SENSE AND SENSIBILITY by Jane Austen - FULL Audiobook (Chapter 36)

CHAPTER XXXVI For their own comfort, they would much rather have remained, at least all the morning, in Mrs. Jennings' 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 monopolise. Though nothing could be more polite than Lady Middleton's behaviour to Eleanor and Marianne, she did not really like them at all. 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 busyness 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. 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 railery on the subject than what she was kind enough to bestow on herself. One thing did disturb her, and of that she made her daily complaint. 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 acquaintances had dropped 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. 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 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 anything better from them. Nothing escaped her minute observation and general curiosity. The events of this evening were not very remarkable. In one of these excursive glances, she perceived among a group of young men, the very he who had given them a lecture on toothpick cases at Grey's. He addressed her with easy civility, and twisted his head into a bow, which assured her as plainly as words could have done, that he was exactly the coxcomb she had heard him described to be by Lucy. But while she wondered at the difference of the two young men, she did not find that the emptiness of conceit of the one put her out of all charity with the modesty and worth of the other. was as well fitted to mix in the world as any other man. "'Upon my soul,' he added, I believe it is nothing more, and so I often tell my mother, when she is grieving about it. My dear madam,' I always say to her, you must make yourself easy. The evil is now irremediable, and it has been entirely your own doing. Why would you be persuaded by my uncle, Sir Robert, against your own judgment, to place Edward under private tuition at the most critical time of his life? If you had only sent him to Westminster as well as myself, instead of sending him to Mr. Pratt's, all this would have been prevented. This is the way in which I always consider the matter, and my mother is perfectly convinced of her error." Eleanor would not oppose his opinion, because whatever might be her general estimation of the advantage of a public school, she could not think of Edward's abode in Mr. Pratt's family with any satisfaction. "'You reside in Devonshire, I think,' was his next observation, in a cottage near Dawlish." Eleanor set him right as to its situation, and it seemed rather surprising to him that anybody could live in Devonshire without living near Dawlish. He bestowed his hearty approbation, however, on their species of house. "'For my own part,' said he, "'I am excessively fond of a cottage. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage. My friend, Lord Cortland, came to me the other day on purpose to ask my advice, and laid before me three different plans of Bonomi's. I was to decide on the best of them. My dear Cortland,' said I, immediately throwing them all into the fire, ''do not adopt either of them, but by all means build a cottage, and that, I fancy, will be the end of it. Some people imagine that there can be no accommodations, no space in a cottage, but that is all a mistake. I was last month at my friend Elliot's, near Dartford. Lady Elliot wished to give a dance. But how can it be done?' said she. ''My dear Ferrars, do tell me how it is to be managed. There is not a room in this cottage that will hold ten people, and where can the supper be?' I immediately saw that there could be no difficulty in it, so I said, ''My dear Lady Elliot, do not be uneasy. The dining-parlour will admit eighteen people with ease, card-tables may be placed in the drawing-room, the library may be opened for tea and other refreshments, and let the supper be set out in the saloon.' Lady Elliot was delighted with the thought. Eleanor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition. As John Dashwood had no more pleasure in music than his eldest sister, his mind was equally at liberty to fix on anything else, and a thought struck him during the evening, which he communicated to his wife for her approbation when they got home. The consideration of Mrs. Denison's mistake, in supposing his sister's their guest, had suggested the propriety of their being really invited to become such, while Mrs. Jennings's engagements kept her from home. The expense would be nothing, the inconvenience not more, and it was altogether an attention which the delicacy of his conscience pointed out to be requisite to its complete enfranchisement from his promise to his father. Fanny was startled at the proposal. Her husband, but with great humility, did not see the force of her objection. They had already spent a week in this manner in Conduit Street, and Lady Middleton could not be displeased at their giving the same number of days to such near relations.