Persuasion
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