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Page 92
"Only think of Elizabeth's including everybody!" whispered Mary
very audibly. "I do not wonder Captain Wentworth is delighted!
You see he cannot put the card out of his hand."
Anne caught his eye, saw his cheeks glow, and his mouth form itself
into a momentary expression of contempt, and turned away,
that she might neither see nor hear more to vex her.
The party separated. The gentlemen had their own pursuits,
the ladies proceeded on their own business, and they met no more while
Anne belonged to them. She was earnestly begged to return and dine,
and give them all the rest of the day, but her spirits had been
so long exerted that at present she felt unequal to more,
and fit only for home, where she might be sure of being as silent
as she chose.
Promising to be with them the whole of the following morning, therefore,
she closed the fatigues of the present by a toilsome walk to Camden Place,
there to spend the evening chiefly in listening to the busy arrangements
of Elizabeth and Mrs Clay for the morrow's party, the frequent enumeration
of the persons invited, and the continually improving detail of all
the embellishments which were to make it the most completely elegant
of its kind in Bath, while harassing herself with the never-ending
question, of whether Captain Wentworth would come or not? They were
reckoning him as certain, but with her it was a gnawing solicitude
never appeased for five minutes together. She generally thought
he would come, because she generally thought he ought; but it was a case
which she could not so shape into any positive act of duty or discretion,
as inevitably to defy the suggestions of very opposite feelings.
She only roused herself from the broodings of this restless agitation,
to let Mrs Clay know that she had been seen with Mr Elliot
three hours after his being supposed to be out of Bath,
for having watched in vain for some intimation of the interview
from the lady herself, she determined to mention it, and it seemed to her
there was guilt in Mrs Clay's face as she listened. It was transient:
cleared away in an instant; but Anne could imagine she read there
the consciousness of having, by some complication of mutual trick,
or some overbearing authority of his, been obliged to attend
(perhaps for half an hour) to his lectures and restrictions on her designs
on Sir Walter. She exclaimed, however, with a very tolerable
imitation of nature: --
"Oh! dear! very true. Only think, Miss Elliot, to my great surprise
I met with Mr Elliot in Bath Street. I was never more astonished.
He turned back and walked with me to the Pump Yard. He had been prevented
setting off for Thornberry, but I really forget by what;
for I was in a hurry, and could not much attend, and I can only answer
for his being determined not to be delayed in his return.
He wanted to know how early he might be admitted to-morrow.
He was full of `to-morrow,' and it is very evident that I have been
full of it too, ever since I entered the house, and learnt the extension
of your plan and all that had happened, or my seeing him could never have
gone so entirely out of my head."
Chapter 23
One day only had passed since Anne's conversation with Mrs Smith;
but a keener interest had succeeded, and she was now so little touched
by Mr Elliot's conduct, except by its effects in one quarter,
that it became a matter of course the next morning, still to defer
her explanatory visit in Rivers Street. She had promised to be
with the Musgroves from breakfast to dinner. Her faith was plighted,
and Mr Elliot's character, like the Sultaness Scheherazade's head,
must live another day.
She could not keep her appointment punctually, however;
the weather was unfavourable, and she had grieved over the rain
on her friends' account, and felt it very much on her own,
before she was able to attempt the walk. When she reached the White Hart,
and made her way to the proper apartment, she found herself
neither arriving quite in time, nor the first to arrive.
The party before her were, Mrs Musgrove, talking to Mrs Croft,
and Captain Harville to Captain Wentworth; and she immediately heard
that Mary and Henrietta, too impatient to wait, had gone out the moment
it had cleared, but would be back again soon, and that the strictest
injunctions had been left with Mrs Musgrove to keep her there
till they returned. She had only to submit, sit down,
be outwardly composed, and feel herself plunged at once
in all the agitations which she had merely laid her account of
tasting a little before the morning closed. There was no delay,
no waste of time. She was deep in the happiness of such misery,
or the misery of such happiness, instantly. Two minutes after
her entering the room, Captain Wentworth said--
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