Persuasion Read online

  Chapter 4

  He was not Mr Wentworth, the former curate of Monkford, howeversuspicious appearances may be, but a Captain Frederick Wentworth, hisbrother, who being made commander in consequence of the action off StDomingo, and not immediately employed, had come into Somersetshire, inthe summer of 1806; and having no parent living, found a home for halfa year at Monkford. He was, at that time, a remarkably fine young man,with a great deal of intelligence, spirit, and brilliancy; and Anne anextremely pretty girl, with gentleness, modesty, taste, and feeling.Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, forhe had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but theencounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail. They weregradually acquainted, and when acquainted, rapidly and deeply in love.It would be difficult to say which had seen highest perfection in theother, or which had been the happiest: she, in receiving hisdeclarations and proposals, or he in having them accepted.

  A short period of exquisite felicity followed, and but a short one.Troubles soon arose. Sir Walter, on being applied to, without actuallywithholding his consent, or saying it should never be, gave it all thenegative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and aprofessed resolution of doing nothing for his daughter. He thought ita very degrading alliance; and Lady Russell, though with more temperedand pardonable pride, received it as a most unfortunate one.

  Anne Elliot, with all her claims of birth, beauty, and mind, to throwherself away at nineteen; involve herself at nineteen in an engagementwith a young man, who had nothing but himself to recommend him, and nohopes of attaining affluence, but in the chances of a most uncertainprofession, and no connexions to secure even his farther rise in theprofession, would be, indeed, a throwing away, which she grieved tothink of! Anne Elliot, so young; known to so few, to be snatched offby a stranger without alliance or fortune; or rather sunk by him into astate of most wearing, anxious, youth-killing dependence! It must notbe, if by any fair interference of friendship, any representations fromone who had almost a mother's love, and mother's rights, it would beprevented.

  Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession;but spending freely, what had come freely, had realized nothing. Buthe was confident that he should soon be rich: full of life and ardour,he knew that he should soon have a ship, and soon be on a station thatwould lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky; he knewhe should be so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth,and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have beenenough for Anne; but Lady Russell saw it very differently. Hissanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently onher. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added adangerous character to himself. He was brilliant, he was headstrong.Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of anything approaching toimprudence a horror. She deprecated the connexion in every light.

  Such opposition, as these feelings produced, was more than Anne couldcombat. Young and gentle as she was, it might yet have been possibleto withstand her father's ill-will, though unsoftened by one kind wordor look on the part of her sister; but Lady Russell, whom she hadalways loved and relied on, could not, with such steadiness of opinion,and such tenderness of manner, be continually advising her in vain.She was persuaded to believe the engagement a wrong thing: indiscreet,improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it. But it wasnot a merely selfish caution, under which she acted, in putting an endto it. Had she not imagined herself consulting his good, even morethan her own, she could hardly have given him up. The belief of beingprudent, and self-denying, principally for his advantage, was her chiefconsolation, under the misery of a parting, a final parting; and everyconsolation was required, for she had to encounter all the additionalpain of opinions, on his side, totally unconvinced and unbending, andof his feeling himself ill used by so forced a relinquishment. He hadleft the country in consequence.

  A few months had seen the beginning and the end of their acquaintance;but not with a few months ended Anne's share of suffering from it. Herattachment and regrets had, for a long time, clouded every enjoyment ofyouth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lastingeffect.

  More than seven years were gone since this little history of sorrowfulinterest had reached its close; and time had softened down much,perhaps nearly all of peculiar attachment to him, but she had been toodependent on time alone; no aid had been given in change of place(except in one visit to Bath soon after the rupture), or in any noveltyor enlargement of society. No one had ever come within the Kellynchcircle, who could bear a comparison with Frederick Wentworth, as hestood in her memory. No second attachment, the only thoroughlynatural, happy, and sufficient cure, at her time of life, had beenpossible to the nice tone of her mind, the fastidiousness of her taste,in the small limits of the society around them. She had beensolicited, when about two-and-twenty, to change her name, by the youngman, who not long afterwards found a more willing mind in her youngersister; and Lady Russell had lamented her refusal; for Charles Musgrovewas the eldest son of a man, whose landed property and generalimportance were second in that country, only to Sir Walter's, and ofgood character and appearance; and however Lady Russell might haveasked yet for something more, while Anne was nineteen, she would haverejoiced to see her at twenty-two so respectably removed from thepartialities and injustice of her father's house, and settled sopermanently near herself. But in this case, Anne had left nothing foradvice to do; and though Lady Russell, as satisfied as ever with herown discretion, never wished the past undone, she began now to have theanxiety which borders on hopelessness for Anne's being tempted, by someman of talents and independence, to enter a state for which she heldher to be peculiarly fitted by her warm affections and domestic habits.

  They knew not each other's opinion, either its constancy or its change,on the one leading point of Anne's conduct, for the subject was neveralluded to; but Anne, at seven-and-twenty, thought very differentlyfrom what she had been made to think at nineteen. She did not blameLady Russell, she did not blame herself for having been guided by her;but she felt that were any young person, in similar circumstances, toapply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certainimmediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She was persuadedthat under every disadvantage of disapprobation at home, and everyanxiety attending his profession, all their probable fears, delays, anddisappointments, she should yet have been a happier woman inmaintaining the engagement, than she had been in the sacrifice of it;and this, she fully believed, had the usual share, had even more thanthe usual share of all such solicitudes and suspense been theirs,without reference to the actual results of their case, which, as ithappened, would have bestowed earlier prosperity than could bereasonably calculated on. All his sanguine expectations, all hisconfidence had been justified. His genius and ardour had seemed toforesee and to command his prosperous path. He had, very soon aftertheir engagement ceased, got employ: and all that he had told her wouldfollow, had taken place. He had distinguished himself, and earlygained the other step in rank, and must now, by successive captures,have made a handsome fortune. She had only navy lists and newspapersfor her authority, but she could not doubt his being rich; and, infavour of his constancy, she had no reason to believe him married.

  How eloquent could Anne Elliot have been! how eloquent, at least, wereher wishes on the side of early warm attachment, and a cheerfulconfidence in futurity, against that over-anxious caution which seemsto insult exertion and distrust Providence! She had been forced intoprudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: thenatural sequel of an unnatural beginning.

  With all these circumstances, recollections and feelings, she could nothear that Captain Wentworth's sister was likely to live at Kellynchwithout a revival of former pain; and many a stroll, and many a sigh,were necessary to dispel the agitation of the idea. She often toldherself it was folly, before she could harden her nerves sufficientlyto feel the continual discussi
on of the Crofts and their business noevil. She was assisted, however, by that perfect indifference andapparent unconsciousness, among the only three of her own friends inthe secret of the past, which seemed almost to deny any recollection ofit. She could do justice to the superiority of Lady Russell's motivesin this, over those of her father and Elizabeth; she could honour allthe better feelings of her calmness; but the general air of oblivionamong them was highly important from whatever it sprung; and in theevent of Admiral Croft's really taking Kellynch Hall, she rejoiced anewover the conviction which had always been most grateful to her, of thepast being known to those three only among her connexions, by whom nosyllable, she believed, would ever be whispered, and in the trust thatamong his, the brother only with whom he had been residing, hadreceived any information of their short-lived engagement. That brotherhad been long removed from the country and being a sensible man, and,moreover, a single man at the time, she had a fond dependence on nohuman creature's having heard of it from him.

  The sister, Mrs Croft, had then been out of England, accompanying herhusband on a foreign station, and her own sister, Mary, had been atschool while it all occurred; and never admitted by the pride of some,and the delicacy of others, to the smallest knowledge of it afterwards.

  With these supports, she hoped that the acquaintance between herselfand the Crofts, which, with Lady Russell, still resident in Kellynch,and Mary fixed only three miles off, must be anticipated, need notinvolve any particular awkwardness.