*Series:* ruclips.net/p/PLzcoQ_vebs-S8-SPXsWG2Hvu2-j9i9p7p While her father spoke, there was a knock at the door. Who could it be? Anne, remembering the preconcerted visits, at all hours, of Mr Elliot, would have expected him, but for his known engagement seven miles off. After the usual period of suspense, the usual sounds of approach were heard, and “Mr and Mrs Charles Musgrove” were ushered into the room. Surprise was the strongest emotion raised by their appearance; but Anne was really glad to see them; and the others were not so sorry but that they could put on a decent air of welcome; and as soon as it became clear that these, their nearest relations, were not arrived with any views of accommodation in that house, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were able to rise in cordiality, and do the honours of it very well. They were come to Bath for a few days with Mrs Musgrove, and were at the White Hart. So much was pretty soon understood; but till Sir Walter and Elizabeth were walking Mary into the other drawing-room, and regaling themselves with her admiration, Anne could not draw upon Charles’s brain for a regular history of their coming, or an explanation of some smiling hints of particular business, which had been ostentatiously dropped by Mary, as well as of some apparent confusion as to whom their party consisted of. She then found that it consisted of Mrs Musgrove, Henrietta, and Captain Harville, beside their two selves. He gave her a very plain, intelligible account of the whole; a narration in which she saw a great deal of most characteristic proceeding. The scheme had received its first impulse by Captain Harville’s wanting to come to Bath on business. He had begun to talk of it a week ago; and by way of doing something, as shooting was over, Charles had proposed coming with him, and Mrs Harville had seemed to like the idea of it very much, as an advantage to her husband; but Mary could not bear to be left, and had made herself so unhappy about it, that for a day or two everything seemed to be in suspense, or at an end. But then, it had been taken up by his father and mother. His mother had some old friends in Bath whom she wanted to see; it was thought a good opportunity for Henrietta to come and buy wedding-clothes for herself and her sister; and, in short, it ended in being his mother’s party, that everything might be comfortable and easy to Captain Harville; and he and Mary were included in it by way of general convenience. They had arrived late the night before. Mrs Harville, her children, and Captain Benwick, remained with Mr Musgrove and Louisa at Uppercross. Anne’s only surprise was, that affairs should be in forwardness enough for Henrietta’s wedding-clothes to be talked of. She had imagined such difficulties of fortune to exist there as must prevent the marriage from being near at hand; but she learned from Charles that, very recently, (since Mary’s last letter to herself), Charles Hayter had been applied to by a friend to hold a living for a youth who could not possibly claim it under many years; and that on the strength of his present income, with almost a certainty of something more permanent long before the term in question, the two families had consented to the young people’s wishes, and that their marriage was likely to take place in a few months, quite as soon as Louisa’s. “And a very good living it was,” Charles added: “only five-and-twenty miles from Uppercross, and in a very fine country: fine part of Dorsetshire. In the centre of some of the best preserves in the kingdom, surrounded by three great proprietors, each more careful and jealous than the other; and to two of the three at least, Charles Hayter might get a special recommendation. Not that he will value it as he ought,” he observed, “Charles is too cool about sporting. That’s the worst of him.” “I am extremely glad, indeed,” cried Anne, “particularly glad that this should happen; and that of two sisters, who both deserve equally well, and who have always been such good friends, the pleasant prospect of one should not be dimming those of the other-that they should be so equal in their prosperity and comfort. I hope your father and mother are quite happy with regard to both.” “Oh! yes. My father would be well pleased if the gentlemen were richer, but he has no other fault to find. Money, you know, coming down with money-two daughters at once-it cannot be a very agreeable operation, and it streightens him as to many things. However, I do not mean to say they have not a right to it. It is very fit they should have daughters’ shares; and I am sure he has always been a very kind, liberal father to me. Mary does not above half like Henrietta’s match. She never did, you know. But she does not do him justice, nor think enough about Winthrop. I cannot make her attend to the value of the property. It is a very fair match, as times go; and I have liked Charles Hayter all my life, and I shall not leave off now.” “Such excellent parents as Mr and Mrs Musgrove,” exclaimed Anne, “should be happy in their children’s marriages. They do everything to confer happiness, I am sure. What a blessing to young people to be in such hands! Your father and mother seem so totally free from all those ambitious feelings which have led to so much misconduct and misery, both in young and old. I hope you think Louisa perfectly recovered now?” He answered rather hesitatingly, “Yes, I believe I do; very much recovered; but she is altered; there is no running or jumping about, no laughing or dancing; it is quite different. If one happens only to shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young dab-chick in the water; and Benwick sits at her elbow, reading verses, or whispering to her, all day long.” Anne could not help laughing. “That cannot be much to your taste, I know,” said she; “but I do believe him to be an excellent young man.” “To be sure he is. Nobody doubts it; and I hope you do not think I am so illiberal as to want every man to have the same objects and pleasures as myself. I have a great value for Benwick; and when one can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say. His reading has done him no harm, for he has fought as well as read. He is a brave fellow. I got more acquainted with him last Monday than ever I did before. We had a famous set-to at rat-hunting all the morning in my father’s great barns; and he played his part so well that I have liked him the better ever since.” Here they were interrupted by the absolute necessity of Charles’s following the others to admire mirrors and china; but Anne had heard enough to understand the present state of Uppercross, and rejoice in its happiness; and though she sighed as she rejoiced, her sigh had none of the ill-will of envy in it. She would certainly have risen to their blessings if she could, but she did not want to lessen theirs. The visit passed off altogether in high good humour. Mary was in excellent spirits, enjoying the gaiety and the change, and so well satisfied with the journey in her mother-in-law’s carriage with four horses, and with her own complete independence of Camden Place, that she was exactly in a temper to admire everything as she ought, and enter most readily into all the superiorities of the house, as they were detailed to her. She had no demands on her father or sister, and her consequence was just enough increased by their handsome drawing-rooms. Elizabeth was, for a short time, suffering a good deal. She felt that Mrs Musgrove and all her party ought to be asked to dine with them; but she could not bear to have the difference of style, the reduction of servants, which a dinner must betray, witnessed by those who had been always so inferior to the Elliots of Kellynch. It was a struggle between propriety and vanity; but vanity got the better, and then Elizabeth was happy again. These were her internal persuasions: “Old fashioned notions; country hospitality; we do not profess to give dinners; few people in Bath do; Lady Alicia never does; did not even ask her own sister’s family, though they were here a month: and I dare say it would be very inconvenient to Mrs Musgrove; put her quite out of her way. I am sure she would rather not come; she cannot feel easy with us. I will ask them all for an evening; that will be much better; that will be a novelty and a treat. They have not seen two such drawing rooms before. They will be delighted to come to-morrow evening. It shall be a regular party, small, but most elegant.” And this satisfied Elizabeth: and when the invitation was given to the two present, and promised for the absent, Mary was as completely satisfied. She was particularly asked to meet Mr Elliot, and be introduced to Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, who were fortunately already engaged to come; and she could not have received a more gratifying attention. Miss Elliot was to have the honour of calling on Mrs Musgrove in the course of the morning; and Anne walked off with Charles and Mary, to go and see her and Henrietta directly. *Persuasion, Chapter 22*
They found Mrs Musgrove and her daughter within, and by themselves, and Anne had the kindest welcome from each. Henrietta was exactly in that state of recently-improved views, of fresh-formed happiness, which made her full of regard and interest for everybody she had ever liked before at all; and Mrs Musgrove’s real affection had been won by her usefulness when they were in distress. It was a heartiness, and a warmth, and a sincerity which Anne delighted in the more, from the sad want of such blessings at home. She was entreated to give them as much of her time as possible, invited for every day and all day long, or rather claimed as part of the family; and, in return, she naturally fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance, and on Charles’s leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove’s history of Louisa, and to Henrietta’s of herself, giving opinions on business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts; from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary, well amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining. A morning of thorough confusion was to be expected. A large party in an hotel ensured a quick-changing, unsettled scene. One five minutes brought a note, the next a parcel; and Anne had not been there half an hour, when their dining-room, spacious as it was, seemed more than half filled: a party of steady old friends were seated around Mrs Musgrove, and Charles came back with Captains Harville and Wentworth. The appearance of the latter could not be more than the surprise of the moment. It was impossible for her to have forgotten to feel that this arrival of their common friends must be soon bringing them together again. Their last meeting had been most important in opening his feelings; she had derived from it a delightful conviction; but she feared from his looks, that the same unfortunate persuasion, which had hastened him away from the Concert Room, still governed. He did not seem to want to be near enough for conversation. She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course, and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence:-“Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment’s inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.” And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of the most mischievous kind. “Anne,” cried Mary, still at her window, “there is Mrs Clay, I am sure, standing under the colonnade, and a gentleman with her. I saw them turn the corner from Bath Street just now. They seemed deep in talk. Who is it? Come, and tell me. Good heavens! I recollect. It is Mr Elliot himself.” “No,” cried Anne, quickly, “it cannot be Mr Elliot, I assure you. He was to leave Bath at nine this morning, and does not come back till to-morrow.” As she spoke, she felt that Captain Wentworth was looking at her, the consciousness of which vexed and embarrassed her, and made her regret that she had said so much, simple as it was. Mary, resenting that she should be supposed not to know her own cousin, began talking very warmly about the family features, and protesting still more positively that it was Mr Elliot, calling again upon Anne to come and look for herself, but Anne did not mean to stir, and tried to be cool and unconcerned. Her distress returned, however, on perceiving smiles and intelligent glances pass between two or three of the lady visitors, as if they believed themselves quite in the secret. It was evident that the report concerning her had spread, and a short pause succeeded, which seemed to ensure that it would now spread farther. “Do come, Anne,” cried Mary, “come and look yourself. You will be too late if you do not make haste. They are parting; they are shaking hands. He is turning away. Not know Mr Elliot, indeed! You seem to have forgot all about Lyme.” To pacify Mary, and perhaps screen her own embarrassment, Anne did move quietly to the window. She was just in time to ascertain that it really was Mr Elliot, which she had never believed, before he disappeared on one side, as Mrs Clay walked quickly off on the other; and checking the surprise which she could not but feel at such an appearance of friendly conference between two persons of totally opposite interest, she calmly said, “Yes, it is Mr Elliot, certainly. He has changed his hour of going, I suppose, that is all, or I may be mistaken, I might not attend;” and walked back to her chair, recomposed, and with the comfortable hope of having acquitted herself well. The visitors took their leave; and Charles, having civilly seen them off, and then made a face at them, and abused them for coming, began with- “Well, mother, I have done something for you that you will like. I have been to the theatre, and secured a box for to-morrow night. A’n’t I a good boy? I know you love a play; and there is room for us all. It holds nine. I have engaged Captain Wentworth. Anne will not be sorry to join us, I am sure. We all like a play. Have not I done well, mother?” Mrs Musgrove was good humouredly beginning to express her perfect readiness for the play, if Henrietta and all the others liked it, when Mary eagerly interrupted her by exclaiming- “Good heavens, Charles! how can you think of such a thing? Take a box for to-morrow night! Have you forgot that we are engaged to Camden Place to-morrow night? and that we were most particularly asked to meet Lady Dalrymple and her daughter, and Mr Elliot, and all the principal family connexions, on purpose to be introduced to them? How can you be so forgetful?” “Phoo! phoo!” replied Charles, “what’s an evening party? Never worth remembering. Your father might have asked us to dinner, I think, if he had wanted to see us. You may do as you like, but I shall go to the play.” “Oh! Charles, I declare it will be too abominable if you do, when you promised to go.” “No, I did not promise. I only smirked and bowed, and said the word ‘happy.’ There was no promise.” “But you must go, Charles. It would be unpardonable to fail. We were asked on purpose to be introduced. There was always such a great connexion between the Dalrymples and ourselves. Nothing ever happened on either side that was not announced immediately. We are quite near relations, you know; and Mr Elliot too, whom you ought so particularly to be acquainted with! Every attention is due to Mr Elliot. Consider, my father’s heir: the future representative of the family.” “Don’t talk to me about heirs and representatives,” cried Charles. “I am not one of those who neglect the reigning power to bow to the rising sun. If I would not go for the sake of your father, I should think it scandalous to go for the sake of his heir. What is Mr Elliot to me?” The careless expression was life to Anne, who saw that Captain Wentworth was all attention, looking and listening with his whole soul; and that the last words brought his enquiring eyes from Charles to herself. Charles and Mary still talked on in the same style; he, half serious and half jesting, maintaining the scheme for the play, and she, invariably serious, most warmly opposing it, and not omitting to make it known that, however determined to go to Camden Place herself, she should not think herself very well used, if they went to the play without her. Mrs Musgrove interposed. “We had better put it off. Charles, you had much better go back and change the box for Tuesday. It would be a pity to be divided, and we should be losing Miss Anne, too, if there is a party at her father’s; and I am sure neither Henrietta nor I should care at all for the play, if Miss Anne could not be with us.” Anne felt truly obliged to her for such kindness; and quite as much so for the opportunity it gave her of decidedly saying- “If it depended only on my inclination, ma’am, the party at home (excepting on Mary’s account) would not be the smallest impediment. I have no pleasure in the sort of meeting, and should be too happy to change it for a play, and with you. But, it had better not be attempted, perhaps.” She had spoken it; but she trembled when it was done, conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to try to observe their effect. It was soon generally agreed that Tuesday should be the day; Charles only reserving the advantage of still teasing his wife, by persisting that he would go to the play to-morrow if nobody else would. *Persuasion, Chapter 22*
Captain Wentworth left his seat, and walked to the fire-place; probably for the sake of walking away from it soon afterwards, and taking a station, with less bare-faced design, by Anne. “You have not been long enough in Bath,” said he, “to enjoy the evening parties of the place.” “Oh! no. The usual character of them has nothing for me. I am no card-player.” “You were not formerly, I know. You did not use to like cards; but time makes many changes.” “I am not yet so much changed,” cried Anne, and stopped, fearing she hardly knew what misconstruction. After waiting a few moments he said, and as if it were the result of immediate feeling, “It is a period, indeed! Eight years and a half is a period.” Whether he would have proceeded farther was left to Anne’s imagination to ponder over in a calmer hour; for while still hearing the sounds he had uttered, she was startled to other subjects by Henrietta, eager to make use of the present leisure for getting out, and calling on her companions to lose no time, lest somebody else should come in. They were obliged to move. Anne talked of being perfectly ready, and tried to look it; but she felt that could Henrietta have known the regret and reluctance of her heart in quitting that chair, in preparing to quit the room, she would have found, in all her own sensations for her cousin, in the very security of his affection, wherewith to pity her. Their preparations, however, were stopped short. Alarming sounds were heard; other visitors approached, and the door was thrown open for Sir Walter and Miss Elliot, whose entrance seemed to give a general chill. Anne felt an instant oppression, and wherever she looked saw symptoms of the same. The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk, to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister. How mortifying to feel that it was so! Her jealous eye was satisfied in one particular. Captain Wentworth was acknowledged again by each, by Elizabeth more graciously than before. She even addressed him once, and looked at him more than once. Elizabeth was, in fact, revolving a great measure. The sequel explained it. After the waste of a few minutes in saying the proper nothings, she began to give the invitation which was to comprise all the remaining dues of the Musgroves. “To-morrow evening, to meet a few friends: no formal party.” It was all said very gracefully, and the cards with which she had provided herself, the “Miss Elliot at home,” were laid on the table, with a courteous, comprehensive smile to all, and one smile and one card more decidedly for Captain Wentworth. The truth was, that Elizabeth had been long enough in Bath to understand the importance of a man of such an air and appearance as his. The past was nothing. The present was that Captain Wentworth would move about well in her drawing-room. The card was pointedly given, and Sir Walter and Elizabeth arose and disappeared. The interruption had been short, though severe, and ease and animation returned to most of those they left as the door shut them out, but not to Anne. She could think only of the invitation she had with such astonishment witnessed, and of the manner in which it had been received; a manner of doubtful meaning, of surprise rather than gratification, of polite acknowledgement rather than acceptance. She knew him; she saw disdain in his eye, and could not venture to believe that he had determined to accept such an offering, as an atonement for all the insolence of the past. Her spirits sank. He held the card in his hand after they were gone, as if deeply considering it. “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. *Persuasion, Chapter 22*
*Excerpt from Austen's manuscript of the cancelled alternate ending of Persuasion, on which Anne's meeting with Capt. Wentworth in these scenes are based. (Edited for clarity)* With all this knowledge of Mr Elliot and this authority to impart it, Anne left Westgate Buildings, her mind deeply busy in revolving what she had heard, feeling, thinking, recalling and forseeing everything; shocked at Mr Elliot, sighing over future Kellynch, and pained for Lady Russell, whose confidence in him had been entire. The embarrassment which much be felt from this hour in his presence! How to behave to him? How to get rid of him? What to do by any of the party at home? Where to be blind? Where to be active? It was altogether a confusion of images and doubts. A perplexity, an agitation which she could not see the end of. And she was in Gay Street and still so much engrossed, that she started on being addressed by Admiral Croft, as if he were a person unlikely to be met there. It was within a few steps of his own door. "You are going to call upon my wife" said he, "she will be very glad to see you." Anne denied it - "No, she really had not time, she was in her way home" - but while she spoke, the Admiral had stepped back and knocked at the door, calling out, "Yes, yes do go in; she is all alone. Go in and rest yourself." Anne felt so little disposed at this time to be in company of any sort, that it vexed her to be thus constrained, but she was obliged to stop. "Since you are so very kind" said she, "I will just ask Mrs Croft how she does, but I really cannot stay 5 minutes. You are sure she is quite alone?" The possibility of Capt. Wentworth had occurred, and most fearfully anxious was she to be assured--either that he was within or that he was not; which, might have been a question. "Oh! yes, quite alone. Nobody but her mantua-maker with her, and they have been shut up together this half hour, so it must be over soon." "Her mantua-maker! Then I am sure my calling now would be most inconvenient. Indeed you must allow me to leave my card and be so good as to explain it afterwards to Mrs Croft." "No, no, not at all, not at all. She will be very happy to see you. Mind, I will not swear that she has not something particular to say to you. But that will all come out in the right place. I give no hints. Why, Miss Elliot, we begin to hear strange things of you - (smiling in her face) - But you have not much the look of it - as grave as a little judge." Anne blushed. "Aye, aye, that will do. Now, it is right. I thought we were not mistaken." She was left to guess at the direction of his suspicions; the first wild idea had been of some disclosure from his brother-in-law, but she was ashamed the next moment and felt how far more probable that he should be meaning Mr Elliot. The door was opened, and the man evidently beginning to deny his mistress, when the sight of his master stopped him. The Admiral enjoyed the joke exceedingly. Anne thought his triumph over Stephen rather too long. At last however, he was able to invite her upstairs, and stepping before her said, "I will just go up with you myself and shew you in. I cannot stay, because I must go to the post office, but if you will only sit down for 5 minutes I am sure Sophy will come, and you will find nobody to disturb you. There is nobody but Frederick here", opening the door as he spoke. Such a person to be passed over as a nobody to her! After being allowed to feel quite secure--indifferent--at her ease, to have it burst on her that she was to be the next moment in the same room with him! No time for recollection, for planning behaviour, or regulating manners! There was time only to turn pale, before she had passed through the door, and met the astonished eyes of Capt. Wentworth, who was sitting by the fire pretending to read and prepared for no greater surprise than the Admiral's hasty return. Equally unexpected was the meeting, on each side. There was nothing to be done however, but to stifle feelings and be quietly polite; and the Admiral was too much on the alert, to leave any troublesome pause. He repeated again what he had said before about his wife and everybody, insisted on Anne's sitting down and being perfectly comfortable, was sorry he must leave her himself, but was sure Mrs Croft would be down very soon, and would go upstairs and give her notice directly. Anne was sitting down, but now she arose again to entreat him not to interrupt Mrs Croft and re-urge the wish of going away and calling another time. But the Admiral would not hear of it; and if she did not return to the charge with unconquerable perseverance, or did not with a more passive determination walk quietly out of the room (as certainly she might have done), may she not be pardoned? If she had no horror of a few minutes tête-a-tête with Capt. Wentworth, may she not be pardoned for not wishing to give him the idea that she had? She reseated herself, and the Admiral took leave; but on reaching the door, said, "Frederick, a word with you, if you please." Capt. Wentworth went to him; and instantly, before they were well out of the room, the Admiral continued- "As I am going to leave you together, it is but fair I should give you something to talk of, and so, if you please.." Here the door was very firmly closed; she could guess by which of the two; and she lost entirely what immediately followed; but it was impossible for her not to distinguish parts of the rest, for the Admiral on the strength of the door's being shut was speaking without any management of voice, though she could hear his companion trying to check him. She could not doubt their being speaking of her. She heard her own name and Kellynch repeatedly. She was very much distressed. She knew not what to do, or what to expect, and among other agonies felt the possibility of Capt. Wentworth's not returning into the room at all, which after her consenting to stay would have been (--too bad for language--). They seemed to be talking of the Admiral's lease of Kellynch. She heard him say something of "the lease being signed or not signed". That was not likely to be a very agitating subject; but then followed, "I hate to be at an uncertainty. I must know at once. Sophy thinks the same." Then, in a lower tone, Capt. Wentworth seemed remonstrating - wanting to be excused, wanting to put something off. "Phoo, Phoo!" answered the Admiral, "Now is the time. If you will not speak, I will stop and speak myself." "Very well sir. Very well sir", followed with some impatience from his companion, opening the door as he spoke. "You will then.. you promise you will?" replied the Admiral, in all the power of his natural voice, unbroken even by one thin door. "Yes sir.. Yes." And the Admiral was hastily left, the door was closed, and the moment arrived in which Anne was alone with Capt. Wentworth. *(Contd..)*
*(Contd..) Excerpt from Austen's manuscript of the cancelled alternate ending of Persuasion, on which Anne's meeting with Capt. Wentworth in these scenes are based. (Edited for clarity)* She could not attempt to see how he (Capt. Wentworth) looked; but he walked immediately to a window, as if irresolute and embarrassed; and for about the space of 5 seconds, she repented what she had done - censured it as unwise, blushed for it as indelicate. She longed to be able to speak of the weather or the concert, but could only compass the relief of taking a newspaper in her hand. The distressing pause was soon over however; he turned round in half a minute, and coming towards the table where she sat, said, in a voice of effort and constraint. "You must have heard too much already, madam, to be in any doubt of my having promised Admiral Croft to speak to you on some particular subject, and this conviction determines me to do it, however repugnant to my--to all my sense of propriety, to be taking so great a liberty. You will acquit me of impertinence I trust, by considering me as speaking only for another, and speaking by necessity; and the Admiral is a man who can never be thought impertinent by one who knows him as you do. His intentions are always the kindest and the best; and you will perceive that he is actuated by none other, in the application which I am now with.. with very peculiar feelings obliged to make." He stopped, but merely to recover breath; not seeming to expect any answer. Anne listened, as if her life depended on the issue of his speech. He proceeded, with a forced alacrity. "The Admiral, madam, was this morning confidently informed that you were.. upon my word I am quite at a loss, ashamed.. (breathing & speaking quick) the awkwardness of giving information of this sort to one of the parties. You can be at no loss to understand me. It was very confidently said that Mr Elliot.. that everything was settled in the family for an union between Mr Elliot and yourself. It was added that you were to live at Kellynch, that Kellynch was to be given up. This, the Admiral knew could not be correct. But it occurred to him that it might be the wish of the parties. And my commission from him, madam, is to say, that if the family wish is such, his lease of Kellynch shall be cancelled, and he and my sister will provide themselves with another home, without imagining themselves to be doing anything which under similar circumstances would not be done for them. This is all, madam. A very few words in reply from you will be sufficient. That I should be the person commissioned on this subject is extraordinary! - and believe me, madam, it is no less painful. A very few words, however, will put an end to the awkwardness and distress we may both be feeling." Anne spoke a word or two, but they were un-intelligible. And before she could command herself, he replied, "If you only tell me that the Admiral may address a line to Sir Walter, it will be enough. Pronounce only the words 'he may'. I shall immediately follow him with your message." This was spoken, as with a fortitude which seemed to meet the message. "No sir" said Anne. "There is no message. You are misinformed. The Adml is misinformed. I do justice to the kindness of his intentions, but he is quite mistaken. There is no truth in any such report." He was a moment silent. She turned her eyes towards him for the first time since his re-entering the room. His colour was varying, and he was looking at her with all the power and keenness, which she believed no other eyes than his, possessed. "No truth in any such report!" he repeated. "No truth in any part of it?" "None." He had been standing by a chair, enjoying the relief of leaning on it, or of playing with it; he now sat down, drew it a little nearer to her and looked, with an expression which had something more than penetration in it, something softer. Her countenance did not discourage. It was a silent, but a very powerful dialogue; on his side supplication, on her's acceptance. Still, a little nearer, and a hand taken and pressed, and "Anne, my own dear Anne!" bursting forth in the fullness of exquisite feeling, and all suspense and indecision were over. They were re-united. They were restored to all that had been lost. They were carried back to the past, with only an increase of attachment and confidence, and only such a flutter of present delight as made them little fit for the interruption of Mrs Croft, when she joined them not long afterwards. She probably, in the observations of the next ten minutes, saw something to suspect, and though it was hardly possible for a woman of her description to wish the mantua-maker had imprisoned her longer, she might be very likely wishing for some excuse to run about the house, some storm to break the windows above, or a summons to the Admiral's shoemaker below. Fortune favoured them all, however, in another way - in a gentle, steady rain - just happily set in as the Admiral returned and Anne rose to go. She was earnestly invited to stay dinner; a note was dispatched to Camden Place, and she staid, staid till ten at night. And during that time, the husband and wife, either by the wife's contrivance, or by simply going on in their usual way, were frequently out of the room together - gone up stairs to hear a noise, or down stairs to settle their accounts, or upon the landing place to trim the lamp. And these precious moments were turned to so good an account that all the most anxious feelings of the past were gone through. Before they parted at night, Anne had the felicity of being assured in the first place that (so far from being altered for the worse!) she had gained inexpressibly in personal loveliness; and that as to character, her's was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and gentleness; that he had never ceased to love and prefer her, though it had been only at Uppercross that he had learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme that he had begun to understand his own sensations; that at Lyme he had received lessons of more than one kind; the passing admiration of Mr Elliot had at least roused him, and the scenes on the Cobb and at Capt. Harville's had fixed her superiority. In his preceding attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove (the attempts of anger & pique), he protested that he had continually felt the impossibility of really caring for Louisa, though till that day, till the leisure for reflection which followed it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of the mind, with which Louisa's could so ill bear a comparison, or the perfect, the unrivalled hold it possessed over his own. There he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness, and the resolution of a collected mind. There he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment which had kept him from trying to regain her, when thrown in his way. From that period to the present had his penance been the most severe..
The scene from 1995 and 2007 movies where Captain Wentworth speaks to Anne about Admiral Croft's offer to cancel the lease of Kellynch Hall is based on Austen's draft of the cancelled ending of 'Persuasion'. The relevant portion from the original draft has been added to the pinned comment.
@maryhamric In the cancelled draft, there was little scope for the letter scene (at least as in the final published version) as Anne's reply to Capt Wentworth that he is mistaken in supposing an engagement between herself and Mr. Elliot provides the "trigger" for Wentworth to make his "second proposal" directly. The 1995 movie got around this difficulty by denying Anne the time to refute the rumours (by the interruption of Lady Russell), while the 2007 movie went a different way by giving Anne the opportunity for a denial, which becomes the "trigger" for Wentworth's letter (minus the scene where Wentworth overhears the conversation between Anne and Capt Harville about a woman's constancy - the "trigger" in the published novel). So, I guess Austen may have found it difficult to accomodate this cancelled scene as well as the final letter scene in a satisfactory manner, and therefore chose to omit this scene entirely in favour of the letter. That said, perhaps she could have done something similar to the movies, by having Admiral Croft or Mrs. Croft interrupt the conversation of Anne and Wentworth just when Anne was about to deny the rumours or when Capt Wentworth was about to propose, which would have left room for the letter scene as well.
Я не могу сказать, что люблю версию от 2007 года. Есть причины, которые портят хорошее впечатление. Но капитан Вентворт там хорош. Эти два капитана Вентворта лучшие среди тех, что я видела. Конечно, это моё личное мнение.
*Series:* ruclips.net/p/PLzcoQ_vebs-S8-SPXsWG2Hvu2-j9i9p7p
While her father spoke, there was a knock at the door. Who could it be? Anne, remembering the preconcerted visits, at all hours, of Mr Elliot, would have expected him, but for his known engagement seven miles off. After the usual period of suspense, the usual sounds of approach were heard, and “Mr and Mrs Charles Musgrove” were ushered into the room.
Surprise was the strongest emotion raised by their appearance; but Anne was really glad to see them; and the others were not so sorry but that they could put on a decent air of welcome; and as soon as it became clear that these, their nearest relations, were not arrived with any views of accommodation in that house, Sir Walter and Elizabeth were able to rise in cordiality, and do the honours of it very well. They were come to Bath for a few days with Mrs Musgrove, and were at the White Hart. So much was pretty soon understood; but till Sir Walter and Elizabeth were walking Mary into the other drawing-room, and regaling themselves with her admiration, Anne could not draw upon Charles’s brain for a regular history of their coming, or an explanation of some smiling hints of particular business, which had been ostentatiously dropped by Mary, as well as of some apparent confusion as to whom their party consisted of.
She then found that it consisted of Mrs Musgrove, Henrietta, and Captain Harville, beside their two selves. He gave her a very plain, intelligible account of the whole; a narration in which she saw a great deal of most characteristic proceeding. The scheme had received its first impulse by Captain Harville’s wanting to come to Bath on business. He had begun to talk of it a week ago; and by way of doing something, as shooting was over, Charles had proposed coming with him, and Mrs Harville had seemed to like the idea of it very much, as an advantage to her husband; but Mary could not bear to be left, and had made herself so unhappy about it, that for a day or two everything seemed to be in suspense, or at an end. But then, it had been taken up by his father and mother. His mother had some old friends in Bath whom she wanted to see; it was thought a good opportunity for Henrietta to come and buy wedding-clothes for herself and her sister; and, in short, it ended in being his mother’s party, that everything might be comfortable and easy to Captain Harville; and he and Mary were included in it by way of general convenience. They had arrived late the night before. Mrs Harville, her children, and Captain Benwick, remained with Mr Musgrove and Louisa at Uppercross.
Anne’s only surprise was, that affairs should be in forwardness enough for Henrietta’s wedding-clothes to be talked of. She had imagined such difficulties of fortune to exist there as must prevent the marriage from being near at hand; but she learned from Charles that, very recently, (since Mary’s last letter to herself), Charles Hayter had been applied to by a friend to hold a living for a youth who could not possibly claim it under many years; and that on the strength of his present income, with almost a certainty of something more permanent long before the term in question, the two families had consented to the young people’s wishes, and that their marriage was likely to take place in a few months, quite as soon as Louisa’s. “And a very good living it was,” Charles added: “only five-and-twenty miles from Uppercross, and in a very fine country: fine part of Dorsetshire. In the centre of some of the best preserves in the kingdom, surrounded by three great proprietors, each more careful and jealous than the other; and to two of the three at least, Charles Hayter might get a special recommendation. Not that he will value it as he ought,” he observed, “Charles is too cool about sporting. That’s the worst of him.”
“I am extremely glad, indeed,” cried Anne, “particularly glad that this should happen; and that of two sisters, who both deserve equally well, and who have always been such good friends, the pleasant prospect of one should not be dimming those of the other-that they should be so equal in their prosperity and comfort. I hope your father and mother are quite happy with regard to both.”
“Oh! yes. My father would be well pleased if the gentlemen were richer, but he has no other fault to find. Money, you know, coming down with money-two daughters at once-it cannot be a very agreeable operation, and it streightens him as to many things. However, I do not mean to say they have not a right to it. It is very fit they should have daughters’ shares; and I am sure he has always been a very kind, liberal father to me. Mary does not above half like Henrietta’s match. She never did, you know. But she does not do him justice, nor think enough about Winthrop. I cannot make her attend to the value of the property. It is a very fair match, as times go; and I have liked Charles Hayter all my life, and I shall not leave off now.”
“Such excellent parents as Mr and Mrs Musgrove,” exclaimed Anne, “should be happy in their children’s marriages. They do everything to confer happiness, I am sure. What a blessing to young people to be in such hands! Your father and mother seem so totally free from all those ambitious feelings which have led to so much misconduct and misery, both in young and old. I hope you think Louisa perfectly recovered now?”
He answered rather hesitatingly, “Yes, I believe I do; very much recovered; but she is altered; there is no running or jumping about, no laughing or dancing; it is quite different. If one happens only to shut the door a little hard, she starts and wriggles like a young dab-chick in the water; and Benwick sits at her elbow, reading verses, or whispering to her, all day long.”
Anne could not help laughing. “That cannot be much to your taste, I know,” said she; “but I do believe him to be an excellent young man.”
“To be sure he is. Nobody doubts it; and I hope you do not think I am so illiberal as to want every man to have the same objects and pleasures as myself. I have a great value for Benwick; and when one can but get him to talk, he has plenty to say. His reading has done him no harm, for he has fought as well as read. He is a brave fellow. I got more acquainted with him last Monday than ever I did before. We had a famous set-to at rat-hunting all the morning in my father’s great barns; and he played his part so well that I have liked him the better ever since.”
Here they were interrupted by the absolute necessity of Charles’s following the others to admire mirrors and china; but Anne had heard enough to understand the present state of Uppercross, and rejoice in its happiness; and though she sighed as she rejoiced, her sigh had none of the ill-will of envy in it. She would certainly have risen to their blessings if she could, but she did not want to lessen theirs.
The visit passed off altogether in high good humour. Mary was in excellent spirits, enjoying the gaiety and the change, and so well satisfied with the journey in her mother-in-law’s carriage with four horses, and with her own complete independence of Camden Place, that she was exactly in a temper to admire everything as she ought, and enter most readily into all the superiorities of the house, as they were detailed to her. She had no demands on her father or sister, and her consequence was just enough increased by their handsome drawing-rooms.
Elizabeth was, for a short time, suffering a good deal. She felt that Mrs Musgrove and all her party ought to be asked to dine with them; but she could not bear to have the difference of style, the reduction of servants, which a dinner must betray, witnessed by those who had been always so inferior to the Elliots of Kellynch. It was a struggle between propriety and vanity; but vanity got the better, and then Elizabeth was happy again. These were her internal persuasions: “Old fashioned notions; country hospitality; we do not profess to give dinners; few people in Bath do; Lady Alicia never does; did not even ask her own sister’s family, though they were here a month: and I dare say it would be very inconvenient to Mrs Musgrove; put her quite out of her way. I am sure she would rather not come; she cannot feel easy with us. I will ask them all for an evening; that will be much better; that will be a novelty and a treat. They have not seen two such drawing rooms before. They will be delighted to come to-morrow evening. It shall be a regular party, small, but most elegant.” And this satisfied Elizabeth: and when the invitation was given to the two present, and promised for the absent, Mary was as completely satisfied. She was particularly asked to meet Mr Elliot, and be introduced to Lady Dalrymple and Miss Carteret, who were fortunately already engaged to come; and she could not have received a more gratifying attention. Miss Elliot was to have the honour of calling on Mrs Musgrove in the course of the morning; and Anne walked off with Charles and Mary, to go and see her and Henrietta directly.
*Persuasion, Chapter 22*
They found Mrs Musgrove and her daughter within, and by themselves, and Anne had the kindest welcome from each. Henrietta was exactly in that state of recently-improved views, of fresh-formed happiness, which made her full of regard and interest for everybody she had ever liked before at all; and Mrs Musgrove’s real affection had been won by her usefulness when they were in distress. It was a heartiness, and a warmth, and a sincerity which Anne delighted in the more, from the sad want of such blessings at home. She was entreated to give them as much of her time as possible, invited for every day and all day long, or rather claimed as part of the family; and, in return, she naturally fell into all her wonted ways of attention and assistance, and on Charles’s leaving them together, was listening to Mrs Musgrove’s history of Louisa, and to Henrietta’s of herself, giving opinions on business, and recommendations to shops; with intervals of every help which Mary required, from altering her ribbon to settling her accounts; from finding her keys, and assorting her trinkets, to trying to convince her that she was not ill-used by anybody; which Mary, well amused as she generally was, in her station at a window overlooking the entrance to the Pump Room, could not but have her moments of imagining.
A morning of thorough confusion was to be expected. A large party in an hotel ensured a quick-changing, unsettled scene. One five minutes brought a note, the next a parcel; and Anne had not been there half an hour, when their dining-room, spacious as it was, seemed more than half filled: a party of steady old friends were seated around Mrs Musgrove, and Charles came back with Captains Harville and Wentworth. The appearance of the latter could not be more than the surprise of the moment. It was impossible for her to have forgotten to feel that this arrival of their common friends must be soon bringing them together again. Their last meeting had been most important in opening his feelings; she had derived from it a delightful conviction; but she feared from his looks, that the same unfortunate persuasion, which had hastened him away from the Concert Room, still governed. He did not seem to want to be near enough for conversation.
She tried to be calm, and leave things to take their course, and tried to dwell much on this argument of rational dependence:-“Surely, if there be constant attachment on each side, our hearts must understand each other ere long. We are not boy and girl, to be captiously irritable, misled by every moment’s inadvertence, and wantonly playing with our own happiness.” And yet, a few minutes afterwards, she felt as if their being in company with each other, under their present circumstances, could only be exposing them to inadvertencies and misconstructions of the most mischievous kind.
“Anne,” cried Mary, still at her window, “there is Mrs Clay, I am sure, standing under the colonnade, and a gentleman with her. I saw them turn the corner from Bath Street just now. They seemed deep in talk. Who is it? Come, and tell me. Good heavens! I recollect. It is Mr Elliot himself.”
“No,” cried Anne, quickly, “it cannot be Mr Elliot, I assure you. He was to leave Bath at nine this morning, and does not come back till to-morrow.”
As she spoke, she felt that Captain Wentworth was looking at her, the consciousness of which vexed and embarrassed her, and made her regret that she had said so much, simple as it was.
Mary, resenting that she should be supposed not to know her own cousin, began talking very warmly about the family features, and protesting still more positively that it was Mr Elliot, calling again upon Anne to come and look for herself, but Anne did not mean to stir, and tried to be cool and unconcerned. Her distress returned, however, on perceiving smiles and intelligent glances pass between two or three of the lady visitors, as if they believed themselves quite in the secret. It was evident that the report concerning her had spread, and a short pause succeeded, which seemed to ensure that it would now spread farther.
“Do come, Anne,” cried Mary, “come and look yourself. You will be too late if you do not make haste. They are parting; they are shaking hands. He is turning away. Not know Mr Elliot, indeed! You seem to have forgot all about Lyme.”
To pacify Mary, and perhaps screen her own embarrassment, Anne did move quietly to the window. She was just in time to ascertain that it really was Mr Elliot, which she had never believed, before he disappeared on one side, as Mrs Clay walked quickly off on the other; and checking the surprise which she could not but feel at such an appearance of friendly conference between two persons of totally opposite interest, she calmly said, “Yes, it is Mr Elliot, certainly. He has changed his hour of going, I suppose, that is all, or I may be mistaken, I might not attend;” and walked back to her chair, recomposed, and with the comfortable hope of having acquitted herself well.
The visitors took their leave; and Charles, having civilly seen them off, and then made a face at them, and abused them for coming, began with-
“Well, mother, I have done something for you that you will like. I have been to the theatre, and secured a box for to-morrow night. A’n’t I a good boy? I know you love a play; and there is room for us all. It holds nine. I have engaged Captain Wentworth. Anne will not be sorry to join us, I am sure. We all like a play. Have not I done well, mother?”
Mrs Musgrove was good humouredly beginning to express her perfect readiness for the play, if Henrietta and all the others liked it, when Mary eagerly interrupted her by exclaiming-
“Good heavens, Charles! how can you think of such a thing? Take a box for to-morrow night! Have you forgot that we are engaged to Camden Place to-morrow night? and that we were most particularly asked to meet Lady Dalrymple and her daughter, and Mr Elliot, and all the principal family connexions, on purpose to be introduced to them? How can you be so forgetful?”
“Phoo! phoo!” replied Charles, “what’s an evening party? Never worth remembering. Your father might have asked us to dinner, I think, if he had wanted to see us. You may do as you like, but I shall go to the play.”
“Oh! Charles, I declare it will be too abominable if you do, when you promised to go.”
“No, I did not promise. I only smirked and bowed, and said the word ‘happy.’ There was no promise.”
“But you must go, Charles. It would be unpardonable to fail. We were asked on purpose to be introduced. There was always such a great connexion between the Dalrymples and ourselves. Nothing ever happened on either side that was not announced immediately. We are quite near relations, you know; and Mr Elliot too, whom you ought so particularly to be acquainted with! Every attention is due to Mr Elliot. Consider, my father’s heir: the future representative of the family.”
“Don’t talk to me about heirs and representatives,” cried Charles. “I am not one of those who neglect the reigning power to bow to the rising sun. If I would not go for the sake of your father, I should think it scandalous to go for the sake of his heir. What is Mr Elliot to me?” The careless expression was life to Anne, who saw that Captain Wentworth was all attention, looking and listening with his whole soul; and that the last words brought his enquiring eyes from Charles to herself.
Charles and Mary still talked on in the same style; he, half serious and half jesting, maintaining the scheme for the play, and she, invariably serious, most warmly opposing it, and not omitting to make it known that, however determined to go to Camden Place herself, she should not think herself very well used, if they went to the play without her. Mrs Musgrove interposed.
“We had better put it off. Charles, you had much better go back and change the box for Tuesday. It would be a pity to be divided, and we should be losing Miss Anne, too, if there is a party at her father’s; and I am sure neither Henrietta nor I should care at all for the play, if Miss Anne could not be with us.”
Anne felt truly obliged to her for such kindness; and quite as much so for the opportunity it gave her of decidedly saying-
“If it depended only on my inclination, ma’am, the party at home (excepting on Mary’s account) would not be the smallest impediment. I have no pleasure in the sort of meeting, and should be too happy to change it for a play, and with you. But, it had better not be attempted, perhaps.” She had spoken it; but she trembled when it was done, conscious that her words were listened to, and daring not even to try to observe their effect.
It was soon generally agreed that Tuesday should be the day; Charles only reserving the advantage of still teasing his wife, by persisting that he would go to the play to-morrow if nobody else would.
*Persuasion, Chapter 22*
Captain Wentworth left his seat, and walked to the fire-place; probably for the sake of walking away from it soon afterwards, and taking a station, with less bare-faced design, by Anne.
“You have not been long enough in Bath,” said he, “to enjoy the evening parties of the place.”
“Oh! no. The usual character of them has nothing for me. I am no card-player.”
“You were not formerly, I know. You did not use to like cards; but time makes many changes.”
“I am not yet so much changed,” cried Anne, and stopped, fearing she hardly knew what misconstruction. After waiting a few moments he said, and as if it were the result of immediate feeling, “It is a period, indeed! Eight years and a half is a period.”
Whether he would have proceeded farther was left to Anne’s imagination to ponder over in a calmer hour; for while still hearing the sounds he had uttered, she was startled to other subjects by Henrietta, eager to make use of the present leisure for getting out, and calling on her companions to lose no time, lest somebody else should come in.
They were obliged to move. Anne talked of being perfectly ready, and tried to look it; but she felt that could Henrietta have known the regret and reluctance of her heart in quitting that chair, in preparing to quit the room, she would have found, in all her own sensations for her cousin, in the very security of his affection, wherewith to pity her.
Their preparations, however, were stopped short. Alarming sounds were heard; other visitors approached, and the door was thrown open for Sir Walter and Miss Elliot, whose entrance seemed to give a general chill. Anne felt an instant oppression, and wherever she looked saw symptoms of the same. The comfort, the freedom, the gaiety of the room was over, hushed into cold composure, determined silence, or insipid talk, to meet the heartless elegance of her father and sister. How mortifying to feel that it was so!
Her jealous eye was satisfied in one particular. Captain Wentworth was acknowledged again by each, by Elizabeth more graciously than before. She even addressed him once, and looked at him more than once. Elizabeth was, in fact, revolving a great measure. The sequel explained it. After the waste of a few minutes in saying the proper nothings, she began to give the invitation which was to comprise all the remaining dues of the Musgroves. “To-morrow evening, to meet a few friends: no formal party.” It was all said very gracefully, and the cards with which she had provided herself, the “Miss Elliot at home,” were laid on the table, with a courteous, comprehensive smile to all, and one smile and one card more decidedly for Captain Wentworth. The truth was, that Elizabeth had been long enough in Bath to understand the importance of a man of such an air and appearance as his. The past was nothing. The present was that Captain Wentworth would move about well in her drawing-room. The card was pointedly given, and Sir Walter and Elizabeth arose and disappeared.
The interruption had been short, though severe, and ease and animation returned to most of those they left as the door shut them out, but not to Anne. She could think only of the invitation she had with such astonishment witnessed, and of the manner in which it had been received; a manner of doubtful meaning, of surprise rather than gratification, of polite acknowledgement rather than acceptance. She knew him; she saw disdain in his eye, and could not venture to believe that he had determined to accept such an offering, as an atonement for all the insolence of the past. Her spirits sank. He held the card in his hand after they were gone, as if deeply considering it.
“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.
*Persuasion, Chapter 22*
*Excerpt from Austen's manuscript of the cancelled alternate ending of Persuasion, on which Anne's meeting with Capt. Wentworth in these scenes are based. (Edited for clarity)*
With all this knowledge of Mr Elliot and this authority to impart it, Anne left Westgate Buildings, her mind deeply busy in revolving what she had heard, feeling, thinking, recalling and forseeing everything; shocked at Mr Elliot, sighing over future Kellynch, and pained for Lady Russell, whose confidence in him had been entire. The embarrassment which much be felt from this hour in his presence! How to behave to him? How to get rid of him? What to do by any of the party at home? Where to be blind? Where to be active? It was altogether a confusion of images and doubts. A perplexity, an agitation which she could not see the end of. And she was in Gay Street and still so much engrossed, that she started on being addressed by Admiral Croft, as if he were a person unlikely to be met there. It was within a few steps of his own door.
"You are going to call upon my wife" said he, "she will be very glad to see you."
Anne denied it - "No, she really had not time, she was in her way home" - but while she spoke, the Admiral had stepped back and knocked at the door, calling out, "Yes, yes do go in; she is all alone. Go in and rest yourself."
Anne felt so little disposed at this time to be in company of any sort, that it vexed her to be thus constrained, but she was obliged to stop.
"Since you are so very kind" said she, "I will just ask Mrs Croft how she does, but I really cannot stay 5 minutes. You are sure she is quite alone?"
The possibility of Capt. Wentworth had occurred, and most fearfully anxious was she to be assured--either that he was within or that he was not; which, might have been a question.
"Oh! yes, quite alone. Nobody but her mantua-maker with her, and they have been shut up together this half hour, so it must be over soon."
"Her mantua-maker! Then I am sure my calling now would be most inconvenient. Indeed you must allow me to leave my card and be so good as to explain it afterwards to Mrs Croft."
"No, no, not at all, not at all. She will be very happy to see you. Mind, I will not swear that she has not something particular to say to you. But that will all come out in the right place. I give no hints. Why, Miss Elliot, we begin to hear strange things of you - (smiling in her face) - But you have not much the look of it - as grave as a little judge." Anne blushed.
"Aye, aye, that will do. Now, it is right. I thought we were not mistaken."
She was left to guess at the direction of his suspicions; the first wild idea had been of some disclosure from his brother-in-law, but she was ashamed the next moment and felt how far more probable that he should be meaning Mr Elliot.
The door was opened, and the man evidently beginning to deny his mistress, when the sight of his master stopped him. The Admiral enjoyed the joke exceedingly. Anne thought his triumph over Stephen rather too long. At last however, he was able to invite her upstairs, and stepping before her said,
"I will just go up with you myself and shew you in. I cannot stay, because I must go to the post office, but if you will only sit down for 5 minutes I am sure Sophy will come, and you will find nobody to disturb you. There is nobody but Frederick here", opening the door as he spoke.
Such a person to be passed over as a nobody to her! After being allowed to feel quite secure--indifferent--at her ease, to have it burst on her that she was to be the next moment in the same room with him! No time for recollection, for planning behaviour, or regulating manners! There was time only to turn pale, before she had passed through the door, and met the astonished eyes of Capt. Wentworth, who was sitting by the fire pretending to read and prepared for no greater surprise than the Admiral's hasty return. Equally unexpected was the meeting, on each side. There was nothing to be done however, but to stifle feelings and be quietly polite; and the Admiral was too much on the alert, to leave any troublesome pause. He repeated again what he had said before about his wife and everybody, insisted on Anne's sitting down and being perfectly comfortable, was sorry he must leave her himself, but was sure Mrs Croft would be down very soon, and would go upstairs and give her notice directly.
Anne was sitting down, but now she arose again to entreat him not to interrupt Mrs Croft and re-urge the wish of going away and calling another time. But the Admiral would not hear of it; and if she did not return to the charge with unconquerable perseverance, or did not with a more passive determination walk quietly out of the room (as certainly she might have done), may she not be pardoned? If she had no horror of a few minutes tête-a-tête with Capt. Wentworth, may she not be pardoned for not wishing to give him the idea that she had?
She reseated herself, and the Admiral took leave; but on reaching the door, said, "Frederick, a word with you, if you please."
Capt. Wentworth went to him; and instantly, before they were well out of the room, the Admiral continued-
"As I am going to leave you together, it is but fair I should give you something to talk of, and so, if you please.." Here the door was very firmly closed; she could guess by which of the two; and she lost entirely what immediately followed; but it was impossible for her not to distinguish parts of the rest, for the Admiral on the strength of the door's being shut was speaking without any management of voice, though she could hear his companion trying to check him. She could not doubt their being speaking of her. She heard her own name and Kellynch repeatedly. She was very much distressed. She knew not what to do, or what to expect, and among other agonies felt the possibility of Capt. Wentworth's not returning into the room at all, which after her consenting to stay would have been (--too bad for language--).
They seemed to be talking of the Admiral's lease of Kellynch. She heard him say something of "the lease being signed or not signed". That was not likely to be a very agitating subject; but then followed, "I hate to be at an uncertainty. I must know at once. Sophy thinks the same."
Then, in a lower tone, Capt. Wentworth seemed remonstrating - wanting to be excused, wanting to put something off.
"Phoo, Phoo!" answered the Admiral, "Now is the time. If you will not speak, I will stop and speak myself."
"Very well sir. Very well sir", followed with some impatience from his companion, opening the door as he spoke.
"You will then.. you promise you will?" replied the Admiral, in all the power of his natural voice, unbroken even by one thin door.
"Yes sir.. Yes." And the Admiral was hastily left, the door was closed, and the moment arrived in which Anne was alone with Capt. Wentworth.
*(Contd..)*
*(Contd..) Excerpt from Austen's manuscript of the cancelled alternate ending of Persuasion, on which Anne's meeting with Capt. Wentworth in these scenes are based. (Edited for clarity)*
She could not attempt to see how he (Capt. Wentworth) looked; but he walked immediately to a window, as if irresolute and embarrassed; and for about the space of 5 seconds, she repented what she had done - censured it as unwise, blushed for it as indelicate. She longed to be able to speak of the weather or the concert, but could only compass the relief of taking a newspaper in her hand. The distressing pause was soon over however; he turned round in half a minute, and coming towards the table where she sat, said, in a voice of effort and constraint.
"You must have heard too much already, madam, to be in any doubt of my having promised Admiral Croft to speak to you on some particular subject, and this conviction determines me to do it, however repugnant to my--to all my sense of propriety, to be taking so great a liberty. You will acquit me of impertinence I trust, by considering me as speaking only for another, and speaking by necessity; and the Admiral is a man who can never be thought impertinent by one who knows him as you do. His intentions are always the kindest and the best; and you will perceive that he is actuated by none other, in the application which I am now with.. with very peculiar feelings obliged to make."
He stopped, but merely to recover breath; not seeming to expect any answer. Anne listened, as if her life depended on the issue of his speech. He proceeded, with a forced alacrity.
"The Admiral, madam, was this morning confidently informed that you were.. upon my word I am quite at a loss, ashamed.. (breathing & speaking quick) the awkwardness of giving information of this sort to one of the parties. You can be at no loss to understand me. It was very confidently said that Mr Elliot.. that everything was settled in the family for an union between Mr Elliot and yourself. It was added that you were to live at Kellynch, that Kellynch was to be given up. This, the Admiral knew could not be correct. But it occurred to him that it might be the wish of the parties. And my commission from him, madam, is to say, that if the family wish is such, his lease of Kellynch shall be cancelled, and he and my sister will provide themselves with another home, without imagining themselves to be doing anything which under similar circumstances would not be done for them. This is all, madam. A very few words in reply from you will be sufficient. That I should be the person commissioned on this subject is extraordinary! - and believe me, madam, it is no less painful. A very few words, however, will put an end to the awkwardness and distress we may both be feeling."
Anne spoke a word or two, but they were un-intelligible. And before she could command herself, he replied,
"If you only tell me that the Admiral may address a line to Sir Walter, it will be enough. Pronounce only the words 'he may'. I shall immediately follow him with your message."
This was spoken, as with a fortitude which seemed to meet the message.
"No sir" said Anne. "There is no message. You are misinformed. The Adml is misinformed. I do justice to the kindness of his intentions, but he is quite mistaken. There is no truth in any such report."
He was a moment silent. She turned her eyes towards him for the first time since his re-entering the room. His colour was varying, and he was looking at her with all the power and keenness, which she believed no other eyes than his, possessed.
"No truth in any such report!" he repeated. "No truth in any part of it?"
"None."
He had been standing by a chair, enjoying the relief of leaning on it, or of playing with it; he now sat down, drew it a little nearer to her and looked, with an expression which had something more than penetration in it, something softer. Her countenance did not discourage. It was a silent, but a very powerful dialogue; on his side supplication, on her's acceptance. Still, a little nearer, and a hand taken and pressed, and "Anne, my own dear Anne!" bursting forth in the fullness of exquisite feeling, and all suspense and indecision were over.
They were re-united. They were restored to all that had been lost. They were carried back to the past, with only an increase of attachment and confidence, and only such a flutter of present delight as made them little fit for the interruption of Mrs Croft, when she joined them not long afterwards. She probably, in the observations of the next ten minutes, saw something to suspect, and though it was hardly possible for a woman of her description to wish the mantua-maker had imprisoned her longer, she might be very likely wishing for some excuse to run about the house, some storm to break the windows above, or a summons to the Admiral's shoemaker below. Fortune favoured them all, however, in another way - in a gentle, steady rain - just happily set in as the Admiral returned and Anne rose to go. She was earnestly invited to stay dinner; a note was dispatched to Camden Place, and she staid, staid till ten at night. And during that time, the husband and wife, either by the wife's contrivance, or by simply going on in their usual way, were frequently out of the room together - gone up stairs to hear a noise, or down stairs to settle their accounts, or upon the landing place to trim the lamp. And these precious moments were turned to so good an account that all the most anxious feelings of the past were gone through.
Before they parted at night, Anne had the felicity of being assured in the first place that (so far from being altered for the worse!) she had gained inexpressibly in personal loveliness; and that as to character, her's was now fixed on his mind as perfection itself, maintaining the just medium of fortitude and gentleness; that he had never ceased to love and prefer her, though it had been only at Uppercross that he had learnt to do her justice, and only at Lyme that he had begun to understand his own sensations; that at Lyme he had received lessons of more than one kind; the passing admiration of Mr Elliot had at least roused him, and the scenes on the Cobb and at Capt. Harville's had fixed her superiority. In his preceding attempts to attach himself to Louisa Musgrove (the attempts of anger & pique), he protested that he had continually felt the impossibility of really caring for Louisa, though till that day, till the leisure for reflection which followed it, he had not understood the perfect excellence of the mind, with which Louisa's could so ill bear a comparison, or the perfect, the unrivalled hold it possessed over his own. There he had learnt to distinguish between the steadiness of principle and the obstinacy of self-will, between the darings of heedlessness, and the resolution of a collected mind. There he had seen everything to exalt in his estimation the woman he had lost, and there begun to deplore the pride, the folly, the madness of resentment which had kept him from trying to regain her, when thrown in his way. From that period to the present had his penance been the most severe..
The scene from 1995 and 2007 movies where Captain Wentworth speaks to Anne about Admiral Croft's offer to cancel the lease of Kellynch Hall is based on Austen's draft of the cancelled ending of 'Persuasion'. The relevant portion from the original draft has been added to the pinned comment.
Thank you so much for your kindness in sharing this.
@@carolynhorn6347 "It is not kindness, it is a pleasure." (Mr. Darcy, 1980) 😊
@@Love.and.Freindship Superb 😹
I cannot fathom why Austen removed this scene. The fact that a version of it appears in both films attests to the power of the scene.
@maryhamric In the cancelled draft, there was little scope for the letter scene (at least as in the final published version) as Anne's reply to Capt Wentworth that he is mistaken in supposing an engagement between herself and Mr. Elliot provides the "trigger" for Wentworth to make his "second proposal" directly. The 1995 movie got around this difficulty by denying Anne the time to refute the rumours (by the interruption of Lady Russell), while the 2007 movie went a different way by giving Anne the opportunity for a denial, which becomes the "trigger" for Wentworth's letter (minus the scene where Wentworth overhears the conversation between Anne and Capt Harville about a woman's constancy - the "trigger" in the published novel).
So, I guess Austen may have found it difficult to accomodate this cancelled scene as well as the final letter scene in a satisfactory manner, and therefore chose to omit this scene entirely in favour of the letter. That said, perhaps she could have done something similar to the movies, by having Admiral Croft or Mrs. Croft interrupt the conversation of Anne and Wentworth just when Anne was about to deny the rumours or when Capt Wentworth was about to propose, which would have left room for the letter scene as well.
Della versione 2007 potevamo anche fare a meno. Quella del 1995 è perfetta
Я не могу сказать, что люблю версию от 2007 года. Есть причины, которые портят хорошее впечатление. Но капитан Вентворт там хорош. Эти два капитана Вентворта лучшие среди тех, что я видела. Конечно, это моё личное мнение.
I prefer the 1996 version, but the 2007 does have some very good acting.
@@cathipalmer8217 я согласна с Вами :)