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Mrs Dashwood reached out across the table to take Colonel Brandon's hand in her own. After drawing a steadying breath she said, "I have some… news, my friend."
The mildness of her voice, with the slightest hint of a quiver at the word 'news,' set Brandon on edge. Even just the fact of Mrs Dashwood coming alone to Delaford House directly after her arrival at the parsonage had been enough to surprise and worry him, but now he was downright alarmed. He sat up straighter in his chair, but he did not pull his hand away.
"Is everyone at Barton well? Your daughters, the Middletons…?" he asked.
"Yes, yes, they are all well, nothing is the matter – nothing at all. In fact, the piece of news I am about to deliver is of the happy kind," she insisted, her voice belying her words.
"Happy?" he echoed.
Mrs Dashwood squeezed his hand. "Indeed. It concerns my Marianne, who particularly asked me to tell you in person. She is – well, in truth she is… engaged."
Suddenly, Brandon was at sea, drifting. Mrs Dashwood kept talking; he saw her lips move, saw the compassion in her eyes, so like Marianne's – so like Eliza's! – yet he could not hear her. The only thing tethering him to reality was the touch of her fingers, which he clung to with the grip of a drowning man.
Engaged. Brandon expected the old, familiar feelings to rush in. How many times had he not felt that surge – jealousy, bitterness, sorrow – whenever he remembered first hearing, at the house of his cousin Huxly, that Eliza had agreed to marry his brother? That had been a blow most severe, but now – but now… Surely this must be worse. Surely he would feel this blow soon, surely it would pull him under. Surely he was still numb from the shock, and that was why he did not feel it yet.
As if straining to hear through water, Brandon forced himself to attend to what his friend was saying.
"...a young man by the name of Denton –"
Here, Colonel Brandon could not help interrupting. "Does he deserve her? Has his character been found out, do you know that he is not – that he is everything he ought to be?"
Mrs Dashwood's smile as she answered his questions was sad, but in her eyes Brandon could see her deep joy for Marianne's sake, beneath her heartache for his own.
"We believe so. Marianne would not give her heart away until we had enquired about his character as far as we could. Mrs Jennings has been most helpful in this matter – though I have to admit that I pressed her not to mention anything of the business to you, my dear friend."
"Then I am happy for Marianne," said Brandon, feeling the unexpected truth of the words as he spoke them. "Please tell her that I wish her all imaginable happiness."
Mrs Dashwood pressed Brandon's hand again. In her features he read gratitude for his gracious reception of her news, but no less pity than before he had spoken.
"I know you well enough," said she, "to guess that at a time like this, you would prefer to be alone. Thus I will now leave you, but I remain at your disposal during my stay at Delaford. You need only send someone down to the parsonage to fetch me, and I will be here as soon as I am able."
An impulse told Brandon to ask her to stay, but he disregarded it, for he did indeed feel a need to mull over what she had just told him in solitude.
Mrs Dashwood let go of his hand as they rose together, but before leaving the room she took both his hands in hers and pressed them warmly. With tears in her eyes she said, "Oh Colonel! Please know that we do not need to be tied together with bands of law for me to consider you a part of our family. I have long done so already, and I always will, come what may."
Colonel Brandon had always found that movement best helped him grapple with whatever question it was that currently troubled his mind. Thus, he now put on his boots and went out on a walk of the Delaford grounds.
The sky had cleared since a recent spell of rain, but everything was still wet, and the air was fresh and cool when Brandon breathed it in. As he walked along the hedge bordering his estate, he put his hand out to trail it through the leaves, collecting droplets on his hand and lower arm.
Marianne is engaged. Brandon had never been as sanguine as Mrs Dashwood in his hopes that Miss Dashwood could one day come to love him, but there had been hope. He knew how much her whole family – even young Margaret – desired the connection, and lately he had even dared fancy that there had been a softening in Marianne's conduct towards him. She had treated him with friendly compassion for many months now, and during her latest visit to Delaford, he had even caught her watching him intently when he had been reading in his library, and been too engrossed by his book to notice her entrance.
Brandon had recalled that soft, inquisitive look a hundred times before, had seen Marianne blush and turn her eyes away over and over in his mind's eye. And yet, when he tried to picture it now, he saw only her mother. Those big, dark eyes could almost be mistaken for Marianne's, but they were a shade lighter, their expression a shade warmer – and there were fine lines at their corners, from a longer life of laughter and sorrow, a life where every passion was deeply felt.
Moving briskly through the estate's wilderness, Brandon remembered how Marianne – still wearing Mrs Dashwood's features – had run away from the library, and how, that evening, Mrs Dashwood had asked him to read to them, with a significant look at her daughter. Oh, with what happiness had he complied! With what contentment had he seen all three Dashwood women engrossed by the words of Cowper, spoken by his own lips; Marianne smiling as she looked out the window, Margaret leaning her head against her mother's shoulder, Mrs Dashwood's work lying forgotten in her lap.
And then, just as he stepped into a spot of sunlight, the answer that he had gone out in search of came to him. Memory transformed into imagination, and he was back in the parlour half an hour ago, with Mrs Dashwood sitting opposite him. But in this version of events, there was no sadness in her features, no compassion in her eyes. No, the eyes of the Mrs Dashwood of his fancy beamed, as she, without any fear of giving him pain, announced that she was to re-marry. And there was the blow. There was the current, pulling him under.
He did not feel the loss of Marianne as he ought, for he had come to love her mother instead.
Even after he had made this realisation, Brandon was powerless to stop this imagined scene from playing out, however painful it was to him. The agony reached its peak when the Mrs Dashwood in his head squeezed his hand as she asked if he would do her the honour of escorting her down the aisle at her wedding, "for I have long considered you as part of my family."
Gasping for air, Brandon fumbled his way to a bench by a small stream in the wilderness. There he sat, looking at the bubbling water, until he finally managed to stop panting, and then for he did not know how long.
On his way back from his illuminating walk and his meditations by the brook, Colonel Brandon passed the parsonage where Mr and Mrs Ferrars made their home. He could not help looking in through a window, and when he did so, perceived the whole family at dinner together, Mrs Dashwood among them.
As if she could feel his eyes on her, Mrs Dashwood looked up, and upon perceiving him a smile overspread her features. This was invitation enough; he was unable to resist entering the parsonage. He begged his friends to pardon the interruption, and was immediately pressed to take a seat at the table and join them for their meal.
"In fact, we sent up a question to ask if you wanted to dine with us," Mrs Dashwood told him, smiling. "But we got back the reply that you had gone out, without leaving any information of when you intended to return."
"I went on a walk," Brandon replied, not without some confusion. "But I am very glad to be here now."
And he took a seat next to Mrs Dashwood, ready to begin his new campaign of making himself as agreeable to her as ever he could, and let himself drown in the dark warmth of her eyes.