Edward Ferrars (5)

The very next thing that Elinor learns is that Marianne and her mother suspect that she and Edward are engaged. She is dismayed at this but we might wonder ourselves what with all this "throwing together". Here is how she handles it:

Elinor started at this declaration, and was sorry for the warmth she had been betrayed into, in speaking of him. She felt that Edward stood very high in her opinion. She believed the regard to be mutual; but she required greater certainty of it to make Marianne's conviction of their attachment agreeable to her. She knew that what Marianne and her mother conjectured one moment, they believed the next -- that with them, to wish was to hope, and to hope was to expect. She tried to explain the real state of the case to her sister.

"I do not attempt to deny," said she, "that I think very highly of him -- that I greatly esteem, that I like him."

Marianne here burst forth with indignation --

"Esteem him! Like him! Cold-hearted Elinor! Oh! worse than cold-hearted! Ashamed of being otherwise. Use those words again and I will leave the room this moment." Elinor could not help laughing.

Esteems him. Actually, I suspect he steams her up quite a bit. Austen rather coyly suggests that she will not intrude on Catherine Morland's dreams to see if Henry is in them in Northanger Abbey and she likewise does not tell us about Elinor's but we can be sure that her bedclothes are getting a good workout every night.

The crucial, I think, is that Elinor doesn't just regret not concealing her feelings now that she sees how much her mother and sister have read into them. She is very careful not to read too much into her own feelings herself! And it isn't just that she isn't sure if Edward loves her, she isn't entirely sure she loves him yet either.

Our reaction is to think, well surely Elinor can't have any doubt about her own feelings. And in a sense that has to be true. We might say the thing she doubts is whether to let them go. As I say, her bed is probably good and rumpled come morning but she is holding back. There is this sense she won't even allow herself to think certain things ahead of time.

To have a proper appreciation of Elinor, we have to grasp this incredible tension. She is like fabric on tenterhooks; the outward surface is smooth only because she is pulled taut evenly. Her wishes are perfectly balanced by her sense to be sure but that doesn't mean she is calm. Quite the contrary she is perfectly balanced the way a drawn bow and arrow are and she knows that if she lets go things will happen. And we should not make the mistake that Marianne is making and think that she has any less feeling because she does not hop from wishes to hopes to expectations.