Nine. Sense and Sensibility
Nine
Sense and Sensibility
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
June 20, 1865
With William Stevenson in need of distraction and Thomas Nash suddenly gone, the other five justices agreed to expedite their monthly literary circle. When asked to select the book, William, not surprisingly, chose Sense and Sensibility . With its portrayal of two very different sisters, one all head, the other all heart, Austen’s first published novel had always deeply moved him.
“The plot commences with the loss of a beloved parent,” he opened that evening’s discussion, voicing his usual preoccupation with death. “The oldest son now inherits the entirety of his father’s estate under the British law of primogeniture, leaving the Dashwood women rudderless, homeless, vulnerable.”
Justice Conor Langstaff was first to respond. He had missed the group’s last two meetings to assist at home with the arrival of twin daughters; when it came to women’s rights, he was also the most liberal-minded on the court. “The legal principle of primogeniture is rooted in monarchy—the less divided up the land, the less people who own it, the less threat there is to a king. But that is of no concern in our democracy. Look at our state’s recent legislation on married women’s property rights: if anyone should be allowed to retain their earnings, make a will and likewise inherit—and keep all of that safe from another—surely it should be women.”
“Hear, hear.” To everyone’s surprise, Justice Philip Mackenzie banged his unlit pipe against the Philadelphia edition of Sense and Sensibility in his lap. One never knew where Mackenzie would land on an issue of law, but his antipathy toward their former colonizer often held the greatest sway. “I am reminded of Lord Hardwicke’s Act for the Better Preventing of Clandestine Marriage , which was largely motivated by fear of stolen fortune when young lovers run off together. Again, a sheer matter of property and intrusion by the state.”
“That legislation also gave the Church of England the right to perform all marriages in the land,” Justice Langstaff reminded the others. “Fortunately, this was undone by England’s subsequent marriage act of 1823. No nation can ignore the plurality of faiths today—even sea captains can conduct the ceremony.”
“Careful, Langstaff, don’t add to poor William’s concerns over his girls!” Justice Mackenzie warned with a laugh, causing Stevenson to redden from recognition. “Besides, there is some judicial argument against the legitimacy of marriages at sea.”
“What I find interesting about the book ,” boomed Justice Roderick Norton, emphasizing this last word in an effort to redirect course, “are the number of uninterrupted, highly rhetorical speeches it contains. Pages and pages of sanctimonious drivel—when I’d be happy to never know the workings of a mind like Willoughby’s.”
“I think Austen wrote the earliest drafts as a series of letters sent back and forth amongst the characters.” At these words, the other men turned to face Justice Langstaff in both surprise and appreciation. They were each expert at locating the one most salient and significant fact in a sea of information. Langstaff could do something more, however: he could make an imaginative leap.
“I call your attention to chapter fifteen as evidence.” Langstaff flipped through the book to the scene where Mrs. Dashwood defends not pressing her middle daughter, Marianne, on the nature of her relationship with John Willoughby, an increasingly suspect young man. “The mother’s responses to her eldest daughter Elinor’s worries demonstrate the uninterrupted musings of someone with a captive audience and weak mind. In real conversation, she would never be allowed to proceed so far, and without interruption, by someone as rational as Elinor.”
“I posit, then, that this is Austen’s law novel,” Chief Justice Adam Fulbright declared, holding up his worn copy of Sense and Sensibility .
“How so?” asked Justice Ezekiel Peabody, always intrigued by anything to do with their profession.
“It’s about language,” the chief justice answered. “How we wield it, suppress it, indulge in it. Marianne relies on language to judge others—the unassuming Edward Ferrars for how poorly he reads poetry, the dastardly Willoughby for how well . The mother accepts as truth whatever Marianne is willing to tell her, and whatever Willoughby pleads, regardless of the evidence before her. Language is always at its most powerful when we use it to distort the perceptions of others and anticipate any retort.”
Justice Stevenson leaned forward in his seat. “Meanwhile, admirable characters such as Elinor and Colonel Brandon show their care and devotion, rather than shout it.”
“‘ Actions speak louder than words,’ ” quoted Ezekiel Peabody, “as the British Parliamentarian John Pym famously said.”
The chief justice vigorously nodded. “I’m not sure I trust a man who rallies on so about his own good deeds—or even worse, his lack thereof. I recall that most disturbing scene where Willoughby attempts to visit Marianne on her sick bed. He is not really there to apologize, I think. He is there to argue his case ad nauseam, confident in his right to speak without any checks on him at all. How he excuses to Elinor—rationalizes—demurs! Willoughby’s chief aim, surely, is to restore the Dashwood women’s good opinion of him—he is using language purely as a tool for power and influence, not for understanding.”
“That would explain why the scene left such distaste in my mouth.” Justice Mackenzie made a sour face. “I wanted a good rinse after.”
The other men all laughed.
“And yet…” Everyone turned to face Justice Langstaff again. “Austen indulges, too, in that scene. She gives Willoughby a large forum, far larger than necessary. I wonder if she included the reader in that arena—wanted us also to feel something for him, in the way that Elinor begrudgingly, but eventually, does. He is surely despicable based on the facts of his behavior, and no amount of affection to or from Marianne should change that. And yet.”
The room fell silent at this thought, a most disturbing one, that even Jane Austen, once in a while, lost control of her court.
After Sense and Sensibility had been discussed to the full satisfaction of the bench, the six justices departed the courthouse for home. Each had a carriage and driver waiting for them except for William Stevenson, who had taken to spending his evenings walking the city streets alone. Samuel and Mrs. Pearson, meanwhile, had taken to waiting up for him out of concern.
William was starting off in the direction of Beacon Hill when a female hand, gloved in black silk and adorned by a large diamond ring, waved to him from a passing brougham.
“Justice Stevenson!” Constance Davenish tapped the roof of her carriage for the driver to stop. “Thank you, Charles—Justice Stevenson?”
William crossed the street toward Constance. “Miss Davenish, have you had a pleasant evening?”
“Yes, most productive—do join me and we can discuss. The Anti-Slavery Society held a celebration of the goings-on in Galveston yesterday, with the last enslaved people finally learning from General Granger that they are free, thank goodness. June nineteenth—now a most important date.”
“The official end to such a stain upon this nation.”
“If oppression ever truly ends, once it starts.” She swung open the carriage door to reveal an interior luxuriously lined from top to bottom with maroon-colored damask silk. William hesitated slightly before climbing in to sit on the foldaway seat opposite her. As the midnight-black mares resumed their clop, Constance began discussing an upcoming women’s rights convention while Stevenson’s thoughts strayed in a very different direction. Not since the passing of his wife had he been in such a confined space with a woman who was not a relation.
“Justice Stevenson, do I bore you?” Constance pertly asked. “Why don’t you tell me about your evening—the court is in recess, is it not?”
“Tonight was our reading circle.”
“Ah yes, the discussions on Austen—the girls told me. I wish I could join, but then I would have to read her.” Her ice-blue eyes flashed merrily in the light of the coach lamp. “We ladies do keep our own reading groups to ourselves, so at least there is parity between the sexes when it comes to that.”
“Miss Davenish, where were you educated?” William had always wanted to ask this of her; she spoke as eloquently and logically as anyone on the bench.
“At my father’s knee. Given the impoverished state of women’s education earlier in the century—not that our situation today is much improved—I believe that as good a place as any.” She slowly pulled away the glove from her left hand, fiddled with the ring, placed it back on her bare index finger. The diamond had all the semblance of an engagement stone: flashy and declarative. William wondered if Constance’s unmarried state extended to buying her own jewelry, or if the ring had been a gift from an unknown admirer. There had long been rumors of a clandestine love affair with a lawyer from the South by the name of Graydon Saunders, whom William had yet to meet in court. “William, we talk around what clearly pains you.”
He turned away to stare out the window. “Did you know they would leave me?”
“If I had, I would not have said so. It is not my place.” Constance hesitated. “It’s no longer yours, either.”
“What can you mean?” he asked, turning back to her in surprise.
“Your girls are more than fully grown, William—Henrietta yearns for a family of her own.” She eyed him carefully. “You do know that no one is worried about the two of them? Yet Charles tells me poor Samuel is at the tavern most nights, drinking over what he did to you in taking them to the wharf.”
“They’re all I have.” His face dissembled as he next said aloud what he rarely did. “Alice wanted many children—wanted to give me a son. After Charlotte’s delivery, the doctor advised against it. But she persisted.”
“I am so sorry, William—how tragic.”
“So, you see, they really are my everything.”
Constance surprised him with her reply. “It is indeed the saddest loss, from which one would never fully recover. But—and please bear with me, William, as this will sound far harsher than I intend—we are not talking about your choices as a parent, your everything. Surely you can see that Henrietta and Charlotte amount to far more than that. I have not had children myself, but I should think parental love was about their happiness, not yours. Frankly, I should think that the entire point of bringing them into the world.”
William could only stare at her with incomprehension; few outside of court dared speak to him like this. He could almost feel his learned brain both ache and expand in a very new and different direction.
“I mean love, William. Should it not ensure liberty, above all else? If we cannot expect it from those closest to us, how can we demand it of our government?”
The notion that love should look different from how he experienced it was entirely foreign to William Stevenson. He had always regarded it as an extension of his rights as the paterfamilias . But that concept did come from ancient Roman times, he reminded himself, when servitude had been the state of many people—even lawyers like him. America, on the other hand, had just rejected slavery, and William’s head began to throb at the possibility of further redress ahead when it came to the female populace of the country.
“William, your happiness cannot truly be so, if built on the suffering of your daughters—it is tainted and weakened by their pain. It is a mirage. It is—I’m afraid—exactly why you sit here alone before me, feeling as you do, the opposite of what you intended.”
“‘ We do not suffer by accident ,’” he quoted.
“Austen, I presume?”
He nodded. “Elizabeth Bennet.”
“Ah yes—of course. I do wonder if your suffering today is not the result of trying to twist such forces in your own favor. The harder you twist, the more fragile and vulnerable it all becomes, until it breaks—until it runs away.”
“You once mentioned wanting to be a lawyer, Miss Davenish, but I see a philosopher in you.”
“They are not the same?”
He laughed. “Men of law apply what already exists—precedent, statute, a formal constitution. We are entirely rule-bound, I am afraid, no matter our guiding principles.”
“I have never been one for rules. Neither are Henrietta and Charlotte—where do they get that from, do you think?”
William looked out the window again—all the talk of his late wife was making him feel strangely disloyal—and saw to his surprise that he was already home. The rules of etiquette demanded he wait for his dismissal, yet Constance sat waiting for his answer instead, the silver streak in her hair caught by the gas-lamp glow, the brilliance of the diamond restored to the outside of her glove. There was an air of watchful expectation about her, and William found himself about to say something in response: it was on the tip of his tongue, not yet formulated but almost there. He could feel his heart beating with its new irregular rhythm, as if responding to every peak and valley of every moment in his life. His body, it seemed, was being ruled by his broken heart.
“Sir?”
From the window of the carriage, William made out the stooped figure of Samuel standing on the darkened pavement below, waiting to help him down. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the curtains flutter in the lit front parlor as well—Mrs. Pearson. His heart straightened itself out in that moment. William’s family had abandoned him and reconfigured itself in one fell swoop. What was keeping him from also playing a part in that?
His own voice emerged from the darkness, surprising him. “Miss Davenish—”
“Connie.”
“—Connie, I know the hour is late, but would you like—”
“William, I would love to.”