When Elinor had ceased to rejoice in the dryness of the season, a very awful pause took place. It was put an end to by Mrs. Dashwood, who felt obliged to hope that he had left Mrs. Ferrars very well. In a hurried manner, he replied in the affirmative.
Another pause.
Elinor resolving to exert herself, though fearing the sound of her own voice, now said,
“Is Mrs. Ferrars at Longstaple?”
“At Longstaple!” he replied, with an air of surprise.–
“No, my mother is in town.”
“I meant,” said Elinor, taking up some work from the table, “to inquire for Mrs. EDWARD Ferrars.”
She dared not look up;–but her mother and Marianne both turned their eyes on him. He coloured, seemed perplexed, looked doubtingly, and, after some hesitation, said,–
“Perhaps you mean–my brother–you mean Mrs.–Mrs.
ROBERT Ferrars.”
“Mrs. Robert Ferrars!”–was repeated by Marianne and her mother in an accent of the utmost amazement;–and though
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Elinor could not speak, even HER eyes were fixed on him with the same impatient wonder. He rose from his seat, and walked to the window, apparently from not knowing what to do; took up a pair of scissors that lay there, and while spoiling both them and their sheath by cutting the latter to pieces as he spoke, said, in a hurried voice,
“Perhaps you do not know–you may not have heard that my brother is lately married to–to the youngest–to Miss Lucy Steele.”
His words were echoed with unspeakable astonishment by all but Elinor, who sat with her head leaning over her work, in a state of such agitation as made her hardly know where she was.
“Yes,” said he, “they were married last week, and are now at Dawlish.”
Elinor could sit it no longer. She almost ran
out of the room, and as soon as the door was closed, burst into tears of joy, which at first she thought would never cease. Edward, who had till then looked any where, rather than at her, saw her hurry away, and perhaps saw–
or even heard, her emotion; for immediately afterwards he fell into a reverie, which no remarks, no inquiries, no affectionate address of Mrs. Dashwood could penetrate, and at last, without saying a word, quitted the room, and walked out towards the village–leaving the others in the greatest astonishment and perplexity on a change in his situation, so wonderful and so sudden;–a perplexity which they had no means of lessening but by their own conjectures.
CHAPTER 49
Unaccountable, however, as the circumstances of his release might appear to the whole family, it was certain that Edward was free; and to what purpose that freedom would be employed was easily pre-determined by all;–for after experiencing the blessings of ONE imprudent engagement, contracted without his mother’s consent, as he had already done for more than four years, nothing less could be expected of him in the failure of THAT, than the immediate contraction of another.
His errand at Barton, in fact, was a simple one.
It was only to ask Elinor to marry him;–and considering that he was not altogether inexperienced in such a question, it might be strange that he should feel so uncomfortable in the present case as he really did, so much in need of encouragement and fresh air.
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How soon he had walked himself into the proper
resolution, however, how soon an opportunity of exercising it occurred, in what manner he expressed himself, and how he was received, need not be particularly told.
This only need be said;–that when they all sat down to table at four o’clock, about three hours after his arrival, he had secured his lady, engaged her mother’s consent, and was not only in the rapturous profession of
the lover, but, in the reality of reason and truth, one of the happiest of men. His situation indeed was more than commonly joyful. He had more than the ordinary triumph of accepted love to swell his heart, and raise his spirits. He was released without any reproach to himself, from an entanglement which had long formed his misery, from a woman whom he had long ceased to love;–
and elevated at once to that security with another, which he must have thought of almost with despair, as soon as he had learnt to consider it with desire.