A/N: More story.
Tides of Bath
Chapter Twenty: A Mirror Darkly
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
— 1 Corinthians 13: 12 (Authorized Version)
With all this knowledge of Mr. and Miss Ustus filling her sails, Anne's walk from Rivers Street to Marlborough Buildings did not take long.
Energy and determination fused in her as she walked, sharpening her mind, and she found herself feeling something she did not often feel and did not like to feel: anger. But her anger was righteous: she was going to drive the money-changers from the Temple. Unfortunately, the righteousness of her focused anger gifted her with no actual plan for confronting Miss Ustus. Anne could only hope that when the time came, she would be given the words to say, that they would simply come to her.
Anne wished she understood her father's dealings with Mr. Ustus. Given what she now knew, the dealings were certainly neither honest nor appropriate. Anne hoped her father was ignorant of the dishonesty or inappropriateness; she hoped her father was a dupe, not a co-conspirator.
Anne attached only a vague meaning to 'sharper' or 'settler', the words from the letter Lady Russell shared. Such people were bad, — dishonest, — schemers, — but that was all the words meant to her. As Anne brooded on those words, other words, the words of Nurse Rook, about the shakiness beneath the houses of Camden Place, came back to Anne. She stopped a few feet from the door of the Ustus's lodging, staring at it.
Anne breathed and felt a tremble run through her, stem to stern.
She would warn her father as soon as she returned home, talk to him. But, for now, right now, her sole concern was Captain Wentworth.
Captain Wentworth.
Anne was painfully aware that a few tender looks from him were no surety that he must still love her. Perhaps the looks signaled only forgiveness or cessation of resentment. But love her or not, she loved him, and with as much ardor as when she was nineteen; she would not let Miss Ustus manipulate him, fool him, humiliate him, hurt him. Anne wished him happy — and Anne knew that although she might not constitute his happiness, Miss Ustus certainly would not.
As she stood there in front of Marlborough Buildings, Anne divined that her whole life was hanging in the balance, that her entire future, for good or ill, was about to be decided.
Her courage did not fail. Anne went to the door and knocked. A few moments later, a young woman opened the door, but only a few inches, just enough to look out at Anne.
"May I help you, ma'am?" It was unclear if she recognized Anne; Anne knew her from the dinner there. She was Miss Ustus's girl.
"Yes, please, please tell Miss Ustus that Anne Elliot is here. I am not expected, and I apologize for that, but I must speak to her. I must."
The girl blinked at Anne, and Anne thought she saw her start to close the door when Miss Ustus' voice came from inside. "Matilda, please show Miss Elliot in."
The girl opened the door and stepped aside so that Anne could enter. Once inside, Anne found Miss Ustus standing in the middle of the stair. Anne looked up at her. Miss Ustus looked down at Anne.
Only then did Anne see the exhaustion etched in Miss Ustus' face. Miss Ustus smiled, but it seemed as though the smile hurt. "I wondered if you might come to see me, Miss Elliot."
Anne was at a loss for a moment. She had expected resistance to the call, and, if allowed inside, only defiance or impudence. Before Anne spoke, Miss Ustus started down the stairs. She grimaced with each step, holding herself very stiffly as she descended. Matilda ran up the stairs to her mistress and let Miss Ustus lean on her. They reached the bottom of the stairs and crossed through a door into the drawing-room.
A small clock, beautiful, ticked away on a table. No one was in the room until they entered it.
Miss Ustus, still leaning on Matilda but looking at the clock, made her way to a chair and sat down, stifling a gasp.
"Miss Ustus, you — are you hurt?"
Miss Ustus made a tight gesture with her hand. "It is not serious. I will heal." She paused and turned her grey eyes on Anne. "You have come to speak of the Captain?"
"I...Well...Yes, how did you know?"
Miss Ustus studied Anne for a moment. "For how long have you loved him?"
Anne shook off her shock, but she was unsure how to answer. "I? Love the Captain?"
A small smile, sad, formed on Miss Ustus' face. "There is no falsehood in you, Miss Elliot. Depths, yes, but no duplicity."
The word 'duplicity' oriented Anne, and finally, words came.
"Miss Ustus, I am sorry, but I must ask you — what are your intentions with Captain Wentworth?"
Miss Ustus chuckled ruefully. "Now, isn't this a strange scene? I thought it was the man's intentions that normally bore scrutiny at such moments, and from his intended's father…"
Anne colored. "I suppose it is so, Miss Ustus. But I come because...because I have lately learned about your history...and your brother's history...and I believe you both guilty of duplicity."
Miss Ustus glanced at the clock on the table. She gave Anne a thoughtful look, then she looked at Matilda, who was standing by the door to the room. Anne had forgotten her.
"Matilda, go upstairs and finish. Come back to me when you are done. We haven't much time." The girl curtsied quickly and left the room.
Miss Ustus glanced at the clock again. Then she faced Anne. "Duplicity, you say, Miss Elliot? Yes, my...our...history always chases us, and sometimes catches up with us." She looked down at her dress, straightening one of its folds. "You see, Miss Elliot, I do know that you love Captain Elliot. I am what I am...but I have genuine accomplishments. Among them is that I am can see into the minds and hearts of others. But your case required very little penetration, after what we witnessed…"
"Witnessed?" Anne repeated the word in confusion.
"Yes, it was shortly after Captain Wentworth arrived, a Sunday at the Pump Room. My brother and I were introduced to him outside, and we parted company. But we did not leave. I was...intrigued by your Captain and I wanted to watch him for a moment, study him, so I bade my brother turn back.
"We arrived near the door to the Pump Room in time to witness the two of you as you encountered each other. To be honest, it required no special penetration to see a whole unhappy history in that scene, Miss Elliot. I do not know that history, but I am quite sure that you and the Captain were once very much to each other, but that you were somehow thwarted in your affections.
"You did not see us; you were in tears, hidden in your bonnet, as you left on the arm of Lady Russell, who was comforting you. And the Captain was in a worse state, despite his lack of tears. He looked shipwrecked as he turned after you, scanning the crowd for you, blind to all faces but the one he did not see. A whole love story was played out there in most touching fashion…"
Anne's blush was hot. "You saw it? You knew it? And yet...and yet you persisted in your...scheme."
"Yes and no," Miss Ustus said, glancing away from Anne as she shifted in her chair — and gasped again.
"Can I help you in some way, Miss Ustus?"
Miss Ustus looked at Anne with warmth and...envy? "I did not have to spend much time near you, Miss Elliot, to understand why the Captain once loved you..."
The past tense knifed Anne's heart, and she dropped her head. Miss Ustus laughed in the pause, but not to scorn. "...and loves you still. Do not be sad or confounded, Miss Elliot, for the Captain loves you still."
Anne lifted her head. Miss Ustus inhaled carefully, then she spoke. "You see, Miss Elliot, I had the fortune, and the misfortune, of seeing the Captain before I knew who he was, before I discovered that my brother had targeted him as my next...conquest. I was coming into town, in a carriage, and the Captain was seated beneath a tree. I looked at him and he looked at me, and something happened to me at that moment — although I was not fully aware of it them, or failed to understand it, perhaps intentionally. At that moment, I took a liking to the Captain.
"And that, Miss Elliot, was unprecedented, a singularity. — I'm sure my brother has told you, or that you have heard, the history of ourselves we have concocted. It is grounded in truths — all the best lies are, you see — we are from the northern part of England. Our father was a gentleman, a minor nobility." Her lips curled ironically. "He was also a cruel tyrant. He was cruel physically and mentally to our mother, and my brother. I, being youngest, and a girl, was spared physical cruelty, but he was mentally cruel to me. So much so that I came to detest him and, indeed, all men, — except my brother. Our father was also a gambler and a spendthrift, and after the death of our beloved mother, he promptly spiraled and lost everything. He was killed ingloriously in a duel. My brother and I had no relatives on whom to depend. We were alone and destitute.
"We left home and eventually fell in with a traveling group of actors. We joined them and soon became hardened actors ourselves. But my brother tired of that life, its gypsy poverty, and he decided our acting skills could be put to better uses. And so we became...what we now are. My brother used me to defraud wealthy men — but it sounds as if you have some idea of the sort of scheme we used. It was successful, but it required us to move constantly. My brother also supplemented our settler's schemes with other kinds of swindles, mostly imaginary speculations."
"My father!" Anne said, breaking free of the spell of Miss Ustus's story.
"Yes, your father. Although I do not believe any money has changed hands there yet. Your father can still be saved. I will tell you what to do."
"You will tell me?"
Miss Ustus's sad smile returned. "Bath has not been good for me, Miss Elliot — or perhaps I should say it has been good for me." Her sad smile added a hint of irony again. "It has not been the abominable waters, though, it has been a sailor who did me good. I said I took a liking to the Captain. You have to understand how momentous an event in my life that trivial word describes. My father made me hate men. My time with the actors...increased that hatred. And then the scheming, the falsehood, the playing at making love, it turned my hatred into complete contempt. Men became merely things to me, Miss Elliot, — and God knows, I have been merely a thing to so many of them. My brother was the only exception to my contempt...except that, a couple of years ago, he began to act more and more like my father." She did not elaborate, but she swallowed with effort. "He began to...hurt me...if I displeased him. And I have displeased him about Captain Wentworth."
She stared at the floor for a moment, then glanced back at the clock. "I am sorry to have talked for so long. I suppose the reliefs of confession are also new to me." She inhaled slowly and trembled as she did.
"I have come to feel for Captain Wentworth. In spinning my web for him, I webbed myself. I think you had something to do with that. — You see, I liked him at first sight, but then watching him encounter you, observing your longing for him, — do not blush, Miss Elliot, I was able to see it all — it all worked on a feeling that was already there, already real and strong. I will not say that I love the Captain, for I do not know what that word means — my life has emptied so many words of meaning — but perhaps it is so."
Anne looked at Miss Ustus in silence. The clock ticked.
And then Anne understood. "So, you were going through with the scheme against the Captain, but it was no longer simply a scheme to you. The fake had transmuted into the real…lead into gold, alchemy..."
"Yes, and against my wishes. I tried to go through with it, up to the moment, on Sunday, when I trapped the Captain in a proposal."
Anne gasped but Miss Ustus waved her hand. "He did not propose. I pretended to believe that he had, and I even let myself believe that he had for a moment. Do you know how many proposals I have endured, from men I loathed? Most women endure only one."
Anne blushed again. Miss Ustus smiled broadly but again with a hint of envy. "And some hope for a second?"
Anne looked at the floor.
"But I could not go through with it. I ran from him and up to my room. My part was to stay there for a few moments, long enough for him to begin to worry, to become anxious, then I was to return and begin making wedding plans insistently...But I could not do it. Being so near to the real thing, pretending to hear those words from a man who I deeply desired genuinely to say them...I broke down and I hid in my room until he left.
"My brother returned and I told him I would not go on with the scheme, that we needed to flee from Bath and begin again in another place. He became...very angry. He insisted we go on, but I have refused."
Anne understood it all then, and her heart, so angry when she came, softened. "And so you gave up the Captain, gave up your scheme on him?"
Miss Ustus nodded.
Anne's intuition led her on. "And so you are leaving Bath, but without your brother." It was not a question this time.
"I am leaving Bath and without my brother. The carriage will be here soon. I cannot live this life any longer, Miss Elliot. Captain Wentworth — and you, in a way — has — have — taught me a mortifying lesson: I do have a heart. And I do not want to leave it to fust and molder inside me. I have decided I will go to America, and start again. I can tell the parts of my history that are true, and try to become a new woman in the New World."
"You are giving him up…" Anne said, as much to herself as Miss Ustus. "You are letting him go because of your feelings for him..."
Anne gazed on Miss Ustus as her mind raced. How much alike and how much unalike their lives were! Miss Ustus' was colored in much darker hues, but much of the outline was the same. Spendthrift, minor noble fathers, the loss of a beloved mother, a home empty of real feeling, warmth.
But Anne had the good fortune of having a father who was never deliberately cruel mentally, despite his many thoughtless, small mental cruelties, and who, though not physically warm or caring, was never, ever physically cruel. And, above all, most important, Anne had Lady Russell, a good woman of real, if not quick or penetrating powers, who had stood in Anne's mother's place, and loved and guided and taught Anne, improved Anne's heart and informed her understanding.
It all rushed through Anne's mind until she slowed and lingered on the likeness-unlikeness that struck her most: they both loved the same man, and, as Anne had five years ago, Miss Ustus was going to surrender Captain Wentworth, and do it out of love for him — because it was obvious to Anne that Miss Ustus did love him. The circumstances and motives were vastly different in many ways, but that similarity held Anne's thoughts fast for a long moment. Her heart hurt for Miss Ustus, despite everything.
Miss Ustus stood up, using the arms of her chair to aid her, frowning in pain. "I am sorry, Miss Elliot, but I must see to Matilda. We are to leave soon and I want to be sure to be gone well before my brother returns. As for your father, here is what you must tell him, and this is what he must do — "
Anne listened carefully despite her wonderment at it all, the bizarre reversal of her expectations as she walked from Rivers Street. Bath was the most curious city; much was in motion beneath its warm spring waters.
Matilda came downstairs. "Miss, the carriage has arrived in the back of the building, as you ordered."
Miss Ustus nodded. "Goodbye, Miss Elliot, and good luck." Her tone was kind — and wistful.
Anne left the house and stepped onto the sidewalk.
She looked ahead of herself, blinking in the long golden rays of the afternoon sun, taking a moment to collect herself, and she saw him, Captain Wentworth, walking toward her, or, rather, she realized, toward Marlborough Buildings.
Anne then realized that he did not know that Miss Ustus had canceled the scheme, that Miss Ustus was leaving. Indeed, he did not know it was a scheme. His face was dark with misery.
He walked on, then he saw her and stopped abruptly, disbelief on his face. She took a step toward him, and very softly — she could not manage more volume, her heart was so full it was almost choking her — she spoke.
"Frederick?"
He had heard her somehow, even in the noise of the street. He blinked in confusion, and then, after a moment, with deliberate gentleness, he spoke in return.
"Anne?"
Look-ahoy! Ahem. More soon.
I was looking forward to this chapter. I'd sure like to hear from folks about the chapter or the story.