A/N: We reach the end of Part One of our story.
Tides of Bath
Chapter Seven: Regulation of Memory
Philosophy has accumulated precept upon precept, to warn us against the anticipation of future calamities. All useless misery is certainly folly, and he that feels evils before they come may be deservedly censured; yet sure to dread the future is more reasonable than to lament the past. The business of life is to go forwards; he who sees evil in prospect meets it in his way, but he who catches it by retrospection turns back to find it. That which is feared may sometimes be avoided, but that which is regretted to-day may be regretted again to-morrow.
— Samuel Johnson, Idler No. 72
The next morning discovered Elizabeth seriously ill, unwilling, and perhaps, unable to get out of bed. Feverish and flushed, she proved to be even less patient sick than she was well. Sir Walter, fearing the illness himself, did his fatherly duties on the other side of Elizabeth's bedroom door, talking with the physician when the physician was come, then retiring to the drawing-room to keep his distance from Elizabeth's fever and caprice.
Anne was the one who was sent inside Elizabeth's room; or, rather, Anne was the one who went inside to aid and comfort her sister.
"Anne, why am I sick? I should not be sick. It should be you. You are the sickly one, the one always hidden away in some corner. You seem to carry the sickroom, retirement, about with you. I have social duties, expectations. No one expects anything of you, understandably."
Anne nodded as she handed Elizabeth a glass of water. "I am sorry it is you who are sick, Elizabeth."
Her sister took a quick drink of the water then held the glass out for Anne, not checking to see if Anne had taken it from her. Luckily, Anne's hand closed around it before it dropped and spilled onto the bedclothes.
Elizabeth reclined on her stack of pillows and put the back of her hand to her forehead, the posture partly dramatic and partly diagnostic. "Yes, — yes, I am feverish, Anne. I suppose one blessing of me being ill is that no one can bear with such trials as I can. If you were in my place, you would fill the room with sighs or groans. As it is," Elizabeth slowed, groaned, "I bear it all stoically. — Where is the broth I asked for? Where?"
Anne nodded again, answering the question by picking up a shallow bowl and a spoon. "True, Elizabeth, true. You have the patience of a pupil of Zeno." Anne stirred the soup then extended Elizabeth a spoonful.
Elizabeth frowned, lost. "Zeno? Who is Zeno? Don't vex me, Anne" She did not wait for Anne to respond but slurped the soup from the spoon. She frowned more deeply, shook her head. "Who made that? It is not warm! Did the cook not warm it enough or were you slow coming to my room with it? You are always so slow, Anne. Why can you not hurry? I cannot bear cold soup, especially not when I am fevered. Anne, do something!"
"Elizabeth, the soup is not cold. Perhaps it is not hot, but you are feverish. I came as quickly as I could, carrying the water and the soup on the tray and trying not to spill any of either."
"As if that signified, Anne! All that matters is that I am sick and that I need to be comforted. I cannot be patient when I am thirsty or hungry! And I am patient, Anne, you know it to be so. Patience and submission are ever my watchwords. I do not substitute cowardice or indolence for these virtues as some do. Our sister Mary, for example, forever claiming to be sick and bearing it so ill. No, Anne, when I complain you must know that it is because I have been strained to the utmost." She stopped. "Perhaps I will have another spoonful of soup, sister."
Anne extended another spoonful to her and Elizabeth slurped again. When they had repeated the procedure four or five more times, Elizabeth waved the bowl and spoon away.
"Enough. Anne, can you rearrange my bedclothes. Everything is so twisted and disordered."
Anne smoothed the bed and untwisted the sheets, fluffed the pillows as well as she could while Elizabeth still reclined on them. Elizabeth seemed on the verge of sleep.
"You know, Anne, what I hate most are sick people who purchase their ease with guilt, who manage to bear their afflictions only by misbehaving, or by being an affliction to those around them, I hate…"
Elizabeth closed her eyes as she left her peroration unclosed. Anne carefully put the blankets around Elizabeth and put her hand to her sister's head. She was still feverish. Anne worried that the fever might be worsening. It was unlike Elizabeth to leave unfinished any praise of herself or censure of another. A servant came in and Anne told her to bring Sir Walter to Elizabeth's room.
A few minutes later, Sir Walter appeared in the hallway but did not cross the threshold. "Is she worse, Anne?"
Anne went into the hallway. Her father took a step away from her. "Her fever seems to be, father. She sleeps, but fitfully. I worry that we should send again to the physician. What did he say we should do if she became more feverish?"
Sir Walter glanced into the room at Elizabeth and then back to Anne. "I don't recall...exactly. He did not seem to think her fever would worsen."
Anne gave her father a long look, trying to bring him to a consciousness of the danger to Elizabeth should the fever increase too much. "You remember no more?"
"No, Anne. How could I when the man was so ill-favored, a fright?" Her father gesticulated his disgust. "His cravat grey and dirty, his coat requiring to be brushed and mended…" Sir Walter shuddered.
Anne did not respond to any of this. "Please, father, send the servant to have the physician return as soon as possible. I will not be quiet in my mind until he has seen her, or her fever decreases."
Sir Walter mumbled his agreement and went to send the servant. Anne entered Elizabeth's room again and stood looking down at her sister.
Elizabeth resembled their father, as Anne did their departed mother. Anne sometimes wondered if Elizabeth's slighting and neglect were somehow connected with that resemblance. Elizabeth had spent the longest time with their mother, and, as the eldest, had perhaps felt her loss most, at least been most conscious of the loss, of its nature. Anne's resemblance to her mother, Anne thought, might be a source of pain to her sister.
Anne sat down in the chair next to the bed and listened to her sister's breathing. The room was otherwise quiet, the house. After a moment, her mind wandered. She wondered where Captain Wentworth might be, what he might be doing. To banish the questions, she got up and crossed to the window. It was raining again, the Sunday sunshine routed by Monday downpour.
She stretched out her hand, placing her palm against the window. Cooler temperatures must have come with the rain because the pane felt chill against Anne's hand. When she pulled her hand back, an outline of condensation had formed, leaving a handprint. Evanescent, it faded as she stood and watched.
Wentworth was seated at the table next to Miss Ustus. Her brother was seated across from them. On the other side of Miss Ustus was Mr. Collins, and across from him, beside Mr. Ustus, was Mrs. Collins. The Admiral sat at the table's head, Sophia at its foot. The evening had been merry, the party snug inside as the rain that had started in the early morning continued falling.
The talk over dinner had informed Wentworth better about the guests. Mr. Collins was a lawyer in London. Mr. Collins knew Mr. Ustus from London, where he had done Mr. Ustus a good turn in a minor legal wrangle.
Mr. Collins was talking to Mr. Ustus and Mrs. Collins about a celebrated murder trial in London that had recently concluded. Wentworth knew nothing of it, having been a sea for most of the time that it was a cause célèbre and so he was not exerting himself to follow the conversation along. Miss Ustus seemed to find the details as distasteful as Mrs. Collins found them deliciously shocking, and Miss Ustus turned to Wentworth.
"Will you be ashore for long, Captain Wentworth?"
Wentworth turned to her, struck as he had been the day he saw her in the carriage by her eyes. Their grey was darker in the candlelight. "Several weeks at least. My ship was badly damaged and it will take time to repair her and then to reassemble the crew."
She nodded. "Will you stay in Bath, then?"
"Yes, I plan to do so."
She nodded again and, after a hesitation and a downward glance, gave him a frank look. "I believe we know each other from before our introduction?" Her voice had grown quieter as she asked him the question.
Wentworth smiled with one side of his mouth then answered her with equal quiet. "Yes, Miss Ustus, I believe that is so."
She nodded yet again but somehow the nod this time felt intimate. "You seemed weighted down with cares when I saw you."
The words were not a question in tone but they seemed it in form. Wentworth glanced around the table. The Admiral had joined in the talk of the murder trial, as had Sophia. No one seemed to be listening to his tête-à-tête with Miss Ustus.
"I was...out of sorts. Suffering, I suppose, from what I take to be reverse seasickness."
"Reverse?" Miss Ustus asked, her brow knitting attractively, smiling at her ignorance. "I do not understand."
"It is the sickness that befalls a man used to the world fluctuating in waves beneath him when he finds it turned solid and motionless."
Her brows went up with understanding. "Oh, I did not know there was such a condition."
Wentworth smiled. "I do not know if medical men would validate my claim, but I believe in the condition because I have suffered from it."
"So, you prefer to be at sea, aboard your ship, the…?"
"The Laconia, Miss Ustus, and a fine ship she is, if a bit downcast at the moment. And, no, although there have been times when I have been...most eager to be at sea, aboard a ship, I will relish being ashore, now that the land sickness is gone."
She gave him a handsome smile at 'relish', displaying white and even teeth between red lips and deep dimples. "And your sickness is quite gone?" She glanced at his empty plate before him.
He grinned. "I may have still had...a touch of it yesterday, but I am resolved to overcome it, to plant my feet on Bath's solid, if damp soil, and make the best of my time here." He laughed and went on as she laughed too, taking advantage of the moment. "Speaking of which, my sister tells me there is to be a ball tomorrow?"
Miss Ustus' winning smile became more winning. "Yes, Captain, that is true. My brother and I plan to attend.."
"Well, Miss Ustus, if you are not otherwise promised, might I ask you for the first dance?"
"With pleasure, Captain." She gave him that intimate nod again.
Wentworth looked away from her and picked up his wine glass and took a sip. He felt a pang of guilt in his chest. She is not Anne. He blinked the thought away.
He looked back at Miss Ustus. She seemed to have been studying him but she smiled just as he turned. Her countenance was lovely and he had enjoyed her conversation throughout dinner. It was obvious that she had a strong understanding. He had seen nothing to make him doubt that her nature was sweet.
Certainly, her smile was sweet, headier than the wine. He gave her a small, informal toast with his glass.
"Thank you, Miss Ustus; I look forward to it."
The window of Elizabeth's room was dark; night had fallen. Elizabeth's fever had not increased but it had not decreased either. She took shallow breaths, her face was pallid, her forehead damp. Anne had done all that the physician told her to do.
Sir Walter had stopped by and looked in through the doorway again. He was now gone to bed. Anne was the only person awake in the house. She had a small copy of Samuel Johnson's essays in her hands. Lady Russell had long ago introduced Anne to Dr. Johnson, by means of that very copy, and Anne had found the book a guide and solace ever since; it was her prose vade mecum.
She held the book near the single candle flame in the room and, straining to see, read:
It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, if that pain which never can end in pleasure could be driven totally away, that the mind might perform its function without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.
Anne closed the book. She had read the passage many times in the past five years, always with the same ruefulness present in the lines themselves. It would indeed add much to human happiness if an art could be taught of forgetting…
If only…
She picked up a blanket folded on the floor and, unfolding it, wrapped it around herself, and then closed her eyes, hoping that sightlessness might allow her mind to slip into vacancy.
Vacancy did not come. Instead, she found herself revisiting Frederick Wentworth's proposal.
It was afternoon, golden afternoon.
Despite the slowly lengthening shadows, all the objects around her seemed less sunlit than self-lit, lit from within, lit with a mellow, charming hue: the light's tint was the visible sweet scent of a ripened apple.
Anne was ripe, ready. Ready to fall. She knew, or she hoped she knew, what Frederick was coming for, what he would ask. She certainly knew what she would say in answer. She was already all acceptance, an anticipatory yes seated in her best blue dress.
Anne had stolen out into the shrubberies, hoping to meet Frederick as he approached so that they could have a moment, their moment. He usually walked to Kellynch along the path by the bench. Anne felt herself tremble as she sat. She straightened her dress and pushed a stray lock of her dark hair back behind her ear.
Never had she imagined she was capable of such deep affection, or that her being could thrill with such passion. It might be many months before she could be his wife, but the promise of it alone was enough to overpower her.
She heard his footfalls in the gravel. She looked up and saw him tall in the ripe sunlight. He smiled at her, such a smile, and she knew he had indeed come for her. It was going to happen!
Her heart caught in her throat. Frederick sat down on the bench, facing her. Anne could hear herself breathing.
She could hear Elizabeth breathing.
Anne opened her eyes in the feeble candlelight, a weak counterfeit of the sun on that day. She swallowed her heart...Pain which never can end in pleasure......dropped her face in her hands for a moment.
And then she stood to care for her sister.
End of Part One: The Shores of the Past
Look-ahoy! I hope you will return in a few days for Chapter 8, the beginning of Part Two. There will be dancing, or so I am told.