Sense and Sensibility (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (19 page)

Then, as he began to thrust his hand within her more firmly, he took her bud between his lips and sucked. Instantly, her legs quivered even more forcefully and she cried out, “Oh, yes! Please, do not stop! Never, ever stop!”

Edward obeyed, and soon Elinor was screaming out in ecstasy. Eventually, her trembling subsided and she placed her hands on his head through the fabric of her skirts, beckoning him above. When Edward emerged from the sanctuary between Elinor’s legs, he looked up at her face, flush with contentment, and grinned.

Elinor grinned back, slowly stepped away from the tree, and began to undress herself. She did it slowly, one piece at a time, never taking her eyes off his. When she was completely bare, she ran a finger between her folds tauntingly, and then used it to motion for him to come closer. He did, his manhood so hard it seemed to be trying to force its way through the fabric of his trousers. When he was close enough, Elinor put the finger in his mouth and he lapped up the taste hungrily.

That was his breaking point; he could not hold off any longer. Hastily, Edward undressed himself, laid Elinor down on the grass, and plunged into her like a man who knew this was his last day to live. They moaned together as he slid in and out, and, as the pressure built, he withdrew.

But Elinor would not allow him to release himself on the ground this time. He had tasted her, and now she wanted to taste him. Before he could argue, she wrapped her mouth around him and began to glide her tongue and lips up and down.

“Wait, Elinor,” he gasped between moans of pleasure. “You don’t have to do this … ”

She looked up at him, still pleasuring him, and let him know with her eyes that she
wanted
to do this. Not two seconds later he exploded into her mouth, and they collapsed against the grass together, utterly spent and content.

After several long minutes of silence, Elinor began to laugh. “Forgive me, but I must ask — how did you know how to do that?”

Edward looked at her sheepishly. “Fanny and John’s exploits do have their … educational benefits.”

At that, Elinor laughed even harder. “Oh, believe me, I know.”

Edward became very serious then, and sat up and took her hand. “Elinor, please know, I meant everything I said earlier. I dare say I’m … I am in love with you.”

“Oh, Edward!” Elinor cried with glee, flinging her arms around her lover’s neck. “I love you too!”

Edward kissed Elinor all over her face and neck, happier in this moment than he’d ever been in the whole of his life.

But then Elinor remembered something, and she placed her hands on his bare shoulders, pushing him back slightly so as to look at his face. “You had begun to say something earlier, before we … ” She trailed off, suddenly shy. “Before I so rudely interrupted you. What did you wish to tell me?”

Edward’s face fell for the shortest fragment of a second but his smile was back so swiftly that Elinor believed she imagined it. He pressed her hand against his chest, over his pounding heart. “Just that of all the parts of me that have missed you, my beautiful, sweet Elinor, my heart has yearned for you the most. But I must ask, as much as I hate to, that we keep our affections secret for some time longer. There are things in my life that I must see to before any official arrangements can be made between us, but, I promise you, every single thing I do from this day forward will be filled with the purpose of you and I being together.”

At that, Elinor felt a tiny tinkling deep within her that whispered Edward’s promise sounded unsettling similar to Willoughby’s promise to Marianne, but the warning went ignored as her heart soared higher than the highest flying bird in the sky.

• • •

Edward remained a week at the cottage, during which he and Elinor were not able to find any farther alone time, what with the size of the cottage not allowing for much privacy for any of its occupants. But they smiled at one another when they knew no one was looking, and twice Edward managed to steal brief kiss in a darkened hallway. Both times Elinor felt his arousal pressing against her hip and basked in the knowledge that he wanted her.

He was earnestly pressed by Mrs. Dashwood to stay longer; but, as if he were bent only on self-mortification, he seemed resolved to be gone when his enjoyment among his friends was at the height. The revelation that he would soon be taking his leave — and with no solid explanation at that! — dismayed Elinor to no end but she had promised to keep their affair secret and therefore she was resolved to suffer in silence. To the other members of the household, Edward’s spirits, during the last two or three days, though still very unequal, were greatly improved — he grew more and more partial to the house and environs — never spoke of going away without a sigh — declared his time to be wholly disengaged — even doubted to what place he should go when he left them — but still, go he must.

He explained to Elinor privately in a letter left under her bedroom door one evening that he did not wish to leave her, but that their present circumstances — namely their growing inability to retrain themselves from making love in a house that allowed no such interaction to go unnoticed by those who would not approve, as well as the necessity of his remedying his personal situation (though he never explicitly said exactly what type of situation it was) so that he and Elinor may someday be together truly and properly — insisted upon his departure. Never had any week passed so quickly — he could hardly believe it to be gone. He said so repeatedly; other things he said too, which marked the turn of his feelings and gave the lie to his actions. He had no pleasure at Norland; he detested being in town; but either to Norland or London, he must go. He valued their kindness beyond any thing, and his greatest happiness was in being with them. Yet, he must leave them at the end of a week, in spite of their wishes and his own, and without any restraint on his time.

Elinor was disappointed and frustrated by his impending departure, and, needing some sort of explanation after all that had passed between them, placed all that was astonishing in this way of acting to his mother’s account; and it was happy for her that he had a mother whose character was so imperfectly known to her, as to be the general excuse for every thing strange on the part of her son. The shortness of his visit, the steadiness of his purpose in leaving them, originated in the same fettered inclination, the same inevitable necessity of temporizing with his mother. The old well-established grievance of duty against will, parent against child, was the cause of all. She would have been glad to know when these difficulties were to cease, this opposition was to yield, when Mrs. Ferrars would be reformed, and her son be at liberty to be happy. But from such vain wishes she was forced to turn for comfort to the renewal of her confidence in Edward’s affection, to the remembrance of every touch, every kiss, every mark of regard in look or word which fell from him while at Barton, and above all to that flattering proof of it which he constantly wore round his finger.

If they must part at all, at least they were parting on better terms than the last time. This time, at least, they were parting with a promise.

“I think, Edward,” said Mrs. Dashwood, as they were at breakfast the last morning, “you would be a happier man if you had any profession to engage your time and give an interest to your plans and actions. Some inconvenience to your friends, indeed, might result from it — you would not be able to give them so much of your time. But (with a smile) you would be materially benefited in one particular at least — you would know where to go when you left them.”

“I do assure you,” he replied, “that I have long thought on this point, as you think now. It has been, and is, and probably will always be a heavy misfortune to me, that I have had no necessary business to engage me, no profession to give me employment, or afford me any thing like independence. But unfortunately my own nicety, and the nicety of my friends, have made me what I am, an idle, helpless being. We never could agree in our choice of a profession. I always preferred the church, as I still do. But that was not smart enough for my family. They recommended the army. That was a great deal too smart for me. The law was allowed to be genteel enough; many young men, who had chambers in the Temple, made a very good appearance in the first circles, and drove about town in very knowing gigs. But I had no inclination for the law, even in this less abstruse study of it, which my family approved. As for the navy, it had fashion on its side, but I was too old when the subject was first started to enter it; and, at length, as there was no necessity for my having any profession at all, as I might be as dashing and expensive without a red coat on my back as with one, idleness was pronounced on the whole to be most advantageous and honourable, and a young man of eighteen is not in general so earnestly bent on being busy as to resist the solicitations of his friends to do nothing. I was therefore entered at Oxford and have been properly idle ever since.”

“The consequence of which, I suppose, will be,” said Mrs. Dashwood, “since leisure has not promoted your own happiness, that your sons will be brought up to as many pursuits, employments, professions, and trades as Columella’s.”

“They will be brought up,” said he, in a serious accent, “to be as unlike myself as is possible. In feeling, in action, in condition, in every thing.” At this, he looked at Elinor meaningfully, though she could not fathom what said meaning was. She thought him perfect — and she would wish their sons to be just like their father in manner and intelligence and appearance. But she was wise enough to know that whatever he was speaking of at this moment had everything to do with his mysterious “personal situation,” the one she was not yet privy to.

“Come, come; this is all an effusion of immediate want of spirits, Edward. You are in a melancholy humour, and fancy that any one unlike yourself must be happy. But remember that the pain of parting from friends will be felt by every body at times, whatever be their education or state. Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience — or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope. Your mother will secure to you, in time, that independence you are so anxious for; it is her duty, and it will, it must ere long become her happiness to prevent your whole youth from being wasted in discontent. How much may not a few months do?”

“I think,” replied Edward, “that I may defy many months to produce any good to me.”

This desponding turn of mind, though it could not be communicated to Mrs. Dashwood, gave additional pain to them all in the parting, which shortly took place, and left an uncomfortable impression on Elinor’s feelings especially, which required some trouble and time to subdue. But as it was her determination to subdue it, and to prevent herself from appearing to suffer more than what all her family suffered on his going away, she did not adopt the method so judiciously employed by Marianne, on a similar occasion, to augment and fix her sorrow, by seeking silence, solitude and idleness. Their means were as different as their objects, and equally suited to the advancement of each.

When it was time for Edward to take his leave, the whole household gathered in the drawing room to see him off; therefore he and Elinor were unable to have any more of a goodbye than he enjoyed with her sisters and mother.

“Miss Dashwood,” he said, tipping his hat to her congenially.

“Mr. Ferrars,” she replied with a curtsey.

And that was all they were afforded, for the next thing Elinor knew, his horse was galloping away.

Elinor sat down to her drawing-table as soon as he was out of the house, busily employed herself the whole day, neither sought nor avoided the mention of his name, appeared to interest herself almost as much as ever in the general concerns of the family, and if, by this conduct, she did not lessen her own grief, it was at least prevented from unnecessary increase, and her mother and sisters were spared much solicitude on her account.

Such behaviour as this, so exactly the reverse of her own, appeared no more meritorious to Marianne, than her own had seemed faulty to her. The business of self-command she settled very easily; — with strong affections it was impossible, with calm ones it could have no merit. That her sister’s affections
were
calm, she dared not deny, though she blushed to acknowledge it; and of the strength of her own, she gave a very striking proof, by still loving and respecting that sister, in spite of this mortifying conviction.

Without shutting herself up from her family, or leaving the house in determined solitude to avoid them, or lying awake the whole night to indulge meditation, Elinor found every day afforded her leisure enough to think of Edward, and of Edward’s behaviour, in every possible variety which the different state of her spirits at different times could produce, — with tenderness, pity, approbation, censure, and doubt. There were moments in abundance, when, if not by the absence of her mother and sisters, at least by the nature of their employments, conversation was forbidden among them, and every effect of solitude was produced. Her mind was inevitably at liberty; her thoughts could not be chained elsewhere; and the past and the future, on a subject so interesting, must be before her, must force her attention, and engross her memory, her reflection, and her fancy.

From a reverie of this kind, as she sat at her drawing-table, she was roused one morning, soon after Edward’s leaving them, by the arrival of company. She happened to be quite alone. The closing of the little gate, at the entrance of the green court in front of the house, drew her eyes to the window, and she saw a large party walking up to the door. Amongst them were Sir John and Lady Middleton and Mrs. Jennings, but there were two others, a gentleman and lady, who were quite unknown to her. She was sitting near the window, and as soon as Sir John perceived her, he left the rest of the party to the ceremony of knocking at the door, and stepping across the turf, obliged her to open the casement to speak to him, though the space was so short between the door and the window, as to make it hardly possible to speak at one without being heard at the other.