Bab Bab 24 · Who can be in doubt of what followed? When any two young people take it

. 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 cousin 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.

Finis