Persuasion
least convince her that she was valued only as she could be useful to
Louisa.
She endeavoured to be composed, and to be just. Without emulating the
feelings of an Emma towards her Henry, she would have attended on
Louisa with a zeal above the common claims of regard, for his sake; and
she hoped he would not long be so unjust as to suppose she would shrink
unnecessarily from the office of a friend.
In the meanwhile she was in the carriage. He had handed them both in,
and placed himself between them; and in this manner, under these
circumstances, full of astonishment and emotion to Anne, she quitted
Lyme. How the long stage would pass; how it was to affect their
manners; what was to be their sort of intercourse, she could not
foresee. It was all quite natural, however. He was devoted to
Henrietta; always turning towards her; and when he spoke at all, always
with the view of supporting her hopes and raising her spirits. In
general, his voice and manner were studiously calm. To spare Henrietta
from agitation seemed the governing principle. Once only, when she had
been grieving over the last ill-judged, ill-fated walk to the Cobb,
bitterly lamenting that it ever had been thought of, he burst forth, as
if wholly overcome—
“Don’t talk of it, don’t talk of it,” he cried. “Oh God! that I had not
given way to her at the fatal moment! Had I done as I ought! But so
eager and so resolute! Dear, sweet Louisa!”
Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the
justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and
advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him
that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its
proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to
feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of
happiness as a very resolute character.
They got on fast. Anne was astonished to recognise the same hills and
the same objects so soon. Their actual speed, heightened by some dread
of the conclusion, made the road appear but half as long as on the day
before. It was growing quite dusk, however, before they were in the
neighbourhood of Uppercross, and there had been total silence among
them for some time, Henrietta leaning back in the corner, with a shawl
over her face, giving the hope of her having cried herself to sleep;
when, as they were going up their last hill, Anne found herself all at
once addressed by Captain Wentworth. In a low, cautious voice, he
said:—
“I have been considering what we had best do. She must not appear at
first. She could not stand it. I have been thinking whether you had not
better remain in the carriage with her, while I go in and break it to
Mr and Mrs Musgrove. Do you think this is a good plan?”
She did: he was satisfied, and said no more. But the remembrance of the
appeal remained a pleasure to her, as a proof of friendship, and of
deference for her judgement, a great pleasure; and when it became a
sort of parting proof, its value did not lessen.
When the distressing communication at Uppercross was over, and he had
seen the father and mother quite as composed as could be hoped, and the
daughter all the better for being with them, he announced his intention
of returning in the same carriage to Lyme; and when the horses were
baited, he was off.
(End of volume one.)
CHAPTER XIII.
The remainder of Anne’s time at Uppercross, comprehending only two
days, was spent entirely at the Mansion House; and she had the
satisfaction of knowing herself extremely useful there, both as an
immediate companion, and as assisting in all those arrangements for the
future, which, in Mr and Mrs Musgrove’s distressed state of spirits,
would have been difficulties.
They had an early account from Lyme the next morning. Louisa was much
the same. No symptoms worse than before had appeared. Charles came a
few hours afterwards, to bring a later and more particular account. He
was tolerably cheerful. A speedy cure must not be hoped, but everything
was going on as well as the nature of the case admitted. In speaking of
the Harvilles, he seemed unable to satisfy his own sense of their
kindness, especially of Mrs Harville’s exertions as a nurse. “She
really left nothing for Mary to do. He and Mary had been persuaded to
go early to their inn last night. Mary had been hysterical again this
morning. When he came away, she was going to walk out with Captain
Benwick, which, he hoped, would do her good. He almost wished she had
been prevailed on to come home the day before; but the truth was, that
Mrs Harville left nothing for anybody to do.”
Charles was to return to Lyme the same afternoon, and his father had at
first half a mind to go with him, but the ladies could not consent. It
would be going only to multiply trouble to the others, and increase his
own distress; and a much better scheme followed and was acted upon. A
chaise was sent for from Crewkherne, and Charles conveyed back a far
more useful person in the old nursery-maid of the family, one who
having brought up all the children, and seen the very last, the
lingering and long-petted Master Harry, sent to school after his
brothers, was now living in her deserted nursery to mend stockings and
dress all the blains and bruises she could get near her, and who,
consequently, was only too happy in being allowed to go and help nurse
dear Miss Louisa. Vague wishes of getting Sarah thither, had occurred
before to Mrs Musgrove and Henrietta; but without Anne, it would hardly
have been resolved on, and found practicable so soon.
They were indebted, the next day, to Charles Hayter, for all the minute
knowledge of Louisa, which it was so essential to obtain every
twenty-four hours. He made it his business to go to Lyme, and his
account was still encouraging. The intervals of sense and consciousness
were believed to be stronger. Every report agreed in Captain
Wentworth’s appearing fixed in Lyme.
Anne was to leave them on the morrow, an event which they all dreaded.
“What should they do without her? They were wretched comforters for one
another.” And so much was said in this way, that Anne thought she could
not do better than impart among them the general inclination to which
she was privy, and persuaded them all to go to Lyme at once. She had
little difficulty; it was soon determined that they would go; go
to-morrow, fix themselves at the inn, or get into lodgings, as it
suited, and there remain till dear Louisa could be moved. They must be
taking off some trouble from the good people she was with; they might
at least relieve Mrs Harville from the care of her own children; and in
short, they were so happy in the decision, that Anne was delighted with
what she had done, and felt that she could not spend her last morning
at Uppercross better than in assisting their preparations, and sending
them off at an early hour, though her being left to the solitary range
of the house was the consequence.
She was the last, excepting the little boys at the cottage, she was the
very last, the only remaining one of all that had filled and animated
both houses, of all that had given Uppercross its cheerful character. A
few days had made a change indeed!
If Louisa recovered, it would all be well again. More than former
happiness would be restored. There could not be a doubt, to her mind
there was none, of what would follow her recovery. A few months hence,
and the room now so deserted, occupied but by her silent, pensive self,
might be filled again with all that was happy and gay, all that was
glowing and bright in prosperous love, all that was most unlike Anne
Elliot!
An hour’s complete leisure for such reflections as these, on a dark
November day, a small thick rain almost blotting out the very few
objects ever to be discerned from the windows, was enough to make the
sound of Lady Russell’s carriage exceedingly welcome; and yet, though
desirous to be gone, she could not quit the Mansion House, or look an
adieu to the Cottage, with its black, dripping and comfortless veranda,
or even notice through the misty glasses the last humble tenements of
the village, without a saddened heart. Scenes had passed in Uppercross
which made it precious. It stood the record of many sensations of pain,
once severe, but now softened; and of some instances of relenting
feeling, some breathings of friendship and reconciliation, which could
never be looked for again, and which could never cease to be dear. She
left it all behind her, all but the recollection that such things had
been.
Anne had never entered Kellynch since her quitting Lady Russell’s house
in September. It had not been necessary, and the few occasions of its
being possible for her to go to the Hall she had contrived to evade and
escape from. Her first return was to resume her place in the modern and
elegant apartments of the Lodge, and to gladden the eyes of its
mistress.
There was some anxiety mixed with Lady Russell’s joy in meeting her.
She knew who had been frequenting Uppercross. But happily, either Anne
was improved in plumpness and looks, or Lady Russell fancied her so;
and Anne, in receiving her compliments on the occasion, had the
amusement of connecting them with the silent admiration of her cousin,
and of hoping that she was to be blessed with a second spring of youth
and beauty.
When they came to converse, she was soon sensible of some mental
change. The subjects of which her heart had been full on leaving
Kellynch, and which she had felt slighted, and been compelled to
smother among the Musgroves, were now become but of secondary interest.
She had lately lost sight even of her father and sister and Bath. Their
concerns had been sunk under those of Uppercross; and when Lady Russell
reverted to their former hopes and fears, and spoke her satisfaction in
the house in Camden Place, which had been taken, and her regret that
Mrs Clay should still be with them, Anne would have been ashamed to
have it known how much more she was thinking of Lyme and Louisa
Musgrove, and all her acquaintance there; how much more interesting to
her was the home and the friendship of the Harvilles and Captain
Benwick, than her own father’s house in Camden Place, or her own
sister’s intimacy with Mrs Clay. She was actually forced to exert
herself to meet Lady Russell with anything like the appearance of equal
solicitude, on topics which had by nature the first claim on her.
There was a little awkwardness at first in their discourse on another
subject. They must speak of the accident at Lyme. Lady Russell had not
been arrived five minutes the day before, when a full account of the
whole had burst on her; but still it must be talked of, she must make
enquiries, she must regret the imprudence, lament the result, and
Captain Wentworth’s name must be mentioned by both. Anne was conscious
of not doing it so well as Lady Russell. She could not speak the name,
and look straight forward to Lady Russell’s eye, till she had adopted
the expedient of telling her briefly what she thought of the attachment
between him and Louisa. When this was told, his name distressed her no
longer.
Lady Russell had only to listen composedly, and wish them happy, but
internally her heart revelled in angry pleasure, in pleased contempt,
that the man who at twenty-three had seemed to understand somewhat of
the value of an Anne Elliot, should, eight years afterwards, be charmed
by a Louisa Musgrove.
The first three or four days passed most quietly, with no circumstance
to mark them excepting the receipt of a note or two from Lyme, which
found their way to Anne, she could not tell how, and brought a rather
improving account of Louisa. At the end of that period, Lady Russell’s