A/N: The penultimate chapter of Part 3, To the Lighthouse, and so the penultimate chapter of our short novel.
Tides of Bath
Chapter Twenty-One: Shore of the Future
You groped your way across my room i' the dear dark dead of night;
At each fresh step a stumble was; but once your lamp alight,
Easy and plain you walked again; so soon all wrong grew right.
What lay on the floor to trip your foot? Each object late awry,
Looked fitly placed, nor proved offence to foot free, for why?
The lamp showed all, discordant late, grown simple symmetry.
Be love your light, and trust your guide; with these explore my heart!
No obstacle to trip you then — strike hands and souls apart!
Since rooms and hearts are furnished so — light shows you — needs love start?
— Robert Browning, "Shah Abbas" in Ferishtah's Fancies
Wentworth was astonished to see Anne Elliot outside Marlborough Buildings, evidently just coming from the Ustus's. He stopped. She was bathed in the long, golden afternoon light, warm and rich, the sunlight the color of halos on Orthodox icons, icons Wentworth had seen in churches of distant ports. But Anne, so near, was haloed head and foot, — all of her aglow.
In that moment of shock, words sounded in his mind, words from memory: "Fear not!..."
He blinked and trembled involuntarily; it was a visitation.
He had walked from Gay Street to Marlborough Buildings a self-condemned man. Despite his sister's and the Admiral's efforts, they could not find a tactic to avoid Mr. Ustus's threat: there was only compliance. The debt of honor must be paid. And so, as the sun was setting in the sky, his sky, Wentworth set out to see Mr. and Miss Ustus. He had not only lost Anne, but he had also lost all hope of her, and so lost all hope.
But then she was standing aglow before him; her expression was tenderness itself. She stepped toward him, and the light seemed to shift, or she did. His shadow, stretched on the sidewalk, now shaded all but her face. She was again human but still glorious. The clatter of carriages, the rumble of carts and drays, the bawling of men with items to sell, the ceaseless clink of pattens, the noise of Bath was all around them, and she spoke in a whisper but he heard her distinctly. She spoke his name, his Christian name, as a request for permission, a question. Wentworth did not understand. He spoke her name in awe, a request to touch her, a question, a supplication.
She smiled acceptance, his hand found hers, and he called her by her name: "Anne!"
"Frederick!"
When she spoke his name it ended his sentence. He did not know how, — by what miraculous power, — but he was a sailor: he could read the signs and portents. He was free. And she was free. Five years, and he and she each free, still unmarried. — Might that not be significant? Sophia had asked that question.
He thought to himself what he should have said in answer to Sophia. Yes, it might be significant.
Anne slipped her hand from his and put it around his other arm, turning him on the sidewalk to face the sun, and to face away from Marlborough Buildings. She started to walk and he walked with her.
Wentworth was afraid to speak. But after a moment, Anne smiled again and Wentworth knew he would never forget that sunlit smile. "Miss Ustus has left Bath, Frederick."
"She has?"
"She has."
"And her brother?"
"Still in Bath — so far as I know."
"I see. — No, I do not see. I do not understand, Anne."
"No, Frederick, you do not, but let's walk, and I will explain it to you."
"And so, if I understand, I was thoroughly...hood-winked." Wentworth bowed his head.
Anne squeezed his arm. "No, Frederick, not...thoroughly." She smiled with a hint of mischief during her pause, then her smile faded. "Miss Ustus felt, feels real affection for you; I believe it and do not wonder at it; I understand her."
Wentworth looked at Anne and he understood her. She pulled herself more closely against his arm.
"And so," Wentworth offered, shaking his head, "It was all a scheme to force me eventually to pay my debt of honor with money?"
"Yes, but you, Frederick, were more than Miss Ustus bargained for."
They walked on in silence for a few steps, climbing slowly toward Camden Place. "We must talk to your father, Anne. Mr. Ustus's plan for him has not been abandoned, I fear."
"No, and that is where we are going. According to Miss Ustus, my father has not yet committed money to Mr. Ustus and is not to do so until tomorrow. We ought to be able to set all to rights, at least with my father. But I worry for my sister, for Elizabeth."
"Elizabeth?"
"She has hopes for Mr. Ustus — hopes for herself. She is still recuperating, and I fear what this reversal will do to her."
"At least she will know that Mr. Ustus was false, through-and-through."
"Yes, but I am not sure if that knowledge will make it worse or better."
They were silent again, and Wentworth slowed his pace, stopped. Anne looked up at him. He wanted to kiss her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life, and he saw her eyes slip down to his lips and climb back up. She acknowledged her desire, let him see it, and he knew she could see his. They locked eyes and held each other's gaze.
After a moment, warmed all over, after an intense flutter of delight, Wentworth made himself begin to walk again.
"Anne," he said quietly, "I have been a fool, and such a fool! A dunce and a fool. Not just for letting myself be imposed upon by Miss Ustus, but far more for my behavior the day we parted, and every day since. My pride, my folly, — nay, my madness!" His voice, an intent whisper, softened. "My small-minded but all-devouring resentment…Please, Anne, forgive me."
This time it was Anne who slowed and stopped.
"Frederick, forgive me. If I had explained what I felt, what I was thinking, on that awful day...But I was coming apart, and I could not find the words; they were lost in the rifts. I still do not know entirely how to explain myself, though I have brooded much on those days the past five years."
Wentworth nodded. "I too, although always to blame you." He felt the shame heat his face, saw her see it.
She squeezed his arm. "I blamed myself too, for not finding the words. Do not fret about it, not now, not in this beautiful sunset, not now that we have been restored to all that we lost."
"Anne, I cannot endure another parting. This is not the place," he cast his eyes for a street sign and found one, and shrugged, "this...Morford Street, — but I must speak these words, here and now." He stood straight, a captain's bearing. He took her hand in his. "Anne Elliot, despite my thoughtlessness, my lack of proper regard, my long-nursed anger, my pique, my attempt to replace you, — conducted sometimes, not by my wish but, still, in mortifying fact, in front of you — Anne Elliot, despite all that can be charged, in rightful accusation, against me, can you still believe that my heart is yours, has ever been yours, its resentments unbecoming proof of its constancy, — Anne Elliot, will you…"
Anne put a finger softly against his lips, stopping his speech. Her countenance was soft and she laughed. Wentworth had not heard that sound in five years. It was a tinkling of bells.
"Yes, Frederick, yes. I am more yours now, my heart is more yours now than five years ago, though I would not have thought it possible. I cannot unlearn loving you. — Yes!"
Another long look was shared between them. Anne's face was bright, her eyes shone; she was a beacon. Wentworth vowed to himself at that moment always to take his bearings from her.
He looked around them, then kissed her hand softly, so softly, allowing his lips to linger for a suspended second. When he looked up, he saw that she had colored; her lips were parted and he could see her breathing.
He saw her collect herself and he did the same. She took his arm again and pressed herself lightly against him. "Frederick, I am so happy I am not sure I can bear it."
Wentworth smiled crookedly at her. "Well, you need only consider the vexation this will cause Lady Russell, and that may quiet your feelings somewhat, make them more supportable."
Anne stopped. "Oh, I have not explained, — you did not ask. — Do you not wonder how I came to visit Miss Ustus? I told you about the visit and its consequences, but I did not explain its origin. Lady Russell has been your benefactress."
Wentworth felt his face go blank. That woman's dislike of him and his dislike of her had long been one of the riverbed facts of his mental world. "What?"
"She came to be suspicious of Miss Ustus because of a darkling comment made by a friend. Although she was not, perhaps, undividedly your champion, she decided the comment was worth a fuller understanding. It turns out that Lady Russell's friend has a brother who was...taken in...by Miss Ustus."
Wentworth shook his head. "Lady Russell did this for me?"
Anne laughed. "Perhaps that would be an overstatement. She did it for me, but she certainly foresaw the possible effects of her intention. I will not promise she willed or even wished for those effects, but she was not unwilling to see them come to pass."
"But that bookish man, Fowler, Mr. Montaigne, was he not her doing?"
Anne blushed, thinking about that concert evening in the light of this afternoon.
Anne had endured Miss Ustus. Frederick — she spoke his name to herself yet again in great happiness, Frederick — had endured Mr. Fowler. "Yes, he was. I asked her about that, her writing her friend and then introducing me to Mr. Fowler, and she said — these were her own words — she had been working both sides of the street."
Frederick's mouth fell open; he looked bewildered. And then he laughed, and his laugh buoyed Anne's spirits still higher. He shook his head again. "Working both sides of the street — it staggers my imagination, those words falling from her lips!"
Anne joined his laughter. "And mine. But so it was. Lady Russell is...a deep old file, I think. A certain reserve between us is gone at last, and I believe I will find that I like Lady Russell as much as I love her, if you understand me."
Frederick gently patted the hand she was resting on his arm. "I understand, but I marvel! I marvel!"
They walked again, nearing Camden Place. Anne gazed up at the Captain as they walked. Five years! And yet, had they not been engaged, in a sense, all that time? She well knew that an unconscious engagement was nonsense, and yet —
They had both been constant. She could not lose the hope of him, despite all her attempts to school herself in resignation. He could not lose the hope of her, and it was the truest cause of his resentment, more than her lack of explanation had been. Five years, each wrestling with the hope of the other!
And now for their hopes to be fulfilled, so perfectly fulfilled!, — for their attachment and their confidence in it to be increased. Never before had Anne felt so astonished at the world or so at home in it.
She had unknowingly circumnavigated the globe of her life, landed on what she took to be a new, strange shore, and found it was her old, much-longed-for homeland. Five years ago, Anne had spoken the words that were officially to end their engagement, but like the boy pretending to be king who knights his playfellow, her words had been inoperative, ineffective. Her words failed to do the deed despite her intentions. Frederick's proposal — Anne smiled to herself — bumbling, loveably chastened, and unfinished — had been, in reality, unnecessary. Anne's original yes had never been no.
She glanced at him again and felt that yes resound through her. The wedding could not happen quickly enough.
They arrived at Camden Place. Dusk fell but not on them. They looked at each other and readied themselves to go inside. They had good news and bad news to share.
Look-ahoy! One last chapter to go. Loose ends to tie up, a wedding to officiate, and some final touches.
Thoughts as we approach the end?