Persuasion (The Wild and Wanton Edition) (12 page)

He had been most warmly attached to her, and had never seen a woman since whom he thought her equal; eight years had passed, and none could turn his head. He had not even been able to bring himself to be with another woman for something as simple and pressing as tending to the demanding needs associated with being a man. He had abstained for eight years, unable to shake the terrible feeling of rejection, and unwilling to face the possibility of a repeat of similar events. It had not been easy, and the strain had only grown, not abated over the years. He often feared he had a perversion in how often he had to seek privacy to give himself some ease. He had carefully avoided all female company; their presence had only made his ache worse even though he had genuinely felt no desire for any of the women he had encountered specifically. He had, however, listened raptly to the other sailors’ ribald tales of bedroom escapades. He counted it as an important education, and he was fairly certain that he had a better-than-average idea of how to please a woman, except every time he imagined doing so, the only woman he could picture was Anne. But, except from some natural sensation of curiosity, he had no desire of meeting her again. Her power with him was gone for ever, or so he told himself each time her face flitted through his mind.

It was now his object to marry. He was more than tired of living the life of a monk, and he was certain he could ensure a different ending to his courtship this time by marrying the lady
before
the consummation. He was rich, and being turned on shore, fully intended to settle as soon as he could be properly tempted; actually looking round, ready to fall in love with all the speed which a clear head and a quick taste could allow. He had a theory that perhaps he had not desired any women before because he had not put the effort into it. He would do so now. He had a heart for either of the Miss Musgroves, if they could catch it; a heart, in short, for any pleasing young woman who came in his way, excepting Anne Elliot. This was his only secret exception, when he said to his sister, in answer to her suppositions: —

“Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match. Anybody between fifteen and thirty may have me for asking. A little beauty, and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost man. Should not this be enough for a sailor, who has had no society among women to make him nice?”

He said it, she knew, to be contradicted. His bright proud eye spoke the conviction that he was nice; and Anne Elliot was not out of his thoughts, when he more seriously described the woman he should wish to meet with. “A strong mind, with sweetness of manner,” made the first and the last of the description.

“That is the woman I want,” said he. “Something a little inferior I shall of course put up with, but it must not be much. If I am a fool, I shall be a fool indeed, for I have thought on the subject more than most men.”

From this time Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot were repeatedly in the same circle. They were soon dining in company together at Mr. Musgrove’s, for the little boy’s state could no longer supply his aunt with a pretence for absenting herself; and this was but the beginning of other dinings and other meetings.

Whether former feelings were to be renewed must be brought to the proof; former times must undoubtedly be brought to the recollection of each;
they
could not but be reverted to; the year of their engagement could not but be named by him, in the little narratives or descriptions which conversation called forth. His profession qualified him, his disposition lead him, to talk; and “
That
was in the year six;” “
That
happened before I went to sea in the year six,” occurred in the course of the first evening they spent together: and though his voice did not falter, and though she had no reason to suppose his eye wandering towards her while he spoke, Anne felt the utter impossibility, from her knowledge of his mind, that he could be unvisited by remembrance any more than herself. There were a great many things that had happened in the year six. They had met. He had kissed her for the first time, and then many times thereafter. They had daily spent time together. He had made love to her. She had broken his heart. Each time he mentioned the year six, these things ran through Anne’s mind and a pang of real physical pain accompanied each memory. There must be the same immediate association of thought for him — she could not conceive it to be otherwise — though she was very far from conceiving it to be of equal pain.

They had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing! There
had
been a time, when of all the large party now filling the drawing-room at Uppercross, they would have found it most difficult to cease to speak to one another. With the exception, perhaps, of Admiral and Mrs. Croft, who seemed particularly attached and happy, (Anne could allow no other exceptions even among the married couples), there could have been no two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved. And in the year six, while they would have talked at one of the gatherings, the tension between them would have mounted.

Frederick had had the most distracting habit of watching her lips intently as she spoke. It never failed to distract her fiercely. And then, of course, because his attention was so focused on her lips, she would wonder what
his
looked like as they moved around his words. She mused now that she could see why he had been so fascinated — she never appreciated a mouth’s function as much as she did while watching Frederick talk. His full bottom lip was particularly enticing. And, villain that he was, he knew it and would worry it between his teeth while she stared, rendering her a complete simpleton in their conversation. Lord knew how many times utter nonsense fell from her mouth as she watched him bite into his bottom lip. Desire would curl within her belly, and she remembered many times during these public gatherings when he would have to cross one leg over the other, ankle to knee, to hide his own mounting desire. And then she would have something new to stare at. It wouldn’t take long after that point; he could never stand to have her look at his arousal long without showing her exactly what her impertinence was doing to him. They would wait until everyone’s attention was directed elsewhere, and then they would sneak off together to — well, anywhere that was nearby. Anne recalled a pantry and servants’ quarters among the places they had slipped away to.

Even now, Anne’s pulse fluttered at these long-cherished memories. Knowing they had minimal time before they were noticed as missing, these secret interludes were, of a necessity, short — and oh, so very sweet. In the pantry, he had sat upon a tower of bags of flour, hauling her into his lap while facing him, her knees on each side of his hips, and his arousal pressing deliciously just where she had needed it. They had ground together, him thrusting up against her, and her moving her hips under the direction of his almost-bruising hands. It had not taken long for either of them to finish, the excitement of possibly being discovered paired with the tinderbox and flame that they became whenever they touched, bringing them both to a quick — and rather loud, Anne remembered now with a smile — ending. The wonder of that moment had staid with her long after they had unwound themselves from each other and smoothed away the telltale indentions in the bags of flour to return to the party.

Now they were as strangers; nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.

When he talked, she heard the same voice, and discerned the same mind. There was a very general ignorance of all naval matters throughout the party; and he was very much questioned, and especially by the two Miss Musgroves, who seemed hardly to have any eyes but for him, as to the manner of living on board, daily regulations, food, hours, etcetera, and their surprise at his accounts, at learning the degree of accommodation and arrangement which was practicable, drew from him some pleasant ridicule, which reminded Anne of the early days when she too had been ignorant, and she too had been accused of supposing sailors to be living on board without anything to eat, or any cook to dress it if there were, or any servant to wait, or any knife and fork to use.

From thus listening and thinking, she was roused by a whisper of Mrs. Musgrove’s who, overcome by fond regrets, could not help saying —

“Ah! Miss Anne, if it had pleased Heaven to spare my poor son, I dare say he would have been just such another by this time.”

Anne suppressed a smile, and listened kindly, while Mrs. Musgrove relieved her heart a little more; and for a few minutes, therefore, could not keep pace with the conversation of the others.

When she could let her attention take its natural course again, she found the Miss Musgroves just fetching the Navy List (their own navy list, the first that had ever been at Uppercross), and sitting down together to pore over it, with the professed view of finding out the ships that Captain Wentworth had commanded.

“Your first was the
Asp
, I remember; we will look for the
Asp
.”

“You will not find her there. Quite worn out and broken up. I was the last man who commanded her. Hardly fit for service then. Reported fit for home service for a year or two, and so I was sent off to the West Indies.”

The girls looked all amazement.

“The Admiralty,” he continued, “entertain themselves now and then, with sending a few hundred men to sea, in a ship not fit to be employed. But they have a great many to provide for; and among the thousands that may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible for them to distinguish the very set who may be least missed.”

“Phoo! phoo!” cried the Admiral, “what stuff these young fellows talk! Never was a better sloop than the
Asp
in her day. For an old built sloop, you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her! He knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon, with no more interest than his.”

“I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you;” replied Captain Wentworth, seriously. “I was as well satisfied with my appointment as you can desire. It was a great object with me at that time to be at sea; a very great object,” his eyes flicked to Anne momentarily and then back to the Admiral, “I wanted to be doing something.”

Anne felt that slight glance as though it were a blow to her heart. She turned aside so as to not accidentally see him look accusingly at her anymore. She would not survive another such instance.

“To be sure you did. What should a young fellow like you do ashore for half a year together? If a man had not a wife, he soon wants to be afloat again.”

“But, Captain Wentworth,” cried Louisa, “how vexed you must have been when you came to the
Asp
, to see what an old thing they had given you.”

“I knew pretty well what she was before that day;” said he, smiling. “I had no more discoveries to make than you would have as to the fashion and strength of any old pelisse, which you had seen lent about among half your acquaintance ever since you could remember, and which at last, on some very wet day, is lent to yourself. Ah! she was a dear old
Asp
to me. She did all that I wanted. I knew she would. I knew that we should either go to the bottom together, or that she would be the making of me; and I never had two days of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her; and after taking privateers enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck in my passage home the next autumn, to fall in with the very French frigate I wanted. I brought her into Plymouth; and here another instance of luck. We had not been six hours in the Sound, when a gale came on, which lasted four days and nights, and which would have done for poor old
Asp
in half the time; our touch with the Great Nation not having much improved our condition. Four-and-twenty hours later, and I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth, in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers; and being lost in only a sloop, nobody would have thought about me.”

Against her will, her eyes returned to him as fear so stark it was debilitating coursed through Anne’s veins. She hungrily scanned his form, reassuring herself that he was hearty and whole and in her presence, not at the bottom of the ocean. He had been nearly lost! She knew she certainly would have thought of him — for the rest of her life — had she seen such a horrific thing as the announcement of his untimely death in the paper. Anne’s shudderings were to herself alone; but the Miss Musgroves could be as open as they were sincere, in their exclamations of pity and horror.

“And so then, I suppose,” said Mrs. Musgrove, in a low voice, as if thinking aloud, “so then he went away to the
Laconia
, and there he met with our poor boy. Charles, my dear,” (beckoning him to her), “do ask Captain Wentworth where it was he first met with your poor brother. I always forgot.”

“It was at Gibraltar, mother, I know. Dick had been left ill at Gibraltar, with a recommendation from his former captain to Captain Wentworth.”

“Oh! but, Charles, tell Captain Wentworth, he need not be afraid of mentioning poor Dick before me, for it would be rather a pleasure to hear him talked of by such a good friend.”

Charles, being somewhat more mindful of the probabilities of the case, only nodded in reply, and walked away.

The girls were now hunting for the
Laconia
; and Captain Wentworth could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume into his own hands to save them the trouble, and once more read aloud the little statement of her name and rate, and present non-commissioned class, observing over it that she too had been one of the best friends man ever had.

“Ah! those were pleasant days when I had the
Laconia
! How fast I made money in her. A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise together off the Western Islands. Poor Harville, sister! You know how much he wanted money: worse than myself. He had a wife. Excellent fellow. I shall never forget his happiness. He felt it all, so much for her sake. I wished for him again the next summer, when I had still the same luck in the Mediterranean.”