Jane Austen 19 страница

continually occurring, and always the hope of more, and always

the knowledge of his being there.

 

It was in one of these short meetings, each apparently occupied

in admiring a fine display of greenhouse plants, that she said--

 

"I have been thinking over the past, and trying impartially

to judge of the right and wrong, I mean with regard to myself;

and I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it,

that I was perfectly right in being guided by the friend whom

you will love better than you do now. To me, she was in the place

of a parent. Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying

that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases

in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides;

and for myself, I certainly never should, in any circumstance

of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean, that I was right

in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise, I should have

suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up,

because I should have suffered in my conscience. I have now,

as far as such a sentiment is allowable in human nature, nothing

to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a strong sense of duty

is no bad part of a woman`s portion."

 

He looked at her, looked at Lady Russell, and looking again at her,

replied, as if in cool deliberation--

 

"Not yet. But there are hopes of her being forgiven in time.

I trust to being in charity with her soon. But I too have been

thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself,

whether there may not have been one person more my enemy

even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned

to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds,

and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you,

would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short,

have renewed the engagement then?"

 

"Would I!" was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.

 

"Good God!" he cried, "you would! It is not that I did not think of it,

or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success;

but I was proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you.

I shut my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice.

This is a recollection which ought to make me forgive every one

sooner than myself. Six years of separation and suffering

might have been spared. It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me.

I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn

every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils

and just rewards. Like other great men under reverses," he added,

with a smile. "I must endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune.

I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve."

 

Chapter 24

 

 

Who can be in doubt of what followed? When any two young people

take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance

to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent,

or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other`s ultimate comfort.

This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to be truth;

and if such parties succeed, how should a Captain Wentworth and

an Anne Elliot, with the advantage of maturity of mind,

consciousness of right, and one independent fortune between them,

fail of bearing down every opposition? They might in fact,

have borne down a great deal more than they met with, for there was

little to distress them beyond the want of graciousness and warmth.

Sir Walter made no objection, and Elizabeth did nothing worse

than look cold and unconcerned. Captain Wentworth, with five-and-twenty

thousand pounds, and as high in his profession as merit and activity

could place him, was no longer nobody. He was now esteemed quite worthy

to address the daughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet,

who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain himself

in the situation in which Providence had placed him, and who could

give his daughter at present but a small part of the share

of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter.

 

Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne,

and no vanity flattered, to make him really happy on the occasion,

was very far from thinking it a bad match for her. On the contrary,

when he saw more of Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight,

and eyed him well, he was very much struck by his personal claims,

and felt that his superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced

against her superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by

his well-sounding name, enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen,

with a very good grace, for the insertion of the marriage

in the volume of honour.

 

The only one among them, whose opposition of feeling could excite

any serious anxiety was Lady Russell. Anne knew that Lady Russell

must be suffering some pain in understanding and relinquishing Mr Elliot,

and be making some struggles to become truly acquainted with,

and do justice to Captain Wentworth. This however was what

Lady Russell had now to do. She must learn to feel that she had

been mistaken with regard to both; that she had been unfairly influenced

by appearances in each; that because Captain Wentworth`s manners

had not suited her own ideas, she had been too quick in suspecting them

to indicate a character of dangerous impetuosity; and that because

Mr Elliot`s manners had precisely pleased her in their propriety

and correctness, their general politeness and suavity, she had been

too quick in receiving them as the certain result of the most correct

opinions and 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 cousins 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

 

 

[End.]