The Deathbed Promise — Sense and Sensibility

A child's noise counts as a stronger claim than years of care. The boy was about four. He came to Norland only now and then, and unclear speech, a wish to have his own way, clever tricks, and a lot of noise were enough to win the old man. The old man did not mean to be unkind. He left the house and land to Henry Dashwood, the nephew who had lived there, then tied the whole of it, woods included, to that boy. Henry could not sell the woods or borrow on the land for the wife and daughters who had actually stayed. Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret received a thousand pounds each, offered as affection. The care of years lost to a visit.

Norland had looked settled. The Dashwoods had lived there respectably enough to hold the good opinion of their neighbours, and after his sister died the old man took Henry's family in and grew fond of them. John, Henry's son by a first marriage, was already rich. The daughters were not. Their mother had nothing, and Henry could give away only seven thousand pounds of his own. He hoped to live long and spend little, and so save for them. The land was his for one year. He died, and ten thousand pounds, counting those gifts, was all that remained for the widow and the girls. The house was no longer theirs. On his deathbed he asked John to look after them. John promised to do everything in his power to make them comfortable. The promise named no amount, and it let his father die easy. Nobody asked the widow what she needed. John then had time to decide how much there might safely be in his power to do.

He was not a cruel man, unless being cold and selfish counts as cruel, and his wife was the same, only narrower. Four thousand pounds a year made giving feel easy. Alone, he settled on three thousand pounds for his sisters, a fine gift and little trouble to spare, and he thought of it for many days without taking it back. No one in the house heard the number. The funeral was hardly over when his wife arrived with the child and the servants, and she sent no word first. She had the right, because the house was her husband's from the hour Henry died. Mrs. Dashwood's sense of honour was sharp enough that she would have left for good, except that Elinor, nineteen, asked her to think first whether leaving was the right thing, and love for the three girls kept her there. Elinor could hold strong feeling in check. Her mother had not learned that, and Marianne, as able as Elinor and like her mother, had decided she never would. She and Mrs. Dashwood chose to feel the grief again. Margaret, thirteen, had already taken in that strong feeling and not much of the sense. The three thousand pounds is still only a thought John had while he felt rich. Will anyone at Norland hear him say it?