For some time after the sound of his carriage has died, Elinor cannot even think of her sister. Half an hour ago she abhorred Willoughby as the most worthless of men. She thinks of him now with a regret she soon owns is proportioned to his wishes rather than to his merits. His person, his manner, and a love it is not even innocent to indulge, have a weight they ought not to have. Marianne wakes refreshed. Within half an hour another carriage is at the door. Elinor reaches the hall in time to support her mother, who has no voice to ask. The relief is given at once. Mrs Dashwood is overcome by happiness as she had been by fear, and she presses Colonel Brandon's hand in a silence he more than matches.
To see Marianne is her first desire. She can be prudent when a child's life is at stake, and Marianne, too weak for conversation, submits to the quiet the nurses prescribe. Mrs Dashwood will sit up all night. Elinor goes to bed and does not rest. Poor Willoughby, as she now allows herself to call him, will not leave her thoughts. She would not but have heard him, and she dreads telling Marianne. For a moment she wishes him a widower. Then she remembers Colonel Brandon, and wishes anything rather than Mrs Willoughby's death. Her mother, it turns out, had already settled to set out that day. Margaret was to be fetched away by the Careys, for fear of infection. Marianne mends every day. Mrs Dashwood calls herself one of the happiest women in the world. Elinor wonders, sometimes, whether her mother remembers Edward at all.
At last they are alone. Colonel Brandon loves Marianne. He has told her so himself. If Elinor were like her mother, the composure would be a wonder. He opened his whole heart on the journey, undesignedly. He has loved her, Mrs Dashwood says, ever since the first moment of seeing her. Elinor hears, not his language, but the embellishment of an active fancy. His regard, the mother goes on, infinitely surpasses anything Willoughby felt or feigned, and without encouraging a hope. Elinor asks what answer was given. There could be no talk of hope while Marianne might be dying. He did not ask for it. Since the danger passed, Mrs Dashwood has given him every encouragement in her power. A very little time will do everything. His spirits, Elinor says, are not equally sanguine. He thinks her affection too deeply rooted, and himself too different in age and disposition. The mother is convinced his age is an advantage, and that there was always something in Willoughby's eyes she did not like. Elinor cannot remember it. Her dissent is not heard. At Delaford, Marianne would be within an easy distance, and there must be some cottage close by. Here is a new scheme for getting Elinor there too. Her spirit is stubborn. His fortune must be a good one, though her mother neither knows it nor desires to. They are interrupted. Elinor withdraws to wish her friend success, and, in the same wish, to feel a pang for Willoughby. Will the sentence about the first moment still be counted as his, once a cottage has been added beside it?
Coming Up in Chapter 46
Marianne's illness has not lasted long enough to make the recovery slow. Within four days of her mother's arrival she is moved into Mrs. Palmer's dressing-room, and at her own request Colonel Brandon is asked to visit. She holds out a pale hand, and his emotion on taking it is more than Elinor can set down to affection alone.
