistened his upper lip and forehead. He could not lie, but the truth would grieve her. His whole soul wanted to protect her, and yet it was not her nature to seek protection. He had as much as promised to answer; he must speak. He wished himself anywhere but here on this shore with her. Why, dear God, had she asked him this? She was gazing at him in growing consternation, and he realized that he was pacing with tight little steps. He made himself stand still before her; but before he could speak, words began to tumble from her own lips.

"I do not mean to pry into your affairs, Colonel-- Had I thought my question would offend you I should never have asked it--but we have always spoken freely to each other-- Please--tell me how I have erred--"

His stance lost some of its rigidity. "You have not erred--but your question startled me--it is not a pretty subject--"

All at once she understood. Her gaze dropped to her hands, then lifted again. "He behaved--badly, did he not? In a--a cowardly manner, and you want to spare my sensibilities--" His sober expression was her answer. She looked away in painful contemplation. "I suppose I am not surprised to hear it. He proved himself a moral coward, without substance. His is the softened character of the hedonist."

"Soft, perhaps." Brandon's words were taut, clipped. "But had he been a thorough coward he would have agreed to marry Miss Williams. He stood his ground on that point." He forced himself to add, "It is a frightful situation in which to find oneself." And he had never expected to place another man in it. Dueling was a barbaric practice, but in such a case civilized measures too often yielded no result, and a gentleman could hope for justice only through the hand of Providence.

His apparent sympathy was wholly unexpected. "Was that not your purpose--to frighten him? Why should you defend him in the slightest?" His expression changed, from severity to slow amazement and then to a dull but horrified resignation--and she realized that she had been proceeding under a misapprehension. If he, too, had found the situation frightful-- "Do you mean--you did not intend merely to threaten him and then let him go? You intended to--" The edges of the shell bit into her palm and fingers as her hands clenched around it. She had assumed that Willoughby could have survived an encounter with Brandon--a military man and, according to Sir John, an excellent shot with pistol as well as rifle--only because Brandon himself had never meant to shed Willoughby's blood. "--to--kill him?"

He had thought she understood--understood what had occurred and had forgiven him. But why should that assumption be correct when others had been wrong? "Yes." Though it would have killed me in your eyes--yes. "Because Miss Williams still, inexplicably, cherished an affection for him, I offered him the chance to marry her. He refused, as he also refused to acknowledge the child or provide for him. He left me no choice but to issue challenge." It was not until that moment that he had seen the smallest regret in Willoughby's eyes.

Marianne could not but compare the behavior of a man who would ignore his own natural child to that of a man who allowed himself to be thought the father of another's, rather than reveal her true, most unfortunate background--who in fact defended that child's honor as if she were his own daughter. She hoped fervently that Miss Williams recognized her exceptional fortune in having such a protector, and that she was liberal in her feelings and expressions of gratitude toward him.

He had fallen silent, but she said very quietly, "Tell me the rest."

His eyes appealed to her to spare him; but hers implored him to speak. He would have sighed had he been able to draw sufficient breath. He was taken back to a cold dawn in a dim wood, to silence broken by sobs. Abruptly he said, "He begged me for his life on his knees. I could not murder him. He was humiliated and honor was to some extent satisfied."

He prayed that she would not press him for details. He could not tell her that Willoughby's collapse had been brought about by his being discovered in an attempt to cheat, by using pistols with rifled barrels--those more accurate and powerful weapons being expressly prohibited by the Code. Deprived of his shameful advantage by Brandon's second, who had examined Willoughby's pistols very closely and replaced them with the spare set he had brought, the young man had succumbed to panic; the risk of death being now all too real, he trembled so violently that he could not stand, let alone aim and fire a weapon. Nor could he tell her that he had advanced upon the pathetic figure, had stood over him and said, "Providence has spared you here, but I swear by that Providence that if I should learn of such conduct on your part with any other young woman--I believe you take my meaning--I will be her avenger as well. I will hunt you down as the villain you are." He could not tell her these things.

She had turned her face away. She would abhor him now. He would have killed the man she loved, though God be his witness he would have taken no pleasure in it. He was conscious of the awful irony of asserting that he could deny her nothing and then in almost the next breath admitting to having been willing to deny her happiness. "Marianne--do not believe that I did not curse Providence for forcing me to choose between the honor of one young woman and--and a certain protective feeling toward another. Those conflicting emotions-- Some part of me will always hope that Providence would have spoiled my aim. But I cannot be certain--I can never be certain. I can know only what I was then resolved to do." How could he speak to a lady of such matters--to this lady of this matter--how could he speak with such lack of restraint? But she had encouraged candor; she had insisted upon it; and he could deny her nothing. "Do not think that I felt anything but agony when I contemplated being known to you forever as he who had killed the man you love."

She turned then; and yet he received from her the impression of a pensive stillness. She was very pale. "'Love'? I loved him then, but I do not love him now. I have no feeling at all for him now."

"You do not-- But I thought-- Why else should you want to know?"

She appeared surprised that he could not intuit the answer. "I wanted to close that chapter of my life. I knew everything but that. I felt as if--I had read an epic poem but been cheated of the ending verse. It helped me greatly to learn what you had related to my sister--I do not think I have ever told you so--and it also helped to learn what Willoughby professed when he came to Cleveland--did you know he had come?" He managed to nod; Elinor had told him a little. "I thought I should know the last of it." She rubbed at the red marks that the shell had left on her hands. "I hope it is not simply a romantic desire for the sensational. I waited so long to ask because I did not want to indulge any such feeling even if I were unaware of it. Once I would have thought a duel the height of romantic adventure. Now I think it is horrible." Brandon's grimness also made her mindful that he had risked his own life as well; dear God, she might have lost him, too, before ever coming to know him. Willoughby had, she was convinced, thought it all a great joke, until he had seen the implacable determination in his accuser's eyes. She could pity him for his terror, for his was the thoughtless evil of selfishness, not the deliberate evil of malice. "How could I continue to esteem a man who had behaved so dishonorably?"

She did not love Willoughby. She did not love him. He had done her an injustice to believe otherwise, even for these few awful moments, for she was more insightful than his poor, ruined Beth, able to see Willoughby for what he was. "I should have informed your family of his character earlier than I did. Though I believed you engaged, I should have informed you." Notwithstanding his threat, he had thought that he could safeguard her from any further attention from Willoughby by reporting to her mother what had transpired, but before he could act he had heard of Marianne's supposed betrothal. As any breach at that point would have disgraced her in the eyes of society, he had not spoken.

She gave a little sigh. "I do not know. I have considered the question. Probably I would not have believed you then, or, believing you, been too willing to excuse him. By the time you did inform us, his own behavior had already demonstrated the truth of what you imparted. I forgave him--we must forgive those who have wronged us--but my love for him was dead."

"I beg your pardon--I should not have presumed to know your heart--"

"I beg pardon, Colonel, for raising the subject at all. It should have been left alone, buried in the past and harmless. And there is no one who knows my heart better than you. Do you not know that you are my dearest friend?"

God help him--would he faint from the shocks she heaped upon him, all unknowing? But now she was holding out her hand to him, her merciful, soothing hand, and he was stepping forward to take it, his movements stiff with lingering tension. And yet he could still think--he could still fear that she considered him too much a friend ever to regard him as a lover. "You do me great honor, Miss Dashwood."

"You do me honor. You pay me the compliment of the truth, even when it is painful."

"I told you I cannot deny you," he said hoarsely, drained of all strength as if he had staggered to the end of a forced march, wondering if hope could return or if the truth had destroyed it just as irreparably as a lasting attachment for Willoughby on her part would have done.

In unspoken mutual consent they started back to the cottage, neither in the spirit for further conversation. The colonel was so uncommunicative that Marianne began to fear her offense had been greater than he would admit. She had soured their congenial mood, by presuming upon his generous nature--though she had thought herself well enough acquainted with him now that she could not commit such a transgression. She did not fully understand why the subject had so disturbed him--far more than it had disturbed her, despite his concern. Perhaps she could never understand, the experience being one that she would never have. Though she was glad to know the entire story, glad to possess at last a complete picture of events, she prayed that she had not caused a rift in their friendship, not now when it had come to mean so much to her.

He halted at the foot of the path, and she understood that he did not want to come to the house, did not have the energy for further sociability. He did not, as he usually did, thank her for joining him in a walk, but only asked if he might call when he returned to the Park in a week or ten days; he had stopped for the picnic on his way to visit an old comrade who now resided in St. Ives.

She was relieved that he wanted to come again, though her relief was diminished by the gravity in his countenance, a gravity she was no longer accustomed to see there. "Please do. I shall look forward to your company."

Her sincere warmth in its turn gave him a measure of comfort, but as he rode away he could not rid himself of the apprehension that her feelings would be less warm after she had opportunity to reflect upon what she had learned.

********************

The door to Marianne's bedroom opened in response to Elinor's soft knock. "I came to make certain you are not ill. You were very quiet at supper--"

Once Elinor would not have inquired as to her sister's state of mind, but given their earlier experience she would prefer to be guilty of an intrusion rather than allow a mystery to progress without intervention. As Marianne had learned the value of restraint, she had learned the value of disclosure. If she and Edward had been more forthright with each other, he would have realized her attachment to him and she would have known the truth about Lucy; if she and her mother had pressed Marianne or Willoughby for explanation of their conduct, they might have averted, if not Marianne's misery, at least her public humiliation.

Once Marianne would have shut her out, keeping up a pretense that all was well while she concealed the true disquiet in her heart. But now she pulled the door wide and stepped away so that Elinor could enter the room, then went to the window and looked toward the Park, whose lights were just visible through the trees like stars in the night sky. "Colonel Brandon and I have had a--an awkward conversation. I fear I might have caused some estrangement." She brushed away tears and resumed her pacing.

Elinor sat down on the bed. "I wondered that he did not stay to supper. Do you wish to tell me what happened?"

"I am not certain I comprehend it." Perhaps Elinor, as an experienced married woman, could offer insight into the strong feelings a man was wont to conceal. "I only asked him to tell me of his encounter with Willoughby." At Elinor's expression of horror she hurried on, "I know you think me too forward, but the colonel has often said I may ask him anything--"

"He could not have meant anything to do with Willoughby!"

"Why should Willoughby be a proscribed topic between us? I have long been capable of discussing him without undue emotion, and the colonel has no particular reason to avoid--"

Revelation struck her as if she had been lifted off her feet and hurled into an icy sea. Her hands flew to her hot cheeks. "Oh Elinor--" As if he stood before her she recalled all that he had said that afternoon and with what emotion he had said it. Agony, he had said; it had been agony. In his agitation he had revealed more than he intended. It would not have been agony unless he cared for her. Unless he loved her. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. "You knew." He had called her Marianne. With what sadness he had said her name. In a rush she recalled a thousand acts of courtesy and consideration to which she had heretofore given little thought. Mrs. Jennings had been right, all those long months before. "You knew."

Though Elinor chastised herself for her unthinking remark, she spoke to her sister very gently. "Did you think that all his attentions meant nothing?"

"But we have all benefitted from his kindness and generosity--all of us--"

"Oh Marianne, how can you be so perceptive of other men and so blind to the best of them? How can you not see in his face his devotion? It is obvious to everyone but you!"

Marianne sank into the window seat. "I have hurt him terribly. I would not have done so for the world." Her tears were flowing in earnest now, and Elinor came to sit beside her.

"He knows it was unintentional, dearest."

Marianne scrubbed at her eyes, but succeeded only in making them redder. "His misery was obvious but I did not understand its cause--" Remembering the naked anguish in his face, she felt as if her own heart had been pierced through. "He told me what I wanted to know, and every word was torment for him because he thought I still loved Willoughby. And now I must hurt him again--and this time with full awareness." It was frightening to realize the extent of her power, that she could lacerate his heart with a word.

"Hurt him again? Whatever do you mean?"

"I must tell him that I do not return his feelings."

"But he has not admitted his. He might have no intention of doing so--he is well aware that yours are not as strong."

"Then I must find some way to show him."

"But he has enjoyed your friendship thus far, when your feelings were unequal to his. Why should that situation change?"

"I did not know that our feelings were unequal. Now that I do, it would be wrong to enjoy his friendship when I can promise nothing more."

After several minutes' pondering, Elinor replied, "I think perhaps it would be a mistake for someone other than Colonel Brandon to decide what is best for him, even one who is as intimately acquainted with him as you are."

"But do you not see? If I reveal that I am aware of his feelings without also indicating that I cannot return them, he will continue to hope. I cannot be so unkind."

"Must you reveal that you know?"

"Of course I must. How can I be less than candid with him? But I am learning that candor, like any ideal, is more difficult than it sounds. It is easy to be candid when one harbors no special feeling for the person one might injure, when candor simply advances one's own selfish desires. But to contemplate hurting someone for whom one cares very much, all in the name of truth--that is hard. And yet not to do so would be the more cruel."

He had not quailed before that obligation. When faced with her naïve ignorance he had not kept secret his past actions and intentions but had confessed them, in the full knowledge that, when eventually he did declare himself, she might consider them all the more reprehensible because he did love her, just as Willoughby's betrayal had been the worse because of his genuine regard for her.

"He must understand that I never once thought of marrying him. After Willoughby I never thought of marrying anybody." Her cheeks flushed a deeper pink. "But you and Edward are so happy-- Of late I have begun to think that I should like after all to be married," (with a glance at Elinor's softly rounded belly) "to have children--"

"You could not ask for a more sensible provider or a more faithful protector."

"I know it." Marianne laughed weakly and reached for a handkerchief. "We have married him off already, when he has not said one word." He had meant to give her time to heal before he made his feelings known to her. "Oh Elinor, what if he does ask me? What shall I do?"

Elinor rubbed her arm, trying to give solace. "Be kind to him."

********************

"You look pensive, my love."

Elinor, taking down her hair in front of the mirror, looked at Edward's reflection and smiled. He was reading in bed, but had looked up from his book to study her with tender and ardent appreciation.

Her answering smile was wry. "I do not call myself a romantic, and yet I find myself advising Marianne in matters of the heart. Surely there cannot be a less suitable counselor for her than I."

"What has happened?"

She turned with a sigh. "She asked the colonel about the--the affair with Willoughby."

"Good God! The poor man--having to relive that."

"I am confident that she feels more for him than she realizes--he could not be so much at ease in her company if he felt no hint of affection from her--but I fear it is not yet enough to guard his feelings as carefully as he guards hers."

"And yet if they are someday to build a marriage they must be candid with one another, do you not think--perhaps about that subject especially?"

"Candor is often painful."

"Yes, but Marianne's trial has strengthened her, and the colonel as you know is as solid as granite. They are not the sort to hide from truth."

"Dearest, you are an optimist."

"How can I be otherwise, having gained you against all reasonable expectation? Whatever happens, Elinor, they will survive it. They have each survived worse."

"That is true." Somewhat reassured, she applied her hairbrush with vigor. "If nothing else another layer of drama has been added to the affair, which ought to appeal to Marianne. If Colonel Brandon would only fall from his horse and break a leg or his head, her devotion would be assured." She finished at the dressing table and joined her husband, who looked rather taken aback by her remark. "How can such a custom even exist in a civilized society?"

"It exists because the laws of our civilized society do not address certain kinds of insults." Elinor raised her eyebrows at this rational explanation of an irrational practice. "I assure you I do not condone dueling, but I can understand it. The colonel resorted to it only after all other alternatives had failed him."

Elinor drew away from him, incredulous. "What? Do you know something of the matter? He said that word had not gotten around."

Caught in an indiscretion, Edward began to stammer. "W--word always gets around--especially when it is very scandalous. R--Robert was talking about it one day to--to friends and I--uh, overheard." He fidgeted with his bookmark.

"You never told me!"

"I did not want to spread such a report, even about Mr. Willoughby. A c--clergyman should not stoop to gossip."

Elinor had to do internal battle between renewed admiration for her husband's unshakable principles and a very unladylike disgruntlement that those principles had deprived her of essential information. Surely a clergyman was permitted to repeat gossip to his wife. "I hope that your brother's having information about an affair of honor does not suggest that he and his associates view them as worthy pastimes."

"Oh dear me, no. Duels are very messy, you know--dirt and sweat and--and--" Elinor's eyes were growing very round and he thought perhaps he should not speak of blood to a woman in a delicate state. "Well--Robert would never risk soiling his clothes."

She laughed. "That is very true." She clasped his hand and settled against his shoulder. "Oh Edward, I want Marianne and the colonel to be as happy as we are." She had once thought Colonel Brandon a most incompatible match for her sister, but so much had Marianne matured that it was Willoughby now with whom she would have little affinity.

Edward kissed her forehead, and then her lips. "My dear one, I do believe your condition is turning you romantic after all."

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If his route had led past the cottage, Colonel Brandon, leaving the Park at dawn so as to make the most of the daylight, as is often the habit of a soldier even when at his leisure, would have seen the glow of lamplight against the curtains of Marianne's window long before the cottage was generally astir. She had sat up very late and had slept only fitfully, allowing her reflections to rob her of slumber even though she knew they could lead to only one decision. Oh, that they could set back time!--that she had not discovered what he obviously wished her not to know. What did it mean that he could have formed an attachment for her, he who had already loved so passionately in his youth? What did it mean that such a development was even possible? She had thought her experience had brought her to some comprehension of the relations between men and women. Clearly she had been mistaken. But just as clearly she knew she could not encourage him in any way. Candor, though it be bitter, was the only just course. She would not be so selfish as to cling to his friendship at the cost to him of a false hope; she could not bear to be the instrument of any more of his suffering than could not be avoided.

She must send him away. She must not see him again.

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Continue to Part Two--Resolution

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