Jane Austen 5 страница

the whole conversation, which began with Mary`s saying,

in a tone of great exultation--

 

"I mean to go with you, Charles, for I am of no more use at home

than you are. If I were to shut myself up for ever with the child,

I should not be able to persuade him to do anything he did not like.

Anne will stay; Anne undertakes to stay at home and take care of him.

It is Anne`s own proposal, and so I shall go with you, which will be

a great deal better, for I have not dined at the other house since Tuesday."

 

"This is very kind of Anne," was her husband`s answer, "and I should be

very glad to have you go; but it seems rather hard that she should be

left at home by herself, to nurse our sick child."

 

Anne was now at hand to take up her own cause, and the sincerity

of her manner being soon sufficient to convince him, where conviction

was at least very agreeable, he had no farther scruples as to her being

left to dine alone, though he still wanted her to join them in the evening,

when the child might be at rest for the night, and kindly urged her

to let him come and fetch her, but she was quite unpersuadable;

and this being the case, she had ere long the pleasure of seeing them

set off together in high spirits. They were gone, she hoped,

to be happy, however oddly constructed such happiness might seem;

as for herself, she was left with as many sensations of comfort,

as were, perhaps, ever likely to be hers. She knew herself to be

of the first utility to the child; and what was it to her

if Frederick Wentworth were only half a mile distant, making himself

agreeable to others?

 

She would have liked to know how he felt as to a meeting.

Perhaps indifferent, if indifference could exist under such circumstances.

He must be either indifferent or unwilling. Had he wished

ever to see her again, he need not have waited till this time;

he would have done what she could not but believe that in his place

she should have done long ago, when events had been early giving him

the independence which alone had been wanting.

 

Her brother and sister came back delighted with their new acquaintance,

and their visit in general. There had been music, singing,

talking, laughing, all that was most agreeable; charming manners

in Captain Wentworth, no shyness or reserve; they seemed all

to know each other perfectly, and he was coming the very next morning

to shoot with Charles. He was to come to breakfast, but not at the Cottage,

though that had been proposed at first; but then he had been pressed

to come to the Great House instead, and he seemed afraid of being

in Mrs Charles Musgrove`s way, on account of the child, and therefore,

somehow, they hardly knew how, it ended in Charles`s being to meet him

to breakfast at his father`s.

 

Anne understood it. He wished to avoid seeing her. He had inquired

after her, she found, slightly, as might suit a former slight acquaintance,

seeming to acknowledge such as she had acknowledged, actuated, perhaps,

by the same view of escaping introduction when they were to meet.

 

The morning hours of the Cottage were always later than those

of the other house, and on the morrow the difference was so great

that Mary and Anne were not more than beginning breakfast when

Charles came in to say that they were just setting off, that he was

come for his dogs, that his sisters were following with Captain Wentworth;

his sisters meaning to visit Mary and the child, and Captain Wentworth

proposing also to wait on her for a few minutes if not inconvenient;

and though Charles had answered for the child`s being in no such state

as could make it inconvenient, Captain Wentworth would not be satisfied

without his running on to give notice.

 

Mary, very much gratified by this attention, was delighted to receive him,

while a thousand feelings rushed on Anne, of which this was

the most consoling, that it would soon be over. And it was soon over.

In two minutes after Charles`s preparation, the others appeared;

they were in the drawing-room. Her eye half met Captain Wentworth`s,

a bow, a curtsey passed; she heard his voice; he talked to Mary,

said all that was right, said something to the Miss Musgroves,

enough to mark an easy footing; the room seemed full, full of persons

and voices, but a few minutes ended it. Charles shewed himself

at the window, all was ready, their visitor had bowed and was gone,

the Miss Musgroves were gone too, suddenly resolving to walk

to the end of the village with the sportsmen: the room was cleared,

and Anne might finish her breakfast as she could.

 

"It is over! it is over!" she repeated to herself again and again,

in nervous gratitude. "The worst is over!"

 

Mary talked, but she could not attend. She had seen him.

They had met. They had been once more in the same room.

 

Soon, however, she began to reason with herself, and try to be feeling less.

Eight years, almost eight years had passed, since all had been given up.

How absurd to be resuming the agitation which such an interval

had banished into distance and indistinctness! What might not

eight years do? Events of every description, changes, alienations,

removals--all, all must be comprised in it, and oblivion of the past--

how natural, how certain too! It included nearly a third part

of her own life.

 

Alas! with all her reasoning, she found, that to retentive feelings

eight years may be little more than nothing.

 

Now, how were his sentiments to be read? Was this like

wishing to avoid her? And the next moment she was hating herself

for the folly which asked the question.

 

On one other question which perhaps her utmost wisdom

might not have prevented, she was soon spared all suspense;

for, after the Miss Musgroves had returned and finished their visit

at the Cottage she had this spontaneous information from Mary: --

 

"Captain Wentworth is not very gallant by you, Anne, though he was

so attentive to me. Henrietta asked him what he thought of you,

when they went away, and he said, `You were so altered he should not

have known you again.`"

 

Mary had no feelings to make her respect her sister`s in a common way,

but she was perfectly unsuspicious of being inflicting any peculiar wound.

 

"Altered beyond his knowledge." Anne fully submitted, in silent,

deep mortification. Doubtless it was so, and she could take no revenge,

for he was not altered, or not for the worse. She had already

acknowledged it to herself, and she could not think differently,

let him think of her as he would. No: the years which had destroyed

her youth and bloom had only given him a more glowing, manly,

open look, in no respect lessening his personal advantages.

She had seen the same Frederick Wentworth.

 

"So altered that he should not have known her again!" These were words

which could not but dwell with her. Yet she soon began to rejoice

that she had heard them. They were of sobering tendency;

they allayed agitation; they composed, and consequently must

make her happier.

 

Frederick Wentworth had used such words, or something like them,

but without an idea that they would be carried round to her.

He had thought her wretchedly altered, and in the first moment of appeal,

had spoken as he felt. He had not forgiven Anne Elliot.

She had used him ill, deserted and disappointed him; and worse,

she had shewn a feebleness of character in doing so, which his own decided,

confident temper could not endure. She had given him up to oblige others.

It had been the effect of over-persuasion. It had been

weakness and timidity.

 

He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman since

whom he thought her equal; but, except from some natural sensation

of curiosity, he had no desire of meeting her again. Her power with him

was gone for ever.

 

It was now his object to marry. He was rich, and being turned on shore,

fully intended to settle as soon as he could be properly tempted;

actually looking round, ready to fall in love with all the speed

which a clear head and a quick taste could allow. He had a heart

for either of the Miss Musgroves, if they could catch it; a heart,

in short, for any pleasing young woman who came in his way,

excepting Anne Elliot. This was his only secret exception,

when he said to his sister, in answer to her suppositions:--

 

"Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match.

Anybody between fifteen and thirty may have me for asking.

A little beauty, and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy,

and I am a lost man. Should not this be enough for a sailor,

who has had no society among women to make him nice?"

 

He said it, she knew, to be contradicted. His bright proud eye

spoke the conviction that he was nice; and Anne Elliot was

not out of his thoughts, when he more seriously described

the woman he should wish to meet with. "A strong mind,

with sweetness of manner," made the first and the last of the description.

 

"That is the woman I want," said he. "Something a little inferior

I shall of course put up with, but it must not be much. If I am a fool,

I shall be a fool indeed, for I have thought on the subject

more than most men."

 

Chapter 8

 

 

From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly

in the same circle. They were soon dining in company together

at Mr Musgrove`s, for the little boy`s state could no longer

supply his aunt with a pretence for absenting herself; and this was

but the beginning of other dinings and other meetings.

 

Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof;

former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each;

they could not but be reverted to; the year of their engagement

could not but be named by him, in the little narratives or descriptions

which conversation called forth. His profession qualified him,

his disposition lead him, to talk; and "That was in the year six;"

"That happened before I went to sea in the year six," occurred

in the course of the first evening they spent together:

and though his voice did not falter, and though she had no reason

to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke,

Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind,

that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself.

There must be the same immediate association of thought,

though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.

 

They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what

the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other!

Now nothing! There had been a time, when of all the large party

now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found it

most difficult to cease to speak to one another. With the exception,

perhaps, of Admiral and Mrs Croft, who seemed particularly attached

and happy, (Anne could allow no other exceptions even among

the married couples), there could have been no two hearts so open,

no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved.

Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could

never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.

 

When he talked, she heard the same voice, and discerned the same mind.

There was a very general ignorance of all naval matters throughout the party;

and he was very much questioned, and especially by the two Miss Musgroves,

who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him, as to the manner

of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, &c., and their surprise

at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement

which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant ridicule,

which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant,

and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board

without anything to eat, or any cook to dress it if there were,

or any servant to wait, or any knife and fork to use.

 

From thus listening and thinking, she was roused by a whisper

of Mrs Musgrove`s who, overcome by fond regrets, could not help saying--

 

"Ah! Miss Anne, if it had pleased Heaven to spare my poor son,

I dare say he would have been just such another by this time."

 

Anne suppressed a smile, and listened kindly, while Mrs Musgrove

relieved her heart a little more; and for a few minutes, therefore,

could not keep pace with the conversation of the others.

 

When she could let her attention take its natural course again,

she found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the Navy List

(their own navy list, the first that had ever been at Uppercross),

and sitting down together to pore over it, with the professed view

of finding out the ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded.

 

"Your first was the Asp, I remember; we will look for the Asp."

 

"You will not find her there. Quite worn out and broken up.

I was the last man who commanded her. Hardly fit for service then.

Reported fit for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off

to the West Indies."

 

The girls looked all amazement.

 

"The Admiralty," he continued, "entertain themselves now and then,

with sending a few hundred men to sea, in a ship not fit to be employed.

But they have a great many to provide for; and among the thousands

that may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible

for them to distinguish the very set who may be least missed."

 

"Phoo! phoo!" cried the Admiral, "what stuff these young fellows talk!

Never was a better sloop than the Asp in her day. For an old built sloop,

you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her! He knows there

must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her

at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon,

with no more interest than his."

 

"I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you;" replied Captain Wentworth,

seriously. "I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire.

It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea;

a very great object, I wanted to be doing something."

 

"To be sure you did. What should a young fellow like you do ashore

for half a year together? If a man had not a wife, he soon wants

to be afloat again."

 

"But, Captain Wentworth," cried Louisa, "how vexed you must have been

when you came to the Asp, to see what an old thing they had given you."

 

"I knew pretty well what she was before that day;" said he, smiling.

"I had no more discoveries to make than you would have as to

the fashion and strength of any old pelisse, which you had seen

lent about among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember,

and which at last, on some very wet day, is lent to yourself.

Ah! she was a dear old Asp to me. She did all that I wanted.

I knew she would. I knew that we should either go to the bottom together,

or that she would be the making of me; and I never had two days

of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her; and after

taking privateers enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck

in my passage home the next autumn, to fall in with the very French frigate

I wanted. I brought her into Plymouth; and here another instance of luck.

We had not been six hours in the Sound, when a gale came on,

which lasted four days and nights, and which would have done for

poor old Asp in half the time; our touch with the Great Nation

not having much improved our condition. Four-and-twenty hours later,

and I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth,

in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers; and being lost

in only a sloop, nobody would have thought about me." Anne`s shudderings

were to herself alone; but the Miss Musgroves could be as open

as they were sincere, in their exclamations of pity and horror.

 

"And so then, I suppose," said Mrs Musgrove, in a low voice,

as if thinking aloud, "so then he went away to the Laconia, and there

he met with our poor boy. Charles, my dear," (beckoning him to her),

"do ask Captain Wentworth where it was he first met with your poor brother.

I always forgot."

 

"It was at Gibraltar, mother, I know. Dick had been left ill at Gibraltar,

with a recommendation from his former captain to Captain Wentworth."

 

"Oh! but, Charles, tell Captain Wentworth, he need not be afraid

of mentioning poor Dick before me, for it would be rather a pleasure

to hear him talked of by such a good friend."

 

Charles, being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case,

only nodded in reply, and walked away.

 

The girls were now hunting for the Laconia; and Captain Wentworth

could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume

into his own hands to save them the trouble, and once more read aloud

the little statement of her name and rate, and present

non-commissioned class, observing over it that she too had been

one of the best friends man ever had.

 

"Ah! those were pleasant days when I had the Laconia! How fast I

made money in her. A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise

together off the Western Islands. Poor Harville, sister!

You know how much he wanted money: worse than myself. He had a wife.

Excellent fellow. I shall never forget his happiness. He felt it all,

so much for her sake. I wished for him again the next summer,

when I had still the same luck in the Mediterranean."

 

"And I am sure, Sir." said Mrs Musgrove, "it was a lucky day for us,

when you were put captain into that ship. We shall never forget

what you did."

 

Her feelings made her speak low; and Captain Wentworth,

hearing only in part, and probably not having Dick Musgrove at all

near his thoughts, looked rather in suspense, and as if waiting for more.

 

"My brother," whispered one of the girls; "mamma is thinking

of poor Richard."

 

"Poor dear fellow!" continued Mrs Musgrove; "he was grown so steady,

and such an excellent correspondent, while he was under your care!

Ah! it would have been a happy thing, if he had never left you.

I assure you, Captain Wentworth, we are very sorry he ever left you."

 

There was a momentary expression in Captain Wentworth`s face at this speech,

a certain glance of his bright eye, and curl of his handsome mouth,

which convinced Anne, that instead of sharing in Mrs Musgrove`s kind wishes,

as to her son, he had probably been at some pains to get rid of him;

but it was too transient an indulgence of self-amusement to be detected

by any who understood him less than herself; in another moment

he was perfectly collected and serious, and almost instantly afterwards

coming up to the sofa, on which she and Mrs Musgrove were sitting,

took a place by the latter, and entered into conversation with her,

in a low voice, about her son, doing it with so much sympathy

and natural grace, as shewed the kindest consideration for all

that was real and unabsurd in the parent`s feelings.

 

They were actually on the same sofa, for Mrs Musgrove had

most readily made room for him; they were divided only by Mrs Musgrove.

It was no insignificant barrier, indeed. Mrs Musgrove was of

a comfortable, substantial size, infinitely more fitted by nature

to express good cheer and good humour, than tenderness and sentiment;

and while the agitations of Anne`s slender form, and pensive face,

may be considered as very completely screened, Captain Wentworth

should be allowed some credit for the self-command with which

he attended to her large fat sighings over the destiny of a son,

whom alive nobody had cared for.

 

Personal size and mental sorrow have certainly no necessary proportions.

A large bulky figure has as good a right to be in deep affliction,

as the most graceful set of limbs in the world. But, fair or not fair,

there are unbecoming conjunctions, which reason will patronize in vain--

which taste cannot tolerate--which ridicule will seize.

 

The Admiral, after taking two or three refreshing turns about the room

with his hands behind him, being called to order by his wife,

now came up to Captain Wentworth, and without any observation

of what he might be interrupting, thinking only of his own thoughts,

began with--

 

"If you had been a week later at Lisbon, last spring, Frederick,

you would have been asked to give a passage to Lady Mary Grierson

and her daughters."

 

"Should I? I am glad I was not a week later then."

 

The Admiral abused him for his want of gallantry. He defended himself;

though professing that he would never willingly admit any ladies

on board a ship of his, excepting for a ball, or a visit,

which a few hours might comprehend.

 

"But, if I know myself," said he, "this is from no want of gallantry

towards them. It is rather from feeling how impossible it is,

with all one`s efforts, and all one`s sacrifices, to make

the accommodations on board such as women ought to have.

There can be no want of gallantry, Admiral, in rating the claims of women

to every personal comfort high, and this is what I do. I hate to hear

of women on board, or to see them on board; and no ship under my command

shall ever convey a family of ladies anywhere, if I can help it."

 

This brought his sister upon him.

 

"Oh! Frederick! But I cannot believe it of you. --All idle refinement!

--Women may be as comfortable on board, as in the best house in England.

I believe I have lived as much on board as most women, and I know

nothing superior to the accommodations of a man-of-war. I declare

I have not a comfort or an indulgence about me, even at Kellynch Hall,"

(with a kind bow to Anne), "beyond what I always had in most of

the ships I have lived in; and they have been five altogether."

 

"Nothing to the purpose," replied her brother. "You were living

with your husband, and were the only woman on board."

 

"But you, yourself, brought Mrs Harville, her sister, her cousin,

and three children, round from Portsmouth to Plymouth. Where was this

superfine, extraordinary sort of gallantry of yours then?"

 

"All merged in my friendship, Sophia. I would assist any

brother officer`s wife that I could, and I would bring anything

of Harville`s from the world`s end, if he wanted it. But do not imagine

that I did not feel it an evil in itself."

 

"Depend upon it, they were all perfectly comfortable."

 

"I might not like them the better for that perhaps. Such a number

of women and children have no right to be comfortable on board."

 

"My dear Frederick, you are talking quite idly. Pray, what would

become of us poor sailors` wives, who often want to be conveyed to

one port or another, after our husbands, if everybody had your feelings?"

 

"My feelings, you see, did not prevent my taking Mrs Harville

and all her family to Plymouth."

 

"But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman,

and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures.

We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days."

 

"Ah! my dear," said the Admiral, "when he had got a wife,

he will sing a different tune. When he is married, if we have

the good luck to live to another war, we shall see him do as you and I,

and a great many others, have done. We shall have him very thankful

to anybody that will bring him his wife."

 

"Ay, that we shall."

 

"Now I have done," cried Captain Wentworth. "When once married

people begin to attack me with,--`Oh! you will think very differently,

when you are married.` I can only say, `No, I shall not;` and then

they say again, `Yes, you will,` and there is an end of it."

 

He got up and moved away.

 

"What a great traveller you must have been, ma`am!" said Mrs Musgrove

to Mrs Croft.

 

"Pretty well, ma`am in the fifteen years of my marriage;

though many women have done more. I have crossed the Atlantic

four times, and have been once to the East Indies, and back again,

and only once; besides being in different places about home:

Cork, and Lisbon, and Gibraltar. But I never went beyond the Streights,

and never was in the West Indies. We do not call Bermuda or Bahama,

you know, the West Indies."

 

Mrs Musgrove had not a word to say in dissent; she could not accuse herself

of having ever called them anything in the whole course of her life.

 

"And I do assure you, ma`am," pursued Mrs Croft, "that nothing can exceed

the accommodations of a man-of-war; I speak, you know, of the higher rates.

When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more confined;

though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of them;

and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent

on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was nothing

to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with

excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little disordered

always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew

what sickness was afterwards. The only time I ever really suffered

in body or mind, the only time that I ever fancied myself unwell,

or had any ideas of danger, was the winter that I passed by myself at Deal,

when the Admiral (Captain Croft then) was in the North Seas.