They do not go to Whitwell. By ten the party is at breakfast, ready to be wet and happy. A letter comes for Colonel Brandon. He looks at the direction, changes colour, and leaves the room. He returns and calls it business from town. He cannot lose one hour. Marianne asks if a note to the housekeeper would be enough. He shakes his head. Willoughby tells her, low, that some people cannot bear a party of pleasure, that Brandon invented the letter to escape a cold, and that he would lay fifty guineas it was of Brandon's own writing. Marianne has no doubt of it. Brandon asks Elinor if he will see them in town this winter. None at all. He takes a longer farewell than he wishes. To Marianne he merely bows and says nothing. Mrs. Jennings then names the business. It is Miss Williams, a very near relation. Lowering her voice, she tells Elinor that Miss Williams is his daughter, born outside marriage.
Since they are all together, Sir John says, they must do something by way of being happy. They drive about the country. Willoughby's carriage is first. Marianne has never looked happier getting into it. They are out of sight until after everyone else returns. They kept to the lanes. The others went on the downs.
At dinner Mrs. Jennings leans behind Elinor and Willoughby and tells Marianne she has found them out. She had her own woman ask the groom. They went to Allenham, walked the garden, and went all over the house, while Mrs. Smith was in it. Marianne says he is the only person with a right to show that house, and an open carriage made any other companion impossible. She never spent a pleasanter morning in her life. Elinor says pleasantness does not always prove propriety. Marianne says it does. If there had been any real impropriety, she would have felt it at the time, for we always know when we are acting wrong, and with that conviction she could have had no pleasure. Elinor answers that the impertinent remarks have already arrived. Marianne will not take Mrs. Jennings as the proof. If the grounds were one day to be her own, Elinor says, she would still not be justified. Marianne blushes. The hint is visibly gratifying. After ten minutes she says perhaps it was rather ill-judged. Then she describes the corner sitting room, windows on two sides, the bowling-green, the hanging wood, the church and the hills, and the forlorn furniture that two hundred pounds, Willoughby says, would make one of the pleasantest summer-rooms in England. Will the next person who hears about Allenham hear the later doubt, or only the pleasant morning and the two hundred pounds?
Coming Up in Chapter 14
Colonel Brandon's sudden leaving, and his steadiness in hiding the cause, occupies Mrs. Jennings for two or three days. She is sure the news is bad. Willoughby still ends almost every morning at the cottage, and he engages to be with them by four o'clock.
