The Polite Question
Elinor Dashwood hears that the man she loves is secretly engaged to another woman, and the first thing she says is, may I ask if your engagement is of long standing?
I counted. From the day she hears it to the day it comes out, the book needs fifteen chapters to get there, with fourteen full chapters in between. That is about thirty-seven thousand words, nearly a third of the whole novel, and in all that time she tells no one.
Fair warning: this is a full summary of Jane Austen’s novel, with every spoiler, the ending included. The text is Project Gutenberg ebook one hundred sixty-one. Its title page says eighteen eleven, and its header names no editor. It has fifty chapters in three volumes, and every chapter number I give follows it.
Norland, and a Promise That Shrinks
The book opens with money. Mr. Henry Dashwood dies, and Norland goes to his son John, whose own child is four years old. His widow and three daughters keep ten thousand pounds. Elinor is nineteen. Her sister Marianne is not yet seventeen.
Chapter one sets up the title. Elinor has strong feelings, but she knows how to govern them. Marianne is clever and generous, but eager in everything, and the narrator says she is everything but prudent. Her sorrows and her joys can have no moderation. Sense is Elinor. Sensibility is Marianne.
On his father’s deathbed, John promises to help his stepmother and sisters. Then, in chapter two, his wife Fanny talks him down. First he thinks of three thousand pounds. Fanny says half is plenty. Then it is five hundred apiece, then an annuity of a hundred a year. Fanny hates annuities, so it becomes fifty pounds now and then. By the end she has him down to presents of fish and game. In one conversation, a promise shrinks to a basket.
Meanwhile Elinor grows close to Fanny’s brother, Edward Ferrars. When Mrs. Dashwood takes a cottage in Devonshire from her cousin, Sir John Middleton, Edward turns hastily, and asks, are you really going there? The family leaves for Barton Cottage. In the valley they meet Sir John, his mother-in-law Mrs. Jennings, a matchmaker who wants to marry off everyone she meets, and a grave man of five and thirty, Colonel Brandon.
Willoughby, and a Silence
Chapter nine is the turn. Marianne sprains her ankle on a hill in a driving rain, and a stranger, John Willoughby, carries her down in his arms. The next morning he calls at the cottage to ask after her.
The romance runs fast. Willoughby gives Marianne a horse she cannot afford to keep. She lets him cut off a long lock of her hair. They are inseparable. Colonel Brandon is quiet, and Marianne finds him too old to feel much. Then a letter reaches Brandon during a planned outing, and he leaves at once.
Soon after, Willoughby is sent to London by his rich relation Mrs. Smith. He says goodbye with a forced smile, and Marianne lies awake all night weeping.
Here is the first silence. Elinor cannot understand why Marianne and Willoughby never say they are engaged. Their conduct says so, but not one word does. She wonders, and keeps her doubts to herself. This is the quiet before the main secret.
Then Edward visits for a week, low in spirits, not himself. Elinor sees it, and has no way to ask why.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Two cousins of Mrs. Jennings, Lucy and Anne Steele, come to Barton Park. Lucy attaches herself to Elinor. One day, in chapter twenty-two, she asks a strange question: does Elinor know Mrs. Ferrars?
Then Lucy says that she is connected to the eldest Ferrars son. Elinor asks, may I ask if your engagement is of long standing? Lucy answers: we have been engaged these four years.
The engagement began at Longstaple, near Plymouth, where Edward studied with Lucy’s uncle, Mr. Pratt. Elinor keeps her voice firm, though the narrator says she is mortified, shocked, confounded. Lucy sighs that heaven knows how much longer they may have to wait, and takes a miniature of him from her pocket. She says only her sister Anne knows, and that it has always been meant to be a great secret.
Elinor decides she cannot doubt it, because no one could gain from inventing such a story. In chapter twenty-four, she raises the subject herself, under cover of Marianne’s piano, so nobody can overhear. That is the day the clock starts. Elinor has given her word. She cannot tell Marianne, and she cannot tell her mother.
London, Three Letters
In January, Mrs. Jennings takes the sisters to London. Marianne waits day after day for Willoughby, and he does not come. At a crowded party in chapter twenty-eight, she finally sees him. He bows, speaks to Elinor, and answers Marianne with a cold remark about his card.
The next morning, Marianne writes. In chapter twenty-nine, a reply comes, from Willoughby: my dear madam. He says he never meant more than esteem, and returns her letters and the lock of hair. Elinor finds three of Marianne’s letters in her lap. Marianne tells her they were never absolutely engaged. It was every day implied, she says, but never professedly declared.
That is the second engagement in the book: one everybody assumed, and one nobody knew.
Mrs. Jennings reports that Willoughby will marry a Miss Grey, with fifty thousand pounds. Then, in chapter thirty-one, Colonel Brandon calls, hoping to bring Marianne conviction, if not comfort, and tells Elinor of Eliza, a girl he once loved, and of her daughter, a young ward whom Willoughby left in distress.
In London Elinor also meets Mrs. Ferrars, and sees enough of her pride and meanness to understand why the engagement was hidden. Fanny hopes Edward will marry a rich Miss Morton. And when Marianne, not knowing, talks warmly of the match she imagines for Elinor and Edward, Elinor has to let her.
Through all this, Elinor nurses Marianne, and carries Lucy’s secret. When Marianne says no one has suffered as she has, Elinor cannot say, I understand, because she cannot say why.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter thirty-seven is where the secret breaks. Mrs. Jennings rushes in with news: Edward Ferrars has been engaged to her cousin Lucy. Lucy’s sister Anne blurted it out to Fanny. Fanny fell into hysterics, and screamed so loudly her husband came running. Lucy fainted, and the carriage was at the door to take the Steeles away.
Elinor is relieved nobody suspects her own feelings. Then she has to tell Marianne. Marianne asks: how long has this been known to you? Elinor says, I have known it these four months. Marianne cries, so calm, so cheerful! How have you been supported?
Elinor says, by feeling that I was doing my duty. My promise to Lucy obliged me to be secret. She says for four months she has had all this hanging on her mind, without being at liberty to speak of it to a single creature.
Edward will not give Lucy up, and loses his family’s favour. Later, Colonel Brandon offers him a living at Delaford, worth about two hundred a year. Mrs. Jennings overhears part, and congratulates Elinor on a proposal that never happened.
Cleveland, and a Wrong Wedding
At Cleveland, the Palmers’ house, Marianne falls dangerously ill. Colonel Brandon fetches Mrs. Dashwood. While Elinor waits, she hears a carriage and rushes down, but finds Willoughby instead.
He has driven from London to explain. He opens with a strange question: do you think me most a knave or a fool? He says Mrs. Smith dismissed him after learning of his treatment of a young girl, and offered to forgive him if he married her. He did not. In his words, his affection for Marianne could not outweigh his dread of poverty. He married his Miss Grey. Elinor listens, pities him a little, and he leaves.
Marianne recovers, and Mrs. Dashwood sees that Elinor suffered almost as much, with less self-provocation, and greater fortitude.
Then a servant tells Elinor that Mr. Ferrars is married. For a time she believes Edward and Lucy are wed.
Days later Edward arrives at Barton. Elinor asks after Mrs. Edward Ferrars. He answers, perhaps you mean my brother, Mrs. Robert Ferrars. Lucy has married Robert. Elinor runs from the room in tears of joy. About three hours after Edward arrives, he has asked her to marry him.
The Closing Count
Mrs. Ferrars forgives Edward, and gives him ten thousand pounds, but Robert gets a thousand a year. Lucy wins the old lady over with flattery, and she and Robert settle in town on liberal help from Mrs. Ferrars. John Dashwood, whose promise once shrank to a basket, tells Elinor it would give him great pleasure to call the Colonel brother. Elinor and Edward marry at Barton church in early autumn, and settle at Delaford. Mrs. Jennings, who predicted it all, visits their parsonage by Michaelmas. Marianne, who once thought the Colonel too old, marries him.
That is the full count. Elinor’s silence runs from chapter twenty-two to chapter thirty-seven: fifteen chapters, four months, nearly a third of the novel. In my reading, the sense in Sense and Sensibility is not coldness. It is a promise kept at a cost, while Marianne’s loud grief takes up all the room.
If you want to read it yourself, the text is free on Project Gutenberg, ebook one hundred sixty-one. My question for you: was Elinor right to keep Lucy’s secret? Tell me in the comments. Subscribe for more books, one clear angle at a time, and tap like if the count helped.
