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One week after the news of Marianne's elopement broke, Elinor went to see Colonel Brandon.
It had been a trying time in the Dashwood household. When the first letter arrived, Mrs. Dashwood had fallen into a dead faint and upon her revival had immediately taken to her bed, wailing about Marianne's ruination and the disgrace that had come upon their family, already in such reduced circumstances. Margaret had offered to find Willoughby and fight a duel to avenge her family's honour and it was only with the most extreme difficulty that she could be prevented from setting out on this quest immediately. It had fallen to Elinor to salvage the situation as best she could. She had done her best to keep the news from general circulation but even in such a small community as their own, it was impossible to keep tongues from wagging. John Middleton had come to express his consternation and thereafter Elinor knew that the news was the talk of the neighbourhood. Indeed, she could scarce believe it yet. Mrs. Dashwood had become ill during the time of Marianne's convalescence and out of a sense of duty and with Marianne's urging Elinor had returned to Barton Cottage, leaving Marianne under the care of Mrs. Jennings as she recuperated.
“I shall be fine now, dearest,” Marianne had assured her. “The worst is past now, and...I could use some time away from Devonshire, where so much happened to me.” Elinor had departed, grieved to separate from her sister yet confident that Marianne's spirit was recovering along with her health. Yet scarce two weeks later a letter had come from Mrs. Jennings, full of grief and apologies, saying that while she had been out taking tea with an old friend, Marianne had risen, called for a coach, and had not been seen since. The servants reported that she had entered a carriage with a “handsome, dark man.” Scarce two days later Marianne herself had written, assuring her family that she was safe and in health, apologizing for the worry they were doubtless feeling, and triumphantly announcing her new marriage to Willoughby.
“I am sorry, dear mother, dearest Elinor, that we had to act with such secrecy,” Marianne wrote, “but with all that has happened between my dear John and I, we could not risk that you would not understand and that disapproval would separate us once more. I know it will take some time to forgive him, and I also, for our actions, but please know that I am happy, happier than I have ever been, and I hope in time affection will bridge this divide that has doubtless opened between us.”
On the fifth day after this startling epistle and with it to hand to stiffen her courage, Elinor at last ventured forth to call on Colonel Brandon. She had come to hold the Colonel in high esteem due to his actions during the recent crises that had faced her family and, knowing the strong affection he held for Marianne, she could not bear for him to have received his information only through the rumour mill. He deserved to hear the account directly from the family and with her mother indisposed, the task fell to her lot. In the sleepless nights following Marianne's flight she had thought often of the Colonel and the confidences he had shared, and the thought of his sorrows had given her the resolve she needed to confront him alone.
The Colonel was at home, said the servant who opened the door, and would Miss Dashwood step into the drawing room while he was fetched? Miss Dashwood would, and shortly Elinor found herself ushered into the room where she and her family had found such warmth and welcome before their troubles descended once more. Still she could not settle and instead paced the length and breadth of the room nervously. Her errand was not a pleasant one and that the clear light of a winter afternoon shone upon her midnight thoughts, she was not sure her impulse was as correct as she had originally found it to be.
“Miss Dashwood!” the Colonel said, entering the room. “I am sorry to have kept you waiting. I was in my study, though I fear not as productively as I should have been. Are you well? Where is your lady mother?” Though his tone was courteous, Elinor could see signs of strain in the dark circles under his eyes and the new lines framing his mouth.
Elinor smiled tremulously. “I am well, Colonel, though my mother at present is not. She is laid up at home...I have come alone. I felt.....I felt that I needed to speak to you, and that it could not wait. This concerns all who touch our family, and I could not long leave you without news. Please excuse the impropriety. I have come to consider you a friend and I hope that society will forgive this lapse.”
Colonel Brandon grasped her hand comfortingly. “Miss Dashwood, no word of censure shall cross my lips. How could I think less of you for thinking to come to me in your time of distress? Indeed I am greatly flattered.”
“Then you do know of our present troubles,” Elinor said bleakly, sinking into a chair. As the Colonel opened his mouth to reassure her, she waved her hand to forestall him. “It is no matter, Colonel, indeed I expected it to be so. One....one cannot keep such things secret for long. Rumour spreads faster than any force on earth.”
Colonel Brandon sighed as he too subsided into a chair. “Indeed, Miss Dashwood, the talk in the neighbourhood has been focused on your family these days past. I had been trying to regard it as a misapprehension. I would not...I could not believe it at first, and yet...your presence here....” He paused as if afraid to continue.
Elinor took a deep breath and met his eyes squarely. “It is true, Colonel. It grieves me to bring you so much pain, but I must tell you that the rumours are true. Marianne has left us - has fled from London - in the company of....of John Willoughby.”
“So it is true then,” Colonel Brandon said, back in his chair. “Forgive me, Miss Dashwood. I think I knew it had to be so, but my heart could not help hoping differently. My God! That it should happen again, in exactly the same way!! That he should have this effect again, that it should be a young woman whom I....whom I held in such esteem....” He buried his face in his hands, then looked up. “No, I cannot carry on in this way. No matter my feelings for Miss Marianne, they must pale before your own.”
Elinor shook her head, her heart going out to the man before her, even know trying to suppress his own feelings in deference to her how. “You speak from the heart, Colonel Brandon, and I could never rebuke you for doing so. But,” and here she drew Marianne's letter from her breast, “but it is not in whole the same. I do not know if this will make the situation more or less easy to bear for you, but....but it is not the same. Marianne has not been ruined. They have married.”
Astonishment played across the Colonel's face. “Married? They....married? Can it be? You...you are sure?”
“Marianne wrote. They married at Gretna Green, four days past. It is no trick, Colonel. They eloped. Marianne is heedless and impulsive, yes, but ruined? No, Colonel. Willoughby is a rake, but in this at least he has behaved honourably.” Elinor considered, then added, “He came to see her during her illness. His distress was genuine. I believe he truly loves her. In the end I suppose passion was the stronger in both of them.”
“I must confess I am astonished.” Colonel Brandon scrubbed a hand across his face. “I thought Willoughby too heedless, too motivated by fortune and opportunity, to ever fall victim to the softer emotions.” He covered Elinor's hand with his own. “I am so glad for you, Miss Dashwood, that your sister is to have a happier ending to her tale than Eliza.”
Elinor gazed at him steadily. “But not happy, Colonel Brandon.”
“No, Miss Dashwood. Not happy. You know....you must know, as my friend, as someone who I have taken into my confidence, the esteem that I held your sister in. I had dared allow myself to hope that given time she might come to return some of that esteem, that indeed it may again be possible for love to enter my life. Now instead I must see the man responsible for bringing so much pain and disgrace to someone under my protection win the love of the woman so dear to my heart.” Again he laughed with no humour. “It is as bitter a pill the second time as the first. I know now I shall never marry.”
Elinor paused, and then, heart in her throat, reached out and laid her hand atop his. “It need not be so, Colonel Brandon.”
“Hmmm?” he replied, not quite attending her.
“No, Colonel,” she said more firmly, “you must listen to me, for it is this I have come to say to you today. You told me once that you first loved my sister because she reminded you of Eliza Williams, who who loved and lost so many years ago. This may be so, for Marianne was ever a merry and romantic girl. But she is also not Miss Williams. Marianne has chosen her partner, and whether good or ill it has been her own free choice....a choice Miss Williams never had. It may not be the practical choice but Marianne has married for love, which was ever her heart's desire. I am still very young, but it seems to me that much of life, of love even, is defined by our choices. I loved a young man, but his choice was another woman and now we will never know what could have been. My heart sorrows greatly that I will never know a life with him, but my choice is to continue on and try to see what other joys life holds for me, and to believe that love may yet enter in some other form. Your choice was Marianne, but she has chosen otherwise. Are you now to shut life and love out of your heart, as you did once before when Miss Williams was lost to you? It seems a waste, Colonel. There is much in life you must miss if your heart is closed. It may yet surprise you.”
Colonel Brandon gazed at her in astonishment. “My dear Miss Dashwood, I have never heard you speak like this before! Almost you make me ashamed. What is it you suggest I do?”
Elinor met his eyes squarely. “Colonel Brandon, I suggest that we marry. You and I.”
Whatever Colonel Brandon had been expecting to hear, it was certainly not that. He fell back in his chair, almost speechless with astonishment. Elinor waited for him to compose his thoughts, her calm face betraying nothing of the turmoil and apprehension within. In the sleepless nights following Marianne's flight she had thought long and hard about Colonel Brandon's affection for Marianne, of his inevitable pain and sorrow on learning of her choice, but also of her own now hopeless affection for Edward, and of the easy companionship, understanding, and esteem that existed between herself and the Colonel. Her natural shyness had warred long with her affection and determined nature, and at last she had resolved to put the question to him.
“You have thoroughly astonished me, Miss Dashwood. I have never heard you speak so before. What could have put this idea into your head?! Has the shock of your sister's actions quite overcome you?”
Elinor swallowed hard. “Yes, Colonel, but not in the way that you are thinking. I have not taken leave of my senses. Indeed, I think I have never been more sane. No,” she said, raising a hand to forestall him as he attempted to interrupt, “you must allow me to say this, or else my courage shall fail and it will forever lie between us unresolved, blighting even the friendship we had. You will have heard of the affection that was once between me and Mr. Edward Ferrars. Well, that affection can be no more. He is an honourable man and he is betrothed to another. Indeed, he has broken with his family and given up all hope of wealth and position in order to keep faith with his beloved. As much as my heart may break, I cannot help but honour his sentiments. Likewise, you have loved Marianne sincerely and honourably only to have her choose another. You told me once that you loved Marianne for her resemblance in spirit to the beloved of your youth. I cannot speak to that, as I never met Eliza Williams, but I can say that my sister, no matter how much she may resemble that lady, is not her. She has chosen a different path and I wish her joy. I know there is no....there is no romantic love between you and I, but there is affection, there is respect and understanding such as there never was between yourself and Marianne. As Mr. Ferrars chose, so has Marianne chosen...according to the heart. Are we to let their choice condemn us both to live lonely lives, cut off from all love? Do you think that is what either of them would have wanted for us?”
Colonel Brandon had been staring at his hands through the whole of her outburst. As Elinor stopped to compose herself, he finally looked up. “So you are proposing that I should marry you now that your sister is unavailable to me, as some sort of consolation? Miss Dashwood, I hope you have enough faith in your own value to know that I esteem you too much for such an action. Is loneliness really the surest foundation for a marriage?”
“Not loneliness, Colonel Brandon, or....not loneliness alone. Affection would be the foundation, real, strong, mutual affection. It is not as the romantic stories would have us believe, but is it not possible that with a strong foundation, love can grow? Sometimes it does not spring into being full-formed but instead must be nurtured, as you would nurture a small, precious seedling. And cannot it then be the stronger, having already weathered all the storms of life firmly rooted in native soil?” Elinor's face came alive as she pleaded her case, and Colonel Brandon felt himself captivated almost in spite of himself. “There is so much to love, Colonel. Walking together. Talking together. Being together, in partnership, as equals in mutual esteem. If you share the burdens and joys of life with a partner, is not every burden halved, every joy trebled? Perhaps it is not the love that poets sing of, but can you not see that it can be the stronger for the fact that it is something that both parties have chosen together to face, both the bitter and the sweet, in the knowledge that they are already firm in the eyes of the other? That is what I am proposing, Colonel, that we join our lives so that we can both be the stronger for the support of the other. And if we are thus joined, who can say what will then grow?” Elinor noticed that in the fervour of her arguments she had again caught up his hand and dropped it immediately, her face flushing. “I have spoken my piece, Colonel. My thoughts are thus laid bare before you. The choice...the choice is now yours to make. Know whatever you choose, my respect and esteem for you will remain unchanged.”
Colonel Brandon stared at her and opened his mouth as if to speak. Then apparently thinking better of it, he rose from his chair and crossed the room to the large picture windows that overlooked the park. He stood there, back to Elinor, hands clasped behind his back and head lowered, as silence fell over the room. As the minutes stretched out longer and longer, Elinor's unease and sense of shame grew stronger and stronger. She had burst in here uninvited and pressed her unwanted attentions on him, this kind, brave, honourable man who had so loved her romantic, heedless sister. How could she have thought it was a viable idea? Her marry Colonel Brandon, her who was as different from Marianne as chalk from cheese? Twice he had rubbed a hand over his face and made as if to turn, and twice he had checked the motion. Surely now he was only thinking of the kindest and least offensive way to rebuff her and show her how direly she had overstepped the bounds of propriety and friendship.
At last she could take the silence no longer. She sprang up from her chair and addressed her words to his turned back. Tears choked her voice. “Colonel, I will take my leave from you now. I...I am sorry for any offense I have caused. I pray in time you will come to forget the entirety of this unfortunate occurrence and that it will not long afflict our friendship. Pray do not trouble yourself, I will show myself out.” She stumbled towards the door of the drawingroom and all but ran towards the outer door at the end of the hall, there fumbling with the lock her streaming eyes and trembling fingers could not seem to decipher.
There were hurrying footsteps behind her, and a hand was laid on her shoulder. “Miss Dashwood, please. I am sorry I have distressed you. Please, calm yourself.” Colonel Brandon gently turned her to face him and grasped both her hands in his. “Please, Miss Dashwood. Dry your tears. You have not angered me. Your words, coming so unexpectedly...I was startled, and needed to collect my thoughts. I could not let you leave so distressed.”
He led her to a chair in the entranceway and knelt before her, chafing her hands as gradually her sobs lessened in frequency and ferocity. Gradually Elinor became aware that he was still grasping her hands and tried to pull them back, a crimson flush again creeping up her cheek in remembrance of the things she had said to him, but he would not surrender them. “There, that's better,” he said. “I hate to see a lady in such distress.” His hands were still gently rubbing hers. “Miss Dashwood, could you bring yourself to look at me?” Elinor nervously raised her eyes to find his fixed upon her, smiling gently. “Miss Dashwood, do not fear that your frank words have injured you in my eyes. Indeed, nothing could be further from the truth. You are an honourable, frank, and inestimably courageous young woman, and I take it as an enormous compliment that you would think to lay such a proposal before me. It has illuminated much in my own mind that I was unable to see on my own and thus I think I may say...I may hope...if it was not just the voice of a lonely night speaking (as, indeed, I do not think it was) and in your heart you find you still desire this thing....I would like to accept.”
The words did not immediately penetrate the welter of emotion swirling in Elinor's head so she did not immediately react. Then she grew pale and, unable to believe her ears, gasped “Colonel Brandon!! -”
“I think, Miss Dashwood – my dear, sweet, brave Elinor – if we are to marry, you should call me Christopher.” And his eyes smiled ever into hers as the tears broke out afresh, releasing the pent-up emotion of a heart so full of happiness and relief she felt it could burst.
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They name their first daughter Felicity.