A/N: Our story continues. I hope you are finding this entertaining despite the pandemocalypse.
Tides of Bath
Chapter Thirteen: Tea and Consequences
I am reduced at last to self-compassion,
For the sore anguish that I see me in;
At my great weakness; that my soul hath been
Concealed beneath her wounds in such a fashion...
— Guido Cavalcanti, Sonnet 9 (Pound Translation)
Wentworth stirred self-pity into his tea. A man of fiery daring upon the water, Bath had doused him, reduced him to dithering, smoldering indecision.
He had come on a mission. He had found a woman who satisfied all that he had abstractly desired. Miss Ustus had a strong understanding and a sweet nature. In truth, she did far more than satisfy all that Wentworth abstractly desired. The concrete woman, her rose-gold hair, her winning smile, dimpled and frequent, her statuesque beauty, her candle-like, candle-lit countenance, her powers of mind, — that flesh and blood woman, so eager to be near him, so pleased by him, was a burst of nature, the free-flowering of actual life, and she embarrassed his desire's design by showing it paltry, uninspired. Miss Ustus was all of this, so much more than he had dared hope for and yet —
And yet he stirred his tea while nursing five-year-old anguish. Anne Elliot. He had loved her and he had not forgotten her. The short period between his proposal, her acceptance, and then her rejection had been the happiest of his life, incomparably the happiest. But, surely, he did not still love her. He had been unable to remove her from his mind and heart only because he had found no one else to love. But he had found someone now, someone new, someone who seemed to want his love and who, he believed, felt strongly for him. Despite all that, he could not bring his feelings for her, for Miss Ustus, into focus. She was pleasing, very pleasing; she stirred him; she engaged him. And yet —
Anne Elliot. Those darker-than-dark eyes, that look of profound vulnerability in her eyes, that blasted Sonnet! She had rejected him five years ago for no good reason, jilted him, even if she would reject that term. It had been a betrayal of all that they had found in each other, celebrated in each other, of the exquisite felicity of their match. Anne Elliot had rated the persuasion of Lady Russell above the promises Wentworth and she had made.
How was that to be forgiven? If he could forgive it, how was he to know she would not do the same again? How could he trust Anne Elliot, invest his heart in her again? He was right — he knew he was right to resent her, to blame her, to be angry with her, to avoid her. He was right. She had been wrong. She had been in the wrong. If she had but written!
Wentworth stopped stirring his tea and upbraided himself. Was that fair? Correspondence between unengaged young people was not proper — and, yes, he had overstepped once in writing Anne a secret note, no doubt long-forgotten, but that did not require she too should have overstepped. And yet — and yet that was the problem: she would not overstep for him, would not overstep Lady Russell's advice, her father's aloof coldness, Elizabeth's indifference. Anne would not. She surrendered him rather than overstep the combined rules, spoken or unspoken, of Kellynch, Hall and village.
Miss Ustus, by contrast, was frank, relaxed, proper but not over-scrupulous. From the first look she had given him (when in the carriage), she had been open. Anne had barely spoken to him: his name, a couple of sentences, a goodbye. An epitome of their earlier acquaintance.
He stirred his tea, his rising anger making him spill it out of the cup and into the saucer, making him clink his spoon against the cup as his spoon circled.
He heard a sound and looked up. His sister was staring at him and had just cleared her throat. One corner of her mouth smiled.
"Has the tea or my china offended you this morning, Frederick?"
Wentworth smiled tightly. Sophia had been watching him last evening and this morning, but he had forgotten that during his reflections.
"No, no, Sophia, I apologize. I forgot myself."
She looked at him closely. "Or remembered someone else."
"What do you mean?" Wentworth drew himself up in his chair.
Sophia looked at him for a little longer. "I mean that I believe I have made a discovery about you, Frederick, but I am unsure whether I should share it with you."
"A discovery about me? I am without guile, sister. What secret could there be to discover?"
"One that perhaps you have kept in order not only to spare yourself but perhaps to also spare another?"
Anne Elliot was too fresh in Wentworth's mind for him not to take her to be the person spoken of, but he was not going to volunteer that. "Another, Sophia?"
Sophia took a moment and sipped her tea, keeping her eyes on her brother above the rising lip of her cup. She returned the cup to its saucer. "I have long suspected, brother, that something happened to you five years ago during your visit to Monkford. You have not been the same since. I have long thought that you were heartsick." She paused and Wentworth returned her gaze but without reaction.
She went on. "At the Ustus dinner the other evening, after the meal, during the...exchange...of Sonnets, I had the strangest feeling. And then yesterday, I was out walking and happened upon Anne Elliot. We walked together, and then Lady Russell happened upon us, and joined us."
Wentworth flinched but tried to hide it. Sophia noted the movement and narrowed her eyes. "You were acquainted with both while you were in Somersetshire. Miss Anne told me that she was better acquainted with you than was Lady Russell, that there were dances…"
Sophia let this list of facts linger with no conclusion drawn and raised an eyebrow at her brother.
"What are you hinting at Sophia. Please, speak plain."
"Have I really your permission, Frederick, to speak plain?"
He nodded. Sophia turned her cup for a moment in its saucer. "Then I will. I believe you were once, at least, and perhaps still are, in love with Anne Elliot."
Wentworth picked up his tea and sipped it, matching his sister's earlier deliberateness. He put the cup down but gracelessly, and it clanked against the saucer. He looked up at Sophia's gentle headshake and amused smile.
"That is indeed plain speaking," he finally commented.
She gave him one curt nod. "We Wentworth's are, at the bottom, a plain-spoken family."
"Yes," Wentworth sighed, "we are. Yes, Sophia, I was once in love with Anne Elliot."
He expected an immediate rush of questions but Sophia instead sipped her tea again. She replaced her cup soundlessly in the saucer. "Once, Frederick, but no more?"
He tried to allow himself to range over his feelings, catalog them, but the only one he was sure of was wounded resentment. "Once."
"And yet, Frederick, here you are, five years later, unwed. And here she is, five years later, unwed. Might that not be significant?"
"My attentions are focused on Miss Ustus. Anne Elliot is...behind me."
Sophia arched an eyebrow but sat silent. After a moment, she leaned forward. "Are you sure that is where she wants to be?"
Wentworth exhaled slowly. "It is...difficult...to know Anne Elliot's mind, sister. She is...irresolute, changeable."
Sophia huffed a laugh. "She does not strike me as such, Frederick."
"No, there was a time when she did not strike me as such." Wentworth exhaled again and, with naval efficiency and dispatch, in colorless language, he related the relevant events of five years ago. Sophia listened closely, replenishing her tea and Wentworth's while she listened.
"And so she ran from the garden and left me...adrift...I left Somersetshire a few days later, heading to London, eager to be far from Anne Elliot."
Wentworth had not looked into Sophia's face while he told the tale. But when he did, he saw a hint of anger in her eyes. At first, he thought the anger was directed at Anne, but then he realized it was directed at him.
She stood up from the table carefully and turned from him for a moment. Then she faced him. "Good God, Frederick! For you of all men surrender, to wave a white flag...to quitclaim so ingloriously. You, always the victor at sea, to sink so on land!"
Wentworth was shocked. He leaned away from her hot anger. "Surrender? I? No, Sophia, it is I who was surrendered! What was I to do? Sail after her into Kellynch Hall, throw grappling irons at her slender form, pull her close, demand that she have me? She made the choice."
"She did not choose against her father, her sister, above all, Lady Russell. One walk with Lady Russell has convinced me that she is a formidable woman. And Anne was, what, nineteen? She was to withstand the earnest entreaty of a woman who stood in her mother's place? It is clear that it is so, and you moments ago described it so. Was there not some compromise you could have reached, some new promise you could have made? Could not you have at least written her when you came into fortune? Could not you have visited her in hopes of…"
"Sophia!" Wentworth struck the table with his open hand, making all the china clink at once. "She changed her mind. She offered me nothing, no explanation. She has still offered me none. The first day I saw her in Bath she acknowledged me and then left without another word, without even another look! Why should I have hoped her heart would remain constantly mine when it was reclaimed in an act of inconstancy?"
Sophia looked at him for a moment, her lips pulled to the side, her eyes flashing. Then her features relaxed. She sat down and smoothed the white tablecloth in front of her. "I do not think I understood until this moment how heartsick you have been, Frederick. I have always known you to be a man of real sensibility. But perhaps I underestimated the depth to which you could be wounded, or overestimated the manner in which you would respond to such a wound. I will say no more on the topic now but this: that small and lovely woman is in love with you still, Frederick Wentworth, and with a love much, much larger than she is."
"How..."
Sophia put up her hand, silencing Wentworth's attempt to ask a question. "Don't ask me how I know. I just do. Women know these things. She said nothing to me. But her face at dinner, during the Sonnets, the look on her face when I asked about your past acquaintance, the tension between herself and Lady Russell. Perhaps these are imponderables, but I take them to add up to this: Anne Elliot loves you, Frederick."
Wentworth's anger rose again but he lowered his voice. "Perhaps you are right; perhaps you are not right. Yet I will not risk myself on her again, Sophia."
"Frederick, there is no love without risk."
He pondered her words. "No, no, perhaps not. But I am not a fool to repeat my folly."
Sophia shook her head. "A retreat to a proverb, Frederick? Another white flag? — I expected more of you." She stood with an exasperated sigh and left the room.
Wentworth blew out a breath and picked up his teacup. He took a frustrated sip. It was cold. The white table cloth beneath the china looked like a large white flag.
Lady Russell sat in her chair, finishing her gooseberry tart. Her teacup and saucer were on the tray standing next to her. Anne had teacup and saucer in her hand but had declined a tart. She sat on the other side of the tray, her chair matching Lady Russell's.
The gooseberry tarts on the tray were, like the one in Lady Russell's hand, small. So too, so far, was the talk.
Lady Russell delicately finished her tart and dabbed the corners of her mouth with a cloth napkin. Anne had a sinking feeling that the finish of the tart meant the start of the not-small talk.
"So, Anne, you seem to be fast friends with Mrs. Croft."
Anne caught the doubling on 'fast'. "She is a woman of unusual accomplishments and she has a force of character."
"Yes, I felt it yesterday on our walk." Lady Russell was typically more than a match for any man, and she fully expected to be always more than a match for any other woman. It was clear that she was still smarting from the skilled verbal thrust, blows, and parries of Mrs. Croft. "Force of character seems a Wentworth family trait."
Anne nodded. "Yes," Anne said, and no more, hoping to keep from giving Lady Russell a handle. Anne put her teacup and saucer on the tray.
Lady Russell regarded Anne with frustrated amusement. "I'm assuming you have gotten to know Mrs. Croft while in company with Captain Wentworth."
"Yes, my father, Mary, and I had dinner with them at the Ustus' lodgings the day before yesterday."
"Ah, yes, Mr. and Miss Ustus." Lady Russell paused and shifted in her chair. "I have heard of them. They say she is a great beauty, the beauty of Bath at the moment. But I do not know; I have not seen her closely enough to know. But your father has spoken of her, and always mentioned her as a beauty."
Bracing herself for what was to come next, Anne nodded. "Miss Ustus is all that my father says. But she is also clever."
"And her manners?"
"Uniformly good, although perhaps with too little reserve, or so I think you would find."
"Is she just unreserved, Anne, or is she artful?"
"Artful?" Anne asked, surprised. "I cannot say. She does not seem so, although I suppose that could itself be part of the art. Why do you ask this?"
"I have heard of her — and her brother — from other sources than your father. I am no gossip, but a friend of mine from London gave me a peculiar hint, referring to Miss Ustus not as clever but as...vulpine."
"Vulpine?"
"Yes, Anne. But my friend would say no more."
Anne recalled the time she spent with Miss Ustus. She was more willing to compare the brother, Mr. Ustus, to a fox than Miss Ustus, despite the woman's reddish hair. All Anne could recall was the strange glance Miss Ustus indulged in during the sonnet reading.
"I do not know how to understand your friend."
Lady Russell looked at Anne, then went on. "I was not able to inquire further, and my friend has now left Bath. But Captain Wentworth — I have heard that he has been paying Miss Ustus marked attentions and that she has been openly encouraging. Is that so?"
Anne knew such a question had been coming. "I have seen them together only at dinner. He was obliging, but…"
"And they have danced together at the recent balls, at one three times."
Anne could only grant that it was so.
"Their actions have created expectations among the people who have observed them. Has Captain Wentworth made his choice?" Lady Russell attempted to ask the question kindly but it had a tiny tincture of triumph in it.
"It appears that he has or that he has all-but made it." Anne tried not to allow defeat to creep into her voice but she was not sure she succeeded.
Lady Russell straightened in her chair and chose another gooseberry tart. She looked at it before taking a bite. "De gustibus non disputandum est, I suppose, but for a man of brilliancy, Captain Wentworth acts a fool. But his folly is your gain. Now that Elizabeth is mending, you can be out in Bath, finally available to be seen. — You will be attending the concert with me tonight?"
Anne clenched her fists in her lap, her hands hidden by the useless napkin she held. "Yes, Lady Russell."
"Good. There is a young man from the Philosophical Society who is to be there; I believe you should meet him. He is just the sort of man who would suit you."
"Yes, Lady Russell."
Look-ahoy! Chapter 14 — a concert. Say, if you are out there, so far reading silently, how about a review?