Chapter 24
Who can be in doubt of what followed? When any two young people takeit into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance tocarry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or everso little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort.This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to betruth; and if such parties succeed, how should a Captain Wentworth andan Anne Elliot, with the advantage of maturity of mind, consciousnessof right, and one independent fortune between them, fail of bearingdown every opposition? They might in fact, have borne down a greatdeal more than they met with, for there was little to distress thembeyond the want of graciousness and warmth. Sir Walter made noobjection, and Elizabeth did nothing worse than look cold andunconcerned. 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 thedaughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet, who had not had principleor sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in whichProvidence had placed him, and who could give his daughter at presentbut a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hershereafter.
Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne, and no vanityflattered, to make him really happy on the occasion, was very far fromthinking it a bad match for her. On the contrary, when he saw more ofCaptain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight, and eyed him well,he was very much struck by his personal claims, and felt that hissuperiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced against hersuperiority 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 anyserious anxiety was Lady Russell. Anne knew that Lady Russell must besuffering some pain in understanding and relinquishing Mr Elliot, andbe making some struggles to become truly acquainted with, and dojustice to Captain Wentworth. This however was what Lady Russell hadnow to do. She must learn to feel that she had been mistaken withregard to both; that she had been unfairly influenced by appearances ineach; that because Captain Wentworth's manners had not suited her ownideas, she had been too quick in suspecting them to indicate acharacter of dangerous impetuosity; and that because Mr Elliot'smanners had precisely pleased her in their propriety and correctness,their general politeness and suavity, she had been too quick inreceiving them as the certain result of the most correct opinions andwell-regulated mind. There was nothing less for Lady Russell to do,than to admit that she had been pretty completely wrong, and to take upa new set of opinions and of hopes.
There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernmentof character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience inothers can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part ofunderstanding than her young friend. But she was a very good woman,and if her second object was to be sensible and well-judging, her firstwas to see Anne happy. She loved Anne better than she loved her ownabilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, foundlittle hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who wassecuring the happiness of her other child.
Of all the family, Mary was probably the one most immediately gratifiedby the circumstance. It was creditable to have a sister married, andshe might flatter herself with having been greatly instrumental to theconnexion, by keeping Anne with her in the autumn; and as her ownsister must be better than her husband's sisters, it was very agreeablethat Captain Wentworth should be a richer man than either CaptainBenwick or Charles Hayter. She had something to suffer, perhaps, whenthey came into contact again, in seeing Anne restored to the rights ofseniority, and the mistress of a very pretty landaulette; but she had afuture to look forward to, of powerful consolation. Anne had noUppercross 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 satisfiedwith her situation, for a change is not very probable there. She hadsoon the mortification of seeing Mr Elliot withdraw, and no one ofproper condition has since presented himself to raise even theunfounded hopes which sunk with him.
The news of his cousin Anne's engagement burst on Mr Elliot mostunexpectedly. It deranged his best plan of domestic happiness, hisbest hope of keeping Sir Walter single by the watchfulness which ason-in-law's rights would have given. But, though discomfited anddisappointed, he could still do something for his own interest and hisown enjoyment. He soon quitted Bath; and on Mrs Clay's quitting itsoon afterwards, and being next heard of as established under hisprotection in London, it was evident how double a game he had beenplaying, and how determined he was to save himself from being cut outby one artful woman, at least.
Mrs Clay's affections had overpowered her interest, and she hadsacrificed, for the young man's sake, the possibility of scheminglonger for Sir Walter. She has abilities, however, as well asaffections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, orhers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her frombeing the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed atlast into making her the wife of Sir William.
It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked andmortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of theirdeception in her. They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resortto for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and followothers, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state ofhalf enjoyment.
Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell's meaning tolove Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to thehappiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness ofhaving no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value.There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion intheir fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment's regret; butto have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing ofrespectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all theworth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers andsisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well besensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. She hadbut two friends in the world to add to his list, Lady Russell and MrsSmith. To those, however, he was very well disposed to attach himself.Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could nowvalue from his heart. While he was not obliged to say that he believedher to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to sayalmost everything else in her favour, and as for Mrs Smith, she hadclaims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.
Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, andtheir marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured hertwo. She was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and CaptainWentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband'sproperty in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, andseeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with theactivity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fullyrequited 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 tobe often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not failher; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might havebid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity. Shemight have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet behappy. Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as herfriend Anne's was in the warmth of her heart. Anne was tendernessitself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth'saffection. His profession was all that could ever make her friendswish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dimher sunshine. She gloried in being a sailor's wife, but she must paythe tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, ifpossible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in itsnational importance.
Finis