Captain Frederick Wentworth comes ashore five years after his forced parting with Anne Elliot, intending to meet and marry some pleasing, eligible woman. He is to join his sister, Sophia, and her husband, Admiral Croft, in Bath. He does not know that Anne Elliot is in Bath, having arrived ahead of him. — An alternative take on Austen's final novel.
A/N: This short chapter, a prelude, establishes the early mood.
Contents: Tides of Bath
Part One: Shores of the Past, Chaps 1-7
Part Two: Sink, Sank, Sunk, Chaps 8-14
Part Three: To the Lighthouse, Chaps 15-22
Tides of Bath
Chapter One: Land and Water
And then went down to the ship,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the godly sea...
— Ezra Pound, Canto 1
Captain Frederick Wentworth gazed down at polished boots in the dust, his new anchorage on dry land. As always, solid earth beneath his feet made him feel strangely disembodied. A sliding, scuffing noise broke the earthen spell, and he looked up. His trunk and other things were now on the nearby cart and, shaking off his unintended reverie, he vaulted adroitly into the empty spot in the cart's seat, beside the huffing driver, a short, square man dressed in dark clothes lightened by a covering of dust.
The driver urged the horse to start with a clicking sound, and Wentworth took one look back at the Laconia in the distance, squinting in the glare as he did. Many of the men, his men, sailors, those who remained aboard, were standing, observing, watching him go. They issued a wave and a hurrah. He gave them a crisp naval tip of his hat in return then fixed his attention to the winding road, away from the dock, away from the sea.
He was ashore but his fate was unsure. He had a long leave ahead of him (the Laconia was to undergo repairs, refitting) and he had intended to spend it in London with his sister, Sophia, and her husband, Admiral Croft. But he had intended the visit before actually planning it, assuming it would go as intended, and he had discovered, just before quitting the ship, that she and the Admiral had left London to go to Bath. The Admiral was gouty — again.
Wentworth shook his head and smirked to himself. The Admiral's gout was sporadic and rarely serious; it was more likely the Admiral's still-active sailoring wanderlust that had been the real cause of their decamping to Bath.
The letter from Sophia explained the situation and encouraged Wentworth to change plans and join them in Bath — their lodgings, ample, would accommodate him. He was perfectly willing to do so. London had its attractions but he had an important mission ashore: he intended to meet a woman and fall in love, and, if possible, to marry. London contained multitudes of marriageable women, of course, but Wentworth wanted a woman of a certain type, one he did not expect to find in the teeming, fashionable crowds of the great city.
A face came before his mind, an undimmed, unwavering image, as he entertained the type, — an image of very pretty, regular features, a winning smile beneath deep, bright but vulnerable eyes. He closed his own eyes and exerted himself, replaced the memory-image with a set of words: "A woman with a strong mind and a sweet nature".
That was what he wanted. The image was an image of who he had wanted, as he had known her five years ago, and he had fought with that image for last entire five years — five active, staining years, mostly on the water, trying by sun or wind to burn or blow her image from his mind.
Anne Elliot. Five years ago she had accepted, then rejected his proposal of marriage. At least, that was the sequence of events as Wentworth understood them. She had been persuaded, over-persuaded, by the coolness of her father to the event, the lack of interest of her sister, but, above all, by the considerable powers of Lady Russell, the dear friend of Anne's dear and departed mother, Anne's second mother, who had not found Wentworth to be the type of man for her precious Anne.
Precious Anne! At least Wentworth could agree with Lady Russell in that phrase. She was — or, rather, she had been — precious, precious to him. For five years he had tried to undo what her charms of mind and person had done to him, but her charms were lavish and his sea days barren and wave-tossed. She still preoccupied his few idle hours, tormented him, and angered him. He had replayed their final day and the pain of their parting so many times that he had lost his sense of what was memory and what was imaginary in it. The depth of his feelings fed the heat of his high-wrought resentment and frustration, and he could not doubt that he had, to a degree, daubed the scenes of that final day with paints from his own wounded heart.
To have fallen for such a woman and to have lost her! He had plunged into "the deep and dark blue Ocean" of melancholy, to borrow a phrase of Byron's, and had never resurfaced. Not yet. He would resurface now, rise from the rolling waters of chill loneliness and mismatched love. Yes, rise! Rally — and rise again. He would find an agreeable, an amiable young woman, and for the meager fee of a few warm smiles for him, a few kind words for the navy, he would be hers, if she would have him. But she would not be Anne Elliot.
He wrested his thoughts in another direction. His pockets were full. He was rich and he was likely to become richer yet. His captaincy had been wildly successful, as he had expected. Luck combined with daring skill brought him prize after prize, privateers floating low in the water under a weight of gold. Prize after prize. Prize after prize...
Anne Elliot. Not his prize. He could never have Anne but he hoped to find another instance of her type, assuming she was not, as he secretly feared, sui generis, of a type only her own. She was and still seemed to him the compleat woman, all that any rational man could hope for in a partner in life: an open temper, a disciplined understanding, and a tender heart. She was all that and more. Resentment rose in him against her, raw and red, against her soft but unbreakable hold on his imagination, his expectations. If only...
He was drifting, but he was ashore. If only…
Regret, how he regretted it all! — Again, he exerted himself, doing his utmost to still his turbulent, retentive feelings. The cart rolled slowly along, toward the point at which Wentworth would begin his overland journey to Bath. After a few moments, the steady clip-clop of the horse's hooves on hard ground lulled his mind. He shifted in his seat, trying for comfort.
He had been to Bath before, years ago, but he had been about to go to sea for the first time and had paid scant attention to the place. His mind had been already afloat, aboard ship, making plans. All he could clearly remember of Bath was rain, and more rain, and he made a note to himself to secure an umbrella as soon as he arrived.
Bath drew many sailors, like the Admiral, and so Wentworth was sure of finding people he knew there. The number of families drawn by the water made it likely that many marriageable women would be present. Smiling to himself, Wentworth resolved to take the water, meet the marriageable women, and to make himself very agreeable indeed. After that, he would trust to the tides of Bath.
The tides of Bath.
He laughed to himself at his small, silent joke, knowing, of course, that the warm springs of Bath were not tidal waters.
Look-ahoy! In Chapter Two, Frederick arrives in Bath and encounters Sir Walter Elliot.