Colonel B

Mrs. Jennings was a widow, with an ample jointure. She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but marry all the rest of the world.

And we have an interesting example of the kind of match she could set up in the Middletons. It is not a reassuring example. They have little in common and Lady Middleton is a good 14 years younger than her husband. And yet it turns.

Colonel Brandon is about 19 or 20 years older than Marianne (the gap between them exceeds her entire life on this earth) and Mrs. Jennings is keen to get them together. After all, she is handsome and he is rich, a combination that, come to think of it, also recalls Sir John and Lady Middleton. Marianne is repulsed at the idea and who can blame her.

I remember seeing Tie me Up, Tie me down a few years ago. Shortly after the film opens, a guy fresh out of an insane asylum kidnaps a porn star with a heroin problem. Soon after that the director starts telegraphing hints that he means to end the film by have them live happily ever after. That is only a little more outrageous than Mrs. Jennings' suggestion that Marianne and Colonel Brandon should end happily married. In any case, our reaction to the hint that this might be is the same as with the film, "She wouldn't dare! Would she?"

And thank heaven we have Mrs. Jennings to blame otherwise we might have to look at our authoress and wonder what she could be thinking.