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Page 4
This friend, and Sir Walter, did not marry, whatever might have been
anticipated on that head by their acquaintance. Thirteen years
had passed away since Lady Elliot's death, and they were still
near neighbours and intimate friends, and one remained a widower,
the other a widow.
That Lady Russell, of steady age and character, and extremely
well provided for, should have no thought of a second marriage,
needs no apology to the public, which is rather apt to be unreasonably
discontented when a woman does marry again, than when she does not;
but Sir Walter's continuing in singleness requires explanation.
Be it known then, that Sir Walter, like a good father, (having met with
one or two private disappointments in very unreasonable applications),
prided himself on remaining single for his dear daughters' sake.
For one daughter, his eldest, he would really have given up any thing,
which he had not been very much tempted to do. Elizabeth had succeeded,
at sixteen, to all that was possible, of her mother's rights
and consequence; and being very handsome, and very like himself,
her influence had always been great, and they had gone on together
most happily. His two other children were of very inferior value.
Mary had acquired a little artificial importance, by becoming
Mrs Charles Musgrove; but Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness
of character, which must have placed her high with any people
of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister;
her word had no weight, her convenience was always to give way--
she was only Anne.
To Lady Russell, indeed, she was a most dear and highly valued
god-daughter, favourite, and friend. Lady Russell loved them all;
but it was only in Anne that she could fancy the mother to revive again.
A few years before, Anne Elliot had been a very pretty girl,
but her bloom had vanished early; and as even in its height,
her father had found little to admire in her, (so totally different
were her delicate features and mild dark eyes from his own),
there could be nothing in them, now that she was faded and thin,
to excite his esteem. He had never indulged much hope, he had now none,
of ever reading her name in any other page of his favourite work.
All equality of alliance must rest with Elizabeth, for Mary had merely
connected herself with an old country family of respectability and
large fortune, and had therefore given all the honour and received none:
Elizabeth would, one day or other, marry suitably.
It sometimes happens that a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than
she was ten years before; and, generally speaking, if there has been
neither ill health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which scarcely any
charm is lost. It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome
Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter
might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least,
be deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth
as blooming as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else;
for he could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and
acquaintance were growing. Anne haggard, Mary coarse, every face
in the neighbourhood worsting, and the rapid increase of the crow's foot
about Lady Russell's temples had long been a distress to him.
Elizabeth did not quite equal her father in personal contentment.
Thirteen years had seen her mistress of Kellynch Hall, presiding and
directing with a self-possession and decision which could never have given
the idea of her being younger than she was. For thirteen years had
she been doing the honours, and laying down the domestic law at home,
and leading the way to the chaise and four, and walking immediately after
Lady Russell out of all the drawing-rooms and dining-rooms in the country.
Thirteen winters' revolving frosts had seen her opening every ball
of credit which a scanty neighbourhood afforded, and thirteen springs
shewn their blossoms, as she travelled up to London with her father,
for a few weeks' annual enjoyment of the great world. She had
the remembrance of all this, she had the consciousness of being
nine-and-twenty to give her some regrets and some apprehensions;
she was fully satisfied of being still quite as handsome as ever,
but she felt her approach to the years of danger, and would have rejoiced
to be certain of being properly solicited by baronet-blood within
the next twelvemonth or two. Then might she again take up
the book of books with as much enjoyment as in her early youth,
but now she liked it not. Always to be presented with the date of
her own birth and see no marriage follow but that of a youngest sister,
made the book an evil; and more than once, when her father had left it
open on the table near her, had she closed it, with averted eyes,
and pushed it away.
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