Sense and Sensibility (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (2 page)

A continuance in a place where everything reminded her of former delight, was exactly what suited her mind. In seasons of cheerfulness, no temper could be more cheerful than hers, or possess, in a greater degree, that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself. But in sorrow she must be equally carried away by her fancy, and as far beyond consolation as in pleasure she was beyond alloy.

It was soon discovered, however, that certain aspects of their new arrangement were far unlike anything Mrs. Dashwood and her daughters were used to — particularly the manner in which Mr. Dashwood and his wife behaved when it came to matters of the bedroom.

Every day, at all hours of the day, the Dashwood women were subject to overhearing their new landlords’ impressive attempts at conceiving a younger sibling for their son.

Though the house had many halls and rooms, it seemed no matter where one was at any given moment, she could hear exactly what John and Fanny were up to. Mrs. Dashwood thought nothing of complaining about their indelicacy to her daughters. “In my day,” she would say, her face bright with disgust, “husbands and wives did their marital duty only when necessary, always in the dark of night, and always in private. If you ask me, one’s family should never even be truly certain that the marriage has even been consummated at all until the wife becomes round with child. Truly, this behaviour is quite the disgrace. I do not know how they expect us to continue living under these …
preposterous
conditions!”

Though Elinor and Marianne complained of the obscenity and indecorousness of it all right along with their dear old mother, and outwardly behaved as though they were as scandalised as perhaps they ought to be, secretly they each reveled in eavesdropping on John and Fanny’s exploits. It was far better entertainment than any book could provide, and far more educational as well.

One day, as her brother and his wife were occupying themselves in the usual way, Marianne crept into the spare bedroom beside the couple’s room, closed the door so as not to be discovered, and sat on the floor with her back to the adjoining wall. She felt the vibrations from the bed next door, but she did not care. She remained there, and listened.

“Oh, Mr. Dashwood,” Fanny cried out. “You know how I love when you do that.”

After a few more moments of moaning and gasping, Fanny said, “Just a bit higher, my dear … Oh, yes,
yes
. Now, faster. And do not stop!”

At Fanny’s ensuing screams, Marianne couldn’t help but envy a woman who was not only loved by a man and in the position to enjoy all that marriage had to offer, but who was able to tell her husband exactly what she wanted, and have him obey, all for the purpose of her own pleasure. What kind of power that must be!

The screams died down, but only for a moment. There was some murmuring on the other side of the wall too low for Marianne to distinguish, and then the sounds were elevated once again as John let out a loud moan of his own and the bed — and the wall against which Marianne was leaning — began to rock.

Being entirely inexperienced in the practical matters of love, Marianne could only imagine what, exactly, was happening on the other side of the wall, but what she pictured was something she could not wait to experience for herself.

A handsome man looking at her with love and desire in his eyes, his hands caressing every inch of her body, his mouth on hers, their bodies joined, enjoying a pleasure so intense that her body could not contain it all and she must cry out loud simply to relieve herself of the wonderfully overwhelming pressure.

Some day
, Marianne told herself with a sigh.
Perhaps some day soon
.

• • •

At the same time, Elinor was downstairs in the room directly below John and Fanny, working on her embroidery. She did not look up from her work, nor did she acknowledge in any outward way that she was even aware of the rumpus taking place above her head. Elinor, being older and wiser to the rules of society than her sister, could not permit herself to delight in Mr. and Mrs. Dashwood’s display quite like Marianne did. She pretended to ignore their daily productions as much as she could, but inwardly, she could not pay attention to anything else.

Was the act of lovemaking truly as pleasurable as her brother and his wife made it out to be? Could they really not keep their hands — and other parts of their bodies — off one another for longer than a few hours? Or was this a show put on purely to make the Dashwood women feel uncomfortable and thus drive them away from Norland Park? It was no secret that Fanny did not want them there, and so Elinor could not help but wonder if there were some ulterior motives behind the couple’s incessant coupling.

But despite her suspicions and misgivings, Elinor still did find herself a touch envious of the couple’s seemingly ravenous need for one another. Would she ever have that for herself? And if she were to be married, would she even know what to do? What if her ignorance were so painfully insurmountable that her husband would be led to regret his choice in a wife?

For that reason, Elinor had persuaded her mother not to make them move away just yet. She paid close attention to the sounds and words that echoed through the house, to the small, intimate gestures and touches the couple gave each other whilst in plain view of everyone, hoping to acquire enough knowledge so that when and if such a day came for her, she would be ready.

• • •

Though her husband was quite the king in the bedroom and knew precisely how to make her purr like a kitten, Mrs. John Dashwood did not believe him quite as wise when it came to other matters. In particular, matters of finance. She not at all approve of what her husband intended to do for his sisters. To take three thousand pounds from the fortune of their dear little boy would be impoverishing him to the most dreadful degree. She begged him to think again on the subject. How could he answer it to himself to rob his child, and his only child too, of so large a sum? And what possible claim could the Miss Dashwoods, who were related to him only by half blood, which she considered as no relationship at all, have on his generosity to so large an amount. It was very well known that no affection was ever supposed to exist between the children of any man by different marriages; and why was he to ruin himself, and their poor little Harry, by giving away all his money to his half sisters?

“It was my father’s last request to me,” replied her husband, “that I should assist his widow and daughters.”

“He did not know what he was talking of, I dare say; ten to one but he was light-headed at the time. Had he been in his right senses, he could not have thought of such a thing as begging you to give away half your fortune from your own child.”

“He did not stipulate for any particular sum, my dear Fanny; he only requested me, in general terms, to assist them, and make their situation more comfortable than it was in his power to do. Perhaps it would have been as well if he had left it wholly to myself. He could hardly suppose I should neglect them. But as he required the promise, I could not do less than give it; at least I thought so at the time. The promise, therefore, was given, and must be performed. Something must be done for them whenever they leave Norland and settle in a new home.”

“Well, then,
let
something be done for them; but
that
something need not be three thousand pounds. Consider,” she added, “that when the money is once parted with, it never can return. Your sisters will marry, and it will be gone for ever. If, indeed, it could be restored to our poor little boy — ”

“Why, to be sure,” said her husband, very gravely, “that would make great difference. The time may come when Harry will regret that so large a sum was parted with. If he should have a numerous family, for instance, it would be a very convenient addition.”

“To be sure it would.”

“Perhaps, then, it would be better for all parties, if the sum were diminished one half. Five hundred pounds would be a prodigious increase to their fortunes!”

“Oh! beyond anything great! What brother on earth would do half so much for his sisters, even if
really
his sisters! And as it is — only half blood! But you have such a generous spirit!”

“I would not wish to do any thing mean,” he replied. “One had rather, on such occasions, do too much than too little. No one, at least, can think I have not done enough for them: even themselves, they can hardly expect more.”

“There is no knowing what
they
may expect,” said the lady, “but we are not to think of their expectations: the question is, what you can afford to do.”

“Certainly; and I think I may afford to give them five hundred pounds a-piece. As it is, without any addition of mine, they will each have about three thousand pounds on their mother’s death — a very comfortable fortune for any young woman.”

“To be sure it is; and, indeed, it strikes me that they can want no addition at all. They will have ten thousand pounds divided amongst them. If they marry, they will be sure of doing well, and if they do not, they may all live very comfortably together on the interest of ten thousand pounds.” To punctuate her point, Fanny then began to employ the tactics she had learned early on in her marriage would get her anything she wanted. Biting her lower seductively and locking eyes with her husband, she slid her chair closer to his and traced one finger lazily across his thigh.

John watched his wife’s fingertip slowly moving north and swallowed audibly. “That is very true, and, therefore, I do not know whether, upon the whole, it would not be more advisable to do something for their mother while she lives, rather than for them — something of the annuity kind I mean. My sisters would feel the good effects of it as well as herself. A hundred a year would make them all perfectly comfortable.”

His wife hesitated a little, however, in giving her consent to this plan. She slid even closer and continued tracing patterns on her husband’s breeches, adding a bit of pressure.

“To be sure,” said she, “it is better than parting with fifteen hundred pounds at once. But, then, if Mrs. Dashwood should live fifteen years we shall be completely taken in.”

“Fifteen years! my dear Fanny; her life cannot be worth half that purchase.”

“Certainly not; but if you observe, people always live for ever when there is an annuity to be paid them; and she is very stout and healthy, and hardly forty. An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it. You are not aware of what you are doing. I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father’s will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it. Twice every year these annuities were to be paid; and then there was the trouble of getting it to them; and then one of them was said to have died, and afterwards it turned out to be no such thing. My mother was quite sick of it. Her income was not her own, she said, with such perpetual claims on it; and it was the more unkind in my father, because, otherwise, the money would have been entirely at my mother’s disposal, without any restriction whatever. It has given me such an abhorrence of annuities, that I am sure I would not pin myself down to the payment of one for all the world.”

Fanny then shifted her skills of persuasion into fuller force. She crawled lithely into her husband’s lap, straddling one leg on either side of him, and lowered her the bodice of her dress so that her full breasts were exposed and just inches away from John’s waiting mouth.

“It is certainly an unpleasant thing,” replied Mr. Dashwood, looking into Fanny’s eyes desirously and beginning to grind his growing arousal against her, “to have those kind of yearly drains on one’s income. One’s fortune, as your mother justly says, is
not
one’s own. To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one’s independence.” He leaned forward to take one of her breasts into his mouth, but she leaned back, just out of his reach, teasing him.

“Undoubtedly,” she said with a coquettish smile, “and after all you have no thanks for it. They think themselves secure, you do no more than what is expected, and it raises no gratitude at all. If I were you, whatever I did should be done at my own discretion entirely. I would not bind myself to allow them any thing yearly. It may be very inconvenient some years to spare a hundred, or even fifty pounds from our own expenses.”

“I believe you are right, my love; it will be better that there should be no annuity in the case; whatever I may give them occasionally will be of far greater assistance than a yearly allowance, because they would only enlarge their style of living if they felt sure of a larger income, and would not be sixpence the richer for it at the end of the year. It will certainly be much the best way. A present of fifty pounds, now and then, will prevent their ever being distressed for money, and will, I think, be amply discharging my promise to my father.”

“To be sure it will.” To show her approval, Fanny finally let John close his mouth over the firm bud at the tip of her breast. His mouth was hot and moist and she squirmed against him in delicious pleasure. “Indeed, to say the truth, I am convinced within myself that your father had no idea of your giving them any money at all,” she continued breathlessly. “The assistance he thought of, I dare say, was only such as might be reasonably expected of you; for instance, such as looking out for a comfortable small house for them, helping them to move their things, and sending them presents of fish and game, and so forth, whenever they are in season. I’ll lay my life that he meant nothing farther; indeed, it would be very strange and unreasonable if he did.” John pulled her other breast to his lips and darted his tongue around one nipple, up the crease formed by his pressing her breasts together, and down around the other nipple. Fanny shuddered and reached down between them to caress his hardness. “Do but consider, my dear Mr. Dashwood, how excessively comfortable your mother-in-law and her daughters may live on the interest of seven thousand pounds, besides the thousand pounds belonging to each of the girls, which brings them in fifty pounds a year a-piece, and, of course, they will pay their mother for their board out of it. Altogether, they will have five hundred a-year amongst them, and what on earth can four women want for more than that? — They will live so cheap! Their housekeeping will be nothing at all. They will have no carriage, no horses, and hardly any servants; they will keep no company, and can have no expenses of any kind! Only conceive how comfortable they will be! Five hundred a year! I am sure I cannot imagine how they will spend half of it; and as to your giving them more, it is quite absurd to think of it. They will be much more able to give
you
something.”