A/N: And what of Anne Elliot?

Tides of Bath

Chapter Three: The Hall of Mirrors

ALL things that pass
Are woman's looking-glass;
They show her how her bloom must fade,
And she herself be laid,
With wither'd roses in the shade;
With wither'd roses and the fallen peach,
Unlovely, out of reach.
Of summer joy that was.

— Christina Rossetti, Passing and Glassing

Anne Elliot sat upright in a corner chair, the only corner of the room she could bear.

Her father and her sister had taken the house in Camden Place, a very good house, but the drawing-room, in which she was seated, was oppressive to her spirits, extremely oppressive — and her spirits had not been high before. The room was not large, and it had been decorated by her sister, Elizabeth, but under the guidance of their father.

The result was a room whose walls were mostly windows on one side and almost all mirrors on the other. Anne had read of the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles, but she never imagined being required to sit daily and of an evening in a less opulent miniature of it. She was in a chair that was, luckily, positioned so that Anne could sit in it without seeing herself constantly. Minute-by-minute reminders of her still-fading bloom were more than she could stand.

Anne had entered the house at Camden Place with a countenance and a spirit likewise downcast. She expected to be imprisoned in the house for some weeks. No definite date of departure from Bath had been set. Her father's spendthrift way, his utter lack of economy, had driven the daily cost of Kellynch too high, and so they had shut down the house and decided to spend some months in Bath.

Anne knew, with some humiliation, that the idea had originated with Mr. Shepherd, her father's agent. Through a partially opened door at Kellynch, she had unintentionally overheard a conversation between them about the impossibility of expenses continuing as they were, about bills of credit being harder and harder to pay. The word, 'retrench', had even once been spoken as a possible blight on the horizon, but even Mr. Shepherd's studied obsequiousness could not get that word past Sir Walter without a bout of wounded pride, and a self-righteous rejoinder.

"Retrench, Shepherd! Surely that is out-of-the-question, unbearable even in thought, much less deed. Unnecessary! I have done nothing but what my — our, the Elliot's — station in life demands. I have spent nothing more than that station demanded, not a single farthing. My creditors are not so sorely put upon; my bills are not yet so high; I am not yet behindhand!"

"No, no, Sir Walter, surely not. I have been diligent, agile, in making sure that you are not. But…" Mr. Shepherd closed the door and Anne had been glad of it. She had moved to another room.

Later, Anne had talked all this over with Lady Russell, who, it seemed, had known of the trouble and had been given some rather strong hints by Shepherd, and who had been, without Anne's knowledge, gently urging Sir Walter to reconsider his present expenses. Anne had been unhappy with Lady Russell for keeping the secret, but she could guess, from the look on her friend's face, that she had done it to keep from adding to Anne's troubles and distress.

Anne knew her loss of spirits had affected Lady Russell, and that Anne knew that she had been wilting, slowly, ever since the day she had refused Frederick Wentworth. Anne had been able to descry the changes in her father's numerous mirrors in Kellynch Hall. But she had been able to escape his mirrors there, to flee into her own familiar, precious room or the library — a room her father used only to consult the Book of Book, The Baronetage, a different sort of mirror for him. Most precious, she had been able to escape into the gardens of Kellynch and lose herself in the beautifies of animate nature.

The mirrors in Camden Place seemed ubiquitous, omnireflective, and since Sir Walter insisted on spending his hours in that peculiar drawing-room, it was in that drawing-room that Anne had mostly to pass her days in Bath. Sitting, sitting interminably in the Hall of Mirrors with her father and sister. Anne had no familiar, precious room, no nearby garden to escape to. She was condemned to that cage of glass.

The mirrors in that miniature Hall told her what she already knew, knew bitterly. They told her that her girlhood would soon be behind her and that the future stretched out ahead of her, lonely and uncertain, grey as a typical Bath sky. She had never been the same, never been truly herself, since Frederick Wentworth had departed Kellynch. Something in her had sealed, like a capped well, and she had never been able to unseal it, uncap it. Her stream of vitality had been dammed and she had never been the same again.

Elizabeth added to Anne's quiet despair. Despite being older than Anne, Elizabeth had managed to retain her good looks and more than her share of bloom. Although Elizabeth had known a romantic disappointment of her own, her feelings were not so deep or tender as Anne's, her hope of matrimony of a more maneuvering sort, involving little real affection, though Anne did not doubt that Elizabeth had liked her apparent suitor — their cousin and Sir Walter's heir, Mr. Elliot — for himself. But the truth was that Elizabeth was incapable of liking anyone for himself more than she liked herself. She had been disappointed romantically but not so sorely hurt as Anne. At the end of the day, it had been mostly Elizabeth's vanity that had been disturbed, imposed upon.

Anne heard a noise from the door and a moment later her father came into the room, and the servant closed it. Sir Walter did not look at her directly, but instead too up his post before one of the mirrors, to look at himself and adjust his cravat. After a self-satisfied roll of his shoulders, he turned to Anne. She thought, with some puzzlement, that she saw something in his face, an unusual sort of self-awareness — perhaps guilt or shame? — But it was gone in an instant and it seemed so out of place on her father's face that she took it to have been only a play of light in the room.

"Father, how was your walk? Did Mr. Ustus not return with you?"

Her father turned back to the mirror and spoke to her via her reflection in it. "No, he had another engagement. He has promised to dine with us this evening."

Anne shook her head, secretly relieved not to have to suffer through yet another display of Mr. Ustus' too-easy manners, his quite universal amiability. He was too well-liked by too many for Anne to like him as she was expected to do. He was handsome, she granted, and he had never spoken to her as he ought not to speak, had never been less than properly attentive and engaging, but she still found herself drawing back from him in what she hoped was a well-concealed coolness.

In one respect, perhaps, her coolness was just as well, since Sir Walter hoped that Elizabeth would fix Mr. Ustus to herself. Mr. Ustus was the son of Sir Ustus, and due to inherit an extensive and prosperous property along with the title. He was rumored to have more than twelve thousand pounds a year, and his family seat, Dunwoody, was reputed to be an English Eden. It was one of the countless properties so reputed; England had an embarrassment of Edens, Anne found. Mr. Ustus and Sir Walter had been introduced in London, at a tailor both frequented. Each had liked the looks of the other, and, since, for each, looks were reality, they had been assured that they liked each other. Lord Ustus was quite old and bedridden. Sir Walter had become both mentor and friend to the much younger man, and was able, he felt, to offset Mr. Ustus youth and eventual consequence with his own greater age and experience, and — despite that age and experience — with his perhaps greater advantages of person.

The two men had shared a few agreeable dinners at the homes of mutual acquaintances while Sir Walter was in London. But it had not been until Bath that they had become as closely known to each other. Mr. Ustus had arrived within a day or two of themselves and had called at almost his first opportunity. Since then, they had seen him frequently, as he called almost every day. Elizabeth seemed to enjoy the thought of him as her admirer, although Anne could not tell if her feelings had been engaged by the man.

Elizabeth entered the drawing-room just as Anne thought of her. "Father, pray, where is Mr. Ustus?" Elizabeth accompanied the question by patting her hand to her head, making sure of her curls. Her cheeks were pink, her lips red, as if she had been pinching the former and biting the latter just before she came in. She had been expecting to make an entrance, or, more, to entrance upon her entrance, the intended object of her entrancement Mr. Ustus.

Sir Walter looked at Elizabeth with a proud smile that shifted to a frown. "No, my dear, he had another engagement. But he will dine with us this evening. You are in very good looks today; but perhaps, if you apply yourself, you will appear even to greater advantage tonight by candlelight."

Elizabeth curtsied quickly but prettily. "Thank you, father." But the curtsy hid Elizabeth's annoyance to find no Mr. Ustus.

Sir Walter then faced Anne. "You, Anne, seem much as pale and drawn as ever. Perhaps Elizabeth can help you dress for dinner. And I may have a suggestion or two for your skin, an ointment, Gowland's, perhaps, that might restore your color."

"Thank you, father, but, if you recall, I tried Gowland at your recommendation a couple of years ago and you seemed to find that it had done me no good."

Her father straightened as if the act of remembering required his posture to be its best, and then his shoulders slumped just slightly. "So it was, so it was. I can hardly imagine what could have happened to your bloom to diminish it so, and especially to put it beyond rescue by Gowland's. I quite swear by Gowland's, you know."

"Yes, I do." Anne wanted to remind him of his role in the events that diminished her bloom, which put it beyond Gowland's rescue, but she did not speak. It would not signify. He would go on acting as though he either did not remember events with Frederick Wentworth or he would act as though it was her overreaction to the events that was to blame, not the events themselves and certainly not himself.

But the look that had crossed her father's face briefly when he first came into the drawing-room crossed it again. He seemed to be considering her. Elizabeth excused herself, complaining of feeling a slight headache.

Sir Walter was attentive to Elizabeth's complaint as far as the drawing-room door, but he let her go on her own and returned to Anne, who had seated herself again. He strolled the length of the room, glancing at himself in each mirror as he passed it. Then he turned to Anne.

"Since Bath is Bath, and since everyone who is here eventually sees everyone else who is here, especially of a Sunday, which it will be tomorrow, I thought that perhaps I should mention to you that an old...acquaintance of ours is in town. Mr. Ustus and I made...certain inquiries after I met him on the street...It seems he has done quite well for himself. Mr. Frederick Wentworth, or Captain Wentworth, I am told."

Anne's hands went down to grip the sides of her seat. She tried to control herself, her reaction, although the room seemed to have become all spinning glass and shafts of light. "Oh, is he here?" she managed to ask in a conversational voice that sounded as if it came from a body other than hers. "It has been long since I last saw him or heard his name."

Sir Walter was observing her reaction closely. "Yes, it has. He is ashore and now, I am told, a wealthy man. He was always a well-looking man, and I admit, he still is. I would not be ashamed for him to stand alongside myself and Mr. Ustus, even if his sailing has...toasted...him somewhat." Sir Walter adjusted his sleeves as he spoke. "He is settled in Bath with his sister and his brother-in-law, an Admiral, I am told. But they are in a very inferior situation on Gay Street. I thought perhaps it best that you know him to be in town, so that you may not be surprised if you see him."

Anne was barely able to hear her father. The room was all confusion. She nodded and spoke, making an excuse for leaving the room although she had no idea exactly what she had said. Sir Walter nodded, and Anne saw a succession of herself in the mirrors as she left the room.

She was paler than she could ever remember, and the thought of him seeing her as she was now filled her with dread. She was the ghost of the girl he had loved five years ago. She was that girl's pale reflection.

Look-ahoy! Next chapter, a Bath Sunday, a Sunday of memories.