Jane Austen 15 страница

how any report of Captain Wentworth could have reached her.

After another short silence--

 

"Pray," said Mrs Smith, "is Mr Elliot aware of your acquaintance with me?

Does he know that I am in Bath?"

 

"Mr Elliot!" repeated Anne, looking up surprised. A moment`s reflection

shewed her the mistake she had been under. She caught it instantaneously;

and recovering her courage with the feeling of safety, soon added,

more composedly, "Are you acquainted with Mr Elliot?"

 

"I have been a good deal acquainted with him," replied Mrs Smith, gravely,

"but it seems worn out now. It is a great while since we met."

 

"I was not at all aware of this. You never mentioned it before.

Had I known it, I would have had the pleasure of talking to him about you."

 

"To confess the truth," said Mrs Smith, assuming her usual

air of cheerfulness, "that is exactly the pleasure I want you to have.

I want you to talk about me to Mr Elliot. I want your interest with him.

He can be of essential service to me; and if you would have the goodness,

my dear Miss Elliot, to make it an object to yourself,

of course it is done."

 

"I should be extremely happy; I hope you cannot doubt my willingness

to be of even the slightest use to you," replied Anne; "but I suspect

that you are considering me as having a higher claim on Mr Elliot,

a greater right to influence him, than is really the case.

I am sure you have, somehow or other, imbibed such a notion.

You must consider me only as Mr Elliot`s relation. If in that light

there is anything which you suppose his cousin might fairly ask of him,

I beg you would not hesitate to employ me."

 

Mrs Smith gave her a penetrating glance, and then, smiling, said--

 

"I have been a little premature, I perceive; I beg your pardon.

I ought to have waited for official information, But now, my dear

Miss Elliot, as an old friend, do give me a hint as to when I may speak.

Next week? To be sure by next week I may be allowed to

think it all settled, and build my own selfish schemes on

Mr Elliot`s good fortune."

 

"No," replied Anne, "nor next week, nor next, nor next.

I assure you that nothing of the sort you are thinking of

will be settled any week. I am not going to marry Mr Elliot.

I should like to know why you imagine I am?"

 

Mrs Smith looked at her again, looked earnestly, smiled,

shook her head, and exclaimed--

 

"Now, how I do wish I understood you! How I do wish I knew

what you were at! I have a great idea that you do not design to be cruel,

when the right moment occurs. Till it does come, you know,

we women never mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us,

that every man is refused, till he offers. But why should you be cruel?

Let me plead for my--present friend I cannot call him, but for

my former friend. Where can you look for a more suitable match?

Where could you expect a more gentlemanlike, agreeable man?

Let me recommend Mr Elliot. I am sure you hear nothing but good of him

from Colonel Wallis; and who can know him better than Colonel Wallis?"

 

"My dear Mrs Smith, Mr Elliot`s wife has not been dead much above

half a year. He ought not to be supposed to be paying his addresses

to any one."

 

"Oh! if these are your only objections," cried Mrs Smith, archly,

"Mr Elliot is safe, and I shall give myself no more trouble about him.

Do not forget me when you are married, that`s all. Let him know me to be

a friend of yours, and then he will think little of the trouble required,

which it is very natural for him now, with so many affairs and engagements

of his own, to avoid and get rid of as he can; very natural, perhaps.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred would do the same. Of course,

he cannot be aware of the importance to me. Well, my dear Miss Elliot,

I hope and trust you will be very happy. Mr Elliot has sense

to understand the value of such a woman. Your peace will not be

shipwrecked as mine has been. You are safe in all worldly matters,

and safe in his character. He will not be led astray; he will not be

misled by others to his ruin."

 

"No," said Anne, "I can readily believe all that of my cousin.

He seems to have a calm decided temper, not at all open

to dangerous impressions. I consider him with great respect.

I have no reason, from any thing that has fallen within my observation,

to do otherwise. But I have not known him long; and he is not a man,

I think, to be known intimately soon. Will not this manner

of speaking of him, Mrs Smith, convince you that he is nothing to me?

Surely this must be calm enough. And, upon my word, he is nothing to me.

Should he ever propose to me (which I have very little reason to imagine

he has any thought of doing), I shall not accept him. I assure you

I shall not. I assure you, Mr Elliot had not the share which

you have been supposing, in whatever pleasure the concert

of last night might afford: not Mr Elliot; it is not Mr Elliot that--"

 

She stopped, regretting with a deep blush that she had implied so much;

but less would hardly have been sufficient. Mrs Smith would hardly

have believed so soon in Mr Elliot`s failure, but from the perception

of there being a somebody else. As it was, she instantly submitted,

and with all the semblance of seeing nothing beyond; and Anne,

eager to escape farther notice, was impatient to know why Mrs Smith

should have fancied she was to marry Mr Elliot; where she could have

received the idea, or from whom she could have heard it.

 

"Do tell me how it first came into your head."

 

"It first came into my head," replied Mrs Smith, "upon finding how much

you were together, and feeling it to be the most probable thing

in the world to be wished for by everybody belonging to either of you;

and you may depend upon it that all your acquaintance have disposed of you

in the same way. But I never heard it spoken of till two days ago."

 

"And has it indeed been spoken of?"

 

"Did you observe the woman who opened the door to you when

you called yesterday?"

 

"No. Was not it Mrs Speed, as usual, or the maid? I observed

no one in particular."

 

"It was my friend Mrs Rooke; Nurse Rooke; who, by-the-bye,

had a great curiosity to see you, and was delighted to be in the way

to let you in. She came away from Marlborough Buildings only on Sunday;

and she it was who told me you were to marry Mr Elliot.

She had had it from Mrs Wallis herself, which did not seem bad authority.

She sat an hour with me on Monday evening, and gave me the whole history."

"The whole history," repeated Anne, laughing. "She could not make

a very long history, I think, of one such little article

of unfounded news."

 

Mrs Smith said nothing.

 

"But," continued Anne, presently, "though there is no truth in my having

this claim on Mr Elliot, I should be extremely happy to be of use to you

in any way that I could. Shall I mention to him your being in Bath?

Shall I take any message?"

 

"No, I thank you: no, certainly not. In the warmth of the moment,

and under a mistaken impression, I might, perhaps, have endeavoured

to interest you in some circumstances; but not now. No, I thank you,

I have nothing to trouble you with."

 

"I think you spoke of having known Mr Elliot many years?"

 

"I did."

 

"Not before he was married, I suppose?"

 

"Yes; he was not married when I knew him first."

 

"And--were you much acquainted?"

 

"Intimately."

 

"Indeed! Then do tell me what he was at that time of life.

I have a great curiosity to know what Mr Elliot was as a very young man.

Was he at all such as he appears now?"

 

"I have not seen Mr Elliot these three years," was Mrs Smith`s answer,

given so gravely that it was impossible to pursue the subject farther;

and Anne felt that she had gained nothing but an increase of curiosity.

They were both silent: Mrs Smith very thoughtful. At last--

 

"I beg your pardon, my dear Miss Elliot," she cried, in her

natural tone of cordiality, "I beg your pardon for the short answers

I have been giving you, but I have been uncertain what I ought to do.

I have been doubting and considering as to what I ought to tell you.

There were many things to be taken into the account. One hates

to be officious, to be giving bad impressions, making mischief.

Even the smooth surface of family-union seems worth preserving,

though there may be nothing durable beneath. However, I have determined;

I think I am right; I think you ought to be made acquainted

with Mr Elliot`s real character. Though I fully believe that,

at present, you have not the smallest intention of accepting him,

there is no saying what may happen. You might, some time or other,

be differently affected towards him. Hear the truth, therefore,

now, while you are unprejudiced. Mr Elliot is a man without heart

or conscience; a designing, wary, cold-blooded being, who thinks

only of himself; whom for his own interest or ease, would be guilty

of any cruelty, or any treachery, that could be perpetrated without

risk of his general character. He has no feeling for others.

Those whom he has been the chief cause of leading into ruin,

he can neglect and desert without the smallest compunction.

He is totally beyond the reach of any sentiment of justice or compassion.

Oh! he is black at heart, hollow and black!"

 

Anne`s astonished air, and exclamation of wonder, made her pause,

and in a calmer manner, she added,

 

"My expressions startle you. You must allow for an injured, angry woman.

But I will try to command myself. I will not abuse him.

I will only tell you what I have found him. Facts shall speak.

He was the intimate friend of my dear husband, who trusted and loved him,

and thought him as good as himself. The intimacy had been formed

before our marriage. I found them most intimate friends; and I, too,

became excessively pleased with Mr Elliot, and entertained

the highest opinion of him. At nineteen, you know, one does not

think very seriously; but Mr Elliot appeared to me quite as good as others,

and much more agreeable than most others, and we were almost

always together. We were principally in town, living in very good style.

He was then the inferior in circumstances; he was then the poor one;

he had chambers in the Temple, and it was as much as he could do

to support the appearance of a gentleman. He had always a home

with us whenever he chose it; he was always welcome; he was like a brother.

My poor Charles, who had the finest, most generous spirit in the world,

would have divided his last farthing with him; and I know that his purse

was open to him; I know that he often assisted him."

 

"This must have been about that very period of Mr Elliot`s life,"

said Anne, "which has always excited my particular curiosity.

It must have been about the same time that he became known to

my father and sister. I never knew him myself; I only heard of him;

but there was a something in his conduct then, with regard to

my father and sister, and afterwards in the circumstances of his marriage,

which I never could quite reconcile with present times. It seemed

to announce a different sort of man."

 

"I know it all, I know it all," cried Mrs Smith. "He had been

introduced to Sir Walter and your sister before I was acquainted with him,

but I heard him speak of them for ever. I know he was invited

and encouraged, and I know he did not choose to go. I can satisfy you,

perhaps, on points which you would little expect; and as to his marriage,

I knew all about it at the time. I was privy to all the fors and againsts;

I was the friend to whom he confided his hopes and plans; and though

I did not know his wife previously, her inferior situation in society,

indeed, rendered that impossible, yet I knew her all her life afterwards,

or at least till within the last two years of her life, and can answer

any question you may wish to put."

 

"Nay," said Anne, "I have no particular enquiry to make about her.

I have always understood they were not a happy couple. But I should

like to know why, at that time of his life, he should slight

my father`s acquaintance as he did. My father was certainly disposed

to take very kind and proper notice of him. Why did Mr Elliot draw back?"

 

"Mr Elliot," replied Mrs Smith, "at that period of his life,

had one object in view: to make his fortune, and by a rather quicker

process than the law. He was determined to make it by marriage.

He was determined, at least, not to mar it by an imprudent marriage;

and I know it was his belief (whether justly or not, of course

I cannot decide), that your father and sister, in their civilities

and invitations, were designing a match between the heir

and the young lady, and it was impossible that such a match

should have answered his ideas of wealth and independence.

That was his motive for drawing back, I can assure you.

He told me the whole story. He had no concealments with me.

It was curious, that having just left you behind me in Bath,

my first and principal acquaintance on marrying should be your cousin;

and that, through him, I should be continually hearing of your father

and sister. He described one Miss Elliot, and I thought

very affectionately of the other."

 

"Perhaps," cried Anne, struck by a sudden idea, "you sometimes

spoke of me to Mr Elliot?"

 

"To be sure I did; very often. I used to boast of my own Anne Elliot,

and vouch for your being a very different creature from--"

 

She checked herself just in time.

 

"This accounts for something which Mr Elliot said last night,"

cried Anne. "This explains it. I found he had been used to hear of me.

I could not comprehend how. What wild imaginations one forms where

dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken! But I beg your pardon;

I have interrupted you. Mr Elliot married then completely for money?

The circumstances, probably, which first opened your eyes

to his character."

 

Mrs Smith hesitated a little here. "Oh! those things are too common.

When one lives in the world, a man or woman`s marrying for money

is too common to strike one as it ought. I was very young,

and associated only with the young, and we were a thoughtless,

gay set, without any strict rules of conduct. We lived for enjoyment.

I think differently now; time and sickness and sorrow have given me

other notions; but at that period I must own I saw nothing reprehensible

in what Mr Elliot was doing. `To do the best for himself,`

passed as a duty."

 

"But was not she a very low woman?"

 

"Yes; which I objected to, but he would not regard. Money, money,

was all that he wanted. Her father was a grazier, her grandfather

had been a butcher, but that was all nothing. She was a fine woman,

had had a decent education, was brought forward by some cousins,

thrown by chance into Mr Elliot`s company, and fell in love with him;

and not a difficulty or a scruple was there on his side,

with respect to her birth. All his caution was spent in being secured

of the real amount of her fortune, before he committed himself.

Depend upon it, whatever esteem Mr Elliot may have for his own situation

in life now, as a young man he had not the smallest value for it.

His chance for the Kellynch estate was something, but all the honour

of the family he held as cheap as dirt. I have often heard him declare,

that if baronetcies were saleable, anybody should have his

for fifty pounds, arms and motto, name and livery included;

but I will not pretend to repeat half that I used to hear him say

on that subject. It would not be fair; and yet you ought to have proof,

for what is all this but assertion, and you shall have proof."

 

"Indeed, my dear Mrs Smith, I want none," cried Anne. "You have asserted

nothing contradictory to what Mr Elliot appeared to be some years ago.

This is all in confirmation, rather, of what we used to hear and believe.

I am more curious to know why he should be so different now."

 

"But for my satisfaction, if you will have the goodness to ring for Mary;

stay: I am sure you will have the still greater goodness of

going yourself into my bedroom, and bringing me the small inlaid box

which you will find on the upper shelf of the closet."

 

Anne, seeing her friend to be earnestly bent on it, did as she was desired.

The box was brought and placed before her, and Mrs Smith, sighing over it

as she unlocked it, said--

 

"This is full of papers belonging to him, to my husband;

a small portion only of what I had to look over when I lost him.

The letter I am looking for was one written by Mr Elliot to him

before our marriage, and happened to be saved; why, one can hardly imagine.

But he was careless and immethodical, like other men, about those things;

and when I came to examine his papers, I found it with others

still more trivial, from different people scattered here and there,

while many letters and memorandums of real importance had been destroyed.

Here it is; I would not burn it, because being even then very little

satisfied with Mr Elliot, I was determined to preserve every document

of former intimacy. I have now another motive for being glad

that I can produce it."

 

This was the letter, directed to "Charles Smith, Esq. Tunbridge Wells,"

and dated from London, as far back as July, 1803: --

 

"Dear Smith,--I have received yours. Your kindness almost overpowers me.

I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common, but I have

lived three-and-twenty years in the world, and have seen none like it.

At present, believe me, I have no need of your services,

being in cash again. Give me joy: I have got rid of Sir Walter and Miss.

They are gone back to Kellynch, and almost made me swear to visit them

this summer; but my first visit to Kellynch will be with a surveyor,

to tell me how to bring it with best advantage to the hammer.

The baronet, nevertheless, is not unlikely to marry again;

he is quite fool enough. If he does, however, they will leave me in peace,

which may be a decent equivalent for the reversion. He is worse

than last year.

 

"I wish I had any name but Elliot. I am sick of it. The name of Walter

I can drop, thank God! and I desire you will never insult me

with my second W. again, meaning, for the rest of my life,

to be only yours truly,--Wm. Elliot."

 

Such a letter could not be read without putting Anne in a glow;

and Mrs Smith, observing the high colour in her face, said--

 

"The language, I know, is highly disrespectful. Though I have forgot

the exact terms, I have a perfect impression of the general meaning.

But it shows you the man. Mark his professions to my poor husband.

Can any thing be stronger?"

 

Anne could not immediately get over the shock and mortification

of finding such words applied to her father. She was obliged to recollect

that her seeing the letter was a violation of the laws of honour,

that no one ought to be judged or to be known by such testimonies,

that no private correspondence could bear the eye of others,

before she could recover calmness enough to return the letter

which she had been meditating over, and say--

 

"Thank you. This is full proof undoubtedly; proof of every thing

you were saying. But why be acquainted with us now?"

 

"I can explain this too," cried Mrs Smith, smiling.

 

"Can you really?"

 

"Yes. I have shewn you Mr Elliot as he was a dozen years ago,

and I will shew him as he is now. I cannot produce written proof again,

but I can give as authentic oral testimony as you can desire, of what

he is now wanting, and what he is now doing. He is no hypocrite now.

He truly wants to marry you. His present attentions to your family

are very sincere: quite from the heart. I will give you my authority:

his friend Colonel Wallis."

 

"Colonel Wallis! you are acquainted with him?"

 

"No. It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that;

it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream

is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings

is easily moved away. Mr Elliot talks unreservedly to Colonel Wallis

of his views on you, which said Colonel Wallis, I imagine to be,

in himself, a sensible, careful, discerning sort of character;

but Colonel Wallis has a very pretty silly wife, to whom

he tells things which he had better not, and he repeats it all to her.

She in the overflowing spirits of her recovery, repeats it all

to her nurse; and the nurse knowing my acquaintance with you,

very naturally brings it all to me. On Monday evening, my good friend

Mrs Rooke let me thus much into the secrets of Marlborough Buildings.

When I talked of a whole history, therefore, you see I was

not romancing so much as you supposed."

 

"My dear Mrs Smith, your authority is deficient. This will not do.

Mr Elliot`s having any views on me will not in the least account

for the efforts he made towards a reconciliation with my father.

That was all prior to my coming to Bath. I found them on

the most friendly terms when I arrived."

 

"I know you did; I know it all perfectly, but--"

 

"Indeed, Mrs Smith, we must not expect to get real information

in such a line. Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands

of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another,

can hardly have much truth left."

 

"Only give me a hearing. You will soon be able to judge of

the general credit due, by listening to some particulars

which you can yourself immediately contradict or confirm.

Nobody supposes that you were his first inducement. He had seen you

indeed, before he came to Bath, and admired you, but without

knowing it to be you. So says my historian, at least. Is this true?

Did he see you last summer or autumn, `somewhere down in the west,`

to use her own words, without knowing it to be you?"

 

"He certainly did. So far it is very true. At Lyme.

I happened to be at Lyme."

 

"Well," continued Mrs Smith, triumphantly, "grant my friend the credit

due to the establishment of the first point asserted. He saw you then

at Lyme, and liked you so well as to be exceedingly pleased

to meet with you again in Camden Place, as Miss Anne Elliot,

and from that moment, I have no doubt, had a double motive

in his visits there. But there was another, and an earlier,

which I will now explain. If there is anything in my story which you know

to be either false or improbable, stop me. My account states,

that your sister`s friend, the lady now staying with you,

whom I have heard you mention, came to Bath with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter

as long ago as September (in short when they first came themselves),

and has been staying there ever since; that she is a clever, insinuating,

handsome woman, poor and plausible, and altogether such in situation

and manner, as to give a general idea, among Sir Walter`s acquaintance,

of her meaning to be Lady Elliot, and as general a surprise

that Miss Elliot should be apparently, blind to the danger."

 

Here Mrs Smith paused a moment; but Anne had not a word to say,

and she continued--

 

"This was the light in which it appeared to those who knew the family,

long before you returned to it; and Colonel Wallis had his eye

upon your father enough to be sensible of it, though he did not then

visit in Camden Place; but his regard for Mr Elliot gave him an interest

in watching all that was going on there, and when Mr Elliot came to Bath

for a day or two, as he happened to do a little before Christmas,

Colonel Wallis made him acquainted with the appearance of things,

and the reports beginning to prevail. Now you are to understand,

that time had worked a very material change in Mr Elliot`s opinions

as to the value of a baronetcy. Upon all points of blood and connexion

he is a completely altered man. Having long had as much money

as he could spend, nothing to wish for on the side of avarice

or indulgence, he has been gradually learning to pin his happiness

upon the consequence he is heir to. I thought it coming on

before our acquaintance ceased, but it is now a confirmed feeling.

He cannot bear the idea of not being Sir William. You may guess,

therefore, that the news he heard from his friend could not be

very agreeable, and you may guess what it produced; the resolution

of coming back to Bath as soon as possible, and of fixing himself here

for a time, with the view of renewing his former acquaintance,

and recovering such a footing in the family as might give him the means

of ascertaining the degree of his danger, and of circumventing the lady

if he found it material. This was agreed upon between the two friends

as the only thing to be done; and Colonel Wallis was to assist

in every way that he could. He was to be introduced, and Mrs Wallis

was to be introduced, and everybody was to be introduced.

Mr Elliot came back accordingly; and on application was forgiven,

as you know, and re-admitted into the family; and there it was

his constant object, and his only object (till your arrival

added another motive), to watch Sir Walter and Mrs Clay.