第 十一 章 · The time now approached for Lady Russell’s return: the day was even

. The time now approached for Lady Russell’s return: the day was even

fixed; and Anne, being engaged to join her as soon as she was

resettled, was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and

beginning to think how her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.

It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth, within

half a mile of him; they would have to frequent the same church, and

there must be intercourse between the two families. This was against

her; but on the other hand, he spent so much of his time at Uppercross,

that in removing thence she might be considered rather as leaving him

behind, than as going towards him; and, upon the whole, she believed

she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer, almost as

certainly as in her change of domestic society, in leaving poor Mary

for Lady Russell.

She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing Captain

Wentworth at the Hall: those rooms had witnessed former meetings which

would be brought too painfully before her; but she was yet more anxious

for the possibility of Lady Russell and Captain Wentworth never meeting

anywhere. They did not like each other, and no renewal of acquaintance

now could do any good; and were Lady Russell to see them together, she

might think that he had too much self-possession, and she too little.

These points formed her chief solicitude in anticipating her removal

from Uppercross, where she felt she had been stationed quite long

enough. Her usefulness to little Charles would always give some

sweetness to the memory of her two months’ visit there, but he was

gaining strength apace, and she had nothing else to stay for.

The conclusion of her visit, however, was diversified in a way which

she had not at all imagined. Captain Wentworth, after being unseen and

unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them

to justify himself by a relation of what had kept him away.

A letter from his friend, Captain Harville, having found him out at

last, had brought intelligence of Captain Harville’s being settled with

his family at Lyme for the winter; of their being therefore, quite

unknowingly, within twenty miles of each other. Captain Harville had

never been in good health since a severe wound which he received two

years before, and Captain Wentworth’s anxiety to see him had determined

him to go immediately to Lyme. He had been there for four-and-twenty

hours. His acquittal was complete, his friendship warmly honoured, a

lively interest excited for his friend, and his description of the fine

country about Lyme so feelingly attended to by the party, that an

earnest desire to see Lyme themselves, and a project for going thither

was the consequence.

The young people were all wild to see Lyme. Captain Wentworth talked of

going there again himself, it was only seventeen miles from Uppercross;

though November, the weather was by no means bad; and, in short,

Louisa, who was the most eager of the eager, having formed the

resolution to go, and besides the pleasure of doing as she liked, being

now armed with the idea of merit in maintaining her own way, bore down

all the wishes of her father and mother for putting it off till summer;

and to Lyme they were to go—Charles, Mary, Anne, Henrietta, Louisa, and

Captain Wentworth.

The first heedless scheme had been to go in the morning and return at

night; but to this Mr Musgrove, for the sake of his horses, would not

consent; and when it came to be rationally considered, a day in the

middle of November would not leave much time for seeing a new place,

after deducting seven hours, as the nature of the country required, for

going and returning. They were, consequently, to stay the night there,

and not to be expected back till the next day’s dinner. This was felt

to be a considerable amendment; and though they all met at the Great

House at rather an early breakfast hour, and set off very punctually,

it was so much past noon before the two carriages, Mr Musgrove’s coach

containing the four ladies, and Charles’s curricle, in which he drove

Captain Wentworth, were descending the long hill into Lyme, and

entering upon the still steeper street of the town itself, that it was

very evident they would not have more than time for looking about them,

before the light and warmth of the day were gone.

After securing accommodations, and ordering a dinner at one of the

inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly

down to the sea. They were come too late in the year for any amusement

or variety which Lyme, as a public place, might offer. The rooms were

shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the

residents left; and, as there is nothing to admire in the buildings

themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street

almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round

the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing

machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new

improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to

the east of the town, are what the stranger’s eye will seek; and a very

strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate

environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better. The scenes in its

neighbourhood, Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive sweeps of

country, and still more, its sweet, retired bay, backed by dark cliffs,

where fragments of low rock among the sands, make it the happiest spot

for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied

contemplation; the woody varieties of the cheerful village of Up Lyme;

and, above all, Pinny, with its green chasms between romantic rocks,

where the scattered forest trees and orchards of luxuriant growth,

declare that many a generation must have passed away since the first

partial falling of the cliff prepared the ground for such a state,

where a scene so wonderful and so lovely is exhibited, as may more than

equal any of the resembling scenes of the far-famed Isle of Wight:

these places must be visited, and visited again, to make the worth of

Lyme understood.

The party from Uppercross passing down by the now deserted and

melancholy looking rooms, and still descending, soon found themselves

on the sea-shore; and lingering only, as all must linger and gaze on a

first return to the sea, who ever deserved to look on it at all,

proceeded towards the Cobb, equally their object in itself and on

Captain Wentworth’s account: for in a small house, near the foot of an

old pier of unknown date, were the Harvilles settled. Captain Wentworth

turned in to call on his friend; the others walked on, and he was to

join them on the Cobb.

They were by no means tired of wondering and admiring; and not even

Louisa seemed to feel that they had parted with Captain Wentworth long,

when they saw him coming after them, with three companions, all well

known already, by description, to be Captain and Mrs Harville, and a

Captain Benwick, who was staying with them.

Captain Benwick had some time ago been first lieutenant of the Laconia;

and the account which Captain Wentworth had given of him, on his return

from Lyme before, his warm praise of him as an excellent young man and

an officer, whom he had always valued highly, which must have stamped

him well in the esteem of every listener, had been followed by a little

history of his private life, which rendered him perfectly interesting

in the eyes of all the ladies. He had been engaged to Captain

Harville’s sister, and was now mourning her loss. They had been a year

or two waiting for fortune and promotion. Fortune came, his prize-money

as lieutenant being great; promotion, too, came at _last;_ but Fanny

Harville did not live to know it. She had died the preceding summer

while he was at sea. Captain Wentworth believed it impossible for man

to be more attached to woman than poor Benwick had been to Fanny

Harville, or to be more deeply afflicted under the dreadful change. He

considered his disposition as of the sort which must suffer heavily,

uniting very strong feelings with quiet, serious, and retiring manners,

and a decided taste for reading, and sedentary pursuits. To finish the

interest of the story, the friendship between him and the Harvilles

seemed, if possible, augmented by the event which closed all their

views of alliance, and Captain Benwick was now living with them

entirely. Captain Harville had taken his present house for half a year;

his taste, and his health, and his fortune, all directing him to a

residence inexpensive, and by the sea; and the grandeur of the country,

and the retirement of Lyme in the winter, appeared exactly adapted to

Captain Benwick’s state of mind. The sympathy and good-will excited

towards Captain Benwick was very great.

“And yet,” said Anne to herself, as they now moved forward to meet the

party, “he has not, perhaps, a more sorrowing heart than I have. I

cannot believe his prospects so blighted for ever. He is younger than I

am; younger in feeling, if not in fact; younger as a man. He will rally

again, and be happy with another.”

They all met, and were introduced. Captain Harville was a tall, dark

man, with a sensible, benevolent countenance; a little lame; and from

strong features and want of health, looking much older than Captain

Wentworth. Captain Benwick looked, and was, the youngest of the three,

and, compared with either of them, a little man. He had a pleasing face

and a melancholy air, just as he ought to have, and drew back from

conversation.

Captain Harville, though not equalling Captain Wentworth in manners,

was a perfect gentleman, unaffected, warm, and obliging. Mrs Harville,

a degree less polished than her husband, seemed, however, to have the

same good feelings; and nothing could be more pleasant than their

desire of considering the whole party as friends of their own, because

the friends of Captain Wentworth, or more kindly hospitable than their

entreaties for their all promising to dine with them. The dinner,

already ordered at the inn, was at last, though unwillingly, accepted

as a excuse; but they seemed almost hurt that Captain Wentworth should

have brought any such party to Lyme, without considering it as a thing

of course that they should dine with them.

There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this, and such

a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon, so unlike

the usual style of give-and-take invitations, and dinners of formality

and display, that Anne felt her spirits not likely to be benefited by

an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers. “These would

have been all my friends,” was her thought; and she had to struggle

against a great tendency to lowness.

On quitting the Cobb, they all went in-doors with their new friends,

and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart

could think capable of accommodating so many. Anne had a moment’s

astonishment on the subject herself; but it was soon lost in the

pleasanter feelings which sprang from the sight of all the ingenious

contrivances and nice arrangements of Captain Harville, to turn the

actual space to the best account, to supply the deficiencies of

lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors against the

winter storms to be expected. The varieties in the fitting-up of the

rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the

common indifferent plight, were contrasted with some few articles of a

rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious

and valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had

visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with

his profession, the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence

on his habits, the picture of repose and domestic happiness it

presented, made it to her a something more, or less, than

gratification.

Captain Harville was no reader; but he had contrived excellent

accommodations, and fashioned very pretty shelves, for a tolerable

collection of well-bound volumes, the property of Captain Benwick. His

lameness prevented him from taking much exercise; but a mind of

usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment

within. He drew, he varnished, he carpentered, he glued; he made toys

for the children; he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with

improvements; and if everything else was done, sat down to his large

fishing-net at one corner of the room.

Anne thought she left great happiness behind her when they quitted the

house; and Louisa, by whom she found herself walking, burst forth into

raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their

friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness;

protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and

warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to

live, and they only deserved to be respected and loved.

They went back to dress and dine; and so well had the scheme answered

already, that nothing was found amiss; though its being “so entirely

out of season,” and the “no thoroughfare of Lyme,” and the “no

expectation of company,” had brought many apologies from the heads of

the inn.

Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened to being

in Captain Wentworth’s company than she had at first imagined could

ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the

interchange of the common civilities attending on it (they never got

beyond), was become a mere nothing.

The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow,

but Captain Harville had promised them a visit in the evening; and he

came, bringing his friend also, which was more than had been expected,

it having been agreed that Captain Benwick had all the appearance of

being oppressed by the presence of so many strangers. He ventured among

them again, however, though his spirits certainly did not seem fit for

the mirth of the party in general.

While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the

room, and by recurring to former days, supplied anecdotes in abundance

to occupy and entertain the others, it fell to Anne’s lot to be placed

rather apart with Captain Benwick; and a very good impulse of her

nature obliged her to begin an acquaintance with him. He was shy, and

disposed to abstraction; but the engaging mildness of her countenance,

and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect; and Anne was well

repaid the first trouble of exertion. He was evidently a young man of

considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and

besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening’s

indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions

had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to

him in some suggestions as to the duty and benefit of struggling

against affliction, which had naturally grown out of their

conversation. For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather

the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and

having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone

through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets,

trying to ascertain whether _Marmion_ or _The Lady of the Lake_ were to

be preferred, and how ranked the _Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos;_

and moreover, how the _Giaour_ was to be pronounced, he showed himself

so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet,

and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he

repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a

broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so

entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he

did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was

the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who

enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could

estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but

sparingly.

His looks shewing him not pained, but pleased with this allusion to his

situation, she was emboldened to go on; and feeling in herself the

right of seniority of mind, she ventured to recommend a larger

allowance of prose in his daily study; and on being requested to

particularize, mentioned such works of our best moralists, such

collections of the finest letters, such memoirs of characters of worth

and suffering, as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse

and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest

examples of moral and religious endurances.

Captain Benwick listened attentively, and seemed grateful for the

interest implied; and though with a shake of the head, and sighs which

declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like

his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to

procure and read them.

When the evening was over, Anne could not but be amused at the idea of

her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man

whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more

serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and

preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct

would ill bear examination.