Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition 1818

Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 14




Though Charles and Mary had remained at Lyme much longer after Mr and
Mrs Musgrove's going than Anne conceived they could have been at all
wanted, they were yet the first of the family to be at home again; and
as soon as possible after their return to Uppercross they drove over to
the Lodge.  They had left Louisa beginning to sit up; but her head,
though clear, was exceedingly weak, and her nerves susceptible to the
highest extreme of tenderness; and though she might be pronounced to be
altogether doing very well, it was still impossible to say when she
might be able to bear the removal home; and her father and mother, who
must return in time to receive their younger children for the Christmas
holidays, had hardly a hope of being allowed to bring her with them.


They had been all in lodgings together.  Mrs Musgrove had got Mrs
Harville's children away as much as she could, every possible supply
from Uppercross had been furnished, to lighten the inconvenience to the
Harvilles, while the Harvilles had been wanting them to come to dinner
every day; and in short, it seemed to have been only a struggle on each
side as to which should be most disinterested and hospitable.


Mary had had her evils; but upon the whole, as was evident by her
staying so long, she had found more to enjoy than to suffer.  Charles
Hayter had been at Lyme oftener than suited her; and when they dined
with the Harvilles there had been only a maid_servant to wait, and at
first Mrs Harville had always given Mrs Musgrove precedence; but then,
she had received so very handsome an apology from her on finding out
whose daughter she was, and there had been so much going on every day,
there had been so many walks between their lodgings and the Harvilles,
and she had got books from the library, and changed them so often, that
the balance had certainly been much in favour of Lyme.  She had been
taken to Charmouth too, and she had bathed, and she had gone to church,
and there were a great many more people to look at in the church at
Lyme than at Uppercross; and all this, joined to the sense of being so
very useful, had made really an agreeable fortnight.


Anne enquired after Captain Benwick, Mary's face was clouded directly.
Charles laughed.


"Oh! Captain Benwick is very well, I believe, but he is a very odd
young man.  I do not know what he would be at.  We asked him to come
home with us for a day or two:  Charles undertook to give him some
shooting, and he seemed quite delighted, and, for my part, I thought it
was all settled; when behold! on Tuesday night, he made a very awkward
sort of excuse; 'he never shot' and he had 'been quite misunderstood,'
and he had promised this and he had promised that, and the end of it
was, I found, that he did not mean to come.  I suppose he was afraid of
finding it dull; but upon my word I should have thought we were lively
enough at the Cottage for such a heart_broken man as Captain Benwick."


Charles laughed again and said, "Now Mary, you know very well how it
really was.  It was all your doing," (turning to Anne.) "He fancied
that if he went with us, he should find you close by: he fancied
everybody to be living in Uppercross; and when he discovered that Lady
Russell lived three miles off, his heart failed him, and he had not
courage to come.  That is the fact, upon my honour, Mary knows it is."


But Mary did not give into it very graciously, whether from not
considering Captain Benwick entitled by birth and situation to be in
love with an Elliot, or from not wanting to believe Anne a greater
attraction to Uppercross than herself, must be left to be guessed.
Anne's good_will, however, was not to be lessened by what she heard.
She boldly acknowledged herself flattered, and continued her enquiries.


"Oh! he talks of you," cried Charles, "in such terms__" Mary
interrupted him. "I declare, Charles, I never heard him mention Anne
twice all the time I was there.  I declare, Anne, he never talks of you
at all."


"No," admitted Charles, "I do not know that he ever does, in a general
way; but however, it is a very clear thing that he admires you
exceedingly.  His head is full of some books that he is reading upon
your recommendation, and he wants to talk to you about them; he has
found out something or other in one of them which he thinks__oh! I
cannot pretend to remember it, but it was something very fine__I
overheard him telling Henrietta all about it; and then 'Miss Elliot'
was spoken of in the highest terms!  Now Mary, I declare it was so, I
heard it myself, and you were in the other room.  'Elegance, sweetness,
beauty.' Oh! there was no end of Miss Elliot's charms."


"And I am sure," cried Mary, warmly, "it was a very little to his
credit, if he did.  Miss Harville only died last June.  Such a heart is
very little worth having; is it, Lady Russell?  I am sure you will
agree with me."


"I must see Captain Benwick before I decide," said Lady Russell,
smiling.


"And that you are very likely to do very soon, I can tell you, ma'am,"
said Charles.  "Though he had not nerves for coming away with us, and
setting off again afterwards to pay a formal visit here, he will make
his way over to Kellynch one day by himself, you may depend on it.  I
told him the distance and the road, and I told him of the church's
being so very well worth seeing; for as he has a taste for those sort
of things, I thought that would be a good excuse, and he listened with
all his understanding and soul; and I am sure from his manner that you
will have him calling here soon.  So, I give you notice, Lady Russell."


"Any acquaintance of Anne's will always be welcome to me," was Lady
Russell's kind answer.


"Oh! as to being Anne's acquaintance," said Mary, "I think he is rather
my acquaintance, for I have been seeing him every day this last
fortnight."


"Well, as your joint acquaintance, then, I shall be very happy to see
Captain Benwick."


"You will not find anything very agreeable in him, I assure you, ma'am.
He is one of the dullest young men that ever lived.  He has walked with
me, sometimes, from one end of the sands to the other, without saying a
word.  He is not at all a well_bred young man.  I am sure you will not
like him."


"There we differ, Mary," said Anne.  "I think Lady Russell would like
him.  I think she would be so much pleased with his mind, that she
would very soon see no deficiency in his manner."


"So do I, Anne," said Charles.  "I am sure Lady Russell would like him.
He is just Lady Russell's sort.  Give him a book, and he will read all
day long."


"Yes, that he will!" exclaimed Mary, tauntingly.  "He will sit poring
over his book, and not know when a person speaks to him, or when one
drop's one's scissors, or anything that happens.  Do you think Lady
Russell would like that?"


Lady Russell could not help laughing.  "Upon my word," said she, "I
should not have supposed that my opinion of any one could have admitted
of such difference of conjecture, steady and matter of fact as I may
call myself.  I have really a curiosity to see the person who can give
occasion to such directly opposite notions.  I wish he may be induced
to call here.  And when he does, Mary, you may depend upon hearing my
opinion; but I am determined not to judge him beforehand."


"You will not like him, I will answer for it."


Lady Russell began talking of something else.  Mary spoke with
animation of their meeting with, or rather missing, Mr Elliot so
extraordinarily.


"He is a man," said Lady Russell, "whom I have no wish to see.  His
declining to be on cordial terms with the head of his family, has left
a very strong impression in his disfavour with me."


This decision checked Mary's eagerness, and stopped her short in the
midst of the Elliot countenance.


With regard to Captain Wentworth, though Anne hazarded no enquiries,
there was voluntary communication sufficient.  His spirits had been
greatly recovering lately as might be expected.  As Louisa improved, he
had improved, and he was now quite a different creature from what he
had been the first week.  He had not seen Louisa; and was so extremely
fearful of any ill consequence to her from an interview, that he did
not press for it at all; and, on the contrary, seemed to have a plan of
going away for a week or ten days, till her head was stronger.  He had
talked of going down to Plymouth for a week, and wanted to persuade
Captain Benwick to go with him; but, as Charles maintained to the last,
Captain Benwick seemed much more disposed to ride over to Kellynch.


There can be no doubt that Lady Russell and Anne were both occasionally
thinking of Captain Benwick, from this time.  Lady Russell could not
hear the door_bell without feeling that it might be his herald; nor
could Anne return from any stroll of solitary indulgence in her
father's grounds, or any visit of charity in the village, without
wondering whether she might see him or hear of him.  Captain Benwick
came not, however.  He was either less disposed for it than Charles had
imagined, or he was too shy; and after giving him a week's indulgence,
Lady Russell determined him to be unworthy of the interest which he had
been beginning to excite.


The Musgroves came back to receive their happy boys and girls from
school, bringing with them Mrs Harville's little children, to improve
the noise of Uppercross, and lessen that of Lyme.  Henrietta remained
with Louisa; but all the rest of the family were again in their usual
quarters.


Lady Russell and Anne paid their compliments to them once, when Anne
could not but feel that Uppercross was already quite alive again.
Though neither Henrietta, nor Louisa, nor Charles Hayter, nor Captain
Wentworth were there, the room presented as strong a contrast as could
be wished to the last state she had seen it in.


Immediately surrounding Mrs Musgrove were the little Harvilles, whom
she was sedulously guarding from the tyranny of the two children from
the Cottage, expressly arrived to amuse them.  On one side was a table
occupied by some chattering girls, cutting up silk and gold paper; and
on the other were tressels and trays, bending under the weight of brawn
and cold pies, where riotous boys were holding high revel; the whole
completed by a roaring Christmas fire, which seemed determined to be
heard, in spite of all the noise of the others.  Charles and Mary also
came in, of course, during their visit, and Mr Musgrove made a point of
paying his respects to Lady Russell, and sat down close to her for ten
minutes, talking with a very raised voice, but from the clamour of the
children on his knees, generally in vain.  It was a fine family_piece.


Anne, judging from her own temperament, would have deemed such a
domestic hurricane a bad restorative of the nerves, which Louisa's
illness must have so greatly shaken.  But Mrs Musgrove, who got Anne
near her on purpose to thank her most cordially, again and again, for
all her attentions to them, concluded a short recapitulation of what
she had suffered herself by observing, with a happy glance round the
room, that after all she had gone through, nothing was so likely to do
her good as a little quiet cheerfulness at home.


Louisa was now recovering apace.  Her mother could even think of her
being able to join their party at home, before her brothers and sisters
went to school again.  The Harvilles had promised to come with her and
stay at Uppercross, whenever she returned.  Captain Wentworth was gone,
for the present, to see his brother in Shropshire.


"I hope I shall remember, in future," said Lady Russell, as soon as
they were reseated in the carriage, "not to call at Uppercross in the
Christmas holidays."


Everybody has their taste in noises as well as in other matters; and
sounds are quite innoxious, or most distressing, by their sort rather
than their quantity.  When Lady Russell not long afterwards, was
entering Bath on a wet afternoon, and driving through the long course
of streets from the Old Bridge to Camden Place, amidst the dash of
other carriages, the heavy rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of
newspapermen, muffin_men and milkmen, and the ceaseless clink of
pattens, she made no complaint.  No, these were noises which belonged
to the winter pleasures; her spirits rose under their influence; and
like Mrs Musgrove, she was feeling, though not saying, that after being
long in the country, nothing could be so good for her as a little quiet
cheerfulness.


Anne did not share these feelings.  She persisted in a very determined,
though very silent disinclination for Bath; caught the first dim view
of the extensive buildings, smoking in rain, without any wish of seeing
them better; felt their progress through the streets to be, however
disagreeable, yet too rapid; for who would be glad to see her when she
arrived?  And looked back, with fond regret, to the bustles of
Uppercross and the seclusion of Kellynch.


Elizabeth's last letter had communicated a piece of news of some
interest.  Mr Elliot was in Bath.  He had called in Camden Place; had
called a second time, a third; had been pointedly attentive.  If
Elizabeth and her father did not deceive themselves, had been taking
much pains to seek the acquaintance, and proclaim the value of the
connection, as he had formerly taken pains to shew neglect.  This was
very wonderful if it were true; and Lady Russell was in a state of very
agreeable curiosity and perplexity about Mr Elliot, already recanting
the sentiment she had so lately expressed to Mary, of his being "a man
whom she had no wish to see."  She had a great wish to see him.  If he
really sought to reconcile himself like a dutiful branch, he must be
forgiven for having dismembered himself from the paternal tree.


Anne was not animated to an equal pitch by the circumstance, but she
felt that she would rather see Mr Elliot again than not, which was more
than she could say for many other persons in Bath.


She was put down in Camden Place; and Lady Russell then drove to her
own lodgings, in Rivers Street.






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 15




Sir Walter had taken a very good house in Camden Place, a lofty
dignified situation, such as becomes a man of consequence; and both he
and Elizabeth were settled there, much to their satisfaction.


Anne entered it with a sinking heart, anticipating an imprisonment of
many months, and anxiously saying to herself, "Oh! when shall I leave
you again?"  A degree of unexpected cordiality, however, in the welcome
she received, did her good.  Her father and sister were glad to see
her, for the sake of shewing her the house and furniture, and met her
with kindness.  Her making a fourth, when they sat down to dinner, was
noticed as an advantage.


Mrs Clay was very pleasant, and very smiling, but her courtesies and
smiles were more a matter of course.  Anne had always felt that she
would pretend what was proper on her arrival, but the complaisance of
the others was unlooked for.  They were evidently in excellent spirits,
and she was soon to listen to the causes.  They had no inclination to
listen to her.  After laying out for some compliments of being deeply
regretted in their old neighbourhood, which Anne could not pay, they
had only a few faint enquiries to make, before the talk must be all
their own.  Uppercross excited no interest, Kellynch very little: it
was all Bath.


They had the pleasure of assuring her that Bath more than answered
their expectations in every respect.  Their house was undoubtedly the
best in Camden Place; their drawing_rooms had many decided advantages
over all the others which they had either seen or heard of, and the
superiority was not less in the style of the fitting_up, or the taste
of the furniture.  Their acquaintance was exceedingly sought after.
Everybody was wanting to visit them.  They had drawn back from many
introductions, and still were perpetually having cards left by people
of whom they knew nothing.


Here were funds of enjoyment.  Could Anne wonder that her father and
sister were happy?  She might not wonder, but she must sigh that her
father should feel no degradation in his change, should see nothing to
regret in the duties and dignity of the resident landholder, should
find so much to be vain of in the littlenesses of a town; and she must
sigh, and smile, and wonder too, as Elizabeth threw open the
folding_doors and walked with exultation from one drawing_room to the
other, boasting of their space; at the possibility of that woman, who
had been mistress of Kellynch Hall, finding extent to be proud of
between two walls, perhaps thirty feet asunder.


But this was not all which they had to make them happy.  They had Mr
Elliot too.  Anne had a great deal to hear of Mr Elliot.  He was not
only pardoned, they were delighted with him.  He had been in Bath about
a fortnight; (he had passed through Bath in November, in his way to
London, when the intelligence of Sir Walter's being settled there had
of course reached him, though only twenty_four hours in the place, but
he had not been able to avail himself of it;) but he had now been a
fortnight in Bath, and his first object on arriving, had been to leave
his card in Camden Place, following it up by such assiduous endeavours
to meet, and when they did meet, by such great openness of conduct,
such readiness to apologize for the past, such solicitude to be
received as a relation again, that their former good understanding was
completely re_established.


They had not a fault to find in him.  He had explained away all the
appearance of neglect on his own side.  It had originated in
misapprehension entirely.  He had never had an idea of throwing himself
off; he had feared that he was thrown off, but knew not why, and
delicacy had kept him silent.  Upon the hint of having spoken
disrespectfully or carelessly of the family and the family honours, he
was quite indignant.  He, who had ever boasted of being an Elliot, and
whose feelings, as to connection, were only too strict to suit the
unfeudal tone of the present day.  He was astonished, indeed, but his
character and general conduct must refute it.  He could refer Sir
Walter to all who knew him; and certainly, the pains he had been taking
on this, the first opportunity of reconciliation, to be restored to the
footing of a relation and heir_presumptive, was a strong proof of his
opinions on the subject.


The circumstances of his marriage, too, were found to admit of much
extenuation.  This was an article not to be entered on by himself; but
a very intimate friend of his, a Colonel Wallis, a highly respectable
man, perfectly the gentleman, (and not an ill_looking man, Sir Walter
added), who was living in very good style in Marlborough Buildings, and
had, at his own particular request, been admitted to their acquaintance
through Mr Elliot, had mentioned one or two things relative to the
marriage, which made a material difference in the discredit of it.


Colonel Wallis had known Mr Elliot long, had been well acquainted also
with his wife, had perfectly understood the whole story.  She was
certainly not a woman of family, but well educated, accomplished, rich,
and excessively in love with his friend.  There had been the charm.
She had sought him.  Without that attraction, not all her money would
have tempted Elliot, and Sir Walter was, moreover, assured of her
having been a very fine woman.  Here was a great deal to soften the
business.  A very fine woman with a large fortune, in love with him!
Sir Walter seemed to admit it as complete apology; and though Elizabeth
could not see the circumstance in quite so favourable a light, she
allowed it be a great extenuation.


Mr Elliot had called repeatedly, had dined with them once, evidently
delighted by the distinction of being asked, for they gave no dinners
in general; delighted, in short, by every proof of cousinly notice, and
placing his whole happiness in being on intimate terms in Camden Place.


Anne listened, but without quite understanding it.  Allowances, large
allowances, she knew, must be made for the ideas of those who spoke.
She heard it all under embellishment.  All that sounded extravagant or
irrational in the progress of the reconciliation might have no origin
but in the language of the relators.  Still, however, she had the
sensation of there being something more than immediately appeared, in
Mr Elliot's wishing, after an interval of so many years, to be well
received by them.  In a worldly view, he had nothing to gain by being
on terms with Sir Walter; nothing to risk by a state of variance.  In
all probability he was already the richer of the two, and the Kellynch
estate would as surely be his hereafter as the title.  A sensible man,
and he had looked like a very sensible man, why should it be an object
to him?  She could only offer one solution; it was, perhaps, for
Elizabeth's sake.  There might really have been a liking formerly,
though convenience and accident had drawn him a different way; and now
that he could afford to please himself, he might mean to pay his
addresses to her.  Elizabeth was certainly very handsome, with
well_bred, elegant manners, and her character might never have been
penetrated by Mr Elliot, knowing her but in public, and when very young
himself.  How her temper and understanding might bear the investigation
of his present keener time of life was another concern and rather a
fearful one.  Most earnestly did she wish that he might not be too
nice, or too observant if Elizabeth were his object; and that Elizabeth
was disposed to believe herself so, and that her friend Mrs Clay was
encouraging the idea, seemed apparent by a glance or two between them,
while Mr Elliot's frequent visits were talked of.


Anne mentioned the glimpses she had had of him at Lyme, but without
being much attended to.  "Oh! yes, perhaps, it had been Mr Elliot.
They did not know.  It might be him, perhaps."  They could not listen
to her description of him.  They were describing him themselves; Sir
Walter especially.  He did justice to his very gentlemanlike
appearance, his air of elegance and fashion, his good shaped face, his
sensible eye; but, at the same time, "must lament his being very much
under_hung, a defect which time seemed to have increased; nor could he
pretend to say that ten years had not altered almost every feature for
the worse.  Mr Elliot appeared to think that he (Sir Walter) was
looking exactly as he had done when they last parted;" but Sir Walter
had "not been able to return the compliment entirely, which had
embarrassed him.  He did not mean to complain, however.  Mr Elliot was
better to look at than most men, and he had no objection to being seen
with him anywhere."


Mr Elliot, and his friends in Marlborough Buildings, were talked of the
whole evening.  "Colonel Wallis had been so impatient to be introduced
to them! and Mr Elliot so anxious that he should!" and there was a Mrs
Wallis, at present known only to them by description, as she was in
daily expectation of her confinement; but Mr Elliot spoke of her as "a
most charming woman, quite worthy of being known in Camden Place," and
as soon as she recovered they were to be acquainted.  Sir Walter
thought much of Mrs Wallis; she was said to be an excessively pretty
woman, beautiful.  "He longed to see her.  He hoped she might make some
amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the
streets.  The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women.  He did
not mean to say that there were no pretty women, but the number of the
plain was out of all proportion.  He had frequently observed, as he
walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or
five_and_thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond
Street, he had counted eighty_seven women go by, one after another,
without there being a tolerable face among them.  It had been a frosty
morning, to be sure, a sharp frost, which hardly one woman in a
thousand could stand the test of.  But still, there certainly were a
dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men!  they
were infinitely worse.  Such scarecrows as the streets were full of!
It was evident how little the women were used to the sight of anything
tolerable, by the effect which a man of decent appearance produced.  He
had never walked anywhere arm_in_arm with Colonel Wallis (who was a
fine military figure, though sandy_haired) without observing that every
woman's eye was upon him; every woman's eye was sure to be upon Colonel
Wallis."  Modest Sir Walter!  He was not allowed to escape, however.
His daughter and Mrs Clay united in hinting that Colonel Wallis's
companion might have as good a figure as Colonel Wallis, and certainly
was not sandy_haired.


"How is Mary looking?" said Sir Walter, in the height of his good
humour.  "The last time I saw her she had a red nose, but I hope that
may not happen every day."


"Oh! no, that must have been quite accidental.  In general she has been
in very good health and very good looks since Michaelmas."


"If I thought it would not tempt her to go out in sharp winds, and grow
coarse, I would send her a new hat and pelisse."


Anne was considering whether she should venture to suggest that a gown,
or a cap, would not be liable to any such misuse, when a knock at the
door suspended everything.  "A knock at the door! and so late!  It was
ten o'clock.  Could it be Mr Elliot?  They knew he was to dine in
Lansdown Crescent.  It was possible that he might stop in his way home
to ask them how they did.  They could think of no one else.  Mrs Clay
decidedly thought it Mr Elliot's knock."  Mrs Clay was right.  With all
the state which a butler and foot_boy could give, Mr Elliot was ushered
into the room.


It was the same, the very same man, with no difference but of dress.
Anne drew a little back, while the others received his compliments, and
her sister his apologies for calling at so unusual an hour, but "he
could not be so near without wishing to know that neither she nor her
friend had taken cold the day before," &c. &c; which was all as
politely done, and as politely taken, as possible, but her part must
follow then.  Sir Walter talked of his youngest daughter; "Mr Elliot
must give him leave to present him to his youngest daughter" (there was
no occasion for remembering Mary); and Anne, smiling and blushing, very
becomingly shewed to Mr Elliot the pretty features which he had by no
means forgotten, and instantly saw, with amusement at his little start
of surprise, that he had not been at all aware of who she was.  He
looked completely astonished, but not more astonished than pleased; his
eyes brightened! and with the most perfect alacrity he welcomed the
relationship, alluded to the past, and entreated to be received as an
acquaintance already.  He was quite as good_looking as he had appeared
at Lyme, his countenance improved by speaking, and his manners were so
exactly what they ought to be, so polished, so easy, so particularly
agreeable, that she could compare them in excellence to only one
person's manners.  They were not the same, but they were, perhaps,
equally good.


He sat down with them, and improved their conversation very much.
There could be no doubt of his being a sensible man.  Ten minutes were
enough to certify that.  His tone, his expressions, his choice of
subject, his knowing where to stop; it was all the operation of a
sensible, discerning mind.  As soon as he could, he began to talk to
her of Lyme, wanting to compare opinions respecting the place, but
especially wanting to speak of the circumstance of their happening to
be guests in the same inn at the same time; to give his own route,
understand something of hers, and regret that he should have lost such
an opportunity of paying his respects to her.  She gave him a short
account of her party and business at Lyme.  His regret increased as he
listened.  He had spent his whole solitary evening in the room
adjoining theirs; had heard voices, mirth continually; thought they
must be a most delightful set of people, longed to be with them, but
certainly without the smallest suspicion of his possessing the shadow
of a right to introduce himself.  If he had but asked who the party
were!  The name of Musgrove would have told him enough.  "Well, it
would serve to cure him of an absurd practice of never asking a
question at an inn, which he had adopted, when quite a young man, on
the principal of its being very ungenteel to be curious.


"The notions of a young man of one or two and twenty," said he, "as to
what is necessary in manners to make him quite the thing, are more
absurd, I believe, than those of any other set of beings in the world.
The folly of the means they often employ is only to be equalled by the
folly of what they have in view."


But he must not be addressing his reflections to Anne alone: he knew
it; he was soon diffused again among the others, and it was only at
intervals that he could return to Lyme.


His enquiries, however, produced at length an account of the scene she
had been engaged in there, soon after his leaving the place.  Having
alluded to "an accident,"  he must hear the whole.  When he questioned,
Sir Walter and Elizabeth began to question also, but the difference in
their manner of doing it could not be unfelt.  She could only compare
Mr Elliot to Lady Russell, in the wish of really comprehending what had
passed, and in the degree of concern for what she must have suffered in
witnessing it.


He staid an hour with them.  The elegant little clock on the mantel_piece
had struck "eleven with its silver sounds," and the watchman was
beginning to be heard at a distance telling the same tale, before Mr
Elliot or any of them seemed to feel that he had been there long.


Anne could not have supposed it possible that her first evening in
Camden Place could have passed so well!






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 16




There was one point which Anne, on returning to her family, would have
been more thankful to ascertain even than Mr Elliot's being in love
with Elizabeth, which was, her father's not being in love with Mrs
Clay; and she was very far from easy about it, when she had been at
home a few hours.  On going down to breakfast the next morning, she
found there had just been a decent pretence on the lady's side of
meaning to leave them.  She could imagine Mrs Clay to have said, that
"now Miss Anne was come, she could not suppose herself at all wanted;"
for Elizabeth was replying in a sort of whisper, "That must not be any
reason, indeed.  I assure you I feel it none.  She is nothing to me,
compared with you;"  and she was in full time to hear her father say,
"My dear madam, this must not be.  As yet, you have seen nothing of
Bath.  You have been here only to be useful.  You must not run away
from us now.  You must stay to be acquainted with Mrs Wallis, the
beautiful Mrs Wallis.  To your fine mind, I well know the sight of
beauty is a real gratification."


He spoke and looked so much in earnest, that Anne was not surprised to
see Mrs Clay stealing a glance at Elizabeth and herself.  Her
countenance, perhaps, might express some watchfulness; but the praise
of the fine mind did not appear to excite a thought in her sister.  The
lady could not but yield to such joint entreaties, and promise to stay.


In the course of the same morning, Anne and her father chancing to be
alone together, he began to compliment her on her improved looks; he
thought her "less thin in her person, in her cheeks; her skin, her
complexion, greatly improved; clearer, fresher.  Had she been using any
thing in particular?"  "No, nothing."  "Merely Gowland," he supposed.
"No, nothing at all."  "Ha! he was surprised at that;" and added,
"certainly you cannot do better than to continue as you are; you cannot
be better than well; or I should recommend Gowland, the constant use of
Gowland, during the spring months.  Mrs Clay has been using it at my
recommendation, and you see what it has done for her.  You see how it
has carried away her freckles."


If Elizabeth could but have heard this!  Such personal praise might
have struck her, especially as it did not appear to Anne that the
freckles were at all lessened.  But everything must take its chance.
The evil of a marriage would be much diminished, if Elizabeth were also
to marry.  As for herself, she might always command a home with Lady
Russell.


Lady Russell's composed mind and polite manners were put to some trial
on this point, in her intercourse in Camden Place.  The sight of Mrs
Clay in such favour, and of Anne so overlooked, was a perpetual
provocation to her there; and vexed her as much when she was away, as a
person in Bath who drinks the water, gets all the new publications, and
has a very large acquaintance, has time to be vexed.


As Mr Elliot became known to her, she grew more charitable, or more
indifferent, towards the others.  His manners were an immediate
recommendation; and on conversing with him she found the solid so fully
supporting the superficial, that she was at first, as she told Anne,
almost ready to exclaim, "Can this be Mr Elliot?" and could not
seriously picture to herself a more agreeable or estimable man.
Everything united in him; good understanding, correct opinions,
knowledge of the world, and a warm heart.  He had strong feelings of
family attachment and family honour, without pride or weakness; he
lived with the liberality of a man of fortune, without display; he
judged for himself in everything essential, without defying public
opinion in any point of worldly decorum.  He was steady, observant,
moderate, candid; never run away with by spirits or by selfishness,
which fancied itself strong feeling; and yet, with a sensibility to
what was amiable and lovely, and a value for all the felicities of
domestic life, which characters of fancied enthusiasm and violent
agitation seldom really possess.  She was sure that he had not been
happy in marriage.  Colonel Wallis said it, and Lady Russell saw it;
but it had been no unhappiness to sour his mind, nor (she began pretty
soon to suspect) to prevent his thinking of a second choice.  Her
satisfaction in Mr Elliot outweighed all the plague of Mrs Clay.


It was now some years since Anne had begun to learn that she and her
excellent friend could sometimes think differently; and it did not
surprise her, therefore, that Lady Russell should see nothing
suspicious or inconsistent, nothing to require more motives than
appeared, in Mr Elliot's great desire of a reconciliation.  In Lady
Russell's view, it was perfectly natural that Mr Elliot, at a mature
time of life, should feel it a most desirable object, and what would
very generally recommend him among all sensible people, to be on good
terms with the head of his family; the simplest process in the world of
time upon a head naturally clear, and only erring in the heyday of
youth.  Anne presumed, however, still to smile about it, and at last to
mention "Elizabeth."  Lady Russell listened, and looked, and made only
this cautious reply:__"Elizabeth! very well; time will explain."


It was a reference to the future, which Anne, after a little
observation, felt she must submit to.  She could determine nothing at
present.  In that house Elizabeth must be first; and she was in the
habit of such general observance as "Miss Elliot," that any
particularity of attention seemed almost impossible.  Mr Elliot, too,
it must be remembered, had not been a widower seven months.  A little
delay on his side might be very excusable.  In fact, Anne could never
see the crape round his hat, without fearing that she was the
inexcusable one, in attributing to him such imaginations; for though
his marriage had not been very happy, still it had existed so many
years that she could not comprehend a very rapid recovery from the
awful impression of its being dissolved.


However it might end, he was without any question their pleasantest
acquaintance in Bath:  she saw nobody equal to him; and it was a great
indulgence now and then to talk to him about Lyme, which he seemed to
have as lively a wish to see again, and to see more of, as herself.
They went through the particulars of their first meeting a great many
times.  He gave her to understand that he had looked at her with some
earnestness.  She knew it well; and she remembered another person's
look also.


They did not always think alike.  His value for rank and connexion she
perceived was greater than hers.  It was not merely complaisance, it
must be a liking to the cause, which made him enter warmly into her
father and sister's solicitudes on a subject which she thought unworthy
to excite them.  The Bath paper one morning announced the arrival of
the Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and her daughter, the Honourable
Miss Carteret; and all the comfort of No. __, Camden Place, was swept
away for many days; for the Dalrymples (in Anne's opinion, most
unfortunately) were cousins of the Elliots; and the agony was how to
introduce themselves properly.


Anne had never seen her father and sister before in contact with
nobility, and she must acknowledge herself disappointed.  She had hoped
better things from their high ideas of their own situation in life, and
was reduced to form a wish which she had never foreseen; a wish that
they had more pride; for "our cousins Lady Dalrymple and Miss
Carteret;" "our cousins, the Dalrymples," sounded in her ears all day
long.


Sir Walter had once been in company with the late viscount, but had
never seen any of the rest of the family; and the difficulties of the
case arose from there having been a suspension of all intercourse by
letters of ceremony, ever since the death of that said late viscount,
when, in consequence of a dangerous illness of Sir Walter's at the same
time, there had been an unlucky omission at Kellynch.  No letter of
condolence had been sent to Ireland.  The neglect had been visited on
the head of the sinner; for when poor Lady Elliot died herself, no
letter of condolence was received at Kellynch, and, consequently, there
was but too much reason to apprehend that the Dalrymples considered the
relationship as closed.  How to have this anxious business set to
rights, and be admitted as cousins again, was the question:  and it was
a question which, in a more rational manner, neither Lady Russell nor
Mr Elliot thought unimportant.  "Family connexions were always worth
preserving, good company always worth seeking; Lady Dalrymple had taken
a house, for three months, in Laura Place, and would be living in
style.  She had been at Bath the year before, and Lady Russell had
heard her spoken of as a charming woman.  It was very desirable that
the connexion should be renewed, if it could be done, without any
compromise of propriety on the side of the Elliots."


Sir Walter, however, would choose his own means, and at last wrote a
very fine letter of ample explanation, regret, and entreaty, to his
right honourable cousin.  Neither Lady Russell nor Mr Elliot could
admire the letter; but it did all that was wanted, in bringing three
lines of scrawl from the Dowager Viscountess.  "She was very much
honoured, and should be happy in their acquaintance." The toils of the
business were over, the sweets began.  They visited in Laura Place,
they had the cards of Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple, and the Honourable
Miss Carteret, to be arranged wherever they might be most visible:  and
"Our cousins in Laura Place,"__"Our cousin, Lady Dalrymple and Miss
Carteret," were talked of to everybody.


Anne was ashamed.  Had Lady Dalrymple and her daughter even been very
agreeable, she would still have been ashamed of the agitation they
created, but they were nothing.  There was no superiority of manner,
accomplishment, or understanding.  Lady Dalrymple had acquired the name
of "a charming woman," because she had a smile and a civil answer for
everybody.  Miss Carteret, with still less to say, was so plain and so
awkward, that she would never have been tolerated in Camden Place but
for her birth.


Lady Russell confessed she had expected something better; but yet "it
was an acquaintance worth having;" and when Anne ventured to speak her
opinion of them to Mr Elliot, he agreed to their being nothing in
themselves, but still maintained that, as a family connexion, as good
company, as those who would collect good company around them, they had
their value.  Anne smiled and said,


"My idea of good company, Mr Elliot, is the company of clever,
well_informed people, who have a great deal of conversation; that is
what I call good company."


"You are mistaken," said he gently, "that is not good company; that is
the best.  Good company requires only birth, education, and manners,
and with regard to education is not very nice.  Birth and good manners
are essential; but a little learning is by no means a dangerous thing
in good company; on the contrary, it will do very well.  My cousin Anne
shakes her head.  She is not satisfied.  She is fastidious.  My dear
cousin" (sitting down by her), "you have a better right to be
fastidious than almost any other woman I know; but will it answer?
Will it make you happy?  Will it not be wiser to accept the society of
those good ladies in Laura Place, and enjoy all the advantages of the
connexion as far as possible?  You may depend upon it, that they will
move in the first set in Bath this winter, and as rank is rank, your
being known to be related to them will have its use in fixing your
family (our family let me say) in that degree of consideration which we
must all wish for."


"Yes," sighed Anne, "we shall, indeed, be known to be related to them!"
then recollecting herself, and not wishing to be answered, she added,
"I certainly do think there has been by far too much trouble taken to
procure the acquaintance.  I suppose" (smiling) "I have more pride than
any of you; but I confess it does vex me, that we should be so
solicitous to have the relationship acknowledged, which we may be very
sure is a matter of perfect indifference to them."


"Pardon me, dear cousin, you are unjust in your own claims.  In London,
perhaps, in your present quiet style of living, it might be as you say:
but in Bath; Sir Walter Elliot and his family will always be worth
knowing:  always acceptable as acquaintance."


"Well," said Anne, "I certainly am proud, too proud to enjoy a welcome
which depends so entirely upon place."


"I love your indignation," said he; "it is very natural.  But here you
are in Bath, and the object is to be established here with all the
credit and dignity which ought to belong to Sir Walter Elliot.  You
talk of being proud; I am called proud, I know, and I shall not wish to
believe myself otherwise; for our pride, if investigated, would have
the same object, I have no doubt, though the kind may seem a little
different.  In one point, I am sure, my dear cousin," (he continued,
speaking lower, though there was no one else in the room) "in one
point, I am sure, we must feel alike.  We must feel that every addition
to your father's society, among his equals or superiors, may be of use
in diverting his thoughts from those who are beneath him."


He looked, as he spoke, to the seat which Mrs Clay had been lately
occupying:  a sufficient explanation of what he particularly meant; and
though Anne could not believe in their having the same sort of pride,
she was pleased with him for not liking Mrs Clay; and her conscience
admitted that his wishing to promote her father's getting great
acquaintance was more than excusable in the view of defeating her.






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 17




While Sir Walter and Elizabeth were assiduously pushing their good
fortune in Laura Place, Anne was renewing an acquaintance of a very
different description.


She had called on her former governess, and had heard from her of there
being an old school_fellow in Bath, who had the two strong claims on
her attention of past kindness and present suffering.  Miss Hamilton,
now Mrs Smith, had shewn her kindness in one of those periods of her
life when it had been most valuable.  Anne had gone unhappy to school,
grieving for the loss of a mother whom she had dearly loved, feeling
her separation from home, and suffering as a girl of fourteen, of
strong sensibility and not high spirits, must suffer at such a time;
and Miss Hamilton, three years older than herself, but still from the
want of near relations and a settled home, remaining another year at
school, had been useful and good to her in a way which had considerably
lessened her misery, and could never be remembered with indifference.


Miss Hamilton had left school, had married not long afterwards, was
said to have married a man of fortune, and this was all that Anne had
known of her, till now that their governess's account brought her
situation forward in a more decided but very different form.


She was a widow and poor.  Her husband had been extravagant; and at his
death, about two years before, had left his affairs dreadfully
involved.  She had had difficulties of every sort to contend with, and
in addition to these distresses had been afflicted with a severe
rheumatic fever, which, finally settling in her legs, had made her for
the present a cripple.  She had come to Bath on that account, and was
now in lodgings near the hot baths, living in a very humble way, unable
even to afford herself the comfort of a servant, and of course almost
excluded from society.


Their mutual friend answered for the satisfaction which a visit from
Miss Elliot would give Mrs Smith, and Anne therefore lost no time in
going.  She mentioned nothing of what she had heard, or what she
intended, at home.  It would excite no proper interest there.  She only
consulted Lady Russell, who entered thoroughly into her sentiments, and
was most happy to convey her as near to Mrs Smith's lodgings in
Westgate Buildings, as Anne chose to be taken.


The visit was paid, their acquaintance re_established, their interest
in each other more than re_kindled.  The first ten minutes had its
awkwardness and its emotion.  Twelve years were gone since they had
parted, and each presented a somewhat different person from what the
other had imagined.  Twelve years had changed Anne from the blooming,
silent, unformed girl of fifteen, to the elegant little woman of
seven_and_twenty, with every beauty except bloom, and with manners as
consciously right as they were invariably gentle; and twelve years had
transformed the fine_looking, well_grown Miss Hamilton, in all the glow
of health and confidence of superiority, into a poor, infirm, helpless
widow, receiving the visit of her former protegee as a favour; but all
that was uncomfortable in the meeting had soon passed away, and left
only the interesting charm of remembering former partialities and
talking over old times.


Anne found in Mrs Smith the good sense and agreeable manners which she
had almost ventured to depend on, and a disposition to converse and be
cheerful beyond her expectation.  Neither the dissipations of the
past__and she had lived very much in the world__nor the restrictions of
the present, neither sickness nor sorrow seemed to have closed her
heart or ruined her spirits.


In the course of a second visit she talked with great openness, and
Anne's astonishment increased.  She could scarcely imagine a more
cheerless situation in itself than Mrs Smith's.  She had been very fond
of her husband:  she had buried him.  She had been used to affluence:
it was gone.  She had no child to connect her with life and happiness
again, no relations to assist in the arrangement of perplexed affairs,
no health to make all the rest supportable.  Her accommodations were
limited to a noisy parlour, and a dark bedroom behind, with no
possibility of moving from one to the other without assistance, which
there was only one servant in the house to afford, and she never
quitted the house but to be conveyed into the warm bath.  Yet, in spite
of all this, Anne had reason to believe that she had moments only of
languor and depression, to hours of occupation and enjoyment.  How
could it be?  She watched, observed, reflected, and finally determined
that this was not a case of fortitude or of resignation only.  A
submissive spirit might be patient, a strong understanding would supply
resolution, but here was something more; here was that elasticity of
mind, that disposition to be comforted, that power of turning readily
from evil to good, and of finding employment which carried her out of
herself, which was from nature alone.  It was the choicest gift of
Heaven; and Anne viewed her friend as one of those instances in which,
by a merciful appointment, it seems designed to counterbalance almost
every other want.


There had been a time, Mrs Smith told her, when her spirits had nearly
failed.  She could not call herself an invalid now, compared with her
state on first reaching Bath.  Then she had, indeed, been a pitiable
object; for she had caught cold on the journey, and had hardly taken
possession of her lodgings before she was again confined to her bed and
suffering under severe and constant pain; and all this among strangers,
with the absolute necessity of having a regular nurse, and finances at
that moment particularly unfit to meet any extraordinary expense.  She
had weathered it, however, and could truly say that it had done her
good.  It had increased her comforts by making her feel herself to be
in good hands.  She had seen too much of the world, to expect sudden or
disinterested attachment anywhere, but her illness had proved to her
that her landlady had a character to preserve, and would not use her
ill; and she had been particularly fortunate in her nurse, as a sister
of her landlady, a nurse by profession, and who had always a home in
that house when unemployed, chanced to be at liberty just in time to
attend her.  "And she," said Mrs Smith, "besides nursing me most
admirably, has really proved an invaluable acquaintance.  As soon as I
could use my hands she taught me to knit, which has been a great
amusement; and she put me in the way of making these little
thread_cases, pin_cushions and card_racks, which you always find me so
busy about, and which supply me with the means of doing a little good
to one or two very poor families in this neighbourhood.  She had a
large acquaintance, of course professionally, among those who can
afford to buy, and she disposes of my merchandise.  She always takes
the right time for applying.  Everybody's heart is open, you know, when
they have recently escaped from severe pain, or are recovering the
blessing of health, and Nurse Rooke thoroughly understands when to
speak.  She is a shrewd, intelligent, sensible woman.  Hers is a line
for seeing human nature; and she has a fund of good sense and
observation, which, as a companion, make her infinitely superior to
thousands of those who having only received 'the best education in the
world,' know nothing worth attending to.  Call it gossip, if you will,
but when Nurse Rooke has half an hour's leisure to bestow on me, she is
sure to have something to relate that is entertaining and profitable:
something that makes one know one's species better.  One likes to hear
what is going on, to be au fait as to the newest modes of being
trifling and silly.  To me, who live so much alone, her conversation, I
assure you, is a treat."


Anne, far from wishing to cavil at the pleasure, replied, "I can easily
believe it.  Women of that class have great opportunities, and if they
are intelligent may be well worth listening to.  Such varieties of
human nature as they are in the habit of witnessing!  And it is not
merely in its follies, that they are well read; for they see it
occasionally under every circumstance that can be most interesting or
affecting.  What instances must pass before them of ardent,
disinterested, self_denying attachment, of heroism, fortitude,
patience, resignation:  of all the conflicts and all the sacrifices
that ennoble us most.  A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of
volumes."


"Yes," said Mrs Smith more doubtingly, "sometimes it may, though I fear
its lessons are not often in the elevated style you describe.  Here and
there, human nature may be great in times of trial; but generally
speaking, it is its weakness and not its strength that appears in a
sick chamber:  it is selfishness and impatience rather than generosity
and fortitude, that one hears of.  There is so little real friendship
in the world! and unfortunately" (speaking low and tremulously) "there
are so many who forget to think seriously till it is almost too late."


Anne saw the misery of such feelings.  The husband had not been what he
ought, and the wife had been led among that part of mankind which made
her think worse of the world than she hoped it deserved.  It was but a
passing emotion however with Mrs Smith; she shook it off, and soon
added in a different tone__


"I do not suppose the situation my friend Mrs Rooke is in at present,
will furnish much either to interest or edify me.  She is only nursing
Mrs Wallis of Marlborough Buildings; a mere pretty, silly, expensive,
fashionable woman, I believe; and of course will have nothing to report
but of lace and finery.  I mean to make my profit of Mrs Wallis,
however.  She has plenty of money, and I intend she shall buy all the
high_priced things I have in hand now."


Anne had called several times on her friend, before the existence of
such a person was known in Camden Place.  At last, it became necessary
to speak of her. Sir Walter, Elizabeth and Mrs Clay, returned one
morning from Laura Place, with a sudden invitation from Lady Dalrymple
for the same evening, and Anne was already engaged, to spend that
evening in Westgate Buildings.  She was not sorry for the excuse.  They
were only asked, she was sure, because Lady Dalrymple being kept at
home by a bad cold, was glad to make use of the relationship which had
been so pressed on her; and she declined on her own account with great
alacrity__"She was engaged to spend the evening with an old
schoolfellow."  They were not much interested in anything relative to
Anne; but still there were questions enough asked, to make it
understood what this old schoolfellow was; and Elizabeth was
disdainful, and Sir Walter severe.


"Westgate Buildings!" said he, "and who is Miss Anne Elliot to be
visiting in Westgate Buildings?  A Mrs Smith.  A widow Mrs Smith; and
who was her husband?  One of five thousand Mr Smiths whose names are to
be met with everywhere.  And what is her attraction?  That she is old
and sickly.  Upon my word, Miss Anne Elliot, you have the most
extraordinary taste!  Everything that revolts other people, low
company, paltry rooms, foul air, disgusting associations are inviting
to you.  But surely you may put off this old lady till to_morrow:  she
is not so near her end, I presume, but that she may hope to see another
day.  What is her age?  Forty?"


"No, sir, she is not one_and_thirty; but I do not think I can put off
my engagement, because it is the only evening for some time which will
at once suit her and myself.  She goes into the warm bath to_morrow,
and for the rest of the week, you know, we are engaged."


"But what does Lady Russell think of this acquaintance?" asked
Elizabeth.


"She sees nothing to blame in it," replied Anne; "on the contrary, she
approves it, and has generally taken me when I have called on Mrs
Smith."


"Westgate Buildings must have been rather surprised by the appearance
of a carriage drawn up near its pavement," observed Sir Walter.  "Sir
Henry Russell's widow, indeed, has no honours to distinguish her arms,
but still it is a handsome equipage, and no doubt is well known to
convey a Miss Elliot.  A widow Mrs Smith lodging in Westgate Buildings!
A poor widow barely able to live, between thirty and forty; a mere Mrs
Smith, an every_day Mrs Smith, of all people and all names in the
world, to be the chosen friend of Miss Anne Elliot, and to be preferred
by her to her own family connections among the nobility of England and
Ireland!  Mrs Smith!  Such a name!"


Mrs Clay, who had been present while all this passed, now thought it
advisable to leave the room, and Anne could have said much, and did
long to say a little in defence of her friend's not very dissimilar
claims to theirs, but her sense of personal respect to her father
prevented her.  She made no reply.  She left it to himself to
recollect, that Mrs Smith was not the only widow in Bath between thirty
and forty, with little to live on, and no surname of dignity.


Anne kept her appointment; the others kept theirs, and of course she
heard the next morning that they had had a delightful evening.  She had
been the only one of the set absent, for Sir Walter and Elizabeth had
not only been quite at her ladyship's service themselves, but had
actually been happy to be employed by her in collecting others, and had
been at the trouble of inviting both Lady Russell and Mr Elliot; and Mr
Elliot had made a point of leaving Colonel Wallis early, and Lady
Russell had fresh arranged all her evening engagements in order to wait
on her.  Anne had the whole history of all that such an evening could
supply from Lady Russell.  To her, its greatest interest must be, in
having been very much talked of between her friend and Mr Elliot; in
having been wished for, regretted, and at the same time honoured for
staying away in such a cause.  Her kind, compassionate visits to this
old schoolfellow, sick and reduced, seemed to have quite delighted Mr
Elliot.  He thought her a most extraordinary young woman; in her
temper, manners, mind, a model of female excellence.  He could meet
even Lady Russell in a discussion of her merits; and Anne could not be
given to understand so much by her friend, could not know herself to be
so highly rated by a sensible man, without many of those agreeable
sensations which her friend meant to create.


Lady Russell was now perfectly decided in her opinion of Mr Elliot.
She was as much convinced of his meaning to gain Anne in time as of his
deserving her, and was beginning to calculate the number of weeks which
would free him from all the remaining restraints of widowhood, and
leave him at liberty to exert his most open powers of pleasing.  She
would not speak to Anne with half the certainty she felt on the
subject, she would venture on little more than hints of what might be
hereafter, of a possible attachment on his side, of the desirableness
of the alliance, supposing such attachment to be real and returned.
Anne heard her, and made no violent exclamations; she only smiled,
blushed, and gently shook her head.


"I am no match_maker, as you well know," said Lady Russell, "being much
too well aware of the uncertainty of all human events and calculations.
I only mean that if Mr Elliot should some time hence pay his addresses
to you, and if you should be disposed to accept him, I think there
would be every possibility of your being happy together.  A most
suitable connection everybody must consider it, but I think it might be
a very happy one."


"Mr Elliot is an exceedingly agreeable man, and in many respects I
think highly of him," said Anne; "but we should not suit."


Lady Russell let this pass, and only said in rejoinder, "I own that to
be able to regard you as the future mistress of Kellynch, the future
Lady Elliot, to look forward and see you occupying your dear mother's
place, succeeding to all her rights, and all her popularity, as well as
to all her virtues, would be the highest possible gratification to me.
You are your mother's self in countenance and disposition; and if I
might be allowed to fancy you such as she was, in situation and name,
and home, presiding and blessing in the same spot, and only superior to
her in being more highly valued!  My dearest Anne, it would give me
more delight than is often felt at my time of life!"


Anne was obliged to turn away, to rise, to walk to a distant table,
and, leaning there in pretended employment, try to subdue the feelings
this picture excited.  For a few moments her imagination and her heart
were bewitched.  The idea of becoming what her mother had been; of
having the precious name of "Lady Elliot" first revived in herself; of
being restored to Kellynch, calling it her home again, her home for
ever, was a charm which she could not immediately resist.  Lady Russell
said not another word, willing to leave the matter to its own
operation; and believing that, could Mr Elliot at that moment with
propriety have spoken for himself!__she believed, in short, what Anne
did not believe.  The same image of Mr Elliot speaking for himself
brought Anne to composure again.  The charm of Kellynch and of "Lady
Elliot" all faded away.  She never could accept him.  And it was not
only that her feelings were still adverse to any man save one; her
judgement, on a serious consideration of the possibilities of such a
case was against Mr Elliot.


Though they had now been acquainted a month, she could not be satisfied
that she really knew his character.  That he was a sensible man, an
agreeable man, that he talked well, professed good opinions, seemed to
judge properly and as a man of principle, this was all clear enough.
He certainly knew what was right, nor could she fix on any one article
of moral duty evidently transgressed; but yet she would have been
afraid to answer for his conduct.  She distrusted the past, if not the
present.  The names which occasionally dropt of former associates, the
allusions to former practices and pursuits, suggested suspicions not
favourable of what he had been.  She saw that there had been bad
habits; that Sunday travelling had been a common thing; that there had
been a period of his life (and probably not a short one) when he had
been, at least, careless in all serious matters; and, though he might
now think very differently, who could answer for the true sentiments of
a clever, cautious man, grown old enough to appreciate a fair
character?  How could it ever be ascertained that his mind was truly
cleansed?


Mr Elliot was rational, discreet, polished, but he was not open.  There
was never any burst of feeling, any warmth of indignation or delight,
at the evil or good of others.  This, to Anne, was a decided
imperfection.  Her early impressions were incurable.  She prized the
frank, the open_hearted, the eager character beyond all others.  Warmth
and enthusiasm did captivate her still.  She felt that she could so
much more depend upon the sincerity of those who sometimes looked or
said a careless or a hasty thing, than of those whose presence of mind
never varied, whose tongue never slipped.


Mr Elliot was too generally agreeable.  Various as were the tempers in
her father's house, he pleased them all.  He endured too well, stood
too well with every body.  He had spoken to her with some degree of
openness of Mrs Clay; had appeared completely to see what Mrs Clay was
about, and to hold her in contempt; and yet Mrs Clay found him as
agreeable as any body.


Lady Russell saw either less or more than her young friend, for she saw
nothing to excite distrust.  She could not imagine a man more exactly
what he ought to be than Mr Elliot; nor did she ever enjoy a sweeter
feeling than the hope of seeing him receive the hand of her beloved
Anne in Kellynch church, in the course of the following autumn.






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 18




It was the beginning of February; and Anne, having been a month in
Bath, was growing very eager for news from Uppercross and Lyme.  She
wanted to hear much more than Mary had communicated.  It was three
weeks since she had heard at all.  She only knew that Henrietta was at
home again; and that Louisa, though considered to be recovering fast,
was still in Lyme; and she was thinking of them all very intently one
evening, when a thicker letter than usual from Mary was delivered to
her; and, to quicken the pleasure and surprise, with Admiral and Mrs
Croft's compliments.


The Crofts must be in Bath!  A circumstance to interest her.  They were
people whom her heart turned to very naturally.


"What is this?" cried Sir Walter.  "The Crofts have arrived in Bath?
The Crofts who rent Kellynch?  What have they brought you?"


"A letter from Uppercross Cottage, Sir."


"Oh! those letters are convenient passports.  They secure an
introduction.  I should have visited Admiral Croft, however, at any
rate.  I know what is due to my tenant."


Anne could listen no longer; she could not even have told how the poor
Admiral's complexion escaped; her letter engrossed her.  It had been
begun several days back.




"February 1st.


"My dear Anne,__I make no apology for my silence, because I know how
little people think of letters in such a place as Bath.  You must be a
great deal too happy to care for Uppercross, which, as you well know,
affords little to write about.  We have had a very dull Christmas; Mr
and Mrs Musgrove have not had one dinner party all the holidays.  I do
not reckon the Hayters as anybody.  The holidays, however, are over at
last:  I believe no children ever had such long ones.  I am sure I had
not.  The house was cleared yesterday, except of the little Harvilles;
but you will be surprised to hear they have never gone home.  Mrs
Harville must be an odd mother to part with them so long.  I do not
understand it.  They are not at all nice children, in my opinion; but
Mrs Musgrove seems to like them quite as well, if not better, than her
grandchildren.  What dreadful weather we have had!  It may not be felt
in Bath, with your nice pavements; but in the country it is of some
consequence.  I have not had a creature call on me since the second
week in January, except Charles Hayter, who had been calling much
oftener than was welcome.  Between ourselves, I think it a great pity
Henrietta did not remain at Lyme as long as Louisa; it would have kept
her a little out of his way.  The carriage is gone to_day, to bring
Louisa and the Harvilles to_morrow.  We are not asked to dine with
them, however, till the day after, Mrs Musgrove is so afraid of her
being fatigued by the journey, which is not very likely, considering
the care that will be taken of her; and it would be much more
convenient to me to dine there to_morrow.  I am glad you find Mr Elliot
so agreeable, and wish I could be acquainted with him too; but I have
my usual luck:  I am always out of the way when any thing desirable is
going on; always the last of my family to be noticed.  What an immense
time Mrs Clay has been staying with Elizabeth!  Does she never mean to
go away?  But perhaps if she were to leave the room vacant, we might
not be invited.  Let me know what you think of this.  I do not expect
my children to be asked, you know.  I can leave them at the Great House
very well, for a month or six weeks.  I have this moment heard that the
Crofts are going to Bath almost immediately; they think the Admiral
gouty.  Charles heard it quite by chance; they have not had the
civility to give me any notice, or of offering to take anything.  I do
not think they improve at all as neighbours.  We see nothing of them,
and this is really an instance of gross inattention.  Charles joins me
in love, and everything proper.  Yours affectionately,


"Mary M___.


"I am sorry to say that I am very far from well; and Jemima has just
told me that the butcher says there is a bad sore_throat very much
about.  I dare say I shall catch it; and my sore_throats, you know, are
always worse than anybody's."




So ended the first part, which had been afterwards put into an
envelope, containing nearly as much more.




"I kept my letter open, that I might send you word how Louisa bore her
journey, and now I am extremely glad I did, having a great deal to add.
In the first place, I had a note from Mrs Croft yesterday, offering to
convey anything to you; a very kind, friendly note indeed, addressed to
me, just as it ought; I shall therefore be able to make my letter as
long as I like.  The Admiral does not seem very ill, and I sincerely
hope Bath will do him all the good he wants.  I shall be truly glad to
have them back again.  Our neighbourhood cannot spare such a pleasant
family.  But now for Louisa.  I have something to communicate that will
astonish you not a little.  She and the Harvilles came on Tuesday very
safely, and in the evening we went to ask her how she did, when we were
rather surprised not to find Captain Benwick of the party, for he had
been invited as well as the Harvilles; and what do you think was the
reason?  Neither more nor less than his being in love with Louisa, and
not choosing to venture to Uppercross till he had had an answer from Mr
Musgrove; for it was all settled between him and her before she came
away, and he had written to her father by Captain Harville.  True, upon
my honour!  Are not you astonished?  I shall be surprised at least if
you ever received a hint of it, for I never did.  Mrs Musgrove protests
solemnly that she knew nothing of the matter.  We are all very well
pleased, however, for though it is not equal to her marrying Captain
Wentworth, it is infinitely better than Charles Hayter; and Mr Musgrove
has written his consent, and Captain Benwick is expected to_day.  Mrs
Harville says her husband feels a good deal on his poor sister's
account; but, however, Louisa is a great favourite with both.  Indeed,
Mrs Harville and I quite agree that we love her the better for having
nursed her.  Charles wonders what Captain Wentworth will say; but if
you remember, I never thought him attached to Louisa; I never could see
anything of it.  And this is the end, you see, of Captain Benwick's
being supposed to be an admirer of yours.  How Charles could take such
a thing into his head was always incomprehensible to me.  I hope he
will be more agreeable now.  Certainly not a great match for Louisa
Musgrove, but a million times better than marrying among the Hayters."




Mary need not have feared her sister's being in any degree prepared for
the news.  She had never in her life been more astonished.  Captain
Benwick and Louisa Musgrove!  It was almost too wonderful for belief,
and it was with the greatest effort that she could remain in the room,
preserve an air of calmness, and answer the common questions of the
moment.  Happily for her, they were not many.  Sir Walter wanted to
know whether the Crofts travelled with four horses, and whether they
were likely to be situated in such a part of Bath as it might suit Miss
Elliot and himself to visit in; but had little curiosity beyond.


"How is Mary?" said Elizabeth; and without waiting for an answer, "And
pray what brings the Crofts to Bath?"


"They come on the Admiral's account.  He is thought to be gouty."


"Gout and decrepitude!" said Sir Walter.  "Poor old gentleman."


"Have they any acquaintance here?" asked Elizabeth.


"I do not know; but I can hardly suppose that, at Admiral Croft's time
of life, and in his profession, he should not have many acquaintance in
such a place as this."


"I suspect," said Sir Walter coolly, "that Admiral Croft will be best
known in Bath as the renter of Kellynch Hall.  Elizabeth, may we
venture to present him and his wife in Laura Place?"


"Oh, no! I think not.  Situated as we are with Lady Dalrymple, cousins,
we ought to be very careful not to embarrass her with acquaintance she
might not approve.  If we were not related, it would not signify; but
as cousins, she would feel scrupulous as to any proposal of ours.  We
had better leave the Crofts to find their own level.  There are several
odd_looking men walking about here, who, I am told, are sailors.  The
Crofts will associate with them."


This was Sir Walter and Elizabeth's share of interest in the letter;
when Mrs Clay had paid her tribute of more decent attention, in an
enquiry after Mrs Charles Musgrove, and her fine little boys, Anne was
at liberty.


In her own room, she tried to comprehend it.  Well might Charles wonder
how Captain Wentworth would feel!  Perhaps he had quitted the field,
had given Louisa up, had ceased to love, had found he did not love her.
She could not endure the idea of treachery or levity, or anything akin
to ill usage between him and his friend.  She could not endure that
such a friendship as theirs should be severed unfairly.


Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove!  The high_spirited, joyous_talking
Louisa Musgrove, and the dejected, thinking, feeling, reading, Captain
Benwick, seemed each of them everything that would not suit the other.
Their minds most dissimilar!  Where could have been the attraction?
The answer soon presented itself.  It had been in situation.  They had
been thrown together several weeks; they had been living in the same
small family party:  since Henrietta's coming away, they must have been
depending almost entirely on each other, and Louisa, just recovering
from illness, had been in an interesting state, and Captain Benwick was
not inconsolable.  That was a point which Anne had not been able to
avoid suspecting before; and instead of drawing the same conclusion as
Mary, from the present course of events, they served only to confirm
the idea of his having felt some dawning of tenderness toward herself.
She did not mean, however, to derive much more from it to gratify her
vanity, than Mary might have allowed.  She was persuaded that any
tolerably pleasing young woman who had listened and seemed to feel for
him would have received the same compliment.  He had an affectionate
heart.  He must love somebody.


She saw no reason against their being happy.  Louisa had fine naval
fervour to begin with, and they would soon grow more alike.  He would
gain cheerfulness, and she would learn to be an enthusiast for Scott
and Lord Byron; nay, that was probably learnt already; of course they
had fallen in love over poetry.  The idea of Louisa Musgrove turned
into a person of literary taste, and sentimental reflection was
amusing, but she had no doubt of its being so.  The day at Lyme, the
fall from the Cobb, might influence her health, her nerves, her
courage, her character to the end of her life, as thoroughly as it
appeared to have influenced her fate.


The conclusion of the whole was, that if the woman who had been
sensible of Captain Wentworth's merits could be allowed to prefer
another man, there was nothing in the engagement to excite lasting
wonder; and if Captain Wentworth lost no friend by it, certainly
nothing to be regretted.  No, it was not regret which made Anne's heart
beat in spite of herself, and brought the colour into her cheeks when
she thought of Captain Wentworth unshackled and free.  She had some
feelings which she was ashamed to investigate.  They were too much like
joy, senseless joy!


She longed to see the Crofts; but when the meeting took place, it was
evident that no rumour of the news had yet reached them.  The visit of
ceremony was paid and returned; and Louisa Musgrove was mentioned, and
Captain Benwick, too, without even half a smile.


The Crofts had placed themselves in lodgings in Gay Street, perfectly
to Sir Walter's satisfaction.  He was not at all ashamed of the
acquaintance, and did, in fact, think and talk a great deal more about
the Admiral, than the Admiral ever thought or talked about him.


The Crofts knew quite as many people in Bath as they wished for, and
considered their intercourse with the Elliots as a mere matter of form,
and not in the least likely to afford them any pleasure.  They brought
with them their country habit of being almost always together.  He was
ordered to walk to keep off the gout, and Mrs Croft seemed to go shares
with him in everything, and to walk for her life to do him good.  Anne
saw them wherever she went.  Lady Russell took her out in her carriage
almost every morning, and she never failed to think of them, and never
failed to see them.  Knowing their feelings as she did, it was a most
attractive picture of happiness to her.  She always watched them as
long as she could, delighted to fancy she understood what they might be
talking of, as they walked along in happy independence, or equally
delighted to see the Admiral's hearty shake of the hand when he
encountered an old friend, and observe their eagerness of conversation
when occasionally forming into a little knot of the navy, Mrs Croft
looking as intelligent and keen as any of the officers around her.


Anne was too much engaged with Lady Russell to be often walking
herself; but it so happened that one morning, about a week or ten days
after the Croft's arrival, it suited her best to leave her friend, or
her friend's carriage, in the lower part of the town, and return alone
to Camden Place, and in walking up Milsom Street she had the good
fortune to meet with the Admiral.  He was standing by himself at a
printshop window, with his hands behind him, in earnest contemplation
of some print, and she not only might have passed him unseen, but was
obliged to touch as well as address him before she could catch his
notice.  When he did perceive and acknowledge her, however, it was done
with all his usual frankness and good humour.  "Ha! is it you?  Thank
you, thank you.  This is treating me like a friend.  Here I am, you
see, staring at a picture.  I can never get by this shop without
stopping.  But what a thing here is, by way of a boat!  Do look at it.
Did you ever see the like?  What queer fellows your fine painters must
be, to think that anybody would venture their lives in such a shapeless
old cockleshell as that?  And yet here are two gentlemen stuck up in it
mightily at their ease, and looking about them at the rocks and
mountains, as if they were not to be upset the next moment, which they
certainly must be.  I wonder where that boat was built!" (laughing
heartily); "I would not venture over a horsepond in it.  Well,"
(turning away), "now, where are you bound?  Can I go anywhere for you,
or with you?  Can I be of any use?"


"None, I thank you, unless you will give me the pleasure of your
company the little way our road lies together.  I am going home."




"That I will, with all my heart, and farther, too.  Yes, yes we will
have a snug walk together, and I have something to tell you as we go
along.  There, take my arm; that's right; I do not feel comfortable if
I have not a woman there.  Lord! what a boat it is!" taking a last look
at the picture, as they began to be in motion.


"Did you say that you had something to tell me, sir?"


"Yes, I have, presently.  But here comes a friend, Captain Brigden; I
shall only say, 'How d'ye do?' as we pass, however.  I shall not stop.
'How d'ye do?'  Brigden stares to see anybody with me but my wife.
She, poor soul, is tied by the leg.  She has a blister on one of her
heels, as large as a three_shilling piece.  If you look across the
street, you will see Admiral Brand coming down and his brother.  Shabby
fellows, both of them!  I am glad they are not on this side of the way.
Sophy cannot bear them.  They played me a pitiful trick once: got away
with some of my best men.  I will tell you the whole story another
time.  There comes old Sir Archibald Drew and his grandson.  Look, he
sees us; he kisses his hand to you; he takes you for my wife.  Ah! the
peace has come too soon for that younker.  Poor old Sir Archibald!  How
do you like Bath, Miss Elliot?  It suits us very well.  We are always
meeting with some old friend or other; the streets full of them every
morning; sure to have plenty of chat; and then we get away from them
all, and shut ourselves in our lodgings, and draw in our chairs, and
are snug as if we were at Kellynch, ay, or as we used to be even at
North Yarmouth and Deal.  We do not like our lodgings here the worse, I
can tell you, for putting us in mind of those we first had at North
Yarmouth.  The wind blows through one of the cupboards just in the same
way."


When they were got a little farther, Anne ventured to press again for
what he had to communicate.  She hoped when clear of Milsom Street to
have her curiosity gratified; but she was still obliged to wait, for
the Admiral had made up his mind not to begin till they had gained the
greater space and quiet of Belmont; and as she was not really Mrs
Croft, she must let him have his own way.  As soon as they were fairly
ascending Belmont, he began__


"Well, now you shall hear something that will surprise you.  But first
of all, you must tell me the name of the young lady I am going to talk
about.  That young lady, you know, that we have all been so concerned
for.  The Miss Musgrove, that all this has been happening to.  Her
Christian name:  I always forget her Christian name."


Anne had been ashamed to appear to comprehend so soon as she really
did; but now she could safely suggest the name of "Louisa."


"Ay, ay, Miss Louisa Musgrove, that is the name.  I wish young ladies
had not such a number of fine Christian names.  I should never be out
if they were all Sophys, or something of that sort.  Well, this Miss
Louisa, we all thought, you know, was to marry Frederick.  He was
courting her week after week.  The only wonder was, what they could be
waiting for, till the business at Lyme came; then, indeed, it was clear
enough that they must wait till her brain was set to right.  But even
then there was something odd in their way of going on.  Instead of
staying at Lyme, he went off to Plymouth, and then he went off to see
Edward.  When we came back from Minehead he was gone down to Edward's,
and there he has been ever since.  We have seen nothing of him since
November.  Even Sophy could not understand it.  But now, the matter has
taken the strangest turn of all; for this young lady, the same Miss
Musgrove, instead of being to marry Frederick, is to marry James
Benwick.  You know James Benwick."


"A little.  I am a little acquainted with Captain Benwick."


"Well, she is to marry him.  Nay, most likely they are married already,
for I do not know what they should wait for."


"I thought Captain Benwick a very pleasing young man," said Anne, "and
I understand that he bears an excellent character."


"Oh! yes, yes, there is not a word to be said against James Benwick.
He is only a commander, it is true, made last summer, and these are bad
times for getting on, but he has not another fault that I know of.  An
excellent, good_hearted fellow, I assure you; a very active, zealous
officer too, which is more than you would think for, perhaps, for that
soft sort of manner does not do him justice."


"Indeed you are mistaken there, sir; I should never augur want of
spirit from Captain Benwick's manners.  I thought them particularly
pleasing, and I will answer for it, they would generally please."


"Well, well, ladies are the best judges; but James Benwick is rather
too piano for me; and though very likely it is all our partiality,
Sophy and I cannot help thinking Frederick's manners better than his.
There is something about Frederick more to our taste."


Anne was caught.  She had only meant to oppose the too common idea of
spirit and gentleness being incompatible with each other, not at all to
represent Captain Benwick's manners as the very best that could
possibly be; and, after a little hesitation, she was beginning to say,
"I was not entering into any comparison of the two friends," but the
Admiral interrupted her with__


"And the thing is certainly true.  It is not a mere bit of gossip.  We
have it from Frederick himself.  His sister had a letter from him
yesterday, in which he tells us of it, and he had just had it in a
letter from Harville, written upon the spot, from Uppercross.  I fancy
they are all at Uppercross."


This was an opportunity which Anne could not resist; she said,
therefore, "I hope, Admiral, I hope there is nothing in the style of
Captain Wentworth's letter to make you and Mrs Croft particularly
uneasy.  It did seem, last autumn, as if there were an attachment
between him and Louisa Musgrove; but I hope it may be understood to
have worn out on each side equally, and without violence.  I hope his
letter does not breathe the spirit of an ill_used man."


"Not at all, not at all; there is not an oath or a murmur from
beginning to end."


Anne looked down to hide her smile.


"No, no; Frederick is not a man to whine and complain; he has too much
spirit for that.  If the girl likes another man better, it is very fit
she should have him."


"Certainly.  But what I mean is, that I hope there is nothing in
Captain Wentworth's manner of writing to make you suppose he thinks
himself ill_used by his friend, which might appear, you know, without
its being absolutely said.  I should be very sorry that such a
friendship as has subsisted between him and Captain Benwick should be
destroyed, or even wounded, by a circumstance of this sort."


"Yes, yes, I understand you.  But there is nothing at all of that
nature in the letter.  He does not give the least fling at Benwick;
does not so much as say, 'I wonder at it, I have a reason of my own for
wondering at it.'  No, you would not guess, from his way of writing,
that he had ever thought of this Miss (what's her name?) for himself.
He very handsomely hopes they will be happy together; and there is
nothing very unforgiving in that, I think."


Anne did not receive the perfect conviction which the Admiral meant to
convey, but it would have been useless to press the enquiry farther.
She therefore satisfied herself with common_place remarks or quiet
attention, and the Admiral had it all his own way.


"Poor Frederick!" said he at last.  "Now he must begin all over again
with somebody else.  I think we must get him to Bath.  Sophy must
write, and beg him to come to Bath.  Here are pretty girls enough, I am
sure.  It would be of no use to go to Uppercross again, for that other
Miss Musgrove, I find, is bespoke by her cousin, the young parson.  Do
not you think, Miss Elliot, we had better try to get him to Bath?"






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 19




While Admiral Croft was taking this walk with Anne, and expressing his
wish of getting Captain Wentworth to Bath, Captain Wentworth was
already on his way thither.  Before Mrs Croft had written, he was
arrived, and the very next time Anne walked out, she saw him.


Mr Elliot was attending his two cousins and Mrs Clay.  They were in
Milsom Street.  It began to rain, not much, but enough to make shelter
desirable for women, and quite enough to make it very desirable for
Miss Elliot to have the advantage of being conveyed home in Lady
Dalrymple's carriage, which was seen waiting at a little distance; she,
Anne, and Mrs Clay, therefore, turned into Molland's, while Mr Elliot
stepped to Lady Dalrymple, to request her assistance.  He soon joined
them again, successful, of course; Lady Dalrymple would be most happy
to take them home, and would call for them in a few minutes.


Her ladyship's carriage was a barouche, and did not hold more than four
with any comfort.  Miss Carteret was with her mother; consequently it
was not reasonable to expect accommodation for all the three Camden
Place ladies.  There could be no doubt as to Miss Elliot.  Whoever
suffered inconvenience, she must suffer none, but it occupied a little
time to settle the point of civility between the other two.  The rain
was a mere trifle, and Anne was most sincere in preferring a walk with
Mr Elliot.  But the rain was also a mere trifle to Mrs Clay; she would
hardly allow it even to drop at all, and her boots were so thick! much
thicker than Miss Anne's; and, in short, her civility rendered her
quite as anxious to be left to walk with Mr Elliot as Anne could be,
and it was discussed between them with a generosity so polite and so
determined, that the others were obliged to settle it for them; Miss
Elliot maintaining that Mrs Clay had a little cold already, and Mr
Elliot deciding on appeal, that his cousin Anne's boots were rather the
thickest.


It was fixed accordingly, that Mrs Clay should be of the party in the
carriage; and they had just reached this point, when Anne, as she sat
near the window, descried, most decidedly and distinctly, Captain
Wentworth walking down the street.


Her start was perceptible only to herself; but she instantly felt that
she was the greatest simpleton in the world, the most unaccountable and
absurd!  For a few minutes she saw nothing before her; it was all
confusion.  She was lost, and when she had scolded back her senses, she
found the others still waiting for the carriage, and Mr Elliot (always
obliging) just setting off for Union Street on a commission of Mrs
Clay's.


She now felt a great inclination to go to the outer door; she wanted to
see if it rained.  Why was she to suspect herself of another motive?
Captain Wentworth must be out of sight.  She left her seat, she would
go; one half of her should not be always so much wiser than the other
half, or always suspecting the other of being worse than it was.  She
would see if it rained.  She was sent back, however, in a moment by the
entrance of Captain Wentworth himself, among a party of gentlemen and
ladies, evidently his acquaintance, and whom he must have joined a
little below Milsom Street.  He was more obviously struck and confused
by the sight of her than she had ever observed before; he looked quite
red.  For the first time, since their renewed acquaintance, she felt
that she was betraying the least sensibility of the two.  She had the
advantage of him in the preparation of the last few moments.  All the
overpowering, blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise
were over with her.  Still, however, she had enough to feel!  It was
agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery.


He spoke to her, and then turned away.  The character of his manner was
embarrassment.  She could not have called it either cold or friendly,
or anything so certainly as embarrassed.


After a short interval, however, he came towards her, and spoke again.
Mutual enquiries on common subjects passed:  neither of them, probably,
much the wiser for what they heard, and Anne continuing fully sensible
of his being less at ease than formerly.  They had by dint of being so
very much together, got to speak to each other with a considerable
portion of apparent indifference and calmness; but he could not do it
now.  Time had changed him, or Louisa had changed him.  There was
consciousness of some sort or other.  He looked very well, not as if he
had been suffering in health or spirits, and he talked of Uppercross,
of the Musgroves, nay, even of Louisa, and had even a momentary look of
his own arch significance as he named her; but yet it was Captain
Wentworth not comfortable, not easy, not able to feign that he was.


It did not surprise, but it grieved Anne to observe that Elizabeth
would not know him.  She saw that he saw Elizabeth, that Elizabeth saw
him, that there was complete internal recognition on each side; she was
convinced that he was ready to be acknowledged as an acquaintance,
expecting it, and she had the pain of seeing her sister turn away with
unalterable coldness.


Lady Dalrymple's carriage, for which Miss Elliot was growing very
impatient, now drew up; the servant came in to announce it.  It was
beginning to rain again, and altogether there was a delay, and a
bustle, and a talking, which must make all the little crowd in the shop
understand that Lady Dalrymple was calling to convey Miss Elliot.  At
last Miss Elliot and her friend, unattended but by the servant, (for
there was no cousin returned), were walking off; and Captain Wentworth,
watching them, turned again to Anne, and by manner, rather than words,
was offering his services to her.


"I am much obliged to you," was her answer, "but I am not going with
them.  The carriage would not accommodate so many.  I walk:  I prefer
walking."


"But it rains."


"Oh! very little,  Nothing that I regard."


After a moment's pause he said:  "Though I came only yesterday, I have
equipped myself properly for Bath already, you see," (pointing to a new
umbrella); "I wish you would make use of it, if you are determined to
walk; though I think it would be more prudent to let me get you a
chair."


She was very much obliged to him, but declined it all, repeating her
conviction, that the rain would come to nothing at present, and adding,
"I am only waiting for Mr Elliot.  He will be here in a moment, I am
sure."


She had hardly spoken the words when Mr Elliot walked in.  Captain
Wentworth recollected him perfectly.  There was no difference between
him and the man who had stood on the steps at Lyme, admiring Anne as
she passed, except in the air and look and manner of the privileged
relation and friend.  He came in with eagerness, appeared to see and
think only of her, apologised for his stay, was grieved to have kept
her waiting, and anxious to get her away without further loss of time
and before the rain increased; and in another moment they walked off
together, her arm under his, a gentle and embarrassed glance, and a
"Good morning to you!" being all that she had time for, as she passed
away.


As soon as they were out of sight, the ladies of Captain Wentworth's
party began talking of them.


"Mr Elliot does not dislike his cousin, I fancy?"


"Oh! no, that is clear enough.  One can guess what will happen there.
He is always with them; half lives in the family, I believe.  What a
very good_looking man!"


"Yes, and Miss Atkinson, who dined with him once at the Wallises, says
he is the most agreeable man she ever was in company with."


"She is pretty, I think; Anne Elliot; very pretty, when one comes to
look at her.  It is not the fashion to say so, but I confess I admire
her more than her sister."


"Oh! so do I."


"And so do I.  No comparison.  But the men are all wild after Miss
Elliot.  Anne is too delicate for them."


Anne would have been particularly obliged to her cousin, if he would
have walked by her side all the way to Camden Place, without saying a
word.  She had never found it so difficult to listen to him, though
nothing could exceed his solicitude and care, and though his subjects
were principally such as were wont to be always interesting: praise,
warm, just, and discriminating, of Lady Russell, and insinuations
highly rational against Mrs Clay.  But just now she could think only of
Captain Wentworth.  She could not understand his present feelings,
whether he were really suffering much from disappointment or not; and
till that point were settled, she could not be quite herself.


She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! alas!  she must
confess to herself that she was not wise yet.


Another circumstance very essential for her to know, was how long he
meant to be in Bath; he had not mentioned it, or she could not
recollect it.  He might be only passing through.  But it was more
probable that he should be come to stay.  In that case, so liable as
every body was to meet every body in Bath, Lady Russell would in all
likelihood see him somewhere.  Would she recollect him?  How would it
all be?


She had already been obliged to tell Lady Russell that Louisa Musgrove
was to marry Captain Benwick.  It had cost her something to encounter
Lady Russell's surprise; and now, if she were by any chance to be
thrown into company with Captain Wentworth, her imperfect knowledge of
the matter might add another shade of prejudice against him.


The following morning Anne was out with her friend, and for the first
hour, in an incessant and fearful sort of watch for him in vain; but at
last, in returning down Pulteney Street, she distinguished him on the
right hand pavement at such a distance as to have him in view the
greater part of the street.  There were many other men about him, many
groups walking the same way, but there was no mistaking him.  She
looked instinctively at Lady Russell; but not from any mad idea of her
recognising him so soon as she did herself.  No, it was not to be
supposed that Lady Russell would perceive him till they were nearly
opposite.  She looked at her however, from time to time, anxiously; and
when the moment approached which must point him out, though not daring
to look again (for her own countenance she knew was unfit to be seen),
she was yet perfectly conscious of Lady Russell's eyes being turned
exactly in the direction for him__of her being, in short, intently
observing him.  She could thoroughly comprehend the sort of fascination
he must possess over Lady Russell's mind, the difficulty it must be for
her to withdraw her eyes, the astonishment she must be feeling that
eight or nine years should have passed over him, and in foreign climes
and in active service too, without robbing him of one personal grace!


At last, Lady Russell drew back her head.  "Now, how would she speak of
him?"


"You will wonder," said she, "what has been fixing my eye so long; but
I was looking after some window_curtains, which Lady Alicia and Mrs
Frankland were telling me of last night.  They described the
drawing_room window_curtains of one of the houses on this side of the
way, and this part of the street, as being the handsomest and best hung
of any in Bath, but could not recollect the exact number, and I have
been trying to find out which it could be; but I confess I can see no
curtains hereabouts that answer their description."


Anne sighed and blushed and smiled, in pity and disdain, either at her
friend or herself.  The part which provoked her most, was that in all
this waste of foresight and caution, she should have lost the right
moment for seeing whether he saw them.


A day or two passed without producing anything.  The theatre or the
rooms, where he was most likely to be, were not fashionable enough for
the Elliots, whose evening amusements were solely in the elegant
stupidity of private parties, in which they were getting more and more
engaged; and Anne, wearied of such a state of stagnation, sick of
knowing nothing, and fancying herself stronger because her strength was
not tried, was quite impatient for the concert evening.  It was a
concert for the benefit of a person patronised by Lady Dalrymple.  Of
course they must attend.  It was really expected to be a good one, and
Captain Wentworth was very fond of music.  If she could only have a few
minutes conversation with him again, she fancied she should be
satisfied; and as to the power of addressing him, she felt all over
courage if the opportunity occurred.  Elizabeth had turned from him,
Lady Russell overlooked him; her nerves were strengthened by these
circumstances; she felt that she owed him attention.


She had once partly promised Mrs Smith to spend the evening with her;
but in a short hurried call she excused herself and put it off, with
the more decided promise of a longer visit on the morrow.  Mrs Smith
gave a most good_humoured acquiescence.


"By all means," said she; "only tell me all about it, when you do come.
Who is your party?"


Anne named them all.  Mrs Smith made no reply; but when she was leaving
her said, and with an expression half serious, half arch, "Well, I
heartily wish your concert may answer; and do not fail me to_morrow if
you can come; for I begin to have a foreboding that I may not have many
more visits from you."


Anne was startled and confused; but after standing in a moment's
suspense, was obliged, and not sorry to be obliged, to hurry away.






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 20




Sir Walter, his two daughters, and Mrs Clay, were the earliest of all
their party at the rooms in the evening; and as Lady Dalrymple must be
waited for, they took their station by one of the fires in the Octagon
Room.  But hardly were they so settled, when the door opened again, and
Captain Wentworth walked in alone.  Anne was the nearest to him, and
making yet a little advance, she instantly spoke.  He was preparing
only to bow and pass on, but her gentle "How do you do?" brought him
out of the straight line to stand near her, and make enquiries in
return, in spite of the formidable father and sister in the back
ground.  Their being in the back ground was a support to Anne; she knew
nothing of their looks, and felt equal to everything which she believed
right to be done.


While they were speaking, a whispering between her father and Elizabeth
caught her ear.  She could not distinguish, but she must guess the
subject; and on Captain Wentworth's making a distant bow, she
comprehended that her father had judged so well as to give him that
simple acknowledgement of acquaintance, and she was just in time by a
side glance to see a slight curtsey from Elizabeth herself.  This,
though late, and reluctant, and ungracious, was yet better than
nothing, and her spirits improved.


After talking, however, of the weather, and Bath, and the concert,
their conversation began to flag, and so little was said at last, that
she was expecting him to go every moment, but he did not; he seemed in
no hurry to leave her; and presently with renewed spirit, with a little
smile, a little glow, he said__


"I have hardly seen you since our day at Lyme.  I am afraid you must
have suffered from the shock, and the more from its not overpowering
you at the time."


She assured him that she had not.


"It was a frightful hour," said he, "a frightful day!" and he passed
his hand across his eyes, as if the remembrance were still too painful,
but in a moment, half smiling again, added, "The day has produced some
effects however; has had some consequences which must be considered as
the very reverse of frightful.  When you had the presence of mind to
suggest that Benwick would be the properest person to fetch a surgeon,
you could have little idea of his being eventually one of those most
concerned in her recovery."


"Certainly I could have none.  But it appears__I should hope it would
be a very happy match.  There are on both sides good principles and
good temper."


"Yes," said he, looking not exactly forward; "but there, I think, ends
the resemblance.  With all my soul I wish them happy, and rejoice over
every circumstance in favour of it.  They have no difficulties to
contend with at home, no opposition, no caprice, no delays.  The
Musgroves are behaving like themselves, most honourably and kindly,
only anxious with true parental hearts to promote their daughter's
comfort.  All this is much, very much in favour of their happiness;
more than perhaps__"


He stopped.  A sudden recollection seemed to occur, and to give him
some taste of that emotion which was reddening Anne's cheeks and fixing
her eyes on the ground.  After clearing his throat, however, he
proceeded thus__


"I confess that I do think there is a disparity, too great a disparity,
and in a point no less essential than mind.  I regard Louisa Musgrove
as a very amiable, sweet_tempered girl, and not deficient in
understanding, but Benwick is something more.  He is a clever man, a
reading man; and I confess, that I do consider his attaching himself to
her with some surprise.  Had it been the effect of gratitude, had he
learnt to love her, because he believed her to be preferring him, it
would have been another thing.  But I have no reason to suppose it so.
It seems, on the contrary, to have been a perfectly spontaneous,
untaught feeling on his side, and this surprises me.  A man like him,
in his situation! with a heart pierced, wounded, almost broken!  Fanny
Harville was a very superior creature, and his attachment to her was
indeed attachment.  A man does not recover from such a devotion of the
heart to such a woman.  He ought not; he does not."


Either from the consciousness, however, that his friend had recovered,
or from other consciousness, he went no farther; and Anne who, in spite
of the agitated voice in which the latter part had been uttered, and in
spite of all the various noises of the room, the almost ceaseless slam
of the door, and ceaseless buzz of persons walking through, had
distinguished every word, was struck, gratified, confused, and
beginning to breathe very quick, and feel an hundred things in a
moment.  It was impossible for her to enter on such a subject; and yet,
after a pause, feeling the necessity of speaking, and having not the
smallest wish for a total change, she only deviated so far as to say__


"You were a good while at Lyme, I think?"


"About a fortnight.  I could not leave it till Louisa's doing well was
quite ascertained.  I had been too deeply concerned in the mischief to
be soon at peace.  It had been my doing, solely mine.  She would not
have been obstinate if I had not been weak.  The country round Lyme is
very fine.  I walked and rode a great deal; and the more I saw, the
more I found to admire."


"I should very much like to see Lyme again," said Anne.


"Indeed!  I should not have supposed that you could have found anything
in Lyme to inspire such a feeling.  The horror and distress you were
involved in, the stretch of mind, the wear of spirits!  I should have
thought your last impressions of Lyme must have been strong disgust."


"The last hours were certainly very painful," replied Anne; "but when
pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.  One does
not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been
all suffering, nothing but suffering, which was by no means the case at
Lyme.  We were only in anxiety and distress during the last two hours,
and previously there had been a great deal of enjoyment.  So much
novelty and beauty! I have travelled so little, that every fresh place
would be interesting to me; but there is real beauty at Lyme; and in
short" (with a faint blush at some recollections), "altogether my
impressions of the place are very agreeable."


As she ceased, the entrance door opened again, and the very party
appeared for whom they were waiting.  "Lady Dalrymple, Lady Dalrymple,"
was the rejoicing sound; and with all the eagerness compatible with
anxious elegance, Sir Walter and his two ladies stepped forward to meet
her.  Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, escorted by Mr Elliot and
Colonel Wallis, who had happened to arrive nearly at the same instant,
advanced into the room.  The others joined them, and it was a group in
which Anne found herself also necessarily included.  She was divided
from Captain Wentworth.  Their interesting, almost too interesting
conversation must be broken up for a time, but slight was the penance
compared with the happiness which brought it on!  She had learnt, in
the last ten minutes, more of his feelings towards Louisa, more of all
his feelings than she dared to think of; and she gave herself up to the
demands of the party, to the needful civilities of the moment, with
exquisite, though agitated sensations.  She was in good humour with
all.  She had received ideas which disposed her to be courteous and
kind to all, and to pity every one, as being less happy than herself.


The delightful emotions were a little subdued, when on stepping back
from the group, to be joined again by Captain Wentworth, she saw that
he was gone.  She was just in time to see him turn into the Concert
Room.  He was gone; he had disappeared, she felt a moment's regret.
But "they should meet again.  He would look for her, he would find her
out before the evening were over, and at present, perhaps, it was as
well to be asunder.  She was in need of a little interval for
recollection."


Upon Lady Russell's appearance soon afterwards, the whole party was
collected, and all that remained was to marshal themselves, and proceed
into the Concert Room; and be of all the consequence in their power,
draw as many eyes, excite as many whispers, and disturb as many people
as they could.


Very, very happy were both Elizabeth and Anne Elliot as they walked in.
Elizabeth arm in arm with Miss Carteret, and looking on the broad back
of the dowager Viscountess Dalrymple before her, had nothing to wish
for which did not seem within her reach; and Anne__but it would be an
insult to the nature of Anne's felicity, to draw any comparison between
it and her sister's; the origin of one all selfish vanity, of the other
all generous attachment.


Anne saw nothing, thought nothing of the brilliancy of the room.  Her
happiness was from within.  Her eyes were bright and her cheeks glowed;
but she knew nothing about it.  She was thinking only of the last half
hour, and as they passed to their seats, her mind took a hasty range
over it.  His choice of subjects, his expressions, and still more his
manner and look, had been such as she could see in only one light.  His
opinion of Louisa Musgrove's inferiority, an opinion which he had
seemed solicitous to give, his wonder at Captain Benwick, his feelings
as to a first, strong attachment; sentences begun which he could not
finish, his half averted eyes and more than half expressive glance,
all, all declared that he had a heart returning to her at least; that
anger, resentment, avoidance, were no more; and that they were
succeeded, not merely by friendship and regard, but by the tenderness
of the past.  Yes, some share of the tenderness of the past.  She could
not contemplate the change as implying less.  He must love her.


These were thoughts, with their attendant visions, which occupied and
flurried her too much to leave her any power of observation; and she
passed along the room without having a glimpse of him, without even
trying to discern him.  When their places were determined on, and they
were all properly arranged, she looked round to see if he should happen
to be in the same part of the room, but he was not; her eye could not
reach him; and the concert being just opening, she must consent for a
time to be happy in a humbler way.


The party was divided and disposed of on two contiguous benches: Anne
was among those on the foremost, and Mr Elliot had manoeuvred so well,
with the assistance of his friend Colonel Wallis, as to have a seat by
her.  Miss Elliot, surrounded by her cousins, and the principal object
of Colonel Wallis's gallantry, was quite contented.


Anne's mind was in a most favourable state for the entertainment of the
evening; it was just occupation enough:  she had feelings for the
tender, spirits for the gay, attention for the scientific, and patience
for the wearisome; and had never liked a concert better, at least
during the first act.  Towards the close of it, in the interval
succeeding an Italian song, she explained the words of the song to Mr
Elliot.  They had a concert bill between them.


"This," said she, "is nearly the sense, or rather the meaning of the
words, for certainly the sense of an Italian love_song must not be
talked of, but it is as nearly the meaning as I can give; for I do not
pretend to understand the language.  I am a very poor Italian scholar."


"Yes, yes, I see you are.  I see you know nothing of the matter.  You
have only knowledge enough of the language to translate at sight these
inverted, transposed, curtailed Italian lines, into clear,
comprehensible, elegant English.  You need not say anything more of
your ignorance.  Here is complete proof."


"I will not oppose such kind politeness; but I should be sorry to be
examined by a real proficient."


"I have not had the pleasure of visiting in Camden Place so long,"
replied he, "without knowing something of Miss Anne Elliot; and I do
regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be
aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for
modesty to be natural in any other woman."


"For shame! for shame! this is too much flattery.  I forget what we are
to have next," turning to the bill.


"Perhaps," said Mr Elliot, speaking low, "I have had a longer
acquaintance with your character than you are aware of."


"Indeed!  How so?  You can have been acquainted with it only since I
came to Bath, excepting as you might hear me previously spoken of in my
own family."


"I knew you by report long before you came to Bath.  I had heard you
described by those who knew you intimately.  I have been acquainted
with you by character many years.  Your person, your disposition,
accomplishments, manner; they were all present to me."


Mr Elliot was not disappointed in the interest he hoped to raise.  No
one can withstand the charm of such a mystery.  To have been described
long ago to a recent acquaintance, by nameless people, is irresistible;
and Anne was all curiosity.  She wondered, and questioned him eagerly;
but in vain.  He delighted in being asked, but he would not tell.


"No, no, some time or other, perhaps, but not now.  He would mention no
names now; but such, he could assure her, had been the fact.  He had
many years ago received such a description of Miss Anne Elliot as had
inspired him with the highest idea of her merit, and excited the
warmest curiosity to know her."


Anne could think of no one so likely to have spoken with partiality of
her many years ago as the Mr Wentworth of Monkford, Captain Wentworth's
brother.  He might have been in Mr Elliot's company, but she had not
courage to ask the question.


"The name of Anne Elliot," said he, "has long had an interesting sound
to me.  Very long has it possessed a charm over my fancy; and, if I
dared, I would breathe my wishes that the name might never change."


Such, she believed, were his words; but scarcely had she received their
sound, than her attention was caught by other sounds immediately behind
her, which rendered every thing else trivial.  Her father and Lady
Dalrymple were speaking.


"A well_looking man," said Sir Walter, "a very well_looking man."


"A very fine young man indeed!" said Lady Dalrymple.  "More air than
one often sees in Bath.  Irish, I dare say."


"No, I just know his name.  A bowing acquaintance.  Wentworth; Captain
Wentworth of the navy.  His sister married my tenant in Somersetshire,
the Croft, who rents Kellynch."


Before Sir Walter had reached this point, Anne's eyes had caught the
right direction, and distinguished Captain Wentworth standing among a
cluster of men at a little distance.  As her eyes fell on him, his
seemed to be withdrawn from her.  It had that appearance.  It seemed as
if she had been one moment too late; and as long as she dared observe,
he did not look again:  but the performance was recommencing, and she
was forced to seem to restore her attention to the orchestra and look
straight forward.


When she could give another glance, he had moved away.  He could not
have come nearer to her if he would; she was so surrounded and shut in:
but she would rather have caught his eye.


Mr Elliot's speech, too, distressed her.  She had no longer any
inclination to talk to him.  She wished him not so near her.


The first act was over.  Now she hoped for some beneficial change; and,
after a period of nothing_saying amongst the party, some of them did
decide on going in quest of tea.  Anne was one of the few who did not
choose to move.  She remained in her seat, and so did Lady Russell; but
she had the pleasure of getting rid of Mr Elliot; and she did not mean,
whatever she might feel on Lady Russell's account, to shrink from
conversation with Captain Wentworth, if he gave her the opportunity.
She was persuaded by Lady Russell's countenance that she had seen him.


He did not come however.  Anne sometimes fancied she discerned him at a
distance, but he never came.  The anxious interval wore away
unproductively.  The others returned, the room filled again, benches
were reclaimed and repossessed, and another hour of pleasure or of
penance was to be sat out, another hour of music was to give delight or
the gapes, as real or affected taste for it prevailed.  To Anne, it
chiefly wore the prospect of an hour of agitation.  She could not quit
that room in peace without seeing Captain Wentworth once more, without
the interchange of one friendly look.


In re_settling themselves there were now many changes, the result of
which was favourable for her.  Colonel Wallis declined sitting down
again, and Mr Elliot was invited by Elizabeth and Miss Carteret, in a
manner not to be refused, to sit between them; and by some other
removals, and a little scheming of her own,  Anne was enabled to place
herself much nearer the end of the bench than she had been before, much
more within reach of a passer_by.  She could not do so, without
comparing herself with Miss Larolles, the inimitable Miss Larolles; but
still she did it, and not with much happier effect; though by what
seemed prosperity in the shape of an early abdication in her next
neighbours, she found herself at the very end of the bench before the
concert closed.


Such was her situation, with a vacant space at hand, when Captain
Wentworth was again in sight.  She saw him not far off.  He saw her
too; yet he looked grave, and seemed irresolute, and only by very slow
degrees came at last near enough to speak to her.  She felt that
something must be the matter.  The change was indubitable.  The
difference between his present air and what it had been in the Octagon
Room was strikingly great.  Why was it?  She thought of her father, of
Lady Russell.  Could there have been any unpleasant glances?  He began
by speaking of the concert gravely, more like the Captain Wentworth of
Uppercross; owned himself disappointed, had expected singing; and in
short, must confess that he should not be sorry when it was over.  Anne
replied, and spoke in defence of the performance so well, and yet in
allowance for his feelings so pleasantly, that his countenance
improved, and he replied again with almost a smile.  They talked for a
few minutes more; the improvement held; he even looked down towards the
bench, as if he saw a place on it well worth occupying; when at that
moment a touch on her shoulder obliged Anne to turn round.  It came
from Mr Elliot.  He begged her pardon, but she must be applied to, to
explain Italian again.  Miss Carteret was very anxious to have a
general idea of what was next to be sung.  Anne could not refuse; but
never had she sacrificed to politeness with a more suffering spirit.


A few minutes, though as few as possible, were inevitably consumed; and
when her own mistress again, when able to turn and look as she had done
before, she found herself accosted by Captain Wentworth, in a reserved
yet hurried sort of farewell.  "He must wish her good night; he was
going; he should get home as fast as he could."


"Is not this song worth staying for?" said Anne, suddenly struck by an
idea which made her yet more anxious to be encouraging.


"No!" he replied impressively, "there is nothing worth my staying for;"
and he was gone directly.


Jealousy of Mr Elliot!  It was the only intelligible motive.  Captain
Wentworth jealous of her affection!  Could she have believed it a week
ago; three hours ago!  For a moment the gratification was exquisite.
But, alas! there were very different thoughts to succeed.  How was such
jealousy to be quieted?  How was the truth to reach him?  How, in all
the peculiar disadvantages of their respective situations, would he
ever learn of her real sentiments?  It was misery to think of Mr
Elliot's attentions.  Their evil was incalculable.






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 21




Anne recollected with pleasure the next morning her promise of going to
Mrs Smith, meaning that it should engage her from home at the time when
Mr Elliot would be most likely to call; for to avoid Mr Elliot was
almost a first object.


She felt a great deal of good_will towards him.  In spite of the
mischief of his attentions, she owed him gratitude and regard, perhaps
compassion.  She could not help thinking much of the extraordinary
circumstances attending their acquaintance, of the right which he
seemed to have to interest her, by everything in situation, by his own
sentiments, by his early prepossession.  It was altogether very
extraordinary; flattering, but painful.  There was much to regret.  How
she might have felt had there been no Captain Wentworth in the case,
was not worth enquiry; for there was a Captain Wentworth; and be the
conclusion of the present suspense good or bad, her affection would be
his for ever.  Their union, she believed, could not divide her more
from other men, than their final separation.


Prettier musings of high_wrought love and eternal constancy, could
never have passed along the streets of Bath, than Anne was sporting
with from Camden Place to Westgate Buildings.  It was almost enough to
spread purification and perfume all the way.


She was sure of a pleasant reception; and her friend seemed this
morning particularly obliged to her for coming, seemed hardly to have
expected her, though it had been an appointment.


An account of the concert was immediately claimed; and Anne's
recollections of the concert were quite happy enough to animate her
features and make her rejoice to talk of it.  All that she could tell
she told most gladly, but the all was little for one who had been
there, and unsatisfactory for such an enquirer as Mrs Smith, who had
already heard, through the short cut of a laundress and a waiter,
rather more of the general success and produce of the evening than Anne
could relate, and who now asked in vain for several particulars of the
company.  Everybody of any consequence or notoriety in Bath was well
know by name to Mrs Smith.


"The little Durands were there, I conclude," said she, "with their
mouths open to catch the music, like unfledged sparrows ready to be
fed.  They never miss a concert."


"Yes; I did not see them myself, but I heard Mr Elliot say they were in
the room."


"The Ibbotsons, were they there? and the two new beauties, with the
tall Irish officer, who is talked of for one of them."


"I do not know.  I do not think they were."


"Old Lady Mary Maclean?  I need not ask after her.  She never misses, I
know; and you must have seen her.  She must have been in your own
circle; for as you went with Lady Dalrymple, you were in the seats of
grandeur, round the orchestra, of course."


"No, that was what I dreaded.  It would have been very unpleasant to me
in every respect.  But happily Lady Dalrymple always chooses to be
farther off; and we were exceedingly well placed, that is, for hearing;
I must not say for seeing, because I appear to have seen very little."


"Oh! you saw enough for your own amusement.  I can understand.  There
is a sort of domestic enjoyment to be known even in a crowd, and this
you had.  You were a large party in yourselves, and you wanted nothing
beyond."


"But I ought to have looked about me more," said Anne, conscious while
she spoke that there had in fact been no want of looking about, that
the object only had been deficient.


"No, no; you were better employed.  You need not tell me that you had a
pleasant evening.  I see it in your eye.  I perfectly see how the hours
passed:  that you had always something agreeable to listen to.  In the
intervals of the concert it was conversation."


Anne half smiled and said, "Do you see that in my eye?"


"Yes, I do.  Your countenance perfectly informs me that you were in
company last night with the person whom you think the most agreeable in
the world, the person who interests you at this present time more than
all the rest of the world put together."


A blush overspread Anne's cheeks.  She could say nothing.


"And such being the case," continued Mrs Smith, after a short pause, "I
hope you believe that I do know how to value your kindness in coming to
me this morning.  It is really very good of you to come and sit with
me, when you must have so many pleasanter demands upon your time."


Anne heard nothing of this.  She was still in the astonishment and
confusion excited by her friend's penetration, unable to imagine how
any report of Captain Wentworth could have reached her.  After another
short silence__


"Pray," said Mrs Smith, "is Mr Elliot aware of your acquaintance with
me?  Does he know that I am in Bath?"


"Mr Elliot!" repeated Anne, looking up surprised.  A moment's
reflection shewed her the mistake she had been under.  She caught it
instantaneously; and recovering her courage with the feeling of safety,
soon added, more composedly, "Are you acquainted with Mr Elliot?"


"I have been a good deal acquainted with him," replied Mrs Smith,
gravely, "but it seems worn out now.  It is a great while since we met."


"I was not at all aware of this.  You never mentioned it before.  Had I
known it, I would have had the pleasure of talking to him about you."


"To confess the truth," said Mrs Smith, assuming her usual air of
cheerfulness, "that is exactly the pleasure I want you to have.  I want
you to talk about me to Mr Elliot.  I want your interest with him.  He
can be of essential service to me; and if you would have the goodness,
my dear Miss Elliot, to make it an object to yourself, of course it is
done."


"I should be extremely happy; I hope you cannot doubt my willingness to
be of even the slightest use to you," replied Anne; "but I suspect that
you are considering me as having a higher claim on Mr Elliot, a greater
right to influence him, than is really the case.  I am sure you have,
somehow or other, imbibed such a notion.  You must consider me only as
Mr Elliot's relation.  If in that light there is anything which you
suppose his cousin might fairly ask of him, I beg you would not
hesitate to employ me."


Mrs Smith gave her a penetrating glance, and then, smiling, said__


"I have been a little premature, I perceive; I beg your pardon.  I
ought to have waited for official information,  But now, my dear Miss
Elliot, as an old friend, do give me a hint as to when I may speak.
Next week?  To be sure by next week I may be allowed to think it all
settled, and build my own selfish schemes on Mr Elliot's good fortune."


"No," replied Anne, "nor next week, nor next, nor next.  I assure you
that nothing of the sort you are thinking of will be settled any week.
I am not going to marry Mr Elliot.  I should like to know why you
imagine I am?"


Mrs Smith looked at her again, looked earnestly, smiled, shook her
head, and exclaimed__


"Now, how I do wish I understood you!  How I do wish I knew what you
were at!  I have a great idea that you do not design to be cruel, when
the right moment occurs.  Till it does come, you know, we women never
mean to have anybody.  It is a thing of course among us, that every man
is refused, till he offers.  But why should you be cruel?  Let me plead
for my__present friend I cannot call him, but for my former friend.
Where can you look for a more suitable match?  Where could you expect a
more gentlemanlike, agreeable man?  Let me recommend Mr Elliot.  I am
sure you hear nothing but good of him from Colonel Wallis; and who can
know him better than Colonel Wallis?"


"My dear Mrs Smith, Mr Elliot's wife has not been dead much above half
a year.  He ought not to be supposed to be paying his addresses to any
one."


"Oh! if these are your only objections," cried Mrs Smith, archly, "Mr
Elliot is safe, and I shall give myself no more trouble about him.  Do
not forget me when you are married, that's all.  Let him know me to be
a friend of yours, and then he will think little of the trouble
required, which it is very natural for him now, with so many affairs
and engagements of his own, to avoid and get rid of as he can; very
natural, perhaps.  Ninety_nine out of a hundred would do the same.  Of
course, he cannot be aware of the importance to me.  Well, my dear Miss
Elliot, I hope and trust you will be very happy.  Mr Elliot has sense
to understand the value of such a woman.  Your peace will not be
shipwrecked as mine has been.  You are safe in all worldly matters, and
safe in his character.  He will not be led astray; he will not be
misled by others to his ruin."


"No," said Anne, "I can readily believe all that of my cousin.  He
seems to have a calm decided temper, not at all open to dangerous
impressions.  I consider him with great respect.  I have no reason,
from any thing that has fallen within my observation, to do otherwise.
But I have not known him long; and he is not a man, I think, to be
known intimately soon.  Will not this manner of speaking of him, Mrs
Smith, convince you that he is nothing to me?  Surely this must be calm
enough.  And, upon my word, he is nothing to me.  Should he ever
propose to me (which I have very little reason to imagine he has any
thought of doing), I shall not accept him.  I assure you I shall not.
I assure you, Mr Elliot had not the share which you have been
supposing, in whatever pleasure the concert of last night might afford:
not Mr Elliot; it is not Mr Elliot that__"


She stopped, regretting with a deep blush that she had implied so much;
but less would hardly have been sufficient.  Mrs Smith would hardly
have believed so soon in Mr Elliot's failure, but from the perception
of there being a somebody else.  As it was, she instantly submitted,
and with all the semblance of seeing nothing beyond; and Anne, eager to
escape farther notice, was impatient to know why Mrs Smith should have
fancied she was to marry Mr Elliot; where she could have received the
idea, or from whom she could have heard it.


"Do tell me how it first came into your head."


"It first came into my head," replied Mrs Smith, "upon finding how much
you were together, and feeling it to be the most probable thing in the
world to be wished for by everybody belonging to either of you; and you
may depend upon it that all your acquaintance have disposed of you in
the same way.  But I never heard it spoken of till two days ago."


"And has it indeed been spoken of?"


"Did you observe the woman who opened the door to you when you called
yesterday?"


"No.  Was not it Mrs Speed, as usual, or the maid?  I observed no one
in particular."


"It was my friend Mrs Rooke; Nurse Rooke; who, by_the_bye, had a great
curiosity to see you, and was delighted to be in the way to let you in.
She came away from Marlborough Buildings only on Sunday; and she it was
who told me you were to marry Mr Elliot.  She had had it from Mrs
Wallis herself, which did not seem bad authority.  She sat an hour with
me on Monday evening, and gave me the whole history." "The whole
history," repeated Anne, laughing.  "She could not make a very long
history, I think, of one such little article of unfounded news."


Mrs Smith said nothing.


"But," continued Anne, presently, "though there is no truth in my
having this claim on Mr Elliot, I should be extremely happy to be of
use to you in any way that I could.  Shall I mention to him your being
in Bath?  Shall I take any message?"


"No, I thank you:  no, certainly not.  In the warmth of the moment, and
under a mistaken impression, I might, perhaps, have endeavoured to
interest you in some circumstances; but not now.  No, I thank you, I
have nothing to trouble you with."


"I think you spoke of having known Mr Elliot many years?"


"I did."


"Not before he was married, I suppose?"


"Yes; he was not married when I knew him first."


"And__were you much acquainted?"


"Intimately."


"Indeed!  Then do tell me what he was at that time of life.  I have a
great curiosity to know what Mr Elliot was as a very young man.  Was he
at all such as he appears now?"


"I have not seen Mr Elliot these three years," was Mrs Smith's answer,
given so gravely that it was impossible to pursue the subject farther;
and Anne felt that she had gained nothing but an increase of curiosity.
They were both silent:  Mrs Smith very thoughtful.  At last__


"I beg your pardon, my dear Miss Elliot," she cried, in her natural
tone of cordiality, "I beg your pardon for the short answers I have
been giving you, but I have been uncertain what I ought to do.  I have
been doubting and considering as to what I ought to tell you.  There
were many things to be taken into the account.  One hates to be
officious, to be giving bad impressions, making mischief.  Even the
smooth surface of family_union seems worth preserving, though there may
be nothing durable beneath.  However, I have determined; I think I am
right; I think you ought to be made acquainted with Mr Elliot's real
character.  Though I fully believe that, at present, you have not the
smallest intention of accepting him, there is no saying what may
happen.  You might, some time or other, be differently affected towards
him.  Hear the truth, therefore, now, while you are unprejudiced.  Mr
Elliot is a man without heart or conscience; a designing, wary,
cold_blooded being, who thinks only of himself; whom for his own
interest or ease, would be guilty of any cruelty, or any treachery,
that could be perpetrated without risk of his general character.  He
has no feeling for others.  Those whom he has been the chief cause of
leading into ruin, he can neglect and desert without the smallest
compunction.  He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of
justice or compassion.  Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black!"


Anne's astonished air, and exclamation of wonder, made her pause, and
in a calmer manner, she added,


"My expressions startle you.  You must allow for an injured, angry
woman.  But I will try to command myself.  I will not abuse him.  I
will only tell you what I have found him.  Facts shall speak.  He was
the intimate friend of my dear husband, who trusted and loved him, and
thought him as good as himself.  The intimacy had been formed before
our marriage.  I found them most intimate friends; and I, too, became
excessively pleased with Mr Elliot, and entertained the highest opinion
of him.  At nineteen, you know, one does not think very seriously; but
Mr Elliot appeared to me quite as good as others, and much more
agreeable than most others, and we were almost always together.  We
were principally in town, living in very good style.  He was then the
inferior in circumstances; he was then the poor one; he had chambers in
the Temple, and it was as much as he could do to support the appearance
of a gentleman.  He had always a home with us whenever he chose it; he
was always welcome; he was like a brother.  My poor Charles, who had
the finest, most generous spirit in the world, would have divided his
last farthing with him; and I know that his purse was open to him; I
know that he often assisted him."


"This must have been about that very period of Mr Elliot's life," said
Anne, "which has always excited my particular curiosity.  It must have
been about the same time that he became known to my father and sister.
I never knew him myself; I only heard of him; but there was a something
in his conduct then, with regard to my father and sister, and
afterwards in the circumstances of his marriage, which I never could
quite reconcile with present times.  It seemed to announce a different
sort of man."


"I know it all, I know it all," cried Mrs Smith.  "He had been
introduced to Sir Walter and your sister before I was acquainted with
him, but I heard him speak of them for ever.  I know he was invited and
encouraged, and I know he did not choose to go.  I can satisfy you,
perhaps, on points which you would little expect; and as to his
marriage, I knew all about it at the time.  I was privy to all the fors
and againsts; I was the friend to whom he confided his hopes and plans;
and though I did not know his wife previously, her inferior situation
in society, indeed, rendered that impossible, yet I knew her all her
life afterwards, or at least till within the last two years of her
life, and can answer any question you may wish to put."


"Nay," said Anne, "I have no particular enquiry to make about her.  I
have always understood they were not a happy couple.  But I should like
to know why, at that time of his life, he should slight my father's
acquaintance as he did.  My father was certainly disposed to take very
kind and proper notice of him.  Why did Mr Elliot draw back?"


"Mr Elliot," replied Mrs Smith, "at that period of his life, had one
object in view:  to make his fortune, and by a rather quicker process
than the law.  He was determined to make it by marriage.  He was
determined, at least, not to mar it by an imprudent marriage; and I
know it was his belief (whether justly or not, of course I cannot
decide), that your father and sister, in their civilities and
invitations, were designing a match between the heir and the young
lady, and it was impossible that such a match should have answered his
ideas of wealth and independence.  That was his motive for drawing
back, I can assure you.  He told me the whole story.  He had no
concealments with me.  It was curious, that having just left you behind
me in Bath, my first and principal acquaintance on marrying should be
your cousin; and that, through him, I should be continually hearing of
your father and sister.  He described one Miss Elliot, and I thought
very affectionately of the other."


"Perhaps," cried Anne, struck by a sudden idea, "you sometimes spoke of
me to Mr Elliot?"


"To be sure I did; very often.  I used to boast of my own Anne Elliot,
and vouch for your being a very different creature from__"


She checked herself just in time.


"This accounts for something which Mr Elliot said last night," cried
Anne.  "This explains it.  I found he had been used to hear of me.  I
could not comprehend how.  What wild imaginations one forms where dear
self is concerned!  How sure to be mistaken!  But I beg your pardon; I
have interrupted you.  Mr Elliot married then completely for money?
The circumstances, probably, which first opened your eyes to his
character."


Mrs Smith hesitated a little here.  "Oh! those things are too common.
When one lives in the world, a man or woman's marrying for money is too
common to strike one as it ought.  I was very young, and associated
only with the young, and we were a thoughtless, gay set, without any
strict rules of conduct.  We lived for enjoyment.  I think differently
now; time and sickness and sorrow have given me other notions; but at
that period I must own I saw nothing reprehensible in what Mr Elliot
was doing.  'To do the best for himself,' passed as a duty."


"But was not she a very low woman?"


"Yes; which I objected to, but he would not regard.  Money, money, was
all that he wanted.  Her father was a grazier, her grandfather had been
a butcher, but that was all nothing.  She was a fine woman, had had a
decent education, was brought forward by some cousins, thrown by chance
into Mr Elliot's company, and fell in love with him; and not a
difficulty or a scruple was there on his side, with respect to her
birth.  All his caution was spent in being secured of the real amount
of her fortune, before he committed himself.  Depend upon it, whatever
esteem Mr Elliot may have for his own situation in life now, as a young
man he had not the smallest value for it.  His chance for the Kellynch
estate was something, but all the honour of the family he held as cheap
as dirt.  I have often heard him declare, that if baronetcies were
saleable, anybody should have his for fifty pounds, arms and motto,
name and livery included; but I will not pretend to repeat half that I
used to hear him say on that subject.  It would not be fair; and yet
you ought to have proof, for what is all this but assertion, and you
shall have proof."


"Indeed, my dear Mrs Smith, I want none," cried Anne.  "You have
asserted nothing contradictory to what Mr Elliot appeared to be some
years ago.  This is all in confirmation, rather, of what we used to
hear and believe.  I am more curious to know why he should be so
different now."


"But for my satisfaction, if you will have the goodness to ring for
Mary; stay:  I am sure you will have the still greater goodness of
going yourself into my bedroom, and bringing me the small inlaid box
which you will find on the upper shelf of the closet."


Anne, seeing her friend to be earnestly bent on it, did as she was
desired.  The box was brought and placed before her, and Mrs Smith,
sighing over it as she unlocked it, said__


"This is full of papers belonging to him, to my husband; a small
portion only of what I had to look over when I lost him.  The letter I
am looking for was one written by Mr Elliot to him before our marriage,
and happened to be saved; why, one can hardly imagine.  But he was
careless and immethodical, like other men, about those things; and when
I came to examine his papers, I found it with others still more
trivial, from different people scattered here and there, while many
letters and memorandums of real importance had been destroyed.  Here it
is; I would not burn it, because being even then very little satisfied
with Mr Elliot, I was determined to preserve every document of former
intimacy.  I have now another motive for being glad that I can produce
it."


This was the letter, directed to "Charles Smith, Esq. Tunbridge Wells,"
and dated from London, as far back as July, 1803:__


"Dear Smith,__I have received yours.  Your kindness almost overpowers
me.  I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common, but I
have lived three_and_twenty years in the world, and have seen none like
it.  At present, believe me, I have no need of your services, being in
cash again.  Give me joy:  I have got rid of Sir Walter and Miss.  They
are gone back to Kellynch, and almost made me swear to visit them this
summer; but my first visit to Kellynch will be with a surveyor, to tell
me how to bring it with best advantage to the hammer.  The baronet,
nevertheless, is not unlikely to marry again; he is quite fool enough.
If he does, however, they will leave me in peace, which may be a decent
equivalent  for the reversion.  He is worse than last year.


"I wish I had any name but Elliot.  I am sick of it.  The name of
Walter I can drop, thank God! and I desire you will never insult me
with my second W. again, meaning, for the rest of my life, to be only
yours truly,__Wm. Elliot."


Such a letter could not be read without putting Anne in a glow; and Mrs
Smith, observing the high colour in her face, said__


"The language, I know, is highly disrespectful.  Though I have forgot
the exact terms, I have a perfect impression of the general meaning.
But it shows you the man.  Mark his professions to my poor husband.
Can any thing be stronger?"


Anne could not immediately get over the shock and mortification of
finding such words applied to her father.  She was obliged to recollect
that her seeing the letter was a violation of the laws of honour, that
no one ought to be judged or to be known by such testimonies, that no
private correspondence could bear the eye of others, before she could
recover calmness enough to return the letter which she had been
meditating over, and say__


"Thank you.  This is full proof undoubtedly; proof of every thing you
were saying.  But why be acquainted with us now?"


"I can explain this too," cried Mrs Smith, smiling.


"Can you really?"


"Yes.  I have shewn you Mr Elliot as he was a dozen years ago, and I
will shew him as he is now.  I cannot produce written proof again, but
I can give as authentic oral testimony as you can desire, of what he is
now wanting, and what he is now doing.  He is no hypocrite now.  He
truly wants to marry you.  His present attentions to your family are
very sincere:  quite from the heart.  I will give you my authority: his
friend Colonel Wallis."


"Colonel Wallis! you are acquainted with him?"


"No.  It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it
takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence.  The stream is as good
as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily
moved away.  Mr Elliot talks unreservedly to Colonel Wallis of his
views on you, which said Colonel Wallis, I imagine to be, in himself, a
sensible, careful, discerning sort of character; but Colonel Wallis has
a very pretty silly wife, to whom he tells things which he had better
not, and he repeats it all to her.  She in the overflowing spirits of
her recovery, repeats it all to her nurse; and the nurse  knowing my
acquaintance with you, very naturally brings it all to me.  On Monday
evening, my good friend Mrs Rooke let me thus much into the secrets of
Marlborough Buildings.  When I talked of a whole history, therefore,
you see I was not romancing so much as you supposed."


"My dear Mrs Smith, your authority is deficient.  This will not do.  Mr
Elliot's having any views on me will not in the least account for the
efforts he made towards a reconciliation with my father.  That was all
prior to my coming to Bath.  I found them on the most friendly terms
when I arrived."


"I know you did; I know it all perfectly, but__"


"Indeed, Mrs Smith, we must not expect to get real information in such
a line.  Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so
many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can
hardly have much truth left."


"Only give me a hearing.  You will soon be able to judge of the general
credit due, by listening to some particulars which you can yourself
immediately contradict or confirm.  Nobody supposes that you were his
first inducement.  He had seen you indeed, before he came to Bath, and
admired you, but without knowing it to be you.  So says my historian,
at least.  Is this true?  Did he see you last summer or autumn,
'somewhere down in the west,' to use her own words, without knowing it
to be you?"


"He certainly did.  So far it is very true.  At Lyme.  I happened to be
at Lyme."


"Well," continued Mrs Smith, triumphantly, "grant my friend the credit
due to the establishment of the first point asserted.  He saw you then
at Lyme, and liked you so well as to be exceedingly pleased to meet
with you again in Camden Place, as Miss Anne Elliot, and from that
moment, I have no doubt, had a double motive in his visits there.  But
there was another, and an earlier, which I will now explain.  If there
is anything in my story which you know to be either false or
improbable, stop me.  My account states, that your sister's friend, the
lady now staying with you, whom I have heard you mention, came to Bath
with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter as long ago as September (in short when
they first came themselves), and has been staying there ever since;
that she is a clever, insinuating, handsome woman, poor and plausible,
and altogether such in situation and manner, as to give a general idea,
among Sir Walter's acquaintance, of her meaning to be Lady Elliot, and
as general a surprise that Miss Elliot should be apparently, blind to
the danger."


Here Mrs Smith paused a moment; but Anne had not a word to say, and she
continued__


"This was the light in which it appeared to those who knew the family,
long before you returned to it; and Colonel Wallis had his eye upon
your father enough to be sensible of it, though he did not then visit
in Camden Place; but his regard for Mr Elliot gave him an interest in
watching all that was going on there, and when Mr Elliot came to Bath
for a day or two, as he happened to do a little before Christmas,
Colonel Wallis made him acquainted with the appearance of things, and
the reports beginning to prevail.  Now you are to understand, that time
had worked a very material change in Mr Elliot's opinions as to the
value of a baronetcy.  Upon all points of blood and connexion he is a
completely altered man.  Having long had as much money as he could
spend, nothing to wish for on the side of avarice or indulgence, he has
been gradually learning to pin his happiness upon the consequence he is
heir to.  I thought it coming on before our acquaintance ceased, but it
is now a confirmed feeling.  He cannot bear the idea of not being Sir
William.  You may guess, therefore, that the news he heard from his
friend could not be very agreeable, and you may guess what it produced;
the resolution of coming back to Bath as soon as possible, and of
fixing himself here for a time, with the view of renewing his former
acquaintance, and recovering such a footing in the family as might give
him the means of ascertaining the degree of his danger, and of
circumventing the lady if he found it material.  This was agreed upon
between the two friends as the only thing to be done; and Colonel
Wallis was to assist in every way that he could.  He was to be
introduced, and Mrs Wallis was to be introduced, and everybody was to
be introduced.  Mr Elliot came back accordingly; and on application was
forgiven, as you know, and re_admitted into the family; and there it
was his constant object, and his only object (till your arrival added
another motive), to watch Sir Walter and Mrs Clay.  He omitted no
opportunity of being with them, threw himself in their way, called at
all hours; but I need not be particular on this subject.  You can
imagine what an artful man would do; and with this guide, perhaps, may
recollect what you have seen him do."


"Yes," said Anne, "you tell me nothing which does not accord with what
I have known, or could imagine.  There is always something offensive in
the details of cunning.  The manoeuvres of selfishness and duplicity
must ever be revolting, but I have heard nothing which really surprises
me.  I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr
Elliot, who would have difficulty in believing it; but I have never
been satisfied.  I have always wanted some other motive for his conduct
than appeared.  I should like to know his present opinion, as to the
probability of the event he has been in dread of; whether he considers
the danger to be lessening or not."


"Lessening, I understand," replied Mrs Smith.  "He thinks Mrs Clay
afraid of him, aware that he sees through her, and not daring to
proceed as she might do in his absence.  But since he must be absent
some time or other, I do not perceive how he can ever be secure while
she holds her present influence.  Mrs Wallis has an amusing idea, as
nurse tells me, that it is to be put into the marriage articles when
you and Mr Elliot marry, that your father is not to marry Mrs Clay.  A
scheme, worthy of Mrs Wallis's understanding, by all accounts; but my
sensible nurse Rooke sees the absurdity of it.  'Why, to be sure,
ma'am,' said she, 'it would not prevent his marrying anybody else.'
And, indeed, to own the truth, I do not think nurse, in her heart, is a
very strenuous opposer of Sir Walter's making a second match.  She must
be allowed to be a favourer of matrimony, you know; and (since self
will intrude) who can say that she may not have some flying visions of
attending the next Lady Elliot, through Mrs Wallis's recommendation?"


"I am very glad to know all this," said Anne, after a little
thoughtfulness.  "It will be more painful to me in some respects to be
in company with him, but I shall know better what to do.  My line of
conduct will be more direct.  Mr Elliot is evidently a disingenuous,
artificial, worldly man, who has never had any better principle to
guide him than selfishness."


But Mr Elliot was not done with.  Mrs Smith had been carried away from
her first direction, and Anne had forgotten, in the interest of her own
family concerns, how much had been originally implied against him; but
her attention was now called to the explanation of those first hints,
and she listened to a recital which, if it did not perfectly justify
the unqualified bitterness of Mrs Smith, proved him to have been very
unfeeling in his conduct towards her; very deficient both in justice
and compassion.


She learned that (the intimacy between them continuing unimpaired by Mr
Elliot's marriage) they had been as before always together, and Mr
Elliot had led his friend into expenses much beyond his fortune.  Mrs
Smith did not want to take blame to herself, and was most tender of
throwing any on her husband; but Anne could collect that their income
had never been equal to their style of living, and that from the first
there had been a great deal of general and joint extravagance.  From
his wife's account of him she could discern Mr Smith to have been a man
of warm feelings, easy temper, careless habits, and not strong
understanding, much more amiable than his friend, and very unlike him,
led by him, and probably despised by him.  Mr Elliot, raised by his
marriage to great affluence, and disposed to every gratification of
pleasure and vanity which could be commanded without involving himself,
(for with all his self_indulgence he had become a prudent man), and
beginning to be rich, just as his friend ought to have found himself to
be poor, seemed to have had no concern at all for that friend's
probable finances, but, on the contrary, had been prompting and
encouraging expenses which could end only in ruin; and the Smiths
accordingly had been ruined.


The husband had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of
it.  They had previously known embarrassments enough to try the
friendship of their friends, and to prove that Mr Elliot's had better
not be tried; but it was not till his death that the wretched state of
his affairs was fully known.  With a confidence in Mr Elliot's regard,
more creditable to his feelings than his judgement, Mr Smith had
appointed him the executor of his will; but Mr Elliot would not act,
and the difficulties and distress which this refusal had heaped on her,
in addition to the inevitable sufferings of her situation, had been
such as could not be related without anguish of spirit, or listened to
without corresponding indignation.


Anne was shewn some letters of his on the occasion, answers to urgent
applications from Mrs Smith, which all breathed the same stern
resolution of not engaging in a fruitless trouble, and, under a cold
civility, the same hard_hearted indifference to any of the evils it
might bring on her.  It was a dreadful picture of ingratitude and
inhumanity; and Anne felt, at some moments, that no flagrant open crime
could have been worse.  She had a great deal to listen to; all the
particulars of past sad scenes, all the minutiae of distress upon
distress, which in former conversations had been merely hinted at, were
dwelt on now with a natural indulgence.  Anne could perfectly
comprehend the exquisite relief, and was only the more inclined to
wonder at the composure of her friend's usual state of mind.


There was one circumstance in the history of her grievances of
particular irritation.  She had good reason to believe that some
property of her husband in the West Indies, which had been for many
years under a sort of sequestration for the payment of its own
incumbrances, might be recoverable by proper measures; and this
property, though not large, would be enough to make her comparatively
rich.  But there was nobody to stir in it.  Mr Elliot would do nothing,
and she could do nothing herself, equally disabled from personal
exertion by her state of bodily weakness, and from employing others by
her want of money.  She had no natural connexions to assist her even
with their counsel, and she could not afford to purchase the assistance
of the law.  This was a cruel aggravation of actually straitened means.
To feel that she ought to be in better circumstances, that a little
trouble in the right place might do it, and to fear that delay might be
even weakening her claims, was hard to bear.


It was on this point that she had hoped to engage Anne's good offices
with Mr Elliot.  She had previously, in the anticipation of their
marriage, been very apprehensive of losing her friend by it; but on
being assured that he could have made no attempt of that nature, since
he did not even know her to be in Bath, it immediately occurred, that
something might be done in her favour by the influence of the woman he
loved, and she had been hastily preparing to interest Anne's feelings,
as far as the observances due to Mr Elliot's character would allow,
when Anne's refutation of the supposed engagement changed the face of
everything; and while it took from her the new_formed hope of
succeeding in the object of her first anxiety, left her at least the
comfort of telling the whole story her own way.


After listening to this full description of Mr Elliot, Anne could not
but express some surprise at Mrs Smith's having spoken of him so
favourably in the beginning of their conversation.  "She had seemed to
recommend and praise him!"


"My dear," was Mrs Smith's reply, "there was nothing else to be done.
I considered your marrying him as certain, though he might not yet have
made the offer, and I could no more speak the truth of him, than if he
had been your husband.  My heart bled for you, as I talked of
happiness; and yet he is sensible, he is agreeable, and with such a
woman as you, it was not absolutely hopeless.  He was very unkind to
his first wife.  They were wretched together.  But she was too ignorant
and giddy for respect, and he had never loved her.  I was willing to
hope that you must fare better."


Anne could just acknowledge within herself such a possibility of having
been induced to marry him, as made her shudder at the idea of the
misery which must have followed.  It was just possible that she might
have been persuaded by Lady Russell!  And under such a supposition,
which would have been most miserable, when time had disclosed all, too
late?


It was very desirable that Lady Russell should be no longer deceived;
and one of the concluding arrangements of this important conference,
which carried them through the greater part of the morning, was, that
Anne had full liberty to communicate to her friend everything relative
to Mrs Smith, in which his conduct was involved.






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 22




Anne went home to think over all that she had heard.  In one point, her
feelings were relieved by this knowledge of Mr Elliot.  There was no
longer anything of tenderness due to him.  He stood as opposed to
Captain Wentworth, in all his own unwelcome obtrusiveness; and the evil
of his attentions last night, the irremediable mischief he might have
done, was considered with sensations unqualified, unperplexed.  Pity
for him was all over.  But this was the only point of relief.  In every
other respect, in looking around her, or penetrating forward, she saw
more to distrust and to apprehend.  She was concerned for the
disappointment and pain Lady Russell would be feeling; for the
mortifications which must be hanging over her father and sister, and
had all the distress of foreseeing many evils, without knowing how to
avert any one of them.  She was most thankful for her own knowledge of
him.  She had never considered herself as entitled to reward for not
slighting an old friend like Mrs Smith, but here was a reward indeed
springing from it!  Mrs Smith had been able to tell her what no one
else could have done.  Could the knowledge have been extended through
her family?  But this was a vain idea.  She must talk to Lady Russell,
tell her, consult with her, and having done her best, wait the event
with as much composure as possible; and after all, her greatest want of
composure would be in that quarter of the mind which could not be
opened to Lady Russell; in that flow of anxieties and fears which must
be all to herself.




She found, on reaching home, that she had, as she intended, escaped
seeing Mr Elliot; that he had called and paid them a long morning
visit; but hardly had she congratulated herself, and felt safe, when
she heard that he was coming again in the evening.


"I had not the smallest intention of asking him," said Elizabeth, with
affected carelessness, "but he gave so many hints; so Mrs Clay says, at
least."


"Indeed, I do say it.  I never saw anybody in my life spell harder for
an invitation.  Poor man!  I was really in pain for him; for your
hard_hearted sister, Miss Anne, seems bent on cruelty."


"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, "I have been rather too much used to the game to
be soon overcome by a gentleman's hints.  However, when I found how
excessively he was regretting that he should miss my father this
morning, I gave way immediately, for I would never really omit an
opportunity of bring him and Sir Walter together.  They appear to so
much advantage in company with each other.  Each behaving so
pleasantly.  Mr Elliot looking up with so much respect."


"Quite delightful!" cried Mrs Clay, not daring, however, to turn her
eyes towards Anne.  "Exactly like father and son!  Dear Miss Elliot,
may I not say father and son?"


"Oh! I lay no embargo on any body's words.  If you will have such
ideas!  But, upon my word, I am scarcely sensible of his attentions
being beyond those of other men."


"My dear Miss Elliot!" exclaimed Mrs Clay, lifting her hands and eyes,
and sinking all the rest of her astonishment in a convenient silence.


"Well, my dear Penelope, you need not be so alarmed about him.  I did
invite him, you know.  I sent him away with smiles.  When I found he
was really going to his friends at Thornberry Park for the whole day
to_morrow, I had compassion on him."


Anne admired the good acting of the friend, in being able to shew such
pleasure as she did, in the expectation and in the actual arrival of
the very person whose presence must really be interfering with her
prime object.  It was impossible but that Mrs Clay must hate the sight
of Mr Elliot; and yet she could assume a most obliging, placid look,
and appear quite satisfied with the curtailed license of devoting
herself only half as much to Sir Walter as she would have done
otherwise.


To Anne herself it was most distressing to see Mr Elliot enter the
room; and quite painful to have him approach and speak to her.  She had
been used before to feel that he could not be always quite sincere, but
now she saw insincerity in everything.  His attentive deference to her
father, contrasted with his former language, was odious; and when she
thought of his cruel conduct towards Mrs Smith, she could hardly bear
the sight of his present smiles and mildness, or the sound of his
artificial good sentiments.


She meant to avoid any such alteration of manners as might provoke a
remonstrance on his side.  It was a great object to her to escape all
enquiry or eclat; but it was her intention to be as decidedly cool to
him as might be compatible with their relationship; and to retrace, as
quietly as she could, the few steps of unnecessary intimacy she had
been gradually led along.  She was accordingly more guarded, and more
cool, than she had been the night before.


He wanted to animate her curiosity again as to how and where he could
have heard her formerly praised; wanted very much to be gratified by
more solicitation; but the charm was broken: he found that the heat and
animation of a public room was necessary to kindle his modest cousin's
vanity; he found, at least, that it was not to be done now, by any of
those attempts which he could hazard among the too_commanding claims of
the others.  He little surmised that it was a subject acting now
exactly against his interest, bringing immediately to her thoughts all
those parts of his conduct which were least excusable.


She had some satisfaction in finding that he was really going out of
Bath the next morning, going early, and that he would be gone the
greater part of two days.  He was invited again to Camden Place the
very evening of his return; but from Thursday to Saturday evening his
absence was certain.  It was bad enough that a Mrs Clay should be
always before her; but that a deeper hypocrite should be added to their
party, seemed the destruction of everything like peace and comfort.  It
was so humiliating to reflect on the constant deception practised on
her father and Elizabeth; to consider the various sources of
mortification preparing for them!  Mrs Clay's selfishness was not so
complicate nor so revolting as his; and Anne would have compounded for
the marriage at once, with all its evils, to be clear of Mr Elliot's
subtleties in endeavouring to prevent it.


On Friday morning she meant to go very early to Lady Russell, and
accomplish the necessary communication; and she would have gone
directly after breakfast, but that Mrs Clay was also going out on some
obliging purpose of saving her sister trouble, which determined her to
wait till she might be safe from such a companion.  She saw Mrs Clay
fairly off, therefore, before she began to talk of spending the morning
in Rivers Street.


"Very well," said Elizabeth, "I have nothing to send but my love.  Oh!
you may as well take back that tiresome book she would lend me, and
pretend I have read it through.  I really cannot be plaguing myself for
ever with all the new poems and states of the nation that come out.
Lady Russell quite bores one with her new publications.  You need not
tell her so, but I thought her dress hideous the other night.  I used
to think she had some taste in dress, but I was ashamed of her at the
concert.  Something so formal and arrange in her air!  and she sits so
upright!  My best love, of course."


"And mine," added Sir Walter.  "Kindest regards.  And you may say, that
I mean to call upon her soon.  Make a civil message; but I shall only
leave my card.  Morning visits are never fair by women at her time of
life, who make themselves up so little.  If she would only wear rouge
she would not be afraid of being seen; but last time I called, I
observed the blinds were let down immediately."


While her father spoke, there was a knock at the door.  Who could it
be?  Anne, remembering the preconcerted visits, at all hours, of Mr
Elliot, would have expected him, but for his known engagement seven
miles off.  After the usual period of suspense, the usual sounds of
approach were heard, and "Mr and Mrs Charles Musgrove" were ushered
into the room.


Surprise was the strongest emotion raised by their appearance; but Anne
was really glad to see them; and the others were not so sorry but that
they could put on a decent air of welcome; and as soon as it became
clear that these, their nearest relations, were not arrived with any
views of accommodation in that house, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were
able to rise in cordiality, and do the honours of it very well.  They
were come to Bath for a few days with Mrs Musgrove, and were at the
White Hart.  So much was pretty soon understood; but till Sir Walter
and Elizabeth were walking Mary into the other drawing_room, and
regaling themselves with her admiration, Anne could not draw upon
Charles's brain for a regular history of their coming, or an
explanation of some smiling hints of particular business, which had
been ostentatiously dropped by Mary, as well as of some apparent
confusion as to whom their party consisted of.


She then found that it consisted of Mrs Musgrove, Henrietta, and
Captain Harville, beside their two selves.  He gave her a very plain,
intelligible account of the whole; a narration in which she saw a great
deal of most characteristic proceeding.  The scheme had received its
first impulse by Captain Harville's wanting to come to Bath on
business.  He had begun to talk of it a week ago; and by way of doing
something, as shooting was over, Charles had proposed coming with him,
and Mrs Harville had seemed to like the idea of it very much, as an
advantage to her husband; but Mary could not bear to be left, and had
made herself so unhappy about it, that for a day or two everything
seemed to be in suspense, or at an end.  But then, it had been taken up
by his father and mother.  His mother had some old friends in Bath whom
she wanted to see; it was thought a good opportunity for Henrietta to
come and buy wedding_clothes for herself and her sister; and, in short,
it ended in being his mother's party, that everything might be
comfortable and easy to Captain Harville; and he and Mary were included
in it by way of general convenience.  They had arrived late the night
before.  Mrs Harville, her children, and Captain Benwick, remained with
Mr Musgrove and Louisa at Uppercross.


Anne's only surprise was, that affairs should be in forwardness enough
for Henrietta's wedding_clothes to be talked of.  She had imagined such
difficulties of fortune to exist there as must prevent the marriage
from being near at hand; but she learned from Charles that, very
recently, (since Mary's last letter to herself), Charles Hayter had
been applied to by a friend to hold a living for a youth who could not
possibly claim it under many years; and that on the strength of his
present income, with almost a certainty of something more permanent
long before the term in question, the two families had consented to the
young people's wishes, and that their marriage was likely to take place
in a few months, quite as soon as Louisa's.  "And a very good living it
was," Charles added:  "only five_and_twenty miles from Uppercross, and
in a very fine country: fine part of Dorsetshire.  In the centre of
some of the best preserves in the kingdom, surrounded by three great
proprietors, each more careful and jealous than the other; and to two
of the three at least, Charles Hayter might get a special
recommendation.  Not that he will value it as he ought," he observed,
"Charles is too cool about sporting. That's the worst of him."


"I am extremely glad, indeed," cried Anne, "particularly glad that this
should happen; and that of two sisters, who both deserve equally well,
and who have always been such good friends, the pleasant prospect of
one should not be dimming those of the other__that they should be so
equal in their prosperity and comfort.  I hope your father and mother
are quite happy with regard to both."


"Oh! yes.  My father would be well pleased if the gentlemen were
richer, but he has no other fault to find.  Money, you know, coming
down with money__two daughters at once__it cannot be a very agreeable
operation, and it streightens him as to many things.  However, I do not
mean to say they have not a right to it.  It is very fit they should
have daughters' shares; and I am sure he has always been a very kind,
liberal father to me.  Mary does not above half like Henrietta's match.
She never did, you know.  But she does not do him justice, nor think
enough about Winthrop.  I cannot make her attend to the value of the
property.  It is a very fair match, as times go; and I have liked
Charles Hayter all my life, and I shall not leave off now."


"Such excellent parents as Mr and Mrs Musgrove," exclaimed Anne,
"should be happy in their children's marriages.  They do everything to
confer happiness, I am sure.  What a blessing to young people to be in
such hands!  Your father and mother seem so totally free from all those
ambitious feelings which have led to so much misconduct and misery,
both in young and old.  I hope you think Louisa perfectly recovered
now?"


He answered rather hesitatingly, "Yes, I believe I do; very much
recovered; but she is altered; there is no running or jumping about, no
laughing or dancing; it is quite different.  If one happens only to
shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young
dab_chick in the water; and Benwick sits at her elbow, reading verses,
or whispering to her, all day long."


Anne could not help laughing.  "That cannot be much to your taste, I
know," said she; "but I do believe him to be an excellent young man."


"To be sure he is.  Nobody doubts it; and I hope you do not think I am
so illiberal as to want every man to have the same objects and
pleasures as myself.  I have a great value for Benwick; and when one
can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say.  His reading has done
him no harm, for he has fought as well as read.  He is a brave fellow.
I got more acquainted with him last Monday than ever I did before.  We
had a famous set_to at rat_hunting all the morning in my father's great
barns; and he played his part so well that I have liked him the better
ever since."


Here they were interrupted by the absolute necessity of Charles's
following the others to admire mirrors and china; but Anne had heard
enough to understand the present state of Uppercross, and rejoice in
its happiness; and though she sighed as she rejoiced, her sigh had none
of the ill_will of envy in it.  She would certainly have risen to their
blessings if she could, but she did not want to lessen theirs.


The visit passed off altogether in high good humour.  Mary was in
excellent spirits, enjoying the gaiety and the change, and so well
satisfied with the journey in her mother_in_law's carriage with four
horses, and with her own complete independence of Camden Place, that
she was exactly in a temper to admire everything as she ought, and
enter most readily into all the superiorities of the house, as they
were detailed to her.  She had no demands on her father or sister, and
her consequence was just enough increased by their handsome
drawing_rooms.


Elizabeth was, for a short time, suffering a good deal.  She felt that
Mrs Musgrove and all her party ought to be asked to dine with them; but
she could not bear to have the difference of style, the reduction of
servants, which a dinner must betray, witnessed by those who had been
always so inferior to the Elliots of Kellynch.  It was a struggle
between propriety and vanity; but vanity got the better, and then
Elizabeth was happy again.  These were her internal persuasions: "Old
fashioned notions; country hospitality; we do not profess to give
dinners; few people in Bath do; Lady Alicia never does; did not even
ask her own sister's family, though they were here a month: and I dare
say it would be very inconvenient to Mrs Musgrove; put her quite out of
her way.  I am sure she would rather not come; she cannot feel easy
with us.  I will ask them all for an evening; that will be much better;
that will be a novelty and a treat.  They have not seen two such
drawing rooms before.  They will be delighted to come to_morrow
evening.  It shall be a regular party, small, but most elegant."  And
this satisfied Elizabeth:  and when the invitation was given to the two
present, and promised for the absent, Mary was as completely satisfied.
She was particularly asked to meet Mr Elliot, and be introduced to Lady
Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, who were fortunately already engaged to
come; and she could not have received a more gratifying attention.
Miss Elliot was to have the honour of calling on Mrs Musgrove in the
course of the morning; and Anne walked off with Charles and Mary, to go
and see her and Henrietta directly.


Her plan of sitting with Lady Russell must give way for the present.
They all three called in Rivers Street for a couple of minutes; but
Anne convinced herself that a day's delay of the intended communication
could be of no consequence, and hastened forward to the White Hart, to
see again the friends and companions of the last autumn, with an
eagerness of good_will which many associations contributed to form.


They found Mrs Musgrove and her daughter within, and by themselves, and
Anne had the kindest welcome from each.  Henrietta was exactly in that
state of recently_improved views, of fresh_formed happiness, which made
her full of regard and interest for everybody she had ever liked before
at all; and Mrs Musgrove's real affection had been won by her
usefulness when they were in distress.  It was a heartiness, and a
warmth, and a sincerity which Anne delighted in the more, from the sad
want of such blessings at home.  She was entreated to give them as much
of her time as possible, invited for every day and all day long, or
rather claimed as part of the family; and, in return, she naturally
fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance, and on
Charles's leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove's
history of Louisa, and to Henrietta's of herself, giving opinions on
business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help
which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts;
from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to
convince her that she was not ill_used by anybody; which Mary, well
amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the
entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining.


A morning of thorough confusion was to be expected.  A large party in
an hotel ensured a quick_changing, unsettled scene.  One five minutes
brought a note, the next a parcel; and Anne had not been there half an
hour, when their dining_room, spacious as it was, seemed more than half
filled:  a party of steady old friends were seated around Mrs Musgrove,
and Charles came back with Captains Harville and Wentworth.  The
appearance of the latter could not be more than the surprise of the
moment.  It was impossible for her to have forgotten to feel that this
arrival of their common friends must be soon bringing them together
again.  Their last meeting had been most important in opening his
feelings; she had derived from it a delightful conviction; but she
feared from his looks, that the same unfortunate persuasion, which had
hastened him away from the Concert Room, still governed.  He did not
seem to want to be near enough for conversation.


She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course, and tried
to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence:__"Surely, if
there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand
each other ere long.  We are not boy and girl, to be captiously
irritable, misled by every moment's inadvertence, and wantonly playing
with our own happiness."  And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt
as if their being in company with each other, under their present
circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and
misconstructions of the most mischievous kind.


"Anne," cried Mary, still at her window, "there is Mrs Clay, I am sure,
standing under the colonnade, and a gentleman with her.  I saw them
turn the corner from Bath Street just now.  They seemed deep in talk.
Who is it?  Come, and tell me.  Good heavens! I recollect.  It is Mr
Elliot himself."


"No," cried Anne, quickly, "it cannot be Mr Elliot, I assure you.  He
was to leave Bath at nine this morning, and does not come back till
to_morrow."


As she spoke, she felt that Captain Wentworth was looking at her, the
consciousness of which vexed and embarrassed her, and made her regret
that she had said so much, simple as it was.


Mary, resenting that she should be supposed not to know her own cousin,
began talking very warmly about the family features, and protesting
still more positively that it was Mr Elliot, calling again upon Anne to
come and look for herself, but Anne did not mean to stir, and tried to
be cool and unconcerned.  Her distress returned, however, on perceiving
smiles and intelligent glances pass between two or three of the lady
visitors, as if they believed themselves quite in the secret.  It was
evident that the report concerning her had spread, and a short pause
succeeded, which seemed to ensure that it would now spread farther.


"Do come, Anne" cried Mary, "come and look yourself.  You will be too
late if you do not make haste.  They are parting; they are shaking
hands.  He is turning away.  Not know Mr Elliot, indeed!  You seem to
have forgot all about Lyme."


To pacify Mary, and perhaps screen her own embarrassment, Anne did move
quietly to the window.  She was just in time to ascertain that it
really was Mr Elliot, which she had never believed, before he
disappeared on one side, as Mrs Clay walked quickly off on the other;
and checking the surprise which she could not but feel at such an
appearance of friendly conference between two persons of totally
opposite interest, she calmly said, "Yes, it is Mr Elliot, certainly.
He has changed his hour of going, I suppose, that is all, or I may be
mistaken, I might not attend;" and walked back to her chair,
recomposed, and with the comfortable hope of having acquitted herself
well.


The visitors took their leave; and Charles, having civilly seen them
off, and then made a face at them, and abused them for coming, began
with__


"Well, mother, I have done something for you that you will like.  I
have been to the theatre, and secured a box for to_morrow night.  A'n't
I a good boy?  I know you love a play; and there is room for us all.
It holds nine.  I have engaged Captain Wentworth.  Anne will not be
sorry to join us, I am sure.  We all like a play.  Have not I done
well, mother?"


Mrs Musgrove was good humouredly beginning to express her perfect
readiness for the play, if Henrietta and all the others liked it, when
Mary eagerly interrupted her by exclaiming__


"Good heavens, Charles! how can you think of such a thing?  Take a box
for to_morrow night!  Have you forgot that we are engaged to Camden
Place to_morrow night? and that we were most particularly asked to meet
Lady Dalrymple and her daughter, and Mr Elliot, and all the principal
family connexions, on purpose to be introduced to them?  How can you be
so forgetful?"


"Phoo! phoo!" replied Charles, "what's an evening party?  Never worth
remembering.  Your father might have asked us to dinner, I think, if he
had wanted to see us.  You may do as you like, but I shall go to the
play."


"Oh! Charles, I declare it will be too abominable if you do, when you
promised to go."


"No, I did not promise.  I only smirked and bowed, and said the word
'happy.'  There was no promise."


"But you must go, Charles.  It would be unpardonable to fail.  We were
asked on purpose to be introduced.  There was always such a great
connexion between the Dalrymples and ourselves.  Nothing ever happened
on either side that was not announced immediately.  We are quite near
relations, you know; and Mr Elliot too, whom you ought so particularly
to be acquainted with!  Every attention is due to Mr Elliot.  Consider,
my father's heir:  the future representative of the family."


"Don't talk to me about heirs and representatives," cried Charles.  "I
am not one of those who neglect the reigning power to bow to the rising
sun.  If I would not go for the sake of your father, I should think it
scandalous to go for the sake of his heir.  What is Mr Elliot to me?"
The careless expression was life to Anne, who saw that Captain
Wentworth was all attention, looking and listening with his whole soul;
and that the last words brought his enquiring eyes from Charles to
herself.


Charles and Mary still talked on in the same style; he, half serious
and half jesting, maintaining the scheme for the play, and she,
invariably serious, most warmly opposing it, and not omitting to make
it known that, however determined to go to Camden Place herself, she
should not think herself very well used, if they went to the play
without her.  Mrs Musgrove interposed.


"We had better put it off.  Charles, you had much better go back and
change the box for Tuesday.  It would be a pity to be divided, and we
should be losing Miss Anne, too, if there is a party at her father's;
and I am sure neither Henrietta nor I should care at all for the play,
if Miss Anne could not be with us."


Anne felt truly obliged to her for such kindness; and quite as much so
for the opportunity it gave her of decidedly saying__


"If it depended only on my inclination, ma'am, the party at home
(excepting on Mary's account) would not be the smallest impediment.  I
have no pleasure in the sort of meeting, and should be too happy to
change it for a play, and with you.  But, it had better not be
attempted, perhaps."  She had spoken it; but she trembled when it was
done, conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to
try to observe their effect.


It was soon generally agreed that Tuesday should be the day; Charles
only reserving the advantage of still teasing his wife, by persisting
that he would go to the play to_morrow if nobody else would.


Captain Wentworth left his seat, and walked to the fire_place; probably
for the sake of walking away from it soon afterwards, and taking a
station, with less bare_faced design, by Anne.


"You have not been long enough in Bath," said he, "to enjoy the evening
parties of the place."


"Oh! no.  The usual character of them has nothing for me.  I am no
card_player."


"You were not formerly, I know.  You did not use to like cards; but
time makes many changes."


"I am not yet so much changed," cried Anne, and stopped, fearing she
hardly knew what misconstruction.  After waiting a few moments he said,
and as if it were the result of immediate feeling, "It is a period,
indeed!  Eight years and a half is a period."


Whether he would have proceeded farther was left to Anne's imagination
to ponder over in a calmer hour; for while still hearing the sounds he
had uttered, she was startled to other subjects by Henrietta, eager to
make use of the present leisure for getting out, and calling on her
companions to lose no time, lest somebody else should come in.


They were obliged to move.  Anne talked of being perfectly ready, and
tried to look it; but she felt that could Henrietta have known the
regret and reluctance of her heart in quitting that chair, in preparing
to quit the room, she would have found, in all her own sensations for
her cousin, in the very security of his affection, wherewith to pity
her.


Their preparations, however, were stopped short.  Alarming sounds were
heard; other visitors approached, and the door was thrown open for Sir
Walter and Miss Elliot, whose entrance seemed to give a general chill.
Anne felt an instant oppression, and wherever she looked saw symptoms
of the same.  The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was
over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk,
to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister.  How
mortifying to feel that it was so!


Her jealous eye was satisfied in one particular.  Captain Wentworth was
acknowledged again by each, by Elizabeth more graciously than before.
She even addressed him once, and looked at him more than once.
Elizabeth was, in fact, revolving a great measure.  The sequel
explained it.  After the waste of a few minutes in saying the proper
nothings, she began to give the invitation which was to comprise all
the remaining dues of the Musgroves.  "To_morrow evening, to meet a few
friends:  no formal party." It was all said very gracefully, and the
cards with which she had provided herself, the "Miss Elliot at home,"
were laid on the table, with a courteous, comprehensive smile to all,
and one smile and one card more decidedly for Captain Wentworth.  The
truth was, that Elizabeth had been long enough in Bath to understand
the importance of a man of such an air and appearance as his.  The past
was nothing.  The present was that Captain Wentworth would move about
well in her drawing_room.  The card was pointedly given, and Sir Walter
and Elizabeth arose and disappeared.


The interruption had been short, though severe, and ease and animation
returned to most of those they left as the door shut them out, but not
to Anne.  She could think only of the invitation she had with such
astonishment witnessed, and of the manner in which it had been
received; a manner of doubtful meaning, of surprise rather than
gratification, of polite acknowledgement rather than acceptance.  She
knew him; she saw disdain in his eye, and could not venture to believe
that he had determined to accept such an offering, as an atonement for
all the insolence of the past.  Her spirits sank.  He held the card in
his hand after they were gone, as if deeply considering it.


"Only think of Elizabeth's including everybody!" whispered Mary very
audibly.  "I do not wonder Captain Wentworth is delighted!  You see he
cannot put the card out of his hand."


Anne caught his eye, saw his cheeks glow, and his mouth form itself
into a momentary expression of contempt, and turned away, that she
might neither see nor hear more to vex her.


The party separated.  The gentlemen had their own pursuits, the ladies
proceeded on their own business, and they met no more while Anne
belonged to them.  She was earnestly begged to return and dine, and
give them all the rest of the day, but her spirits had been so long
exerted that at present she felt unequal to more, and fit only for
home, where she might be sure of being as silent as she chose.


Promising to be with them the whole of the following morning,
therefore, she closed the fatigues of the present by a toilsome walk to
Camden Place, there to spend the evening chiefly in listening to the
busy arrangements of Elizabeth and Mrs Clay for the morrow's party, the
frequent enumeration of the persons invited, and the continually
improving detail of all the embellishments which were to make it the
most completely elegant of its kind in Bath, while harassing herself
with the never_ending question, of whether Captain Wentworth would come
or not?  They were reckoning him as certain, but with her it was a
gnawing solicitude never appeased for five minutes together.  She
generally thought he would come, because she generally thought he
ought; but it was a case which she could not so shape into any positive
act of duty or discretion, as inevitably to defy the suggestions of
very opposite feelings.


She only roused herself from the broodings of this restless agitation,
to let Mrs Clay know that she had been seen with Mr Elliot three hours
after his being supposed to be out of Bath, for having watched in vain
for some intimation of the interview from the lady herself, she
determined to mention it, and it seemed to her there was guilt in Mrs
Clay's face as she listened.  It was transient: cleared away in an
instant; but Anne could imagine she read there the consciousness of
having, by some complication of mutual trick, or some overbearing
authority of his, been obliged to attend (perhaps for half an hour) to
his lectures and restrictions on her designs on Sir Walter.  She
exclaimed, however, with a very tolerable imitation of nature:__


"Oh! dear! very true.  Only think, Miss Elliot, to my great surprise I
met with Mr Elliot in Bath Street.  I was never more astonished.  He
turned back and walked with me to the Pump Yard.  He had been prevented
setting off for Thornberry, but I really forget by what; for I was in a
hurry, and could not much attend, and I can only answer for his being
determined not to be delayed in his return.  He wanted to know how
early he might be admitted to_morrow.  He was full of 'to_morrow,' and
it is very evident that I have been full of it too, ever since I
entered the house, and learnt the extension of your plan and all that
had happened, or my seeing him could never have gone so entirely out of
my head."






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 23




One day only had passed since Anne's conversation with Mrs Smith; but a
keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched by Mr
Elliot's conduct, except by its effects in one quarter, that it became
a matter of course the next morning, still to defer her explanatory
visit in Rivers Street.  She had promised to be with the Musgroves from
breakfast to dinner.  Her faith was plighted, and Mr Elliot's
character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade's head, must live another
day.


She could not keep her appointment punctually, however; the weather was
unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain on her friends'
account, and felt it very much on her own, before she was able to
attempt the walk.  When she reached the White Hart, and made her way to
the proper apartment, she found herself neither arriving quite in time,
nor the first to arrive.  The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove,
talking to Mrs Croft, and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth; and
she immediately heard that Mary and Henrietta, too impatient to wait,
had gone out the moment it had cleared, but would be back again soon,
and that the strictest injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove to
keep her there till they returned.  She had only to submit, sit down,
be outwardly composed, and feel herself plunged at once in all the
agitations which she had merely laid her account of tasting a little
before the morning closed.  There was no delay, no waste of time.  She
was deep in the happiness of such misery, or the misery of such
happiness, instantly.  Two minutes after her entering the room, Captain
Wentworth said__


"We will write the letter we were talking of, Harville, now, if you
will give me materials."


Materials were at hand, on a separate table; he went to it, and nearly
turning his back to them all, was engrossed by writing.


Mrs Musgrove was giving Mrs Croft the history of her eldest daughter's
engagement, and just in that inconvenient tone of voice which was
perfectly audible while it pretended to be a whisper.  Anne felt that
she did not belong to the conversation, and yet, as Captain Harville
seemed thoughtful and not disposed to talk, she could not avoid hearing
many undesirable particulars; such as, "how Mr Musgrove and my brother
Hayter had met again and again to talk it over; what my brother Hayter
had said one day, and what Mr Musgrove had proposed the next, and what
had occurred to my sister Hayter, and what the young people had wished,
and what I said at first I never could consent to, but was afterwards
persuaded to think might do very well," and a great deal in the same
style of open_hearted communication:  minutiae which, even with every
advantage of taste and delicacy, which good Mrs Musgrove could not
give, could be properly interesting only to the principals.  Mrs Croft
was attending with great good_humour, and whenever she spoke at all, it
was very sensibly.  Anne hoped the gentlemen might each be too much
self_occupied to hear.


"And so, ma'am, all these thing considered," said Mrs Musgrove, in her
powerful whisper, "though we could have wished it different, yet,
altogether, we did not think it fair to stand out any longer, for
Charles Hayter was quite wild about it, and Henrietta was pretty near
as bad; and so we thought they had better marry at once, and make the
best of it, as many others have done before them.  At any rate, said I,
it will be better than a long engagement."


"That is precisely what I was going to observe," cried Mrs Croft.  "I
would rather have young people settle on a small income at once, and
have to struggle with a few difficulties together, than be involved in
a long engagement.  I always think that no mutual__"


"Oh! dear Mrs Croft," cried Mrs Musgrove, unable to let her finish her
speech, "there is nothing I so abominate for young people as a long
engagement.  It is what I always protested against for my children.  It
is all very well, I used to say, for young people to be engaged, if
there is a certainty of their being able to marry in six months, or
even in twelve; but a long engagement__"


"Yes, dear ma'am," said Mrs Croft, "or an uncertain engagement, an
engagement which may be long.  To begin without knowing that at such a
time there will be the means of marrying, I hold to be very unsafe and
unwise, and what I think all parents should prevent as far as they can."


Anne found an unexpected interest here.  She felt its application to
herself, felt it in a nervous thrill all over her; and at the same
moment that her eyes instinctively glanced towards the distant table,
Captain Wentworth's pen ceased to move, his head was raised, pausing,
listening, and he turned round the next instant to give a look, one
quick, conscious look at her.


The two ladies continued to talk, to re_urge the same admitted truths,
and enforce them with such examples of the ill effect of a contrary
practice as had fallen within their observation, but Anne heard nothing
distinctly; it was only a buzz of words in her ear, her mind was in
confusion.


Captain Harville, who had in truth been hearing none of it, now left
his seat, and moved to a window, and Anne seeming to watch him, though
it was from thorough absence of mind, became gradually sensible that he
was inviting her to join him where he stood.  He looked at her with a
smile, and a little motion of the head, which expressed, "Come to me, I
have something to say;" and the unaffected, easy kindness of manner
which denoted the feelings of an older acquaintance than he really was,
strongly enforced the invitation.  She roused herself and went to him.
The window at which he stood was at the other end of the room from
where the two ladies were sitting, and though nearer to Captain
Wentworth's table, not very near.  As she joined him, Captain
Harville's countenance re_assumed the serious, thoughtful expression
which seemed its natural character.


"Look here," said he, unfolding a parcel in his hand, and displaying a
small miniature painting, "do you know who that is?"


"Certainly:  Captain Benwick."


"Yes, and you may guess who it is for.  But," (in a deep tone,) "it was
not done for her.  Miss Elliot, do you remember our walking together at
Lyme, and grieving for him?  I little thought then__but no matter.
This was drawn at the Cape.  He met with a clever young German artist
at the Cape, and in compliance with a promise to my poor sister, sat to
him, and was bringing it home for her; and I have now the charge of
getting it properly set for another!  It was a commission to me!  But
who else was there to employ?  I hope I can allow for him.  I am not
sorry, indeed, to make it over to another.  He undertakes it;" (looking
towards Captain Wentworth,) "he is writing about it now."  And with a
quivering lip he wound up the whole by adding, "Poor Fanny! she would
not have forgotten him so soon!"


"No," replied Anne, in a low, feeling voice. "That I can easily
believe."


"It was not in her nature.  She doted on him."


"It would not be the nature of any woman who truly loved."


Captain Harville smiled, as much as to say, "Do you claim that for your
sex?" and she answered the question, smiling also, "Yes.  We certainly
do not forget you as soon as you forget us.  It is, perhaps, our fate
rather than our merit.  We cannot help ourselves.  We live at home,
quiet, confined, and our feelings prey upon us.  You are forced on
exertion.  You have always a profession, pursuits, business of some
sort or other, to take you back into the world immediately, and
continual occupation and change soon weaken impressions."


"Granting your assertion that the world does all this so soon for men
(which, however, I do not think I shall grant), it does not apply to
Benwick.  He has not been forced upon any exertion.  The peace turned
him on shore at the very moment, and he has been living with us, in our
little family circle, ever since."


"True," said Anne, "very true; I did not recollect; but what shall we
say now, Captain Harville?  If the change be not from outward
circumstances, it must be from within; it must be nature, man's nature,
which has done the business for Captain Benwick."


"No, no, it is not man's nature.  I will not allow it to be more man's
nature than woman's to be inconstant and forget those they do love, or
have loved.  I believe the reverse.  I believe in a true analogy
between our bodily frames and our mental; and that as our bodies are
the strongest, so are our feelings; capable of bearing most rough
usage, and riding out the heaviest weather."


"Your feelings may be the strongest," replied Anne, "but the same
spirit of analogy will authorise me to assert that ours are the most
tender.  Man is more robust than woman, but he is not longer lived;
which exactly explains my view of the nature of their attachments.
Nay, it would be too hard upon you, if it were otherwise.  You have
difficulties, and privations, and dangers enough to struggle with.  You
are always labouring and toiling, exposed to every risk and hardship.
Your home, country, friends, all quitted.  Neither time, nor health,
nor life, to be called your own.  It would be hard, indeed" (with a
faltering voice), "if woman's feelings were to be added to all this."


"We shall never agree upon this question," Captain Harville was
beginning to say, when a slight noise called their attention to Captain
Wentworth's hitherto perfectly quiet division of the room.  It was
nothing more than that his pen had fallen down; but Anne was startled
at finding him nearer than she had supposed, and half inclined to
suspect that the pen had only fallen because he had been occupied by
them, striving to catch sounds, which yet she did not think he could
have caught.


"Have you finished your letter?" said Captain Harville.


"Not quite, a few lines more.  I shall have done in five minutes."


"There is no hurry on my side.  I am only ready whenever you are.  I am
in very good anchorage here," (smiling at Anne,) "well supplied, and
want for nothing.  No hurry for a signal at all.  Well, Miss Elliot,"
(lowering his voice,) "as I was saying we shall never agree, I suppose,
upon this point.  No man and woman, would, probably.  But let me
observe that all histories are against you__all stories, prose and
verse.  If I had such a memory as Benwick, I could bring you fifty
quotations in a moment on my side the argument, and I do not think I
ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon
woman's inconstancy.  Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's
fickleness.  But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."


"Perhaps I shall.  Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in
books.  Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story.
Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been
in their hands.  I will not allow books to prove anything."


"But how shall we prove anything?"


"We never shall.  We never can expect to prove any thing upon such a
point.  It is a difference of opinion which does not admit of proof.
We each begin, probably, with a little bias towards our own sex; and
upon that bias build every circumstance in favour of it which has
occurred within our own circle; many of which circumstances (perhaps
those very cases which strike us the most) may be precisely such as
cannot be brought forward without betraying a confidence, or in some
respect saying what should not be said."


"Ah!" cried Captain Harville, in a tone of strong feeling, "if I could
but make you comprehend what a man suffers when he takes a last look at
his wife and children, and watches the boat that he has sent them off
in, as long as it is in sight, and then turns away and says, 'God knows
whether we ever meet again!' And then, if I could convey to you the
glow of his soul when he does see them again; when, coming back after a
twelvemonth's absence, perhaps, and obliged to put into another port,
he calculates how soon it be possible to get them there, pretending to
deceive himself, and saying, 'They cannot be here till such a day,' but
all the while hoping for them twelve hours sooner, and seeing them
arrive at last, as if Heaven had given them wings, by many hours sooner
still!  If I could explain to you all this, and all that a man can bear
and do, and glories to do, for the sake of these treasures of his
existence!  I speak, you know, only of such men as have hearts!"
pressing his own with emotion.


"Oh!" cried Anne eagerly, "I hope I do justice to all that is felt by
you, and by those who resemble you.  God forbid that I should
undervalue the warm and faithful feelings of any of my
fellow_creatures!  I should deserve utter contempt if I dared to
suppose that true attachment and constancy were known only by woman.
No, I believe you capable of everything great and good in your married
lives.  I believe you equal to every important exertion, and to every
domestic forbearance, so long as__if I may be allowed the
expression__so long as you have an object.  I mean while the woman you
love lives, and lives for you.  All the privilege I claim for my own
sex (it is not a very enviable one; you need not covet it), is that of
loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."


She could not immediately have uttered another sentence; her heart was
too full, her breath too much oppressed.


"You are a good soul," cried Captain Harville, putting his hand on her
arm, quite affectionately.  "There is no quarrelling with you.  And
when I think of Benwick, my tongue is tied."


Their attention was called towards the others.  Mrs Croft was taking
leave.


"Here, Frederick, you and I part company, I believe," said she.  "I am
going home, and you have an engagement with your friend.  To_night we
may have the pleasure of all meeting again at your party," (turning to
Anne.)  "We had your sister's card yesterday, and I understood
Frederick had a card too, though I did not see it; and you are
disengaged, Frederick, are you not, as well as ourselves?"


Captain Wentworth was folding up a letter in great haste, and either
could not or would not answer fully.


"Yes," said he, "very true; here we separate, but Harville and I shall
soon be after you; that is, Harville, if you are ready, I am in half a
minute.  I know you will not be sorry to be off.  I shall be at your
service in half a minute."


Mrs Croft left them, and Captain Wentworth, having sealed his letter
with great rapidity, was indeed ready, and had even a hurried, agitated
air, which shewed impatience to be gone.  Anne knew not how to
understand it.  She had the kindest "Good morning, God bless you!" from
Captain Harville, but from him not a word, nor a look!  He had passed
out of the room without a look!


She had only time, however, to move closer to the table where he had
been writing, when footsteps were heard returning; the door opened, it
was himself.  He begged their pardon, but he had forgotten his gloves,
and instantly crossing the room to the writing table, he drew out a
letter from under the scattered paper, placed it before Anne with eyes
of glowing entreaty fixed on her for a time, and hastily collecting his
gloves, was again out of the room, almost before Mrs Musgrove was aware
of his being in it: the work of an instant!


The revolution which one instant had made in Anne, was almost beyond
expression.  The letter, with a direction hardly legible, to "Miss A.
E.__," was evidently the one which he had been folding so hastily.
While supposed to be writing only to Captain Benwick, he had been also
addressing her!  On the contents of that letter depended all which this
world could do for her.  Anything was possible, anything might be
defied rather than suspense.  Mrs Musgrove had little arrangements of
her own at her own table; to their protection she must trust, and
sinking into the chair which he had occupied, succeeding to the very
spot where he had leaned and written, her eyes devoured the following
words:




"I can listen no longer in silence.  I must speak to you by such means
as are within my reach.  You pierce my soul.  I am half agony, half
hope.  Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are
gone for ever.  I offer myself to you again with a heart even more your
own than when you almost broke it, eight years and a half ago.  Dare
not say that man forgets sooner than  woman, that his love has an
earlier death.  I have loved none but you.  Unjust I may have been,
weak and resentful I have been, but never inconstant.  You alone have
brought me to Bath.  For you alone, I think and plan.  Have you not
seen this?  Can you fail to have understood my wishes?  I had not
waited even these ten days, could I have read your feelings, as I think
you must have penetrated mine.  I can hardly write.  I am every instant
hearing something which overpowers me.  You sink your voice, but I can
distinguish the tones of that voice when they would be lost on others.
Too good, too excellent creature!  You do us justice, indeed.  You do
believe that there is true attachment and constancy among men.  Believe
it to be most fervent, most undeviating, in F. W.


"I must go, uncertain of my fate; but I shall return hither, or follow
your party, as soon as possible.  A word, a look, will be enough to
decide whether I enter your father's house this evening or never."




Such a letter was not to be soon recovered from.  Half an hour's
solitude and reflection might have tranquillized her; but the ten
minutes only which now passed before she was interrupted, with all the
restraints of her situation, could do nothing towards tranquillity.
Every moment rather brought fresh agitation.  It was overpowering
happiness.  And before she was beyond the first stage of full
sensation, Charles, Mary, and Henrietta all came in.


The absolute necessity of seeming like herself produced then an
immediate struggle; but after a while she could do no more.  She began
not to understand a word they said, and was obliged to plead
indisposition and excuse herself.  They could then see that she looked
very ill, were shocked and concerned, and would not stir without her
for the world.  This was dreadful.  Would they only have gone away, and
left her in the quiet possession of that room it would have been her
cure; but to have them all standing or waiting around her was
distracting, and in desperation, she said she would go home.


"By all means, my dear," cried Mrs Musgrove, "go home directly, and
take care of yourself, that you may be fit for the evening.  I wish
Sarah was here to doctor you, but I am no doctor myself.  Charles, ring
and order a chair.  She must not walk."


But the chair would never do.  Worse than all!  To lose the possibility
of speaking two words to Captain Wentworth in the course of her quiet,
solitary progress up the town (and she felt almost certain of meeting
him) could not be borne.  The chair was earnestly protested against,
and Mrs Musgrove, who thought only of one sort of illness, having
assured herself with some anxiety, that there had been no fall in the
case; that Anne had not at any time lately slipped down, and got a blow
on her head; that she was perfectly convinced of having had no fall;
could part with her cheerfully, and depend on finding her better at
night.


Anxious to omit no possible precaution, Anne struggled, and said__


"I am afraid, ma'am, that it is not perfectly understood.  Pray be so
good as to mention to the other gentlemen that we hope to see your
whole party this evening.  I am afraid there had been some mistake; and
I wish you particularly to assure Captain Harville and Captain
Wentworth, that we hope to see them both."


"Oh! my dear, it is quite understood, I give you my word.  Captain
Harville has no thought but of going."


"Do you think so?  But I am afraid; and I should be so very sorry.
Will you promise me to mention it, when you see them again?  You will
see them both this morning, I dare say.  Do promise me."


"To be sure I will, if you wish it.  Charles, if you see Captain
Harville anywhere, remember to give Miss Anne's message.  But indeed,
my dear, you need not be uneasy.  Captain Harville holds himself quite
engaged, I'll answer for it; and Captain Wentworth the same, I dare
say."


Anne could do no more; but her heart prophesied some mischance to damp
the perfection of her felicity.  It could not be very lasting, however.
Even if he did not come to Camden Place himself, it would be in her
power to send an intelligible sentence by Captain Harville.  Another
momentary vexation occurred.  Charles, in his real concern and good
nature, would go home with her; there was no preventing him.  This was
almost cruel.  But she could not be long ungrateful; he was sacrificing
an engagement at a gunsmith's, to be of use to her; and she set off
with him, with no feeling but gratitude apparent.


They were on Union Street, when a quicker step behind, a something of
familiar sound, gave her two moments' preparation for the sight of
Captain Wentworth.  He joined them; but, as if irresolute whether to
join or to pass on, said nothing, only looked.  Anne could command
herself enough to receive that look, and not repulsively.  The cheeks
which had been pale now glowed, and the movements which had hesitated
were decided.  He walked by her side.  Presently, struck by a sudden
thought, Charles said__


"Captain Wentworth, which way are you going?  Only to Gay Street, or
farther up the town?"


"I hardly know," replied Captain Wentworth, surprised.


"Are you going as high as Belmont?  Are you going near Camden Place?
Because, if you are, I shall have no scruple in asking you to take my
place, and give Anne your arm to her father's door.  She is rather done
for this morning, and must not go so far without help, and I ought to
be at that fellow's in the Market Place.  He promised me the sight of a
capital gun he is just going to send off; said he would keep it
unpacked to the last possible moment, that I might see it; and if I do
not turn back now, I have no chance.  By his description, a good deal
like the second size double_barrel of mine, which you shot with one day
round Winthrop."


There could not be an objection.  There could be only the most proper
alacrity, a most obliging compliance for public view; and smiles reined
in and spirits dancing in private rapture.  In half a minute Charles
was at the bottom of Union Street again, and the other two proceeding
together:  and soon words enough had passed between them to decide
their direction towards the comparatively quiet and retired gravel
walk, where the power of conversation would make the present hour a
blessing indeed, and prepare it for all the immortality which the
happiest recollections of their own future lives could bestow.  There
they exchanged again those feelings and those promises which had once
before seemed to secure everything, but which had been followed by so
many, many years of division and estrangement.  There they returned
again into the past, more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their
re_union, than when it had been first projected; more tender, more
tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth, and
attachment; more equal to act, more justified in acting.  And there, as
they slowly paced the gradual ascent, heedless of every group around
them, seeing neither sauntering politicians, bustling housekeepers,
flirting girls, nor nursery_maids and children, they could indulge in
those retrospections and acknowledgements, and especially in those
explanations of what had directly preceded the present moment, which
were so poignant and so ceaseless in interest.  All the little
variations of the last week were gone through; and of yesterday and
today there could scarcely be an end.


She had not mistaken him.  Jealousy of Mr Elliot had been the retarding
weight, the doubt, the torment.  That had begun to operate in the very
hour of first meeting her in Bath; that had returned, after a short
suspension, to ruin the concert; and that had influenced him in
everything he had said and done, or omitted to say and do, in the last
four_and_twenty hours.  It had been gradually yielding to the better
hopes which her looks, or words, or actions occasionally encouraged; it
had been vanquished at last by those sentiments and those tones which
had reached him while she talked with Captain Harville; and under the
irresistible governance of which he had seized a sheet of paper, and
poured out his feelings.


Of what he had then written, nothing was to be retracted or qualified.
He persisted in having loved none but her.  She had never been
supplanted.  He never even believed himself to see her equal.  Thus
much indeed he was obliged to acknowledge:  that he had been constant
unconsciously, nay unintentionally; that he had meant to forget her,
and believed it to be done.  He had imagined himself indifferent, when
he had only been angry; and he had been unjust to her merits, because
he had been a sufferer from them.  Her character was now fixed on his
mind as perfection itself, maintaining the loveliest medium of
fortitude and gentleness; but he was obliged to acknowledge that only
at Uppercross had he learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme had he
begun to understand himself.  At Lyme, he had received lessons of more
than one sort.  The passing admiration of Mr Elliot had at least roused
him, and the scenes on the Cobb and at Captain Harville's had fixed her
superiority.


In his preceding attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove (the
attempts of angry pride), he protested that he had for ever felt it to
be impossible; that he had not cared, could not care, for Louisa;
though till that day, till the leisure for reflection which followed
it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of the mind with which
Louisa's could so ill bear a comparison, or the perfect unrivalled hold
it possessed over his own.  There, he had learnt to distinguish between
the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self_will, between the
darings of heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind.  There
he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had
lost; and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of
resentment, which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in
his way.


From that period his penance had become severe.  He had no sooner been
free from the horror and remorse attending the first few days of
Louisa's accident, no sooner begun to feel himself alive again, than he
had begun to feel himself, though alive, not at liberty.


"I found," said he, "that I was considered by Harville an engaged man!
That neither Harville nor his wife entertained a doubt of our mutual
attachment.  I was startled and shocked.  To a degree, I could
contradict this instantly; but, when I began to reflect that others
might have felt the same__her own family, nay, perhaps herself__I was
no longer at my own disposal.  I was hers in honour if she wished it.
I had been unguarded.  I had not thought seriously on this subject
before.  I had not considered that my excessive intimacy must have its
danger of ill consequence in many ways; and that I had no right to be
trying whether I could attach myself to either of the girls, at the
risk of raising even an unpleasant report, were there no other ill
effects.  I had been grossly wrong, and must abide the consequences."


He found too late, in short, that he had entangled himself; and that
precisely as he became fully satisfied of his not caring for Louisa at
all, he must regard himself as bound to her, if her sentiments for him
were what the Harvilles supposed.  It determined him to leave Lyme, and
await her complete recovery elsewhere.  He would gladly weaken, by any
fair means, whatever feelings or speculations concerning him might
exist; and he went, therefore, to his brother's, meaning after a while
to return to Kellynch, and act as circumstances might require.


"I was six weeks with Edward," said he, "and saw him happy.  I could
have no other pleasure.  I deserved none.  He enquired after you very
particularly; asked even if you were personally altered, little
suspecting that to my eye you could never alter."


Anne smiled, and let it pass.  It was too pleasing a blunder for a
reproach.  It is something for a woman to be assured, in her
eight_and_twentieth year, that she has not lost one charm of earlier
youth; but the value of such homage was inexpressibly increased to
Anne, by comparing it with former words, and feeling it to be the
result, not the cause of a revival of his warm attachment.


He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the blindness of his own
pride, and the blunders of his own calculations, till at once released
from Louisa by the astonishing and felicitous intelligence of her
engagement with Benwick.


"Here," said he, "ended the worst of my state; for now I could at least
put myself in the way of happiness; I could exert myself; I could do
something.  But to be waiting so long in inaction, and waiting only for
evil, had been dreadful.  Within the first five minutes I said, 'I will
be at Bath on Wednesday,' and I was.  Was it unpardonable to think it
worth my while to come? and to arrive with some degree of hope?  You
were single.  It was possible that you might retain the feelings of the
past, as I did; and one encouragement happened to be mine.  I could
never doubt that you would be loved and sought by others, but I knew to
a certainty that you had refused one man, at least, of better
pretensions than myself; and I could not help often saying, 'Was this
for me?'"


Their first meeting in Milsom Street afforded much to be said, but the
concert still more.  That evening seemed to be made up of exquisite
moments.  The moment of her stepping forward in the Octagon Room to
speak to him:  the moment of Mr Elliot's appearing and tearing her
away, and one or two subsequent moments, marked by returning hope or
increasing despondency, were dwelt on with energy.


"To see you," cried he, "in the midst of those who could not be my
well_wishers; to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling,
and feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match!
To consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to
influence you!  Even if your own feelings were reluctant or
indifferent, to consider what powerful supports would be his!  Was it
not enough to make the fool of me which I appeared?  How could I look
on without agony?  Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind
you, was not the recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her
influence, the indelible, immoveable impression of what persuasion had
once done__was it not all against me?"


"You should have distinguished," replied Anne.  "You should not have
suspected me now; the case is so different, and my age is so different.
If I was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember that it was to
persuasion exerted on the side of safety, not of risk.  When I yielded,
I thought it was to duty, but no duty could be called in aid here.  In
marrying a man indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred,
and all duty violated."


"Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus," he replied, "but I could not.
I could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of
your character.  I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed,
buried, lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under
year after year.  I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who
had given me up, who had been influenced by any one rather than by me.
I saw you with the very person who had guided you in that year of
misery.  I had no reason to believe her of less authority now.  The
force of habit was to be added."


"I should have thought," said Anne, "that my manner to yourself might
have spared you much or all of this."


"No, no! your manner might be only the ease which your engagement to
another man would give.  I left you in this belief; and yet, I was
determined to see you again.  My spirits rallied with the morning, and
I felt that I had still a motive for remaining here."


At last Anne was at home again, and happier than any one in that house
could have conceived.  All the surprise and suspense, and every other
painful part of the morning dissipated by this conversation, she
re_entered the house so happy as to be obliged to find an alloy in some
momentary apprehensions of its being impossible to last.  An interval
of meditation, serious and grateful, was the best corrective of
everything dangerous in such high_wrought felicity; and she went to her
room, and grew steadfast and fearless in the thankfulness of her
enjoyment.


The evening came, the drawing_rooms were lighted up, the company
assembled.  It was but a card party, it was but a mixture of those who
had never met before, and those who met too often; a commonplace
business, too numerous for intimacy, too small for variety; but Anne
had never found an evening shorter.  Glowing and lovely in sensibility
and happiness, and more generally admired than she thought about or
cared for, she had cheerful or forbearing feelings for every creature
around her.  Mr Elliot was there; she avoided, but she could pity him.
The Wallises, she had amusement in understanding them.  Lady Dalrymple
and Miss Carteret__they would soon be innoxious cousins to her.  She
cared not for Mrs Clay, and had nothing to blush for in the public
manners of her father and sister.  With the Musgroves, there was the
happy chat of perfect ease; with Captain Harville, the kind_hearted
intercourse of brother and sister; with Lady Russell, attempts at
conversation, which a delicious consciousness cut short; with Admiral
and Mrs Croft, everything of peculiar cordiality and fervent interest,
which the same consciousness sought to conceal; and with Captain
Wentworth, some moments of communications continually occurring, and
always the hope of more, and always the knowledge of his being there.


It was in one of these short meetings, each apparently occupied in
admiring a fine display of greenhouse plants, that she said__


"I have been thinking over the past, and trying impartially to judge of
the right and wrong, I mean with regard to myself; and I must believe
that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly
right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you
do now.  To me, she was in the place of a parent.  Do not mistake me,
however.  I am not saying that she did not err in her advice.  It was,
perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the
event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any
circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice.  But I mean,
that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done
otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement
than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my
conscience.  I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in
human nature, nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a
strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman's portion."


He looked at her, looked at Lady Russell, and looking again at her,
replied, as if in cool deliberation__


"Not yet.  But there are hopes of her being forgiven in time.  I trust
to being in charity with her soon.  But I too have been thinking over
the past, and a  question has suggested itself, whether there may not
have been one person more my enemy even than that lady?  My own self.
Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few
thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written
to you, would you have answered my letter?  Would you, in short, have
renewed the engagement then?"


"Would I!" was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.


"Good God!" he cried, "you would!  It is not that I did not think of
it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I
was proud, too proud to ask again.  I did not understand you.  I shut
my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice.  This is a
recollection which ought to make me forgive every one sooner than
myself.  Six years of separation and suffering might have been spared.
It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me.  I have been used to the
gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I
enjoyed.  I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards.
Like other great men under reverses," he added, with a smile. "I must
endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune.  I must learn to brook being
happier than I deserve."






Persuasion by Jane Austen Deluxe Edition Chapter 24




Who can be in doubt of what followed?  When any two young people take
it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to
carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever
so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.
This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to be
truth; and if such parties succeed, how should a Captain Wentworth and
an Anne Elliot, with the advantage of maturity of mind, consciousness
of right, and one independent fortune between them, fail of bearing
down every opposition?  They might in fact, have borne down a great
deal more than they met with, for there was little to distress them
beyond the want of graciousness and warmth.  Sir Walter made no
objection, and Elizabeth did nothing worse than look cold and
unconcerned.  Captain Wentworth, with five_and_twenty thousand pounds,
and as high in his profession as merit and activity could place him,
was no longer nobody.  He was now esteemed quite worthy to address the
daughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet, who had not had principle
or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which
Providence had placed him, and who could give his daughter at present
but a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers
hereafter.


Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne, and no vanity
flattered, to make him really happy on the occasion, was very far from
thinking it a bad match for her.  On the contrary, when he saw more of
Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight, and eyed him well,
he was very much struck by his personal claims, and felt that his
superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced against her
superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by his well_sounding name,
enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen, with a very good grace,
for the insertion of the marriage in the volume of honour.


The only one among them, whose opposition of feeling could excite any
serious anxiety was Lady Russell.  Anne knew that Lady Russell must be
suffering some pain in understanding and relinquishing Mr Elliot, and
be making some struggles to become truly acquainted with, and do
justice to Captain Wentworth.  This however was what Lady Russell had
now to do.  She must learn to feel that she had been mistaken with
regard to both; that she had been unfairly influenced by appearances in
each; that because Captain Wentworth's manners had not suited her own
ideas, she had been too quick in suspecting them to indicate a
character of dangerous impetuosity; and that because Mr Elliot's
manners had precisely pleased her in their propriety and correctness,
their general politeness and suavity, she had been too quick in
receiving them as the certain result of the most correct opinions and
well_regulated mind.  There was nothing less for Lady Russell to do,
than to admit that she had been pretty completely wrong, and to take up
a new set of opinions and of hopes.


There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment
of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in
others can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part of
understanding than her young friend.  But she was a very good woman,
and if her second object was to be sensible and well_judging, her first
was to see Anne happy.  She loved Anne better than she loved her own
abilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, found
little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who was
securing the happiness of her other child.


Of all the family, Mary was probably the one most immediately gratified
by the circumstance.  It was creditable to have a sister married, and
she might flatter herself with having been greatly instrumental to the
connexion, by keeping Anne with her in the autumn; and as her own
sister must be better than her husband's sisters, it was very agreeable
that Captain Wentworth should be a richer man than either Captain
Benwick or Charles Hayter.  She had something to suffer, perhaps, when
they came into contact again, in seeing Anne restored to the rights of
seniority, and the mistress of a very pretty landaulette; but she had a
future to look forward to, of powerful consolation.  Anne had no
Uppercross Hall before her, no landed estate, no headship of a family;
and if they could but keep Captain Wentworth from being made a baronet,
she would not change situations with Anne.


It would be well for the eldest sister if she were equally satisfied
with her situation, for a change is not very probable there.  She had
soon the mortification of seeing Mr Elliot withdraw, and no one of
proper condition has since presented himself to raise even the
unfounded hopes which sunk with him.


The news of his cousins Anne's engagement burst on Mr Elliot most
unexpectedly.  It deranged his best plan of domestic happiness, his
best hope of keeping Sir Walter single by the watchfulness which a
son_in_law's rights would have given.  But, though discomfited and
disappointed, he could still do something for his own interest and his
own enjoyment.  He soon quitted Bath; and on Mrs Clay's quitting it
soon afterwards, and being next heard of as established under his
protection in London, it was evident how double a game he had been
playing, and how determined he was to save himself from being cut out
by one artful woman, at least.


Mrs Clay's affections had overpowered her interest, and she had
sacrificed, for the young man's sake, the possibility of scheming
longer for Sir Walter.  She has abilities, however, as well as
affections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, or
hers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from
being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at
last into making her the wife of Sir William.


It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked and
mortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of their
deception in her.  They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resort
to for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and follow
others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of
half enjoyment.


Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning to
love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the
happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of
having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value.
There she felt her own inferiority very keenly.  The disproportion in
their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; but
to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of
respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the
worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and
sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be
sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity.  She had
but two friends in the world to add to his list, Lady Russell and Mrs
Smith.  To those, however, he was very well disposed to attach himself.
Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could now
value from his heart.  While he was not obliged to say that he believed
her to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to say
almost everything else in her favour, and as for Mrs Smith, she had
claims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.


Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, and
their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her
two.  She was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and Captain
Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband's
property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and
seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the
activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully
requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render,
to his wife.


Mrs Smith's enjoyments were not spoiled by this improvement of income,
with some improvement of health, and the acquisition of such friends to
be often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail
her; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might have
bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity.  She
might have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet be
happy.  Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as her
friend Anne's was in the warmth of her heart.  Anne was tenderness
itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth's
affection.  His profession was all that could ever make her friends
wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim
her sunshine.  She gloried in being a sailor's wife, but she must pay
the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if
possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its
national importance.






The End