Persuasion (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (24 page)

As to the sad catastrophe itself, it could be canvassed only in one style by a couple of steady, sensible women, whose judgements had to work on ascertained events; and it was perfectly decided that it had been the consequence of much thoughtlessness and much imprudence; that its effects were most alarming, and that it was frightful to think, how long Miss Musgrove’s recovery might yet be doubtful, and how liable she would still remain to suffer from the concussion hereafter! The Admiral wound it up summarily by exclaiming —

“Ay, a very bad business indeed. A new sort of way this, for a young fellow to be making love, by breaking his mistress’s head, is not it, Miss Elliot? This is breaking a head and giving a plaster, truly!”

Admiral Croft’s manners were not quite of the tone to suit Lady Russell, but they delighted Anne, though his hastily spoken words brought to mind a head of Anne’s that Captain Wentworth had indeed broken — an act that still brought Anne great pleasure in each remembrance. Admiral Croft’s goodness of heart and simplicity of character were irresistible.

“Now, this must be very bad for you,” said he, suddenly rousing from a little reverie, “to be coming and finding us here. I had not recollected it before, I declare, but it must be very bad. But now, do not stand upon ceremony. Get up and go over all the rooms in the house if you like it.”

Unbidden, the image of the library came to mind. “Another time, Sir, I thank you, not now,” Anne said rather too quickly.

“Well, whenever it suits you. You can slip in from the shrubbery at any time; and there you will find we keep our umbrellas hanging up by that door. A good place is not it? But,” (checking himself), “you will not think it a good place, for yours were always kept in the butler’s room. Ay, so it always is, I believe. One man’s ways may be as good as another’s, but we all like our own best. And so you must judge for yourself, whether it would be better for you to go about the house or not.”

Anne, finding she might decline it, did so, very gratefully.

“We have made very few changes either,” continued the Admiral, after thinking a moment. “Very few. We told you about the laundry-door, at Uppercross. That has been a very great improvement. The wonder was, how any family upon earth could bear with the inconvenience of its opening as it did, so long! You will tell Sir Walter what we have done, and that Mr. Shepherd thinks it the greatest improvement the house ever had. Indeed, I must do ourselves the justice to say, that the few alterations we have made have been all very much for the better. My wife should have the credit of them, however. I have done very little besides sending away some of the large looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father’s. A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure: but I should think, Miss Elliot,” (looking with serious reflection), “I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life. Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away from one’s self. So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I never go near.”

Anne, amused in spite of herself, was rather distressed for an answer, and the Admiral, fearing he might not have been civil enough, took up the subject again, to say —

“The next time you write to your good father, Miss Elliot, pray give him my compliments and Mrs. Croft’s, and say that we are settled here quite to our liking, and have no fault at all to find with the place. The breakfast-room chimney smokes a little, I grant you, but it is only when the wind is due north and blows hard, which may not happen three times a winter. And take it altogether, now that we have been into most of the houses hereabouts and can judge, there is not one that we like better than this. Pray say so, with my compliments. He will be glad to hear it.”

Lady Russell and Mrs. Croft were very well pleased with each other: but the acquaintance which this visit began was fated not to proceed far at present; for when it was returned, the Crofts announced themselves to be going away for a few weeks, to visit their connexions in the north of the county, and probably might not be at home again before Lady Russell would be removing to Bath.

So ended all danger to Anne of meeting Captain Wentworth at Kellynch Hall, or of seeing him in company with her friend. Everything was safe enough, and she smiled over the many anxious feelings she had wasted on the subject.

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, but Anne’s mind was snared by one thing: Captain Benwick had feelings for her.

It was difficult to believe. It had been ages since Anne had thought of herself as pretty or desirable. In fact, Captain Wentworth’s callous comment upon seeing her for the first time in eight years was proof enough of her deteriorating beauty, if, indeed, she’d ever possessed beauty at all. Some distant corner of her mind often wondered if Captain Wentworth had only thought her beautiful because she allowed him to do things to her body that a young man would appreciate so greatly that he may find
any
woman who granted him such boons beautiful. Watching him woo Louisa had solidified this suspicion; Louisa was young and beautiful in a way that Anne highly doubted she had ever managed to be.

Anne was watching every chance at future happiness in love wilt away. It had been years since Captain Wentworth was an option for her happiness, but some part of her had held onto hope. Now that it was more than clear that Anne was a
friend
— if that — and Anne had to wonder,
could
she love another man?

Captain Benwick was certainly handsome. In fact, one might say he was more classically handsome than Captain Wentworth, whose unconventionally sun-bleached hair and excess of muscle more than likely labeled him as a labourer rather than a gentleman. Captain Benwick possessed the slight stature of a man of leisure and the dark, brooding features of a poet. His black hair was perhaps a bit too long, but it curled about his face in a way that drew attention to his dark, nearly black eyes.

Captain Benwick was a beautiful man. Any woman would be lucky to catch his eye.

While Lady Russell droned on about something Anne could not track, Anne forced herself to close her eyes and imagine Captain Benwick. Could she allow him to lay his hands upon her as Captain Wentworth had done?

Anne studiously pushed aside the images of blond hair and rippling muscles that the man’s name never failed to draw forth whenever she thought it. Instead, she pictured Berwick’s hands: pale, steady, finely boned. Anne had no trouble imagining those hands reaching toward her to tuck a curl behind her ear and trail a finger down her cheek. His poet’s soul would lead him to take such actions, and the imagining of them was quite pleasant.

However, when Anne tried to imagine that finger trailing further than her cheek, to brush across the top of her breasts, her traitorous mind immediately replaced Benwick’s almost delicate hands with the tan, rough hands of Captain Wentworth. The feeling of what his calloused fingers had felt like against her delicate skin thoroughly displaced Benwick from her thoughts so violently that Anne nearly gasped aloud at remembered sensations: Frederick’s fingers inside her sheath; his tongue dipping into the hallow of her throat; the sound he made deep within his chest when he completed; the way he looked at her when
she
completed, his eyes fixed, soft and loving, upon her face.