Persuasion (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (13 page)

“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; and then the unthinkable happened. He looked directly at her, his cool eyes taking on a heat she did not expect. His gaze roved her face slowly, and then he bit his bottom lip and raised one defiant eyebrow.

Anne gasped so loudly that everyone in the room turned to look at her.

Captain Wentworth’s face blanked of all expression, and he looked upon her with nearly bored eyes.

“My dear,” Mrs. Croft said solicitously with a soft tap of her hand upon Anne’s back. “Are you quite all right?”

Anne coughed and squirmed restlessly in her seat as she offered up some excuse or other. It must have been sufficient, for everyone in the room rejoined their conversations. Captain Wentworth turned back to the Admiral and muttered something too low for her to hear. 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.

Despite her size, Mrs. Musgrove did not sufficiently screen him from Anne’s vision. Anne’s every sense was assaulted by Frederick’s nearness. His voice, which had grown unexpectedly deeper in eight years, washed over Anne, and she was appalled to find goose bumps arising on the skin of her arms. She rubbed them brusquely in hopes that they would go away, but to no avail. And she did have a most uninterrupted view of his lips and how they moved slowly and almost lazily over the kind words he was saying to Mrs. Musgrove. And though he never once flicked his ocean eyes Anne’s way during his conversation — from lack of want or from the impossibility of actually seeing her — Anne couldn’t help but wonder if he had positioned himself in such a way that Anne would be forced to watch him as she had used to. And watch she did. His tongue slid over his teeth and bottom lip, and Anne’s breasts puckered and grew heavy. She even found that her breathing was slightly laboured.

Anne was just beginning to become severely worried at her body’s betrayal of her mind’s ultimate goal of polite conduct around Captain Wentworth when 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.”

Anne was just staring at him with mouth open — when they had been engaged, they had planned for Anne to go everywhere with him,
especially
on his voyages — when this perplexing indictment upon her sex 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. And the benefits of always being with the man you love — they are incomparable to anything else the world of comfort has to offer.” The Admiral was standing just behind his wife now where she was seated in a chair beside where Anne sat on the sofa, his hand resting upon the back of the furniture. Anne saw him briefly skim the pad of his index finger down the back of his wife’s neck, a move hidden from the rest of the gathering, and a corresponding shiver ran through Mrs. Croft’s shoulders.

“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, his voice at once deep and tender as he addressed his wife, “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.”

Mrs. Croft turned her face toward him, her expression utterly passionate and containing a flare of longing. “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.” She leaned forward a bit, and to Anne’s left, Mrs. Musgrove did the same. Anne, crowded between two married women, felt an oncoming sense of dread as Mrs. Croft’s eyes twinkled in the telltale marking of a woman about to divulge a confidence. “Speaking as one married woman to another,” Mrs. Croft began in a low voice, as Anne fought the desperate desire to remind them that they were not
all
married women, “there are a great many — ” she coughed delicately “ —
advantages
to being with your man on his ship.”

Mrs. Musgrove tittered, her fingers hovering over her lips, and Anne tried hard not to groan aloud as she wondered what she had done recently that would result in such punishment as this evening party was meting out. First, Frederick teasing her with his lips, and now this?

Mrs. Croft continued, “Men are very — hearty — upon the water. I tell you the truth, no amount of horses, much less
creature comforts
,” she said these words with disgust, “could drag me away from the opportunity to be with him when he is so magnificent. Any discomfort travelling the sea brings is worth it. 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. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.”

“Aye, to be sure. Yes, indeed, oh yes! I am quite of your opinion, Mrs. Croft,” was Mrs. Musgrove’s hearty answer. “There is nothing so bad as a separation. I am quite of your opinion.
I
know what it is, for Mr. Musgrove always attends the assizes, and I am so glad when they are over, and he is safe back again.” Mrs. Musgrove giggled again, a surprisingly youthful and delicate sound from one so rotund. “And there is nothing as glorious as a homecoming. The heart is not the
only
thing that absence makes grow, you know.”

Now Anne did groan, a small, quiet sound, and both women snapped upright. Air rushed in to cool Anne’s heated cheeks in the space that had been occupied by their close bodies.

“Oh, heavens!” Mrs. Musgrove exclaimed breathlessly. “Anne, dear, I quite forgot —

“Oh, she is fine,” Mrs. Croft said with a shocking wink thrown in Anne’s direction. “She is a grown woman.”

Anne gaped in astonishment. No one had ever had that amount of confidence in Anne’s capability to do anything, even if it was only confidence that Anne could handle ribald talk amongst matrons. Mrs. Croft’s smile when Anne ventured her own shy curving of lips was brimming with friendship, and Anne felt a flare over her heart. This would have been her sister. What kind of woman might Anne have become if she had had the advantage of such an ally these past eight years?

The evening ended with dancing. On its being proposed, Anne offered her services, as usual; and though her eyes would sometimes fill with tears as she sat at the instrument, she was extremely glad to be employed, and desired nothing in return but to be unobserved.

It was a merry, joyous party, and no one seemed in higher spirits than Captain Wentworth. She felt that he had every thing to elevate him which general attention and deference, and especially the attention of all the young women, could do. The Miss Hayters, the females of the family of cousins already mentioned, were apparently admitted to the honour of being in love with him; and as for Henrietta and Louisa, they both seemed so entirely occupied by him, that nothing but the continued appearance of the most perfect good-will between themselves could have made it credible that they were not decided rivals. If he were a little spoilt by such universal, such eager admiration, who could wonder?

These were some of the thoughts which occupied Anne, while her fingers were mechanically at work, proceeding for half an hour together, equally without error, and without consciousness, for the spot beside her on the bench remained empty of distracting men.
Once
she felt that he was looking at herself, observing her altered features, perhaps, trying to trace in them the ruins of the face which had once charmed him; and
once
she knew that he must have spoken of her; she was hardly aware of it, till she heard the answer; but then she was sure of his having asked his partner whether Miss Elliot never danced? The answer was, “Oh, no; never; she has quite given up dancing. She had rather play. She is never tired of playing.” Once, too, he spoke to her. She had left the instrument on the dancing being over, and he had sat down to try to make out an air which he wished to give the Miss Musgroves an idea of. Unintentionally she returned to that part of the room; he saw her, and, instantly rising, said, with studied politeness —