31 Sense &Sensibility-Bedtime Tales With Stephanie Poppins

When Mr. Dashwood dies, he must leave the bulk of his estate to the son of his first marriage. This leaves his second wife and their three daughters Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret in difficult circumstances. They are taken in by a kindly cousin, but their lack of fortune affects the marriageability of practical Elinor and romantic Marianne.

When Elinor forms an attachment for the wealthy Edward Ferrars his family disapproves and separates them. And though Mrs. Jennings tries to match the rich and kind Colonel Brandon to Marianne, she finds the dashing and fiery John Willoughby more to her taste.

In this episode, Colonel Brandon tells his story.

Transcript

Hello.

My name is Stephanie Poppins and this is my Romantic Bedtime Podcast,

Sleep Stories with Steph.

Guaranteed to afford you a great night's sleep.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

Take a deep breath in through your nose.

And let it out on a long sigh.

That's it.

There is nothing you need to be doing and nowhere you need to go.

Feel your shoulders melt away from your neck.

And the pressure seep away from your cheeks.

As you sink into the support beneath you.

This is your safe place.

Where we travel back to stories of times gone past.

Happy listening.

Sense and Sensibility By Jane Austen Chapter 31 From a night of more sleep than she'd expected,

Marianne awoke the next morning to the same consciousness of misery in which she had closed her eyes.

Eleanor encouraged her as much as possible to talk of what she felt.

And before breakfast was ready,

They had gone through the subject again and again.

Sometimes she could believe Willoughby to be as unfortunate and innocent as herself.

And at others,

Lost every consolation in the impossibility of acquitting him.

Her heart was hardened against the belief of Mrs Jennings entering into her sorrows with any compassion.

No,

No,

No,

It cannot be,

She cried,

She cannot feel.

Her kindness is not sympathy,

Her good nature not tenderness.

All she wants is gossip.

Eleanor had not needed this to be assured of the injustice to which her sister was often led in her opinions of others.

And the two great importance placed on her,

The delicacies of a strong sensibility.

Marianne expected from other people the same opinions and feelings as her own.

And she judged their motives by the immediate effect of their actions on herself.

Thus a circumstance occurred while the sisters were together in their own room after breakfast,

Which sank the heart of Mrs Jennings still low in her estimation.

Because through her own weakness,

It chanced to prove a source of fresh pain to herself.

Though Mrs Jennings was governed in it by an impulse of the utmost goodwill.

With a letter in her outstretched hand,

She entered into their room saying,

Now,

My dear,

I bring you something I'm sure will do you good.

Marianne heard enough.

In one moment,

Her imagination placed before her a letter from Willoughby,

Full of tenderness and contrition and instantly followed by Willoughby himself.

The work of one moment was destroyed by the next.

The handwriting of her mother,

Never till then unwelcome,

Was before her.

And in the acuteness of the disappointment which followed such an ecstasy of more than hope,

Marianne felt as if till that instant she had never suffered.

The cruelty of Mrs Jennings no language could have expressed.

And now she could reproach her only by the tears which streamed from her eyes with passionate violence.

But the letter,

When she was calm enough to read it,

Brought little comfort.

Willoughby filled every page.

Her mother,

Still confident of their engagement,

Had only been roused by Eleanor's application to entreat from Marianne greater openness towards them both.

And this with such tenderness towards her,

Such affection for Willoughby and such a conviction of their future happiness,

That she wept with agony through the whole of it.

All her impatience to be at home again now returned and she was wildly urgent to be gone.

Eleanor offered no counsel of her own except of patience till their mother's wishes could be known.

And at length she obtained her sister's consent to wait for that knowledge.

Mrs Jennings went out alone for the rest of the morning.

Eleanor then sat down to write to her mother an account of what had passed and entreat her directions for the future,

While Marianne,

Who came into the drawing room on Mrs Jennings going away,

Remained fixed at the table where Eleanor wrote,

Watching the advancement of her pen,

Grieving over her for the hardship of such a task,

And grieving still more fondly over its effect on her mother.

In this manner they continued about a quarter of an hour,

When Marianne was startled by a rap at the door.

Who can this be?

Cried Eleanor.

So early too!

I thought we'd been safe!

Marianne moved to the window.

It is Colonel Brandon,

Said she with vexation.

He will not come in as Mrs Jennings is from home,

Said Eleanor.

I will not trust a bat,

Said Marianne,

Retreating to her own room.

A man who has nothing to do with his own time has no conscience in the inclusion on that of others.

The event proved her conjecture right.

Though it was founded on injustice and error,

For Colonel Brandon did come in.

I met Mrs Jennings in Bond Street,

Said he after the first salutation,

And she encouraged me to come on,

And I was the more easily encouraged because I thought it probable I might find you alone.

My object,

My wish,

Is to be a means of giving comfort to your sister's mind.

My regard for her,

For yourself,

For your mother,

Will you allow me to prove it by relating some circumstances which nothing but a very sincere regard?

I think I'm justified.

He stopped.

I understand you,

Said Eleanor.

You have something to tell me of Mr Willoughby.

You're telling it will be the greatest act of friendship that can be shown Marianne.

So pray let me hear it.

You will find me a very awkward narrator Miss Dashwood,

I hardly know where to begin.

A short account of myself will be necessary,

And it shall be a short one.

On such a subject,

I have little temptation to be diffuse.

You've probably entirely forgotten a conversation between us one evening at Barton Park,

Which I alluded to a lady I'd once known,

As resembling in some measure your sister Marianne.

Indeed,

Answered Eleanor,

I have not forgotten it.

Colonel Brandon looked pleased by this remembrance,

And added,

If I'm not deceived by the uncertainty,

The partiality of tender recollection,

There's a very strong resemblance between them,

In mind as well as in person.

This lady was one of my nearest relations,

An orphan from her infancy,

And under the guardianship of my father.

Our ages were nearly the same,

And from our earliest years,

We were playfellows and friends.

I cannot remember the time when I did not love Eliza,

And my affection for her as we grew up was such as you might think me incapable of having ever felt.

Hers,

For me,

Was,

I believe,

Fervent as the attachment of your sister to Mr.

Willoughby,

And was,

Though from a different cause,

No less unfortunate.

At seventeen,

She was lost to me forever.

She was married,

Against her inclination,

To my brother.

Her fortune was large,

And our family estate much encumbered.

My brother did not deserve her,

He did not even love her.

I had hoped her regard for me would support her under any difficulty,

And for some time it did,

But at last the misery of her situation overcame all resolution.

We were within a few hours of eloping together for Scotland.

The treachery or folly of my cousin's maid betrayed us.

I was banished to the house of a relation far distant,

And she was allowed no liberty,

Society,

Amusement,

Until my father's point was gained.

I had depended on her fortitude too far,

And the blow was a severe one,

But had her marriage been happy,

So young as I then was,

A few months must have reconciled me to it.

This,

However,

Was not the case.

My brother had no regard for her,

And from the first,

He treated her unkindly.

She resigned herself at first to all the misery of her situation,

But can we wonder that with such a husband to provoke inconstancy,

And without a friend to advise or restrain her,

She should fall,

And I remained in England perhaps,

But I meant to promote the happiness of both by removing from her for years.

The shock which her marriage had given me was nothing to what I felt when I heard,

About two years afterwards,

Of her divorce.

It was that which threw this gloom,

Even now the recollection of what I suffered.

Eleanor,

Affected by his relation and still more by his distress,

Could not speak.

He saw her concern,

And coming to her took her hand,

Pressed it,

And kissed it with grateful respect.

A few minutes more of silent exertion enabled him to proceed with composure.

It was nearly three years after this unhappy period before I returned.

My first care,

When I did arrive,

Was of course to seek for her.

I could not trace her beyond her first seducer,

And there was every reason to fear that she had removed from him only to sink deeper into a life of sin.

At last,

However,

I did,

And after I had been for six months in England,

I found her.

A guard for a former servant of my own,

Who had since fallen into misfortune,

Carried me to visit him into a sponging house where he was confined for debt,

And there in the same house,

Under a similar confinement,

Was my unfortunate sister,

So altered,

So faded,

Worn down by acute suffering of every kind.

She was to all appearance in the last stage of consumption.

Nothing could be done for her beyond giving time for better preparation for death,

And that was what was given.

I saw her placed in comfortable lodgings and under proper attendance.

I visited her every day during the rest of her short life.

I was even with her in her last moments.

Again he stopped to recover himself,

And Eleanor spoke her feelings in an exclamation of tender concern.

Your sister,

I hope,

Cannot be offended,

Said he,

By the resemblance I fancied between her and my poor disgraced relation.

Oh,

Miss Dashwood,

A subject such as this is as dangerous to handle it at all.

I will be more collected,

More concise.

She left to my care her only child,

A little girl,

The offspring of her first guilty connection,

Who was then about three years old.

It was a valued,

Precious trust to me,

And I gladly would have discharged it,

In the strictest sense,

By watching over her education myself,

Had the nature of our dissituations allowed it.

But I had no family,

No home,

And my little Eliza was therefore placed at school.

I saw her there whenever I could,

And after the death of my brother,

She frequently visited me at Delaford.

It is now three years ago,

She's just reached her fourteenth year,

That I removed her from school to place her under the care of a very respectable woman residing in Dorsetshire.

She has the charge of four or five girls of about the same age.

For two years,

I had every reason to be pleased with her situation.

But last February,

She suddenly disappeared.

I had allowed her,

At her earnest desire,

To go to Bath with one of her young friends,

Who was attending her father there for his health.

I knew him to be a very good sort of man,

And I thought well of his daughter,

Better than she deserved.

With the most obstinate and ill-judged secrecy,

She would tell nothing,

Though she certainly knew all.

He,

Her father,

Could really,

I believe,

Give no information,

For he'd been generally confined to the house,

While the girls were ranging over the towns,

And making what acquaintance they chose.

In short,

I could learn nothing,

But that little Eliza was gone.

All the rest for eight long months were left to conjecture.

Whatever I thought,

Whatever I feared,

May be imagined.

Good heavens!

Cried Eleanor.

Could it be?

Will it be?

The first news that reached me of her came in a letter from herself,

He continued.

It was forwarded to me from Delaford,

And I received it on the very morning of our intended party,

To Whitwell.

This was the reason of my leaving Barton so suddenly.

Little did Mr.

Willoughby imagine,

I suppose,

When his looks censured me for incivility in breaking up the party,

That I was called away to the relief of one whom he'd made poor and miserable.

Had he known it,

What would have availed?

Would he have been less gay or less happy in the smiles of your sister?

No,

He'd already done that which no man who can fill for another would do.

He'd left the girl whose youth and innocence he'd seduced in a situation of the utmost distress.

He'd left her promising to return,

But he neither returned nor wrote.

This is beyond everything,

Exclaimed Eleanor.

His character is now before you,

Said Colonel Brandon.

Expensive,

Dissipated,

And worse than both.

Knowing all this,

As I must have known it many weeks,

Guess what I must have felt on seeing your sister as fond of him as ever?

Then,

Being assured that she was to marry him.

When I came to you last week and found you alone,

I came determined to know the truth.

To suffer you could all be so deceived.

To see your sister.

But what could I do?

I had no hope of interfering with success.

And sometimes I thought your sister's influence might yet reclaim him.

But now,

After such dishonourable usage,

Who can tell what his designs were on her?

Whatever they may have been,

Turn with gratitude towards her own condition when she compares it with that of my poor Eliza.

Reviews

Ouch! Poor colonel Brandon! And what a crazy love…quadrangle 🤪 thank you as ever🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽