Captain Wentworth's Persuasion (13 page)

“Did you ever hear of such a thing,Anne?” Henrietta turned to her for confirmation.

Frederick, too, turned his attention to Anne. Perhaps she remembered a similar conversation; the thoughts of those pleasant hours with her beside the lake turned up the corners of his mouth with a smile; he noted she held his gaze for a few elongated seconds before looking suddenly away. “I assume, Henrietta, the Crown would not send men off to fight wars in rowboats; it would not be practical.What man would make a career of the Navy if he had to suffer long periods of deplorable conditions?” Her voice painted pleasant ridicule of the Misses Musgrove’s flirtations, and it pleased Frederick to see her assert herself.

Frederick started to respond directly to her, but Mrs. Musgrove whispered what appeared to be fond regrets of Dick Musgrove. He watched as Anne suppressed a smile and listened kindly. It was a quality he once admired in her. He considered joining their conversation, but then thought better of it. It was a seductive illusion to which he wanted to succumb; yet, Frederick knew the folly of it.

“Oh, Captain,” Henrietta said charmingly, “we sent off for a Navy List.Will you help us find the ships you commanded in it?” She rushed to the mantelpiece to retrieve the book.

“I am sorry, Captain,” Mr. Musgrove apologized, “they made me send for it.”

Frederick smiled broadly with their regard.“It is quite all right.”

“Anne has her own Navy List. Do you not, Anne?” Louisa told
him in passing.

Frederick’s eyes darted to her face; he watched a flush overtake her countenance. “I—I am interested in many things, Louisa,” she stammered before dropping her eyes to her hands resting on her lap.

“When did you earn your first command, Captain?” Mr. Musgrove asked as he motioned for a servant to refill the wine glasses.

Admiral Croft answered instead. “It was in ’06, was it not, Frederick?”

“It was, Sir, shortly after I left Somersetshire.Yes, I was here in ’06, visiting my brother, Edward.” He watched Anne withdraw into herself with his words.

“Your first was the
Asp
, I remember; we will look for the
Asp
.” Louisa pored over the listing.

“You will not find her there.—Quite worn out and broken up. I was the last man who commanded her.—Hardly fit for service then.—Reported fit for home service for a year or two—and so I was sent off to the West Indies.”

The Musgrove girls looked all astonishment.

“The Admiralty,” he continued,“entertains itself now and then, with sending a few hundred men to sea in a ship not fit to be employed. But they have a great many for which to provide; and among the thousands that may just as well go to the bottom as not, it is impossible for them to distinguish the very set who may be least missed.”

“Phoo! Phoo!” cried the Admiral, “what stuff these young fellows talk! Never a better sloop than the
Asp
in her day—for an old built sloop, you would not see her equal. Lucky fellow to get her.” He looked sternly at Frederick. “He knows there must have been twenty better men than himself applying for her at the same time. Lucky fellow to get anything so soon, with no more high placed connections than his.”

“I felt my luck, Admiral, I assure you.” He looked about seriously, planning to make a point with Anne. “I was as well satisfied with my appointment as one can desire. It was a great object with me at the time to be at sea—a very great object. In ’06, I wanted to
be doing something.”

The Admiral got up to stretch his legs, trying to ward off another attack of gout. “To be sure, you did.” He spoke more to himself than he did to Frederick.“What should a young fellow, like you, do ashore for an extended period of time?—If a man has not a wife, he soon wants to be afloat again.”

Frederick eyed Anne once again. He put special emphasis on the beginning words.“
In ’06
, I had no wife to keep me on shore.” The words served their purpose; Anne turned a bit away from the rest of the table, her response hidden by shadows. He relished the idea that he could make her think of him; he knew how often over the past eight years he had thought of
her
. It was gratifying in some small way to see his words affect her.

“But, Captain Wentworth,” cried Louisa,“how vexed you must have been when you came to the
Asp
to see what an old thing they gave you.”

He smiled at her when she lightly laid her hand on his arm. “I knew pretty well what she was before that day. I had no more discoveries to make, than you would have as to the fashion and strength of an old pelisse, which you had seen lent about among half your acquaintance, ever since you could remember, and which at last, on some very wet day, is lent to yourself.” Although he did not look at her, he felt Anne’s eyes glued to his face.“Ah! She was a dear old
Asp
to me. She did all I wanted. I knew she would . . . I knew we should either go to the bottom together, or she would be the making of me. In reflection, I never had two days of foul weather all the time I was at sea in her, and after taking privateers enough to be very entertaining, I had the good luck, in my passage home the next autumn, to fall in with the very French frigate I wanted. I brought her into Plymouth, and here was another instance of luck.”

He focused his attention on Anne’s end of the table. She had not looked away during his tale; it was his chance to let her know how successful he had been and how the luck he had known he would have was there. “We were not six hours in the Sound,” he continued
in a voice that mesmerized his audience, but Frederick’s attention rested purely on Anne Elliot, “when a gale came on, which lasted four days and nights, and which would have done in the poor old
Asp
, in half the time; our touch with the Great Nation of France not having much improved our condition. Four and twenty hours later, and I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers; and being lost in only a sloop, nobody would have thought about me.”

Louisa and Henrietta gasped and declared how awful such thoughts were, but Frederick watched Anne for her reaction. She openly shuddered—a shiver shaking her body. Her bottom lip trembled, and although she made no open exclamation of pity and horror, as did the other ladies, he noted tears misting her eyes. Her reaction stunned him—his heart skipped a beat. He only watched her to gleam an idea of whether she regretted her decision in light of the fortune he won, but her obvious distress over his words made him question what to do about her. He told his stories only to boast of his success; yet, his description of how close he came to death moved her—the indication of the fortune he won brought only looks of admiration for his successes, but his near demise affected her in a way he did not expect. He had not considered renewing his addresses to Anne Elliot, but it seemed they would always be connected—their pasts bound him with silver threads to her.

He heard Mrs. Musgrove say something to her son Charles about Dick Musgrove. Frederick knew he would have to think of something positive to say about “poor Dick” soon. He would find a way to ease her pain.

“Come, Captain,” Henrietta pulled on his left sleeve. “Help us find the
Laconia
on the List.”

He could not deny himself the pleasure of taking the precious volume into his own hands to save them the trouble and to read aloud the little statement of her name and rate and present non-commissioned class, observing over it, that she too was one of the best friends man ever had.

“Ah! Those were pleasant days when I had the
Laconia
! How
fast I made money in her.—A friend of mine and I had such a lovely cruise together off the Western Islands. You remember Harville, do you not, Sophia? You know how much he wanted money—worse than myself. He had a wife.—Excellent fellow! I shall never forget his happiness. He felt it all, so much for her sake. I wished for him again the next summer, when I had still the same luck in the Mediterranean.”

His words of the
Laconia
brought Mrs. Musgrove’s thoughts once more to her son.The time came for him to console her.After supper, she moved to rest on the same sofa as did Anne. Making his way to her, he allowed himself an indulgence of self-amusement at how many pains he had gone through to be rid of Dick Musgrove. Now he would hide his real feelings from the man’s mother. He sat on the same upholstered seat; Mrs. Musgrove separated Frederick and Anne. Even her daughters did nothing to keep Frederick’s reaction to Anne in check. Although he fought it, as he entered into the conversation with the elder woman, his real thoughts lay with the petite lady seated to her right. He offered sympathy and attended to Mrs. Musgrove’s sighs over the fate of her son. She patted Frederick’s hand and thanked him profusely for his kindness. As she did so, he noted the delicate curve of Anne’s neck and the slight lift of her chin when she spoke to his sister. A strand of hair worked its way loose from her chignon, and he fought the urge to reach out and touch it.

The Admiral, after two or three refreshing turns about the room with his hands behind him, being called to order by his wife, now came up to Frederick and without any observation of what he might be interrupting, thinking only of his own thoughts, began with,“If you had been a week later at Lisbon, last spring, Frederick, you would have been asked to give passage to Lady Mary Grierson and her daughters.”

Lost in thoughts of caressing Anne’s neck, Frederick sarcastically turned on his brother. “Should I? I am glad I was not a week later then.” Catching himself, Frederick said,“But, if I know myself, this is from no want of gallantry toward them.” Eager to correct his
blunder, he continued. “It is rather from feeling how impossible it is, with all one’s efforts, and all one’s sacrifices, to make the accommodations on board, such as women ought to have. There can be no want of gallantry, Admiral, in rating the claims of women to every personal comfort
high
—and this is what I do. I hate to hear of women on board or to see them on board; and no ship, under my command, shall ever convey a family of ladies anywhere, if I can help it.”After Anne had broken her engagement with Frederick, he could not bear to think of such intrusions into his domain. If Anne could not travel with him, Frederick wanted
no
woman on his ship.

Sophia took offense at his words. “Oh, Frederick!—But I cannot believe it of you.—All idle refinement!—Women may be as comfortable on board, as in the best house in England. I believe I have lived as much on board as most women, and I know nothing superior to the accommodations of a man of war.”

“Nothing to the purpose,” Frederick protested. “You were living with your husband and were the only woman on board.”

“But you, yourself, brought Mrs. Harville, her sister, her cousin, and the three children round from Portsmouth to Plymouth.Where was this superfine, extraordinary sort of gallantry of yours then?”

“All merged in my friendship, Sophia.” Frederick’s voice rose in volume, realizing where his sister’s argument lay, but he could not concede his
need
to keep women from his ship—a
need
vested in his hurt at Anne’s refusal. He knew it was not rational, but reason and love do not always lie together.“I would assist any brother officer’s wife I could, but I might not like them the better for that. Such a number of women and children have no
right
to be comfortable on board.”

Frederick’s stubbornness riled Sophia. “But I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures.We none of us expect to be in smooth waters all our days.” He resisted the urge to look at Anne at that moment. Could she have survived on a ship—survived with him?

“Ah! My Dear,” the Admiral said as he came to sit beside his wife on the settee, “when he has a wife, he will sing a different
tune. When he is married, if we have the good luck to live to another war, we shall see him do as you and I, and a great many others, have done. We shall have him very thankful to anybody who will bring him his wife.”

Sophia nodded. “Aye, that we shall.”

Frederick could take no more—Anne sat nearby—the Misses Musgrove and their cousins, the Misses Hayter, fawned over him—and all he wanted to do was retreat to the privacy of his room and regain his composure. “Now I have done!” he exclaimed. “When once married people begin to attack me with ‘Oh! You will think differently when you are married.’ I can only say, ‘No, I shall not.’ And then they say again, ‘Yes, you will.’ And there is an end to it.” He got up and moved away to the window, staring out into the dying light.

Frederick swallowed hard, trying to steel his nerves. Between him and Anne, they had no conversation together, no intercourse but what the commonest civility required. Once so much to each other! Now nothing! There
had
been a time when of all the large party now filling the drawing room at Uppercross, they would have found it most difficult to cease to speak to one another. With the exception, perhaps, of the Admiral and Sophia, there could have been no two people as much in love. Now they were as strangers—nay, worse than strangers, for they could never become acquainted. It was a perpetual estrangement.

Lost in his thoughts, Frederick barely heard his sister mentioning to Mrs. Musgrove the places to which she had traveled. “Cork and Lisbon and Gibraltar.”

Anne’s soft lilt caught his attention, and he felt his body come alive with interest. “Did you never suffer, Mrs. Croft, from your time at sea?”

Sophia spoke of her devotion to Benjamin Croft: “The only time I ever really suffered in body or mind, the only time I ever fancied myself unwell, or had any ideas of danger, was the winter I passed by myself at Deal, when the Admiral, Captain Croft then, was in the North Seas. I lived in perpetual fright at that time, and
had all manner of imaginary complaints from not knowing what to do with myself, or when I should hear from him next; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience.”