A/N: Aftershocks of an odd evening.
Tides of Bath
Chapter Twelve: Round Turn and Two Half Hitches
A curious knot God made in paradise,
And drew it out enameled neatly fresh.
It was the truelove knot, more sweet than spice
And set with all the flowers of grace's dress.
— Edward Taylor, Upon Wedlock and the Death of Children
Anne had left Elizabeth with Nurse Rook. Elizabeth had passed her most peaceful night since her fever started. Anne had not: she had tied herself in knots all night, twisting and turning.
She felt feverish, but it was her spirit that was feverish, not her body. She had recalled the scene at the Ustus' table, again and again, unable to help herself. Shakespeare's compositions had discomposed Anne. To hear Captain Wentworth read the Sonnet 53, a sonnet that captured how Anne thought of him, captured it in the quatrains: she thought of him as ubiquitous, part of all that was good, – and how she had dared hope he might be as described in the couplet, constant in his affection for her. Shakespeare's quatrains devised a 'problem' and the couplet 'solved' it — but Anne's problems remained unsolved; she could devise no couplet of solution, no rhyme to save her.
Captain Wentworth had read Sonnet 53 at the request of another, for another, to another. The spectacle of it — Miss Ustus' breathless rapture, Captain Wentworth's ready compliance with Miss Ustus' wishes, the feeling of their growing intimacy — but also the strange, eddying undercurrents, the glances, and halts, Miss Ustus', Captain Wentworth's, Anne's own. It was a knot of meanings, intricate, that Anne could not presently untie.
And her boldness in mentioning Sonnet 97! — and the disembodied alienation she felt hearing such treasured, intimate words from Miss Ustus' lips, read to Captain Wentworth. How often had she read that Sonnet to herself, and thought of him, greatly afflicted by loss — only to share it with him last night by distanced ventriloquy, Anne's words from another's mouth.
A sudden succession of images of all the ways that Miss Ustus would replace her blinded Anne, heated her, forced her to slow her pace, stop, and shut her eyes. Succumbing to envy might be satisfying at the moment but it sickened the soul. She would tutor herself to accept and to be happy, for Captain Wentworth, for Miss Ustus.
When Anne opened her eyes, Mrs. Croft was standing before her, as if by conjuration. Anne was too shocked to speak.
"Miss Anne! Are you well? Even this early, the sun glares so intently, it is so hot. I have seen nothing like it since once I was becalmed with Admiral Croft near the equator, and we baked, baked afloat for four days before a breeze released us." Mrs. Croft put her hand cautiously, gently on Anne's arm, and searched her eyes.
Anne came to herself and was able to nod, then to use her voice. "Yes, Mrs. Croft, I am well. The glare, as you said…"
Mrs. Croft drew Anne to the side of the walk, near a shop door, out of the stream of passersby. "Take a moment, please."
"Thank you, Mrs. Croft, you are very kind."
Anne was perplexed by how to continue the conversation. She had not talked much with Mrs. Croft at dinner; Anne had not talked much at dinner to anyone. In a burst of mind, Anne seized on Mrs. Croft's comment. "You have been to sea with your husband? But you did not mention it during your brother's accounts of sea-going battles and alarms."
Mrs. Croft smiled a fond smile. "No, Frederick was holding court, and I was pleased to listen, although I had heard most of the stories before. But you, Miss Anne, did not seem to delight in them as the others did. Did you imagine yourself there, part of the splinter and smoke, dodging loose cannons, deafened by raking fire?"
Anne blinked at this broadside of naval-battle terms, but she understood them. She had read much on the navy in the past five years. "No, ma'am, I was not imagining myself in the way of dangers," Anne confessed artlessly.
Mrs. Croft arched an eyebrow. "Oh, I see. You were frightened for...another?"
Anne realized her mistake too late to correct it gracefully, and she deplored the thought of lying to Mrs. Croft. She did her best to answer without falsehood but also without further confession. "I meant...the scenes described were most frightening to imagine, regardless of the perspective from which they were imagined."
Mrs. Croft smiled slowly, appreciatively. "Well answered, Miss Anne, well answered indeed. I see more and more in you. Deep water. I begin to understand."
To Anne, these were oracular comments, but she let them pass, fearing to ask for Mrs. Croft's exact meaning, and accepting the intended compliment. "Thank you."
"Are you on an errand or just walking for pleasure?"
"My sister is doing better this morning and, other than dinner last night, I have been confined for many days. I am walking for pleasure, and health."
Mrs. Croft linked her arm in Anne's. "I, too. So, let us walk together. The Admiral is visiting with other Admirals currently in Bath, and there is nothing quite so long-winded as a raft of Admirals."
Anne laughed and Mrs. Croft laughed too. "So, Mrs. Croft, is that the particular term for a group of Admirals, a raft?"
Mrs. Croft's laugh took on a devious undertone. "It may not be in Johnson's Dictionary but I deem it a felicitous term." The sound of Mrs. Croft's laugh and the look in her eyes brought Frederick back to Anne as she had known him at Kellynch.
"As do I." Anne giggled for a moment, because of and despite the memory, and some of the exhaustion and strain of the past days lifted from her like clouds.
They walked on in an easy silence. After a few minutes, Mrs. Croft broke the silence, pointing up at the hill in the near distance. "Shall we walk around Beechen Cliff? It is warm and glaring, but many of the walks are shaded, and there is often a breeze there near the river when there is none in town."
The thought of escaping the streets of Bath, of being again in nature, and Anne's desire, if a little affected by fear, to spend time with Mrs. Croft gave Anne strong reasons for being persuaded by the plan. "Yes, please, with all my heart."
As they approached a shady path winding along the river, the sight of the water prompted Anne to a question. "Pray, tell me, Mrs. Croft, do many captains take their wives to sea with them?"
Mrs. Croft tilted her head. "No...Not many perhaps, but it is allowed. I fear most captains are confused either by gallantry or by a failure to see us women for what we are.
"We are not all sensibility and no sense, not all passion and no rationality. I suspect," she turned a secret-sharing, gentle smile on Anne, "that, truth be known, women are far less self-divided by reason and passion than men are, not because we are all passion, no, but because we can hold the two together, fuse them without confusing them, while men so often cannot. When Fulke Greville penned the lines
What meaneth Nature by these diverse laws?
Passion and reason, self-division cause.
he thought he was speaking of all humanity, but who knows but what, being a man, he told us what men feel, not all of mankind? The hardest task in life is to combine virtues. Is it not possible, and indeed best, to be both tender and strong? Not to purchase one by the sale of the other, but genuinely to combine them, so that they are both operative at the same time, a tender strength, a strong tenderness? Is not the martyr exhibiting fortitude as fully as the sailor, despite the passivity of the one and the activity of the other?"
Anne listened closely, even as she let her eyes follow the current of the river and enjoyed the breeze. After a moment, she turned to Mrs. Croft. "Perhaps many men, leading the lives they do, under the demands of outward employment, following professions, also professionalize their virtues, acquiring them in more narrow and focused forms, in forms that are more difficult to combine with other virtues? Perhaps a soldier's strength may be hard to acquire but by the forfeiture of tenderness, or of some tenderness."
Mrs. Croft nodded. "That is a sound observation, Anne, but even so, I rate it at best an excuse for the men in question, not praise. But to return to your original — "
Mrs. Croft was interrupted by the sound of Anne's name. Walking toward them was Lady Russell. "Anne! Anne! Excuse me, but Anne, how good to see you!"
Anne gestured to Mrs. Croft. "Lady Russell, allow me to introduce my friend, Mrs. Croft."
Mrs. Croft curtsied elegantly. "Lady Russell, I am pleased to meet you."
Lady Russell acknowledged the curtsy. "Thank you, Mrs. Croft, I am pleased to meet any friend of my dear Anne. Might I walk with you, if I would not be imposing?"
Mrs. Croft was sensible of the honor. "That would be most welcome, Lady Russell."
Lady Russell took up a place on the opposite side of Anne, the path wide enough for it to be so.
"Mrs. Croft," Lady Russell began pleasantly, "may I ask how you know Anne?"
"Of course. We have mutual friends, Mr. and Mrs. Collins, and Mr. and Miss Ustus. And I believe my brother, Frederick Wentworth, met Anne some years ago, when he spent some time in Somersetshire, in Miss Anne's country." Anne felt Mrs. Croft look at her.
Anne saw and felt Lady Russell stiffen. Lady Russell spoke in an offhand manner, though. "Oh, you are the sister of Captain Wentworth?"
"I am. Am I to take it that you know him too?"
"Yes, Somersetshire is my country too. I am Anne's near neighbor and long-time friend."
"So, you were perhaps there at the same time as my brother."
Anne wanted to turn and walk the other way, but she was stuck between the questions and the answers.
"I was," Lady Russell said slowly, "I did come to know your brother slightly."
Mrs. Croft shifted her eyes from Lady Russell to Anne. "And, Miss Anne, did you come to know Frederick only slightly?" Mrs. Croft's eyebrow was arched again.
Anne could no longer see the verdure around her or admire the hanging coppice. She felt unsure of how to answer. Lady Russell was looking at her too and offered her no aid.
"I knew him...came to know him...better than Lady Russell. We were sometimes in company. There were dances…"
"Were there?" Mrs. Croft said, her inflection rising dramatically. She looked past Anne to Lady Russell and Lady Russell glanced away. Anne saw Mrs. Croft note Lady Russell's reaction.
"I taught Frederick to dance, you know," Mrs. Croft said finally, "when he was young, he was all arms and legs — and feet and hands — and none seemed capable of concerted movement. But Frederick has always, almost always, been a man before whom obstacles seem to fall, crumble."
"Like the trumpeter of Jericho?" Lady Russell asked, her smile quizzical, enigmatic.
Mrs. Croft examined Lady Russell for a moment. "I suppose so."
Lady Russell raised her brows. "It is probably not good for a young man to always find his path open, unblocked, stoneless. It may make him reckless, heedless."
Anne expected Mrs. Croft to react to the comment differently, but she shrugged. "I grant that life will throw up walls that no available trumpet will blow down; and, I grant that recklessness and heedlessness are failings. But so too are over-caution and narrow-minded prudence."
Anne tried to change the subject. "Do you see the ducks, the ducklings?" She pointed to the river as the two women regarded each other. After a moment, they turned to the ducks and the ducklings. Anne looked at Mrs. Croft. "Isn't a group of ducks a raft of ducks?"
They both laughed while Lady Russell looked on, puzzled.
Wentworth was seated in his room. He had been unable to focus all day, wandering from room to room, his sister and the Admiral both out. Miss Ustus' copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets was now in his hand as he sat, open to Sonnet 97. He had read it several times during the day, drawn back to the book and the Sonnet irresistibly.
Wentworth was certain that Miss Ustus pressed the book on him as a memorial of her, of Miss Ustus, but it was instead a memorial of Anne Elliot, of her darkest eyes as she left the dinner the night before.
"I'll be d — d!" Wentworth finally whispered fiercely, under his breath. It was all a mystery. Every time he thought he put Anne Elliot behind him, he found her before him again. What did it mean, her mentioning this particular Sonnet?
He had no sure answer and the walls of his room seemed to be closing in on him, and so he stood, snatched up his hat and gloves, and went out to the street. He needed to walk, to think. He had not gotten far and had only gotten his gloves on when he saw Mrs. Collins.
She recognized him and waved, her pink cheeks plumping with a welcoming smile. Wentworth stopped, removed his cap, and bowed. She gave him a quick, clumsy curtsy.
"Captain, very good to see you. I heard that you had a capital dinner with Mr. and Miss Ustus last night. I talked to her this morning, and she was full of...nothing else." Mrs. Collins' voice had a wink in it somewhere. "I heard it was a very high-toned affair, with Sir Walter himself there, and recitals of poems!" She said the last word with two distinct syllables.
"Yes, it was a fine dinner. The Elliots were there. All except Miss Elliot, who is still recuperating from her infection.
Mrs. Collins waved her plump pink hand. "Oh, yes, I know all about it. My good friend, Nurse Rook, has been caring for Miss Elliot. She believes Miss Elliot will soon be strong enough to leave the bed. — And there were poems?"
Wentworth had hoped that part of the story would be dropped. "Yes, ma'am, there were poems, sonnets."
Mrs. Collins scrunched her eyes. "Sonnets? Is that a kind of poem?"
Wentworth nodded.
"Well," the lady continued, "I must say I don't recall ever being at a dinner that ended with a course of sonnets."
"It has not been a common occurrence for me, either, Mrs. Collins."
"Miss Ustus is a clever one, isn't she, Captain. Reading poetry and being such a fine, beautiful lady, but I suppose I needn't tell you all that?" Her voice again contained a wink.
Wentworth was frustrated, distracted, eager to move on. "I admire Miss Ustus, and any may know that," Wentworth said, with a sharpness he did not intend.
Mrs. Collins blinked. "I hope...I'm sorry…"
Wentworth gave her a quick bow, freeing her from going on. "Forgive me, Mrs. Collins. I am not quite myself today. I do not mean to sound...to be irritable."
Her plump, cherubic smile returned immediately and she leaned a little toward him. "That's understandable, Captain. Those that're true in love are often at sixes and sevens with themselves." Then she actually did wink at him and took her leave.
Wentworth watched her go. Those that're true in love… He jammed his hat on his head. Now the streets of Bath themselves seemed to be closing in on him.
Anne parted company with the two women before she got to Camden Place, each of the three going in a different direction. Anne was glad of a few moments of quiet.
The walk around the Cliff had proven to be perilous indeed. It was clear that Mrs. Croft suspected more than an acquaintance between Anne and Captain Wentworth when he had been in Somersetshire. It was clear that Lady Russell was displeased to find Anne in such relaxed company with Captain Wentworth's sister.
The two women had fenced with each other for the rest of the walk, although so mildly and politely that only someone in Anne's position between them could have known it.
Anne had agreed to meet with Lady Russell the next day for tea. She was dreading that visit.
Anne wondered just how far Mrs. Croft's suspicions reached, and if she would share them with Captain Wentworth, ask him about Anne directly. If so, would he tell her the whole sad story, and would Mrs. Croft resent Anne too, on her brother's behalf?
A day that Anne had hoped would allow her to unknot some of her confusions and perplexities seemed to only draw the knots tighter.
Look-ahoy! See you later in the week for Chapter 13. I ended up with some unexpected free time and generated several chapters but I start teaching classes tomorrow. I'd enjoy hearing from you in the meantime.
P.S. I always wanted Mrs. Croft and Lady Russell to interact.