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Page 84
"Yes," said Anne, "you tell me nothing which does not accord with
what I have known, or could imagine. There is always something offensive
in the details of cunning. The manoeuvres of selfishness and duplicity
must ever be revolting, but I have heard nothing which really surprises me.
I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr Elliot,
who would have difficulty in believing it; 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
afraid of him, aware that he sees through her, and not daring to proceed
as she might do in his absence. But since he must be absent
some time or other, I do not perceive how he can ever be secure
while she holds her present influence. Mrs Wallis 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 Wallis's understanding, by all accounts;
but my sensible nurse Rooke sees the absurdity of 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 (since self will intrude) who can say that she may not have
some flying visions of attending the next Lady Elliot, through
Mrs Wallis'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."
But Mr Elliot was not done with. Mrs Smith had been carried away
from her first direction, and Anne had forgotten, in the interest
of her own family concerns, how much had been originally implied
against him; but her attention was now called to the explanation
of those first hints, and she listened to a recital which,
if it did not perfectly justify the unqualified bitterness of Mrs Smith,
proved him to have been very unfeeling in his conduct towards her;
very deficient both in justice and compassion.
She learned that (the intimacy between them continuing unimpaired
by Mr Elliot's marriage) they had been as before always together,
and Mr Elliot had led his friend into expenses much beyond his fortune.
Mrs Smith did not want to take blame to herself, and was most tender
of throwing any on her husband; but Anne could collect that their income
had never been equal to their style of living, and that from the first
there had been a great deal of general and joint extravagance.
From his wife's account of him she could discern Mr Smith to have been
a man of warm feelings, easy temper, careless habits, and not strong
understanding, much more amiable than his friend, and very unlike him,
led by him, and probably despised by him. Mr Elliot, raised by
his marriage to great affluence, and disposed to every gratification
of pleasure and vanity which could be commanded without involving himself,
(for with all his self-indulgence he had become a prudent man),
and beginning to be rich, just as his friend ought to have found himself
to be poor, seemed to have had no concern at all for that friend's
probable finances, but, on the contrary, had been prompting and
encouraging expenses which could end only in ruin; and the Smiths
accordingly had been ruined.
The husband had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of it.
They had previously known embarrassments enough to try the friendship
of their friends, and to prove that Mr Elliot's had better not be tried;
but it was not till his death that the wretched state of his affairs
was fully known. With a confidence in Mr Elliot's regard,
more creditable to his feelings than his judgement, Mr Smith had
appointed him the executor of his will; but Mr Elliot would not act,
and the difficulties and distress which this refusal had heaped on her,
in addition to the inevitable sufferings of her situation, had been such
as could not be related without anguish of spirit, or listened to
without corresponding indignation.
Anne was shewn some letters of his on the occasion, answers to
urgent applications from Mrs Smith, which all breathed the same
stern resolution of not engaging in a fruitless trouble, and,
under a cold civility, the same hard-hearted indifference
to any of the evils it might bring on her. It was a dreadful picture
of ingratitude and inhumanity; and Anne felt, at some moments,
that no flagrant open crime could have been worse. She had a great deal
to listen to; all the particulars of past sad scenes, all the minutiae
of distress upon distress, which in former conversations had been
merely hinted at, were dwelt on now with a natural indulgence.
Anne could perfectly comprehend the exquisite relief, and was only
the more inclined to wonder at the composure of her friend's
usual state of mind.
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