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1The event proved her conjecture right, though it was founded on injustice and error; for Colonel Brandon did come in;
2and Elinor, who was convinced that solicitude for Marianne brought him thither, and who saw that solicitude in his
3disturbed and melancholy look, and in his anxious though brief inquiry after her, could not forgive her sister for
4esteeming him so lightly. "I met Mrs. Jennings in Bond Street," said he, after the first salutation, "and she encouraged
5me to come on; and I was the more easily encouraged, because I thought it probable that I might find you alone, which I
6was very desirous of doing. My object--my wish--my sole wish in desiring it--I hope, I believe it is--is to be a means
7of giving comfort;--no, I must not say comfort--not present comfort--but conviction, lasting conviction to your sister's
8mind. My regard for her, for yourself, for your mother--will you allow me to prove it, by relating some circumstances
9which nothing but a very sincere regard--nothing but an earnest desire of being useful--I think I am justified--though
10where so many hours have been spent in convincing myself that I am right, is there not some reason to fear I may be
11wrong?" He stopped. "I understand you," said Elinor. "You have something to tell me of Mr. Willoughby, that will open
12his character farther. Your telling it will be the greatest act of friendship that can be shown Marianne. My gratitude
13will be insured immediately by any information tending to that end, and hers must be gained by it in time. Pray, pray
14let me hear it." "You shall; and, to be brief, when I quitted Barton last October,--but this will give you no idea--I
15must go farther back. You will find me a very awkward narrator, Miss Dashwood; I hardly know where to begin. A short
16account of myself, I believe, will be necessary, and it shall be a short one. On such a subject," sighing heavily, "can
17I have little temptation to be diffuse." He stopt a moment for recollection, and then, with another sigh, went on. "You
18have probably entirely forgotten a conversation--(it is not to be supposed that it could make any impression on you)--a
19conversation between us one evening at Barton Park--it was the evening of a dance--in which I alluded to a lady I had
20once known, as resembling, in some measure, your sister Marianne." "Indeed," answered Elinor, "I have not forgotten it."
21He looked pleased by this remembrance, and added, "If I am not deceived by the uncertainty, the partiality of tender
22recollection, there is a very strong resemblance between them, as well in mind as person. The same warmth of heart, the
23same eagerness of fancy and spirits. This lady was one of my nearest relations, an orphan from her infancy, and under
24the guardianship of my father. Our ages were nearly the same, and from our earliest years we were playfellows and
25friends. I cannot remember the time when I did not love Eliza; and my affection for her, as we grew up, was such, as
26perhaps, judging from my present forlorn and cheerless gravity, you might think me incapable of having ever felt. Hers,
27for me, was, I believe, fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr. Willoughby and it was, though from a different
28cause, no less unfortunate. At seventeen she was lost to me for ever. She was married--married against her inclination
29to my brother. Her fortune was large, and our family estate much encumbered. And this, I fear, is all that can be said
30for the conduct of one, who was at once her uncle and guardian. My brother did not deserve her; he did not even love
31her. I had hoped that her regard for me would support her under any difficulty, and for some time it did; but at last
32the misery of her situation, for she experienced great unkindness, overcame all her resolution, and though she had
33promised me that nothing--but how blindly I relate! I have never told you how this was brought on. We were within a few
34hours of eloping together for Scotland. The treachery, or the folly, of my cousin's maid betrayed us. I was banished to
35the house of a relation far distant, and she was allowed no liberty, no society, no amusement, till my father's point
36was gained. I had depended on her fortitude too far, and the blow was a severe one--but had her marriage been happy, so
37young as I then was, a few months must have reconciled me to it, or at least I should not have now to lament it. This
38however was not the case. My brother had no regard for her; his pleasures were not what they ought to have been, and
39from the first he treated her unkindly. The consequence of this, upon a mind so young, so lively, so inexperienced as
40Mrs. Brandon's, was but too natural. She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation; and happy had it
41been if she had not lived to overcome those regrets which the remembrance of me occasioned. But can we wonder that, with
42such a husband to provoke inconstancy, and without a friend to advise or restrain her (for my father lived only a few
43months after their marriage, and I was with my regiment in the East Indies) she should fall? Had I remained in England,
44perhaps--but I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years, and for that purpose had procured
45my exchange. The shock which her marriage had given me," he continued, in a voice of great agitation, "was of trifling
46weight--was nothing to what I felt when I heard, about two years afterwards, of her divorce. It was that which threw
47this gloom,--even now the recollection of what I suffered--" He could say no more, and rising hastily walked for a few
48minutes about the room. Elinor, affected by his relation, and still more by his distress, could not speak. He saw her
49concern, and coming to her, took her hand, pressed it, and kissed it with grateful respect. A few minutes more of silent
50exertion enabled him to proceed with composure. "It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned
51to England. My first care, when I did arrive, was of course to seek for her; but the search was as fruitless as it was
52melancholy. I could not trace her beyond her first seducer, and there was every reason to fear that she had removed from
53him only to sink deeper in a life of sin. Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her
54comfortable maintenance, and I learnt from my brother that the power of receiving it had been made over some months
55before to another person. He imagined, and calmly could he imagine it, that her extravagance, and consequent distress,
56had obliged her to dispose of it for some immediate relief. At last, however, and after I had been six months in
57England, I did find her. Regard for a former servant of my own, who had since fallen into misfortune, carried me to
58visit him in a spunging-house, where he was confined for debt; and there, in the same house, under a similar
59confinement, was my unfortunate sister. So altered--so faded--worn down by acute suffering of every kind! hardly could I
60believe the melancholy and sickly figure before me, to be the remains of the lovely, blooming, healthful girl, on whom I
61had once doted. What I endured in so beholding her--but I have no right to wound your feelings by attempting to describe
62it--I have pained you too much already. That she was, to all appearance, in the last stage of a consumption, was--yes,
63in such a situation it was my greatest comfort. Life could do nothing for her, beyond giving time for a better
64preparation for death; and that was given. I saw her placed in comfortable lodgings, and under proper attendants; I
65visited her every day during the rest of her short life: I was with her in her last moments." Again he stopped to
66recover himself; and Elinor spoke her feelings in an exclamation of tender concern, at the fate of his unfortunate
67friend.
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