21 Further Cont. Persuasion Read By Stephanie Poppins

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Persuasion by Jane Austen Volume 2,

Chapter 9,

Further Continued Dear Anne,

But for my satisfaction,

Said Mrs Smith,

If you will have the goodness to ring for Mary,

Stay,

I am sure you will have still greater goodness of going yourself into my bedroom and bringing me the small inlaid box which you will find on the upper shelf of the closet.

Anne,

Seeing her friend to be earnestly bent upon it,

Did as she was desired.

The box was brought and placed before her,

And Mrs Smith,

Sighing over it as she unlocked it,

Said,

This is full of papers belonging to my husband,

A small portion only of what I had to look over when I lost him.

The letter I am looking for was one written by Mr Elliot to him before our marriage.

Why it happened to be saved one can hardly imagine,

But he was careless and imethotical like other men about these things,

And when I came to examine his papers I found it with others still more trivial,

From different people scattered here and there,

While many letters and memorandums of real importance had been destroyed.

Here it is,

I would not burn it because even then,

Little satisfied with Mr Elliot,

I was determined to preserve every document of former intimacy.

I have now another motive for being glad I can produce it.

This is the letter directed to Charles Smith Esquire,

Tunbridge Wells,

Dated from London as far back as July 1803.

It reads,

Dear Smith,

I have received yours.

Your kindness almost overpowers me.

I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common,

But I've lived three and twenty years in the world and I've seen none like it.

At present,

Believe me,

I have no need of your services being in cash again.

Give me joy,

I have got rid of Sir Walter and Miss.

They have gone back to Kellynch and almost made me swear to visit them this summer,

But my first visit to Kellynch will be with a surveyor to tell me how to bring it with best advantage to the hammer.

The baronet,

Nevertheless,

Is not likely to marry again.

He's quite full enough.

If he does,

However,

They will leave me in peace,

Which may be a decent equivalent for the reversion.

He's worse than last year.

I wish I had any name but Elliot.

I am sick of it.

The name of Walter I can drop,

Thank God,

And I desire you will never insult me again with my second W.

For the rest of my life,

To be only yours truly.

W.

M.

Elliot.

" Such a letter could not be read without putting Anne in a glow,

And Mrs.

Smith,

Observing the high colour in her face,

Said,

The language I know is highly disrespectful.

Though I forgot the exact terms,

I have a perfect impression of the general meaning,

But it shows you the man.

Mark his professions to my poor husband.

Can anything be stronger?

Anne could not immediately get over the shock and mortification of finding such words applied to her father.

She was obliged to recollect that her seeing the letter was a violation of the laws of honour,

That no one ought to be judged or to be known by such testimonies,

That no private correspondence could bear the eye of others,

Before she could recover calmness enough to return the letter with which she had been meditating over and say,

Thank you.

This is full proof,

Undoubtedly.

Proof of everything you were saying.

But why be acquainted with us now?

I can explain this too,

Cried Mrs.

Smith,

Smiling.

Can you really?

Yes,

I have shown you Mr.

Elliot as he was a dozen years ago,

And I will show him as he is now.

I cannot produce written proof again,

But I can give as authentic oral testimony as you can desire of what he is now wanting,

And what he is now doing.

He is no hypocrite now.

He truly wants to marry you.

His present attentions to your family are very sincere,

Quite from the heart.

I will give you my authority,

His friend Colonel Wallace.

Colonel Wallace?

You are acquainted with him?

No,

It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that.

It takes a bend or two,

But nothing of the consequence.

The stream is as good as at first.

The little rubbish it collects in the turnings is easily moved away.

Mr.

Elliot talks unreservedly to Colonel Wallace of his views on you,

Which said Colonel Wallace I imagine to be in himself a sensible,

Careful,

Discerning sort of character.

But Colonel Wallace has a very pretty,

Silly wife,

To whom he tells things which he'd better not,

And he repeats it all to her.

She is in the overflowing spirits of her recovery,

Repeats it all to her nurse,

And the nurse,

Knowing my acquaintance with you,

Very naturally brings it all to me.

On Monday evening,

My good friend Mrs.

Rook let me thus much into the secrets of Marlborough buildings.

When I talked of a whole history,

Therefore,

You see I was not romancing so much as you supposed.

My dear Mrs.

Smith,

Said Anne,

Your authority is deficient.

This will not do.

Mr.

Elliot's having any news on me will not in the least account for the efforts he made towards a reconciliation with my father.

That was all prior to my coming to Bath.

I found them on the most friendly terms when I arrived.

I know you did.

I know it all perfectly,

But indeed,

Mrs.

Smith,

We must not expect to get real information in such a line.

Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many,

To be misconceived by folly in one and ignorance in another,

Can hardly have much truth left.

Only give me a hearing.

You will soon be able to judge of the general credit due by listening to some particulars which you can yourself immediately contradict or confirm.

Nobody supposes you were his first inducement.

He'd seen you indeed before he came to Bath and admired you,

But without knowing it to be you.

So says my historian at least.

Is this true?

Did he see you last summer or autumn,

Somewhere down in the West,

To use her own words without knowing it to be you?

He certainly did.

So far it is very true.

At Lyme.

I happen to be at Lyme.

Well,

Continued Mrs.

Smith triumphantly,

Grant my friend the credit due to the establishment of the first point asserted.

He saw you then at Lyme and liked you so well as to be exceedingly pleased to meet with you again in Camden Place as Miss Anne Elliot,

And from that moment I have no doubt had a double motive in his visit there.

If there's anything in my story which you know to be either false or improbable,

Stop me.

My account states that your sister's friend,

The lady now staying with you whom I've heard you mention,

Came to Bath with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter as long ago as September,

And has been staying there ever since.

That she is a clever,

Insinuating,

Handsome woman,

Poor and plausible,

And altogether such in situation and manner as to give a general idea among Sir Walter's acquaintance of her meaning to be Lady Elliot,

And as general a surprise that Miss Elliot should be apparently blind to the danger.

Here Mrs.

Smith paused a moment,

But Anne had not a word to say,

And she continued.

This was the light in which it appeared to those who knew the family long before you returned to it,

And Colonel Wallace had his eye upon your father enough to be sensible of it,

Though he did not then visit in Camden Place,

But his regard for Mr.

Elliot gave him an interest in watching all that was going on.

And when Mr.

Elliot came to Bath for a day or two,

As he happened to do a little before Christmas,

Colonel Wallace made him acquainted with the appearance of things and the reports beginning to prevail.

Now you are to understand that time had worked a very material change in Mr.

Elliot's opinions as to the value of apparellency.

Upon all points of blood and connection,

He's a completely altered man.

Having long had as much money as he could spend,

Nothing to which for on the side of avarice or indulgence,

He's been gradually learning to pin his happiness upon the consequences he's heir to.

I thought it coming on before our acquaintance ceased,

But is now a confirmed feeling.

He cannot bear the idea of not being Sir William.

You may guess therefore that the news he heard from his friend could not be very agreeable,

And you may guess what it produced.

The resolution of coming back to Bath as soon as possible,

And of fixing himself here for a time with a view of renewing his former acquaintance and recovering such a footing in the family as might give him the means of ascertaining the degree of his danger,

And of circumventing the lady if he found it material.

This was agreed upon between the two friends as the only thing to be done.

He was to be introduced,

And Mrs.

Wallace was to be introduced,

And everybody was to be introduced.

Mr.

Elliot came back accordingly,

And on application was forgiven as you know,

And readmitted into the family,

And there it was his constant object,

His only object,

Until you arrived to watch Sir Walter and Mrs.

Clay.

He omitted no opportunity of being with them,

Threw himself in their way,

Called at all hours,

But I need not be particular on this subject.

You can imagine what an artful man would do,

And with this guide perhaps may recollect what you have seen him do.

" "'Yes,

' said Anne,

"'you tell me nothing which does not accord with that which I have known,

Or I could imagine.

There is always something offensive in the details of cunning.

The manoeuvres of selfishness and duplicity must be ever revolting,

But I have heard nothing which really surprises me.

I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr.

Elliot,

But I have never been satisfied.

I have always wanted some other motive for his conduct than appeared.

I should like to know his present opinion as to the probability of the event he has been in dread of,

Whether he considers the danger to be lessening or not.

' "'Lessening,

I understand,

' replied Mrs.

Smith.

He thinks Mrs.

Clay is afraid of him,

Aware he sees through her and not daring to proceed as she might do in his absence.

But since he must be absent sometime or another,

I do not perceive how he can ever be secure while she still holds her present influence.

Mrs.

Wallace has an amusing idea,

As Nurse tells me,

That it is to be put into the marriage articles when you and Mr.

Elliot marry that your father is not to marry Mrs.

Clay.

A scheme worthy of Mrs.

Wallace's understanding by all accounts,

But my sensible nurse will see the absurdity in it.

' "'Why,

To be sure,

Ma'am,

' said she,

"'it would not prevent his marrying anybody else.

' And indeed,

To own the truth,

I do not think Nurse in her heart is a very strenuous opposer of Sir Walter's making a second match.

She must be allowed to be a favourer of matrimony,

You know,

And who can say that she may not have some flying visions of attending the next Lady Elliot through Mrs.

Wallace's recommendation.

' "'I am very glad to know all this,

' said Anne,

After a little thoughtfulness.

It will be more painful to me in some respects to be in company with him,

But I shall know better what to do.

My line of conduct will be more direct.

Mr.

Elliot is evidently a disingenuous,

Artificial,

Worldly man who has never had any better principle to guide him than selfishness.

'