Bab Bab 1 · Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who,

. Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who,

for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there

he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed

one; there his faculties were roused into admiration and respect, by

contemplating the limited remnant of the earliest patents; there any

unwelcome sensations, arising from domestic affairs changed naturally

into pity and contempt as he turned over the almost endless creations

of the last century; and there, if every other leaf were powerless, he

could read his own history with an interest which never failed. This

was the page at which the favourite volume always opened:

“ELLIOT OF KELLYNCH HALL.

“Walter Elliot, born March 1, 1760, married, July 15, 1784, Elizabeth,

daughter of James Stevenson, Esq. of South Park, in the county of

Gloucester, by which lady (who died 1800) he has issue Elizabeth, born

June 1, 1785; Anne, born August 9, 1787; a still-born son, November 5,

1789; Mary, born November 20, 1791.”

Precisely such had the paragraph originally stood from the printer’s

hands; but Sir Walter had improved it by adding, for the information of

himself and his family, these words, after the date of Mary’s

birth—“Married, December 16, 1810, Charles, son and heir of Charles

Musgrove, Esq. of Uppercross, in the county of Somerset,” and by

inserting most accurately the day of the month on which he had lost his

wife.

Then followed the history and rise of the ancient and respectable

family, in the usual terms; how it had been first settled in Cheshire;

how mentioned in Dugdale, serving the office of high sheriff,

representing a borough in three successive parliaments, exertions of

loyalty, and dignity of baronet, in the first year of Charles II, with

all the Marys and Elizabeths they had married; forming altogether two

handsome duodecimo pages, and concluding with the arms and

motto:—“Principal seat, Kellynch Hall, in the county of Somerset,” and

Sir Walter’s handwriting again in this finale:—

“Heir presumptive, William Walter Elliot, Esq., great grandson of the

second Sir Walter.”

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot’s character;

vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in

his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women

could think more of their personal appearance than he did, nor could

the valet of any new made lord be more delighted with the place he held

in society. He considered the blessing of beauty as inferior only to

the blessing of a baronetcy; and the Sir Walter Elliot, who united

these gifts, was the constant object of his warmest respect and

devotion.

His good looks and his rank had one fair claim on his attachment; since

to them he must have owed a wife of very superior character to any

thing deserved by his own. Lady Elliot had been an excellent woman,

sensible and amiable; whose judgement and conduct, if they might be

pardoned the youthful infatuation which made her Lady Elliot, had never

required indulgence afterwards. She had humoured, or softened, or

concealed his failings, and promoted his real respectability for

seventeen years; and though not the very happiest being in the world

herself, had found enough in her duties, her friends, and her children,

to attach her to life, and make it no matter of indifference to her

when she was called on to quit them. Three girls, the two eldest

sixteen and fourteen, was an awful legacy for a mother to bequeath, an

awful charge rather, to confide to the authority and guidance of a

conceited, silly father. She had, however, one very intimate friend, a

sensible, deserving woman, who had been brought, by strong attachment

to herself, to settle close by her, in the village of Kellynch; and on

her kindness and advice, Lady Elliot mainly relied for the best help

and maintenance of the good principles and instruction which she had

been anxiously giving her daughters.

This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been

anticipated on that head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years had

passed away since Lady Elliot’s death, and they were still near

neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower, the other

a widow.

That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely well

provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage, needs no

apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably

discontented when a woman _does_ marry again, than when she does _not;_

but Sir Walter’s continuing in singleness requires explanation. Be it

known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with one

or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications),

prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters’ sake. For

one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing,

which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded,

at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother’s rights and

consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself, her

influence had always been great, and they had gone on together most

happily. His two other children were of very inferior value. Mary had

acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming Mrs Charles

Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of

character, which must have placed her high with any people of real

understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no

weight, her convenience was always to give way—she was only Anne.

To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued

god-daughter, favourite, and friend. Lady Russell loved them all; but

it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.

A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl, but her

bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height, her father had

found little to admire in her, (so totally different were her delicate

features and mild dark eyes from his own), there could be nothing in

them, now that she was faded and thin, to excite his esteem. He had

never indulged much hope, he had now none, of ever reading her name in

any other page of his favourite work. All equality of alliance must

rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely connected herself with an old

country family of respectability and large fortune, and had therefore

_given_ all the honour and received none: Elizabeth would, one day or

other, marry suitably.

It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she

was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been

neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely

any charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome

Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter

might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least, be

deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming

as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else; for he

could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance

were growing. Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face in the

neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow’s foot about

Lady Russell’s temples had long been a distress to him.

Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.

Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and

directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have

given the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years

had she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at

home, and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking

immediately after Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and

dining-rooms in the country. Thirteen winters’ revolving frosts had

seen her opening every ball of credit which a scanty neighbourhood

afforded, and thirteen springs shewn their blossoms, as she travelled

up to London with her father, for a few weeks’ annual enjoyment of the

great world. She had the remembrance of all this, she had the

consciousness of being nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and

some apprehensions; she was fully satisfied of being still quite as

handsome as ever, but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and

would have rejoiced to be certain of being properly solicited by

baronet-blood within the next twelvemonth or two. Then might she again

take up the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,

but now she liked it not. Always to be presented with the date of her

own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister,

made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it

open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes, and

pushed it away.

She had had a disappointment, moreover, which that book, and especially

the history of her own family, must ever present the remembrance of.

The heir presumptive, the very William Walter Elliot, Esq., whose

rights had been so generously supported by her father, had disappointed

her.

She had, while a very young girl, as soon as she had known him to be,

in the event of her having no brother, the future baronet, meant to

marry him, and her father had always meant that she should. He had not

been known to them as a boy; but soon after Lady Elliot’s death, Sir

Walter had sought the acquaintance, and though his overtures had not

been met with any warmth, he had persevered in seeking it, making

allowance for the modest drawing-back of youth; and, in one of their

spring excursions to London, when Elizabeth was in her first bloom, Mr

Elliot had been forced into the introduction.

He was at that time a very young man, just engaged in the study of the

law; and Elizabeth found him extremely agreeable, and every plan in his

favour was confirmed. He was invited to Kellynch Hall; he was talked of

and expected all the rest of the year; but he never came. The following

spring he was seen again in town, found equally agreeable, again

encouraged, invited, and expected, and again he did not come; and the

next tidings were that he was married. Instead of pushing his fortune

in the line marked out for the heir of the house of Elliot, he had

purchased independence by uniting himself to a rich woman of inferior

birth.

Sir Walter had resented it. As the head of the house, he felt that he

ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so

publicly by the hand; “For they must have been seen together,” he

observed, “once at Tattersall’s, and twice in the lobby of the House of

Commons.” His disapprobation was expressed, but apparently very little

regarded. Mr Elliot had attempted no apology, and shewn himself as

unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family, as Sir Walter

considered him unworthy of it: all acquaintance between them had

ceased.

This very awkward history of Mr Elliot was still, after an interval of

several years, felt with anger by Elizabeth, who had liked the man for

himself, and still more for being her father’s heir, and whose strong

family pride could see only in _him_ a proper match for Sir Walter

Elliot’s eldest daughter. There was not a baronet from A to Z whom her

feelings could have so willingly acknowledged as an equal. Yet so

miserably had he conducted himself, that though she was at this present

time (the summer of 1814) wearing black ribbons for his wife, she could

not admit him to be worth thinking of again. The disgrace of his first

marriage might, perhaps, as there was no reason to suppose it

perpetuated by offspring, have been got over, had he not done worse;

but he had, as by the accustomary intervention of kind friends, they

had been informed, spoken most disrespectfully of them all, most

slightingly and contemptuously of the very blood he belonged to, and

the honours which were hereafter to be his own. This could not be

pardoned.

Such were Elizabeth Elliot’s sentiments and sensations; such the cares

to alloy, the agitations to vary, the sameness and the elegance, the

prosperity and the nothingness of her scene of life; such the feelings

to give interest to a long, uneventful residence in one country circle,

to fill the vacancies which there were no habits of utility abroad, no

talents or accomplishments for home, to occupy.

But now, another occupation and solicitude of mind was beginning to be

added to these. Her father was growing distressed for money. She knew,

that when he now took up the Baronetage, it was to drive the heavy

bills of his tradespeople, and the unwelcome hints of Mr Shepherd, his

agent, from his thoughts. The Kellynch property was good, but not equal

to Sir Walter’s apprehension of the state required in its possessor.

While Lady Elliot lived, there had been method, moderation, and

economy, which had just kept him within his income; but with her had

died all such right-mindedness, and from that period he had been

constantly exceeding it. It had not been possible for him to spend

less; he had done nothing but what Sir Walter Elliot was imperiously

called on to do; but blameless as he was, he was not only growing

dreadfully in debt, but was hearing of it so often, that it became vain

to attempt concealing it longer, even partially, from his daughter. He

had given her some hints of it the last spring in town; he had gone so

far even as to say, “Can we retrench? Does it occur to you that there

is any one article in which we can retrench?” and Elizabeth, to do her

justice, had, in the first ardour of female alarm, set seriously to

think what could be done, and had finally proposed these two branches

of economy, to cut off some unnecessary charities, and to refrain from

new furnishing the drawing-room; to which expedients she afterwards

added the happy thought of their taking no present down to Anne, as had

been the usual yearly custom. But these measures, however good in

themselves, were insufficient for the real extent of the evil, the

whole of which Sir Walter found himself obliged to confess to her soon

afterwards. Elizabeth had nothing to propose of deeper efficacy. She

felt herself ill-used and unfortunate, as did her father; and they were

neither of them able to devise any means of lessening their expenses

without compromising their dignity, or relinquishing their comforts in

a way not to be borne.

There was only a small part of his estate that Sir Walter could dispose

of; but had every acre been alienable, it would have made no

difference. He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the power,

but he would never condescend to sell. No; he would never disgrace his

name so far. The Kellynch estate should be transmitted whole and

entire, as he had received it.

Their two confidential friends, Mr Shepherd, who lived in the

neighbouring market town, and Lady Russell, were called on to advise them;

and both father and daughter seemed to expect that something should be

struck out by one or the other to remove their embarrassments and

reduce their expenditure, without involving the loss of any indulgence

of taste or pride.