Sense and Sensibility plot summary
From the top: Mr Dashwood (senior) dies and because of the way the estate of Norland was left to him, only the son from his first marriage will inherit. So Mrs Dashwood (that's the second wife) and their three daughters - Eleanor, Marianne and Margaret - are left with £500 a year between them (and even back then that wasn't much). Mr Dashwood (junior) is married to a scheming and rather greedy woman who can't wait to kick her husband's stepmother and half sisters out.
Mrs Fanny Dashwood (that's the scheming, greedy one) takes up residence at Norland and invites her brother Edward Ferrars to stay. Fanny begins to worry about the budding friendship between Edward and Eleanor and does all in her power to prevent it budding any further.
Sir John Middleton, a cousin of the widowed Mrs Dashwood, offers them a house on his estate and the four ladies pack up and leave their huge mansion for a small cottage in darkest Devonshire with a dark hall, a narrow staircase and a fire that smokes. It is here that Colonel Brandon meets young Marianne, who has fanciful ideas of romance, and falls in love with her at first sight. But along comes the dashing John Willoughby who steals Miss Marianne's heart. His past catches up with him though and when Brandon's ward is found to be carrying John's illegitimate child, Lady Allen (John's auntie) flings him out of the house and stops his inheritance. He flees to London, breaking Marianne's heart into the bargain.
Keeping up? Sir John lives at Barton with his mother-in-law, Mrs Jennings, who, as she is a wealthy woman with a married daughter, has nothing else to do except marry off everyone else's.
Mrs Jennings' daughter and son-in-law, Mr & Mrs Palmer, come to Barton, bringing with them the impoverished Miss Lucy Steele. Lucy confides in Eleanor that she and Edward have been secretly engaged for five years (so that's Eleanor's heart well and truly broken then). Mrs J whisks Lucy, Eleanor and Marianne off to London where they accidentally meet Willoughby at a ball. They find out he's engaged to the extremely wealthy Miss Gray and the clandestine engagement of Edward and Lucy comes to light. Edward's mother demands he break the engagement and when he refuses, his fortune is taken from him and given to his younger brother.
Eleanor and Marianne go to the Palmer's home (Cleveland for anyone who's interested) which is near Willoughby's home (Combe Magna, also for anyone who's interested). Marianne can't resist going to see it and even though it's tipping down with rain, she walks the five miles with the predictable result that she becomes seriously ill.
She pulls through however and returns home to Devon. They hear that Miss Steele has become Mrs Ferrars and assume she is Mrs Edward Ferrars. They are most surprised when Edward arrives and tells them that given the change in his circumstances (i.e. from being really rich to being really poor) he released Miss Steele from the engagement. She promptly went off to become Mrs Robert Ferrars, Edward proposes to Eleanor and becomes a vicar (which he always wanted to be apparently), Marianne falls in love with and marries Colonel Brandon. Willoughby does regret not being able to marry Marianne. Miss Gray is not Marianne, but she does amuse him and gives him a quaint married life.
The End
Submitted by Lindsey
