第 二十三 章 · One day only had passed since Anne’s conversation with Mrs Smith; but a

. 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 to-day 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.”