Age
Brandon is 35 at the beginning of the novel.
Family and Situation
Colonel Brandon was born the second son of Mr. Brandon Senior, of Delaford, Dorsetshire. He had at least two siblings, Mr. Brandon and at least one sister, and grew up with his cousin Eliza, who was of like age. As of the beginning of the novel, Colonel Brandon’s father, brother and cousin are all dead; we do know he has a “brother-in-law” who is the master at Whitwell and a sister who is unwell in Avignon and may or may not be the wife of the master of Whitwell. He also has a cousin named Fanny who is on the marriage market.
While Brandon seldom describes his relationship with his father, we have good evidence that it was not a warm one; the marriage of Eliza to the elder brother, against both her and the Colonel’s wishes speaks strongly to this effect.
We do know that Brandon loved his cousin deeply, even wanting to elope with her when they were both 17. After her forced marriage, he joined the military for a term of three years in the East Indies to try to diffuse the situation with distance. Upon his return, he goes to great lengths in her name.
Mrs. Jennings helpfully gives the reader significant information about Colonel Brandon’s financial affairs. She says “The estate at Delaford was never reckoned more than two thousand a year, and his brother left everything sadly involved,” which builds off of Brandon’s statement that during his fathers time, the estate was “much encumbered.” Along with the estate comes patronage over a modest living in the church which John Dashwood thinks he could make as much as £1,400 by selling. The Colonel has only been in possession since his elder brother died five years before the beginning of the novel, but it seems as though his financial management is far better than that of his predecessors.
For the past 14 years, Colonel Brandon has had guardianship of a Miss Eliza Williams, who is the illegitimate daughter of Brandon’s cousin Eliza, but whom everyone at Barton assumes is the Colonel’s natural daughter. Brandon says “It is now three years ago (she had 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, who had the charge of four or five other girls of about the same time of life; and for two years I had every reason to be pleased with her situation.” When the reader first meets Colonel Brandon, Eliza has been missing from this establishment for some months.
Connections
Colonel Brandon is clearly old friends with Sir John Middleton and seems quite comfortable with Mrs. Jennings and all of Middleton’s in-laws as well. At one point, Charlotte Palmer implies that she could have had Colonel Brandon if she wanted him, but it s unclear if this was a viable possibility.
Though Colonel Brandon does not know Edward Ferrars prior to the novel’s commencement, he is impressed with him when they meet at Harley Street and sympathetic to what he sees as a romance blocked by greedy family members.
Appearance
It is clear that Brandon is well-mannered, but lacks the charisma to be identified as especially handsome. At first glance, Brandon is held in stark contrast to the temperament of Sir John Middleton and the reader is told “His appearance however was not unpleasing, in spite of his being in the opinion of Marianne and Margaret an absolute old bachelor, for he was on the wrong side of five and thirty; but though his face was not handsome, his countenance was sensible, and his address was particularly gentlemanlike.”
Marianne takes these concerns about his age even further. Elinor chastises her at one point for writing him off as an old man because “he chanced to complain yesterday (a very cold damp day) of a slight rheumatic feel in one of his shoulders." Marianne counters that this was because he spoke of flannel waistcoats, which she feels are “invariably connected with aches, cramps, rheumatisms, and every species of ailment that can afflict the old and the feeble.”
By the end of the novel, Mrs. Dashwood says that Brandon “is certainly not so handsome as Willoughby--but at the same time, there is something much more pleasing in his countenance,” though this is likely shaded by her feelings as she is never described as particularly impartial.
Character
One of the first things we are told about Brandon is that he is “silent and grave.” As Elinor observes his growing admiration for Marianne, we are told that “in spite of his gravity and reserve, [Elinor] beheld in him an object of interest. His manners, though serious, were mild; and his reserve appeared rather the result of some oppression of spirits than of any natural gloominess of temper.” Later on, the narrator frequently reminds us of Brandon’s affection for Marianne by telling the reader that he is constantly checking her for heartbreak or sickness, though he seldom says as much out loud.
Brandon appears to be fairly quiet, though he never openly contradictions Mrs. Jennings’ implications that Eliza Williams is his natural daughter. It may be that he is not fully aware of the scale of this rumor.
Though portrayed as wise and rational most of the time, we have reason to believe that Brandon is a romantic at heart. He falls for Marianne very quickly and with little reason to hope; this devotion lasts the entirety of the novel. We also know that he duels Willoughby, supposedly for the honor of Eliza Williams -- though we’re lead to believe some jealousy about Marianne may factor into it -- about which Elinor “sighed over the fancied necessity...but to a man and a soldier she presumed not to censure it.”
Brandon also has great patience and even affection for the follies of youth. He is very aware that Marianne believes second attachments impossible to exist and at one point says “there is something so amiable in the prejudices of a young mind, that one is sorry to see them give way to the reception of more general opinions.” Though Elinor is quick to wish that Marianne would grow up a bit, Brandon insists she should be in no rush.
These traits are not apparent to everyone. Willoughby says "Brandon is just the kind of man..whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.,” and later adds that he considers him “ as a very respectable man, who has every body's good word, and nobody's notice; who, has more money than he can spend, more time than he knows how to employ, and two new coats every year.” Marianne also considers him quite dull for some time.
Habits and Accomplishments
Brandon appears to be fairly broadly educated. Elinor says “He has seen a great deal of the world; has been abroad, has read, and has a thinking mind. I have found him capable of giving me much information on various subjects; and he has always answered my inquiries with readiness of good-breeding and good nature,” and we know that he has been to the East Indies. Willoughby thinks all Brandon has to offer are standard observations about India.
Brandon does win Marianne’s begrudging respect when he pays her musical performance the compliment of full attention and modest praise. In contrast to the Middleton party, “Brandon’s pleasure in music, though it amounted not to that ecstatic delight which alone could sympathize with her own, was estimable when contrasted against the horrible insensibility of the others; and she was reasonable enough to allow that a man of five and thirty might well have outlived all acuteness of feeling and every exquisite power of enjoyment.”
