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Page 38
Her answers to the kindness and the remarks of her companions
were at first unconsciously given. They had travelled half their way
along the rough lane, before she was quite awake to what they said.
She then found them talking of "Frederick."
"He certainly means to have one or other of those two girls, Sophy,"
said the Admiral; "but there is no saying which. He has been
running after them, too, long enough, one would think, to make up his mind.
Ay, this comes of the peace. If it were war now, he would have
settled it long ago. We sailors, Miss Elliot, cannot afford to make
long courtships in time of war. How many days was it, my dear,
between the first time of my seeing you and our sitting down together
in our lodgings at North Yarmouth?"
"We had better not talk about it, my dear," replied Mrs Croft, pleasantly;
"for if Miss Elliot were to hear how soon we came to an understanding,
she would never be persuaded that we could be happy together.
I had known you by character, however, long before."
"Well, and I had heard of you as a very pretty girl, and what were we
to wait for besides? I do not like having such things so long in hand.
I wish Frederick would spread a little more canvass, and bring us home
one of these young ladies to Kellynch. Then there would always
be company for them. And very nice young ladies they both are;
I hardly know one from the other."
"Very good humoured, unaffected girls, indeed," said Mrs Croft,
in a tone of calmer praise, such as made Anne suspect that
her keener powers might not consider either of them as quite worthy
of her brother; "and a very respectable family. One could not be
connected with better people. My dear Admiral, that post!
we shall certainly take that post."
But by coolly giving the reins a better direction herself they happily
passed the danger; and by once afterwards judiciously putting out
her hand they neither fell into a rut, nor ran foul of a dung-cart;
and Anne, with some amusement at their style of driving,
which she imagined no bad representation of the general guidance
of their affairs, found herself safely deposited by them at the Cottage.
Chapter 11
The time now approached for Lady Russell's return: the day was even fixed;
and Anne, being engaged to join her as soon as she was resettled,
was looking forward to an early removal to Kellynch, and beginning
to think how her own comfort was likely to be affected by it.
It would place her in the same village with Captain Wentworth,
within half a mile of him; they would have to frequent the same church,
and there must be intercourse between the two families.
This was against her; but on the other hand, he spent so much of his time
at Uppercross, that in removing thence she might be considered rather
as leaving him behind, than as going towards him; and, upon the whole,
she believed she must, on this interesting question, be the gainer,
almost as certainly as in her change of domestic society,
in leaving poor Mary for Lady Russell.
She wished it might be possible for her to avoid ever seeing
Captain Wentworth at the Hall: those rooms had witnessed
former meetings which would be brought too painfully before her;
but she was yet more anxious for the possibility of Lady Russell and
Captain Wentworth never meeting anywhere. They did not like each other,
and no renewal of acquaintance now could do any good; and were Lady Russell
to see them together, she might think that he had too much self-possession,
and she too little.
These points formed her chief solicitude in anticipating
her removal from Uppercross, where she felt she had been stationed
quite long enough. Her usefulness to little Charles would always
give some sweetness to the memory of her two months' visit there,
but he was gaining strength apace, and she had nothing else to stay for.
The conclusion of her visit, however, was diversified in a way
which she had not at all imagined. Captain Wentworth, after being unseen
and unheard of at Uppercross for two whole days, appeared again among them
to justify himself by a relation of what had kept him away.
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