_The Cancelled Chapter (Chap. X.) of 'Persuasion_.'
With all this knowledge of Mr. Elliot and this authority to impart it,
Anne left Westgate Buildings, her mind deeply busy in revolving what she
had heard, feeling, thinking, recalling, and foreseeing everything,
shocked at Mr. Elliot, sighing over future Kellynch, and pained for Lady
Russell, whose confidence in him had been entire. The embarrassment
which must be felt from this hour in his presence! How to behave to him?
How to get rid of him? What to do by any of the party at home? Where to
be blind? Where to be active? It was altogether a confusion of images
and doubts--a perplexity, an agitation which she could not see the end
of. And she was in Gay Street, and still so much engrossed that she
started on being addressed by Admiral Croft, as if he were a person
unlikely to be met there. It was within a few steps of his own door.
'You are going to call upon my wife,' said he. 'She will be very glad to
see you.'
Anne denied it.
'No! she really had not time, she was in her way home;' but while she
spoke the Admiral had stepped back and knocked at the door, calling out,
'Yes, yes; do go in; she is all alone; go in and rest yourself.'
Anne felt so little disposed at this time to be in company of any sort,
that it vexed her to be thus constrained, but she was obliged to stop.
'Since you are so very kind,' said she, 'I will just ask Mrs. Croft how
she does, but I really cannot stay five minutes. You are sure she is
quite alone?'
The possibility of Captain Wentworth had occurred; and most fearfully
anxious was she to be assured--either that he was within, or that he was
not--_which_ might have been a question.
'Oh yes! quite alone, nobody but her mantua-maker with her, and they have
been shut up together this half-hour, so it must be over soon.'
'Her mantua-maker! Then I am sure my calling now would be most
inconvenient. Indeed you must allow me to leave my card and be so good
as to explain it afterwards to Mrs. Croft.'
'No, no, not at all--not at all--she will be very happy to see you. Mind,
I will not swear that she has not something particular to say to you, but
that will all come out in the right place. I give no hints. Why, Miss
Elliot, we begin to hear strange things of you (smiling in her face). But
you have not much the look of it, as grave as a little judge!'
Anne blushed.
'Aye, aye, that will do now, it is all right. I thought we were not
mistaken.'
She was left to guess at the direction of his suspicions; the first wild
idea had been of some disclosure from his brother-in-law, but she was
ashamed the next moment, and felt how far more probable it was that he
should be meaning Mr. Elliot. The door was opened, and the man evidently
beginning to _deny_ his mistress, when the sight of his master stopped
him. The Admiral enjoyed the joke exceedingly. Anne thought his triumph
over Stephen rather too long. At last, however, he was able to invite
her up stairs, and stepping before her said, 'I will just go up with you
myself and show you in. I cannot stay, because I must go to the Post-
Office, but if you will only sit down for five minutes I am sure Sophy
will come, and you will find nobody to disturb you--there is nobody but
Frederick here,' opening the door as he spoke. Such a person to be
passed over as nobody to _her_! After being allowed to feel quite
secure, indifferent, at her ease, to have it burst on her that she was to
be the next moment in the same room with him! No time for recollection!
for planning behaviour or regulating manners! There was time only to
turn pale before she had passed through the door, and met the astonished
eyes of Captain Wentworth, who was sitting by the fire, pretending to
read, and prepared for no greater surprise than the Admiral's hasty
return.
Equally unexpected was the meeting on each side. There was nothing to be
done, however, but to stifle feelings, and to be quietly polite, and the
Admiral was too much on the alert to leave any troublesome pause. He
repeated again what he had said before about his wife and everybody,
insisted on Anne's sitting down and being perfectly comfortable--was
sorry he must leave her himself, but was sure Mrs. Croft would be down
very soon, and would go upstairs and give her notice directly. Anne
_was_ sitting down, but now she arose, again to entreat him not to
interrupt Mrs. Croft and re-urge the wish of going away and calling
another time. But the Admiral would not hear of it; and if she did not
return to the charge with unconquerable perseverance, or did not with a
more passive determination walk quietly out of the room (as certainly she
might have done), may she not be pardoned? If she _had_ no horror of a
few minutes' tete-a-tete with Captain Wentworth, may she not be pardoned
for not wishing to give him the idea that she had? She reseated herself,
and the Admiral took leave, but on reaching the door, said--
'Frederick, a word with _you_ if you please.'
Captain Wentworth went to him, and instantly, before they were well out
of the room, the Admiral continued--
'As I am going to leave you together, it is but fair I should give you
something to talk of; and so, if you please--'
Here the door was very firmly closed, she could guess by which of the
two--and she lost entirely what immediately followed, but it was
impossible for her not to distinguish parts of the rest, for the Admiral,
on the strength of the door's being shut, was speaking without any
management of voice, though she could hear his companion trying to check
him. She could not doubt their being speaking of her. She heard her own
name and Kellynch repeatedly. She was very much disturbed. She knew not
what to do, or what to expect, and among other agonies felt the
possibility of Captain Wentworth's not returning into the room at all,
which, after her consenting to stay, would have been--too bad for
language. They seemed to be talking of the Admiral's lease of Kellynch.
She heard him say something of the lease being signed--or not
signed--_that_ was not likely to be a very agitating subject, but then
followed--
'I hate to be at an uncertainty. I must know at once. Sophy thinks the
same.'
Then in a lower tone Captain Wentworth seemed remonstrating, wanting to
be excused, wanting to put something off.
'Phoo, phoo,' answered the Admiral, 'now is the time; if you will not
speak, I will stop and speak myself.'
'Very well, sir, very well, sir,' followed with some impatience from his
companion, opening the door as he spoke--
'You will then, you promise you will?' replied the Admiral in all the
power of his natural voice, unbroken even by one thin door.
'Yes, sir, yes.' And the Admiral was hastily left, the door was closed,
and the moment arrived in which Anne was alone with Captain Wentworth.
She could not attempt to see how he looked, but he walked immediately to
a window as if irresolute and embarrassed, and for about the space of
five seconds she repented what she had done--censured it as unwise,
blushed over it as indelicate. She longed to be able to speak of the
weather or the concert, but could only compass the relief of taking a
newspaper in her hand. The distressing pause was over, however; he
turned round in half a minute, and coming towards the table where she
sat, said in a voice of effort and constraint--
'You must have heard too much already, Madam, to be in any doubt of my
having promised Admiral Croft to speak to you on a particular subject,
and this conviction determines me to do so, however repugnant to my--to
all my sense of propriety to be taking so great a liberty! You will
acquit me of impertinence I trust, by considering me as speaking only for
another, and speaking by necessity; and the Admiral is a man who can
never be thought impertinent by one who knows him as you do. His
intentions are always the kindest and the best, and you will perceive he
is actuated by none other in the application which I am now, with--with
very peculiar feelings--obliged to make.' He stopped, but merely to
recover breath, not seeming to expect any answer. Anne listened as if
her life depended on the issue of his speech. He proceeded with a forced
alacrity:--
'The Admiral, Madam, was this morning confidently informed that you
were--upon my soul, I am quite at a loss, ashamed (breathing and speaking
quickly)--the awkwardness of _giving_ information of this kind to one of
the parties--you can be at no loss to understand me. It was very
confidently said that Mr. Elliot--that everything was settled in the
family for a union between Mr. Elliot and yourself. It was added that
you were to live at Kellynch--that Kellynch was to be given up. This the
Admiral knew could not be correct. But it occurred to him that it might
be the _wish_ of the parties. And my commission from him, Madam, is to
say, that if the family wish is such, his lease of Kellynch shall be
cancelled, and he and my sister will provide themselves with another
home, without imagining themselves to be doing anything which under
similar circumstances would not be done for _them_. This is all, Madam.
A very few words in reply from you will be sufficient. That _I_ should
be the person commissioned on this subject is extraordinary! and believe
me, Madam, it is no less painful. A very few words, however, will put an
end to the awkwardness and distress we may _both_ be feeling.'
Anne spoke a word or two, but they were unintelligible; and before she
could command herself, he added, 'If you will only tell me that the
Admiral may address a line to Sir Walter, it will be enough. Pronounce
only the words, _he may_, and I shall immediately follow him with your
message.'
'No, Sir,' said Anne; 'there is no message. You are misin--the Admiral
is misinformed. I do justice to the kindness of his intentions, but he
is quite mistaken. There is no truth in any such report.'
He was a moment silent. She turned her eyes towards him for the first
time since his re-entering the room. His colour was varying, and he was
looking at her with all the power and keenness which she believed no
other eyes than his possessed.
'No truth in any such report?' he repeated. 'No truth in any _part_ of
it?'
'None.'
He had been standing by a chair, enjoying the relief of leaning on it, or
of playing with it. He now sat down, drew it a little nearer to her, and
looked with an expression which had something more than penetration in
it--something softer. Her countenance did not discourage. It was a
silent but a very powerful dialogue; on his supplication, on hers
acceptance. Still a little nearer, and a hand taken and pressed; and
'Anne, my own dear Anne!' bursting forth in all the fulness of exquisite
feeling,--and all suspense and indecision were over. They were
re-united. They were restored to all that had been lost. They were
carried back to the past with only an increase of attachment and
confidence, and only such a flutter of present delight as made them
little fit for the interruption of Mrs. Croft when she joined them not
long afterwards. _She_, probably, in the observations of the next ten
minutes saw something to suspect; and though it was hardly possible for a
woman of her description to wish the mantua-maker had imprisoned her
longer, she might be very likely wishing for some excuse to run about the
house, some storm to break the windows above, or a summons to the
Admiral's shoemaker below. Fortune favoured them all, however, in
another way, in a gentle, steady rain, just happily set in as the Admiral
returned and Anne rose to go. She was earnestly invited to stay dinner.
A note was despatched to Camden Place, and she staid--staid till ten at
night; and during that time the husband and wife, either by the wife's
contrivance, or by simply going on in their usual way, were frequently
out of the room together--gone upstairs to hear a noise, or downstairs to
settle their accounts, or upon the landing to trim the lamp. And these
precious moments were turned to so good an account that all the most
anxious feelings of the past were gone through. Before they parted at
night, Anne had the felicity of being assured that in the first place (so
far from being altered for the worse), she had gained inexpressibly in
personal loveliness; and that as to character, hers was now fixed on his
mind as _perfection_ itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and
gentleness--that he had never ceased to love and prefer her, though it
had been only at Uppercross that he had learnt to do her justice, and
only at Lyme that he had begun to understand his own feelings; that at
Lyme he had received lessons of more than one kind--the passing
admiration of Mr. Elliot had at least _roused_ him, and the scene on the
Cobb, and at Captain Harville's, had fixed her superiority. In his
preceding attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove (the attempts of
anger and pique), he protested that he had continually felt the
impossibility of really caring for Louisa, though till _that day_, till
the leisure for reflection which followed it, he had not understood the
perfect excellence of the mind with which Louisa's could so ill bear
comparison; or the perfect, the unrivalled hold it possessed over his
own. There he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of
principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of
heedlessness and the resolution of a collected mind; there he had seen
everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there
had begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment,
which had kept him from trying to regain her when thrown in his way. From
that period to the present had his penance been the most severe. He had
no sooner been free from the horror and remorse attending the first few
days of Louisa's accident, no sooner had begun to feel himself alive
again, than he had begun to feel himself, though alive, not at liberty.
He found that he was considered by his friend Harville an engaged man.
The Harvilles entertained not a doubt of a mutual attachment between him
and Louisa; and though this to a degree was contradicted instantly, it
yet made him feel that perhaps by _her_ family, by everybody, by
_herself_ even, the same idea might be held, and that he was not _free_
in honour, though if such were to be the conclusion, too free alas! in
heart. He had never thought justly on this subject before, and he had
not sufficiently considered that his excessive intimacy at Uppercross
must have its danger of ill consequence in many ways; and that while
trying whether he could attach himself to either of the girls, he might
be exciting unpleasant reports if not raising unrequited regard.
He found too late that he had entangled himself, and that precisely as he
became thoroughly satisfied of his not _caring_ for Louisa at all, he
must regard himself as bound to her if her feelings for him were what the
Harvilles supposed. It determined him to leave Lyme, and await her
perfect recovery elsewhere. He would gladly weaken by any _fair_ means
whatever sentiment or speculations concerning them might exist; and he
went therefore into Shropshire, meaning after a while to return to the
Crofts at Kellynch, and act as he found requisite.
He had remained in Shropshire, lamenting the blindness of his own pride
and the blunders of his own calculations, till at once released from
Louisa by the astonishing felicity of her engagement with Benwick.
Bath--Bath had instantly followed in _thought_, and not long after in
_fact_. To Bath--to arrive with hope, to be torn by jealousy at the
first sight of Mr. Elliot; to experience all the changes of each at the
concert; to be miserable by the morning's circumstantial report, to be
now more happy than language could express, or any heart but his own be
capable of.
He was very eager and very delightful in the description of what he had
felt at the concert; the evening seemed to have been made up of exquisite
moments. The moment of her stepping forward in the octagon room to speak
to him, the moment of Mr. Elliot's appearing and tearing her away, and
one or two subsequent moments, marked by returning hope or increasing
despondency, were dwelt on with energy.
'To see you,' cried he, 'in the midst of those who could not be my well-
wishers; to see your cousin close by you, conversing and smiling, and
feel all the horrible eligibilities and proprieties of the match! To
consider it as the certain wish of every being who could hope to
influence you! Even if your own feelings were reluctant or indifferent,
to consider what powerful support would be his! Was it not enough to
make the fool of me which I appeared? How could I look on without agony?
Was not the very sight of the friend who sat behind you; was not the
recollection of what had been, the knowledge of her influence, the
indelible, immovable impression of what persuasion had once done--was it
not all against me?'
'You should have distinguished,' replied Anne. 'You should not have
suspected me now; the case so different, and my age so different. If I
was wrong in yielding to persuasion once, remember it was to persuasion
exerted on the side of safety, not of risk. When I yielded, I thought it
was to duty; but no duty could be called in aid here. In marrying a man
indifferent to me, all risk would have been incurred, and all duty
violated.'
'Perhaps I ought to have reasoned thus,' he replied; 'but I could not. I
could not derive benefit from the late knowledge I had acquired of your
character. I could not bring it into play; it was overwhelmed, buried,
lost in those earlier feelings which I had been smarting under year after
year. I could think of you only as one who had yielded, who had given me
up, who had been influenced by anyone rather than by me. I saw you with
the very person who had guided you in that year of misery. I had no
reason to believe her of less authority now. The force of habit was to
be added.'
'I should have thought,' said Anne, 'that my manner to yourself might
have spared you much or all of this.'
'No, no! Your manner might be only the ease which your engagement to
another man would give. I left you in this belief; and yet--I was
determined to see you again. My spirits rallied with the morning, and I
felt that I had still a motive for remaining here. The Admiral's news,
indeed, was a revulsion; since that moment I have been divided what to
do, and had it been confirmed, this would have been my last day in Bath.'
There was time for all this to pass, with such interruptions only as
enhanced the charm of the communication, and Bath could hardly contain
any other two beings at once so rationally and so rapturously happy as
during that evening occupied the sofa of Mrs. Croft's drawing-room in Gay
Street.
Captain Wentworth had taken care to meet the Admiral as he returned into
the house, to satisfy him as to Mr. Elliot and Kellynch; and the delicacy
of the Admiral's good-nature kept him from saying another word on the
subject to Anne. He was quite concerned lest he might have been giving
her pain by touching on a tender part--who could say? She might be
liking her cousin better than he liked her; and, upon recollection, if
they had been to marry at all, why should they have waited so long? When
the evening closed, it is probable that the Admiral received some new
ideas from his wife, whose particularly friendly manner in parting with
her gave Anne the gratifying persuasion of her seeing and approving. It
had been such a day to Anne; the hours which had passed since her leaving
Camden Place had done so much! She was almost bewildered--almost too
happy in looking back. It was necessary to sit up half the night, and
lie awake the remainder, to comprehend with composure her present state,
and pay for the overplus of bliss by headache and fatigue.
* * * * *
Then follows Chapter XI., _i.e_. XII. in the published book and at the
end is written--
_Finis_, _July_ 18, 1816.