A/N: More story.

Tides of Bath

Chapter Seventeen: Top to Bottom

I am bewildered, as though I had fallen into a deep sea, and could neither plant my foot on the bottom nor swim up to the top."

— Rene Descartes, Second Meditation

The family dinner at Camden Place Sunday evening was strained, strange, bewildering. Sir Walter, in fresh clothes, presided with little grace and great absence of mind. His cheeks were red; he was ruled by fidgets and murmurings. Not even the polished, reflective luster of the silver could claim his attention, induce him to look at himself.

Luckily, Mary was in spirits and she filled all the empty spaces in the dining room with lengthy descriptions of Bath's delights and her complaints. Elizabeth joined the family shortly before dinner, sat, asked about Mr. Ustus, ate a bowl of broth at the table, and returned to her room.

Anne was grateful to help Elizabeth from the table and into the bed. Nurse Rook, who had been reading in Elizabeth's room — she arrived as Lady Russell left — was quick to assist. In another day or two, Nurse Rook would no longer be required. Anne was sorry for that; the nurse was the only other sensible person at Camden Place.

Elizabeth's mention of Mr. Ustus had rattled her father further, and as Anne helped Elizabeth out of the dining-room, Sir Walter stood and began to pace. All the while, Mary continued in an almost unbroken sing-song her litany of Bath blessings and motherhood curses.

Once Elizabeth was comfortable, Anne went to her room and sat down in her chair, staring into the flame of her lone candle. She had been granted no time to herself since Lady Russell left.

Anne was deeply grateful to Lady Russell for her compassion. That it was compassion for herself, for Anne, but also for Captain Wentworth, made it dearer to Anne. She felt that at last she and Lady Russell had been wholly open to one another, spoke out their hearts and minds, and without regret. The fact of Captain Wentworth had between them for five years, preventing full companionship. No more.

Anne seized on that happiness as one that might help to support her in her current trial. Tomorrow, the next day, soon, word would come, the final word, that Captain Wentworth had proposed to Miss Ustus and that the woman had accepted. Anne did not doubt that acceptance. It had been all-but given all along, for all to see.

Anne and Lady Russell had talked of Miss Ustus for a few moments before Lady Russell left. The comment of Lady Russell's friend, the oracular comment about Miss Ustus being vulpine, was considered, introduced by Lady Russell. But Anne, fearing to indulge herself in envy, did not allow herself or Lady Russell to linger on the topic.

Anne had, she knew, a long struggle ahead of her, and envy would make it harder, especially if lingering in envy encouraged the envy to ripen into hatred. Anne had seen the progression often enough in others to know its dangers — in her father, for example, when not given what he thought himself due by men whom he had paid in sycophancy. Anne had reason enough for unhappiness; adding envy and hatred to the list would be foolish.

Anne stared at the flickering candle flame.

It was all well and good to have devout thoughts of self-mastery, but she knew, knew that her complete disorientation after leaving Captain Wentworth, her weeping with Lady Russell — all of it showed that she had admitted a hope, despite herself, that somehow he would find his way back to her, find her in his heart again. She had allowed that much self-flattery to lurk in her heart and it had made the disclosure of the impending proposal more bitter, more painful. Anne did wish Captain Wentworth happy. She did. Her affection for him was expressed in the completeness of her wish for his happiness, even if that happiness did not include her at his side.

But how she had longed for it to include that, include her, there, his long arm around her, two who were one!

Her lone candle flame reminded her of her aloneness.

She forced herself to contemplate it, accept it, to be schooled by its solitary, shaky flame. After a few minutes, she blew it out, but the afterimage of the flame was still before her when she went to bed and closed her eyes.

Anne woke to bright Monday sunlight and the sound of Bath's weekday bustle outside. She made herself rise from bed and prepare for the day. She needed to be busy, useful. That was the only way to cope with the emptiness that pressed on her on every side.

She left her room and checked on Elizabeth. She was still asleep. Nurse Rook, however, was awake, standing at the window and gazing out. She seemed not to notice Anne's entrance into the room. Anne walked to the window and looked out too, trying to see what Nurse Rook saw.

Nurse Rook started, her square form almost bouncing into the air. "Miss Anne! Oh, you gave me such a scare. I was all distracted."

"What were you looking at, Nurse Rook."

The woman gave Anne a self-amused smile. "Nothing and everything, pr'haps. I was thinking more than I was seeing."

Anne, comfortable, asked, "And what were you thinking about?"

"Camden Place, actually, Miss Anne. Did you know that there's rumors that the ground up here under this lofty place is unstable? That's why your house and only a few others are here. No one's sure about building others."

"Are we in danger here?"

"Not that I know of, Miss Anne...and, besides, the ground under our human feet is pr'haps always less firm than we imagine, eh?"

Anne nodded sadly. "Yes, Nurse Rook, so I suppose it is."

Nurse Rook leaned closer to Anne. "You look pale this morning, ma'am."

"I am well. Yesterday was a long day, with many visitors."

"So Miss Mary told me last night. Elizabeth woke up and asked about Mr. Ustus. She and he have not spoken face-to-face since she took ill?"

"No, he was here every day, and he was here yesterday, but he has not seen her in person. It seems curious. I imagined him attached…"

"As does Miss Elliot. Miss Mary came in here last night and insisted on sitting for a time." Nurse Rook shook her head. "She talked so loud that she woke Miss Elliot. And then Miss Elliot wanted to know who had been in the house yesterday. Your father must've told Miss Mary, because she told her that Mr. Ustus had been here, that Lady Russell had been here," Nurse Rook was holding up fingers, counting them off, "oh, and that Captain Wentworth had been here."

Anne nodded, hoping that Nurse Rook did not notice the flush Anne felt cover her face at Captain Wentworth's name.

But the Nurse had noticed. "Did you entertain each of these guests?"

"Yes, — well, no, not exactly, not only me — my father arrived and had a brief interview with Captain Wentworth."

Nurse Rook's eyes became intent, questioning. "He did? About you, Miss Anne?" Nurse Rook's tone mixed pleasure with curiosity.

It took Anne a second to catch up with Nurse Rook's thought. "Oh, no, no, believe me, nothing like that. It was about...business affairs."

Nurse Rook's focus changed, although her eyes remained on Anne; she seemed to be pondering something.

"This Captain Wentworth is an acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Collins, a tall, impressive man?"

Anne flushed warmer. "Yes."

Nurse Rook's focus returned to Anne; her eyes narrowed. "And he has been lately much with Mr. and Miss Ustus? Specifically with Miss Ustus?"

"Yes, he and his sister, Mrs. Croft, and the Admiral."

Nurse Rook's focus shifted again as her head went up and down slowly. "I have seen them together. Miss Ustus has designs on the Captain?"

Anne did not trust her voice to answer so she nodded her head.

Nurse Rook turned and looked at Elizabeth. Then she turned back to Anne. "But he has no designs on her?"

Anne had to speak. Neither a nod nor a shake of her head would produce an unequivocal answer. "He does — but I do not mean to imply art; he is a man of real, of simple feeling."

"And you think he has such a feeling for Miss Ustus."

Now Anne could hide in a nod and did.

Nurse Rook spoke softly. "Miss Anne, they say it's a waste, crying over spilled milk. Isn't it still more a waste to cry about the milk before it's spilled? I know men, I buried one husband long ago and I bear the one I now have, bless him...I know men, Miss Anne, and, no doubt, Miss Ustus turned the Captain's head, — she could turn any man's head, men's heads turn predictably enough —" she shook her head, " — but I have seen them together a time or two, walking. He does not belong to Miss Ustus."

Anne tried to mask her reaction to the words: she wanted Nurse Rook to say them again: she wished Nurse Rook had never said them. She knew her face was still flushed, knew that some of her agitations showed.

Anne turned from the window. Elizabeth was awake, looking at Anne and Nurse Rook. Anne excused herself. She needed a moment to breathe. The thought of the conversation being overheard by Elizabeth was distressing: Anne needed to leave before Nurse Rook continued it.

She stepped into the hallway and walked toward the drawing-room. When she entered, it was empty. But a writing desk her father used was in his chair, and a piece of paper was on it. Anne glanced at it as she walked by. She saw the salutation. It was to Mr. Shepherd, and unfinished, but Anne did not stop to look more closely.

A moment later her father entered with a new pen in his hand. He glanced at her and then, with nothing more than a distracted nod, he sat down and began to finish the letter. Anne left and went to the dining room. She sat down and drank tea. Her stomach rebelled against food. Nurse Rook's comments had upset the delicate self-balance Anne had achieved before she left her room.

The comments had brought the moments of tenderness in Captain Wentworth's gaze back to Anne. Had he ever looked at Miss Ustus like that? Not when Anne could see — but admittedly she had not spent much time with them. Still, — and why had Miss Ustus always seemed peculiarly aware of Anne?

Anne finished her tea and gathered her things. She needed to walk, to think, if nothing else, to reason with herself. She told her father she was leaving but he barely acknowledged her.

She stepped out into the sunshine and took a breath. It was not hot yet. She started walking, pondering many things, but not the path of her feet.

She walked downhill from Camden Place.

She vaguely registered that the return walk would be toilsome, but she did not mind. Toil would be good. The effort would be good.

After a few moments, she settled into her walk. Destinationless, she could treat each new step as her walk's end. Her heart ached but she did not turn away from the ache or deny it. It was hers and it would be hers until time itself, at some foreordained but unknown step in her future, muted it to an old regret. It would not be any time soon; that was all she knew. It was already her five-years friend.

She continued down, down to Belvedere Street. Stopping for a moment, she considered turning right and walking to Rivers Street, to Lady Russell's, but then she decided in favor of continued solitude. She walked on, onto Belmont Street, although oblivious of the name, her exact location. She simply allowed the city to claim her, to keep her moving southward, down, down, down. She felt as if she were sinking but she could not stop: she was immersed, above the bottom but below the city's surface, underwater, tugged by the tides of Bath.

She reasoned with herself, her grief, bringing to bear the accumulated philosophic dignity of twenty-four years. But her grief was inarticulate, her reasons articulate: the two would not communicate. One spoke in groanings too deep for words, the other in high-wrought and noble concepts, too grand to embrace her pain, and they passed one another by.

Anne had passed by any number of other walkers in the sunshine, but one, as Anne reached Broad Street, stopped and spoke.

"Miss! Miss Anne Elliot?"

It was Mr. Collins. Anne had never been formally introduced to him, although she had heard much about him from Mr. Ustus and Nurse Rook, and had seen him and his wife near Captain Wentworth at divine services the day before. She was a bit taken aback by his unexpected address.

"Sir? Mr. Collins, I believe?"

"Yes, ma' am."

He bowed then stepped closer to her. "My apologies for...accosting you like this, here on the street, but when I recognized you, I felt I had to speak. You see, I owe you an apology, that is, your family. I was told a bit of...information about your father and I passed it along to Mrs. Croft, and so the Admiral. They acted on it with true naval dispatch. — But I now realize I acted improperly. I was incautious and careless. We lawyers hear so much and we sometimes forget how little of it is known by others." Mr. Collin's florid face had become sweaty. He was so tall and thin that he had to bend down for Anne to hear the low voice in which he spoke. "My wife is a garrulous woman, and I fear that instead of my teaching her reserve, she has taught me garrulity. But I am trying to do better, to be more tight-lipped. If I have been the source of any embarrassment to you or the Crofts by my ill-judged speaking, I apologize most sincerely."

The man's manner matched his words. His mortification was plain. Anne found herself liking him almost instantly. "No, sir, do not trouble yourself about it. Please do keep it to yourself henceforward — my father's sense of honor is...delicate. But you have done no real harm, sir."

His relief seemed to run through him, from his florid face down his long neck to his long legs. "Thank you, Miss Anne, thank you for your kindness. Nurse Rook says that you are an angel…"

"Mr. Collins! I am far from angelic. Nurse Rook…"

"...Is always right," Mr. Collins said, completing Anne's sentence to her surprise. "If I could get her to London, have her chat with my clients, she could save me a world of time. She has a nose, that one."

Anne could see that Mr. Collins was about to leave. She steeled herself and looked at him. "You are a friend of the Ustus', are you not?'

He nodded. "I am. I haven't known them long. I met them in London, — him, really. He was a friend of a client of mine. I got to know him there."

"And Miss Ustus?"

"I got to know her in Bath actually. I saw her only once I believe, very briefly, in London. And, even then, I didn't see her well, if it was her, and I don't believe she or her brother know I saw her; I never mentioned it, but it was hard to see her, and I only saw her, like Moses saw the Lord…"

"Sir?"

"Sorry, sorry. I only saw her from the back. She was obscured, surrounded on all sides by beaux…"

"Beaux?" Anne asked.

"Admirers. She trailed them behind her like clouds, everywhere she went in the city. She was universally admired, or so I was told."

Anne was struck, her mind spinning. "I can imagine."

"She seems to have changed here, perhaps. Maybe the hot water has changed her, cooled her. She has no legion of beaux here, that's sure. She's been single-minded, set her cap for Captain Wentworth."

Anne heard and fear gripped her. "Set her cap for him? Has she succeeded?" She could hear the desperation in her voice.

Mr. Collins could not. He shrugged. "Not that I know of, but she told my wife in secret she thinks her ship's about to come in." Mr. Collins winked and smiled. "That Miss Ustus, she's a clever girl."

"So it seems," Anne said.

Mr. Collins bowed again and Anne curtsied. He crossed the street and continued away. Anne turned, took a step upward. She had descended far enough in Bath. it was time to start the climb home.

Look-ahoy! What about Wentworth? Come back for the next chapter.