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Page 79
Mrs Smith looked at her again, looked earnestly, smiled,
shook her head, and exclaimed--
"Now, how I do wish I understood you! How I do wish I knew
what you were at! I have a great idea that you do not design to be cruel,
when the right moment occurs. Till it does come, you know,
we women never mean to have anybody. It is a thing of course among us,
that every man is refused, till he offers. But why should you be cruel?
Let me plead for my--present friend I cannot call him, but for
my former friend. Where can you look for a more suitable match?
Where could you expect a more gentlemanlike, agreeable man?
Let me recommend Mr Elliot. I am sure you hear nothing but good of him
from Colonel Wallis; and who can know him better than Colonel Wallis?"
"My dear Mrs Smith, Mr Elliot's wife has not been dead much above
half a year. He ought not to be supposed to be paying his addresses
to any one."
"Oh! if these are your only objections," cried Mrs Smith, archly,
"Mr Elliot is safe, and I shall give myself no more trouble about him.
Do not forget me when you are married, that's all. Let him know me to be
a friend of yours, and then he will think little of the trouble required,
which it is very natural for him now, with so many affairs and engagements
of his own, to avoid and get rid of as he can; very natural, perhaps.
Ninety-nine out of a hundred would do the same. Of course,
he cannot be aware of the importance to me. Well, my dear Miss Elliot,
I hope and trust you will be very happy. Mr Elliot has sense
to understand the value of such a woman. Your peace will not be
shipwrecked as mine has been. You are safe in all worldly matters,
and safe in his character. He will not be led astray; he will not be
misled by others to his ruin."
"No," said Anne, "I can readily believe all that of my cousin.
He seems to have a calm decided temper, not at all open
to dangerous impressions. I consider him with great respect.
I have no reason, from any thing that has fallen within my observation,
to do otherwise. But I have not known him long; and he is not a man,
I think, to be known intimately soon. Will not this manner
of speaking of him, Mrs Smith, convince you that he is nothing to me?
Surely this must be calm enough. And, upon my word, he is nothing to me.
Should he ever propose to me (which I have very little reason to imagine
he has any thought of doing), I shall not accept him. I assure you
I shall not. I assure you, Mr Elliot had not the share which
you have been supposing, in whatever pleasure the concert
of last night might afford: not Mr Elliot; it is not Mr Elliot that--"
She stopped, regretting with a deep blush that she had implied so much;
but less would hardly have been sufficient. Mrs Smith would hardly
have believed so soon in Mr Elliot's failure, but from the perception
of there being a somebody else. As it was, she instantly submitted,
and with all the semblance of seeing nothing beyond; and Anne,
eager to escape farther notice, was impatient to know why Mrs Smith
should have fancied she was to marry Mr Elliot; where she could have
received the idea, or from whom she could have heard it.
"Do tell me how it first came into your head."
"It first came into my head," replied Mrs Smith, "upon finding how much
you were together, and feeling it to be the most probable thing
in the world to be wished for by everybody belonging to either of you;
and you may depend upon it that all your acquaintance have disposed of you
in the same way. But I never heard it spoken of till two days ago."
"And has it indeed been spoken of?"
"Did you observe the woman who opened the door to you when
you called yesterday?"
"No. Was not it Mrs Speed, as usual, or the maid? I observed
no one in particular."
"It was my friend Mrs Rooke; Nurse Rooke; who, by-the-bye,
had a great curiosity to see you, and was delighted to be in the way
to let you in. She came away from Marlborough Buildings only on Sunday;
and she it was who told me you were to marry Mr Elliot.
She had had it from Mrs Wallis herself, which did not seem bad authority.
She sat an hour with me on Monday evening, and gave me the whole history."
"The whole history," repeated Anne, laughing. "She could not make
a very long history, I think, of one such little article
of unfounded news."
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