Many thanks to reviewers LadyJaeza, nanciellen, Liysyl, and mariantoinette1; I am glad to have you back for my latest WIP. Your support keeps me committed to my daily posting schedule.
Frederick let his anger carry him all the way back to his brother's home, his long strides and fearsome countenance discouraging any who crossed his path from attempting to talk with him. He was angry to be spurned, something that had never occurred to him could possibly take place. He knew he was worthy of Anne's hand and her prior acceptance had confirmed it. Rather than be willing to see anything in the situation which might justify her actions, he simply disparaged to himself the weakness in her character that he should have noticed previously, which would have prevented him from seeking her hand in the first place.
She had been swayed by other people's opinions, of that he had no doubt. And he knew where to place the blame. The sentiments she expressed had a subtly that her father was not capable of, nor her sisters. Although he was only lately introduced to Lady Russell and had only exchanged a few pleasantries with her, Anne had expressed that she was as a mother to her. Frederick could believe of Lady Russell, who while saying everything proper was subtly disparaging of him, to have an intelligence (what he now deemed a shrewd and deceptive cunning) that Anne's family lacked. He saw in her present interference a clinging to older ideas about the importance of rank and marrying to impress others and secure one's place in society rather than based on love and genuine affinity. Undoubtedly, Lady Russell believed he had set his sights too high, but how was it that Anne could agree?
He could see no legitimate justification for either woman's actions. It did not occur to him as he entered the vicarage (his brother was fortunate to have lodging there as the vicar who was a widower was lonely and had even welcomed Frederick, so long as Frederick shared his brother's room, made no extra work for the maid and paid a portion for his food), that his very current living condition could justify Lady Russell's actions. Frederick was used to much closer quarters at sea, hammocks piled tightly together, men aloft and below him. Only the captain (and on larger ships sometimes the most senior officers) would have private quarters. As a lad he had always shared his brother's bed so it never occurred to him that there was something lacking in his present accommodations.
Upon reaching their shared chambers, Frederick could not settle himself. He was ready to be off, to seek his new ship, to prove Anne wrong. He had been ashore long enough and if Anne was to be believed what he should do now is leave her behind and pursue his ambitions with all vigor, unencumbered by planning for a future with her. He resolved to speak to his brother that evening and depart at first light in the morning. He never wanted to chance seeing Anne again. Pleading with her again would just show that he was weak and he would show no further weakness if he could avoid it.
Anne for her part spent the day weeping in her room. She tried to console herself with the idea that she had done the right thing, the right thing for Frederick. But it did not feel right.
Part of her wanted to seek him out, even if it would mean he would yell at her again. For at least if he were yelling at her, it would mean a few more moments with him, a chance for something to change, a chance for a different solution.
Part of her wanted to make him understand and see the merit of her position. Why could he not admit she was right? It would be rash to be engaged for an uncertain period. So much could change before he could return. What if he were lost at sea? What if he lost his heart to another? What if he were demoted or less successful than he anticipated? Should she really waste her life waiting for him when a more brilliant match could be made? Of course she did not believe any of these arguments that Lady Russell made.
Part of her wanted to pound on the vicarage door and demand he come out, and then when he did she would yell at him, uncowed by the watching maid, and cast his own words back upon him: "If you loved me you would never let me go." Then she would ask him, "Why did you let me go? How could you give up on us this easily?"
She imagined him then declaring, "I never have. I left merely to retrieve my belongings for our journey." He would then kiss her until she lost all her previous resolve to give him up and he would tell her, as the hero in a silly novel, "I cannot live without you, cannot bear another moment away from you, I must marry you as soon as can be." She would pack a trunk with a few possessions and her valuables and they would elope to Scotland. She imagined the harried journey, having to sleep beside him in a hired hack and then being married as soon as they crossed the border. Then they could have a few weeks of bliss (she had some jewelry she could sell to fund the journey and sustain them for that long) and when it was time for him to depart on his ship, she would perhaps find lodging with another naval wife in exchange for tending her children and teaching the girls all the womanly arts. She thought that she would be willing to learn how to cook and clean, would happily take on any task if it might mean that she would be reunited with him some day when he had risen further in the ranks as he had foretold.
At the same time she knew the ridiculousness of such a notion that she could live separately from her father, her husband or Lady Russell. Anne understood she would be useless compared to a woman of more humble means who learned how to do all the tasks that an army of Kellynch Hall servants currently performed for her. She bemoaned that women of her class were not taught anything useful. She had always wanted more than to just be an ornament for a rich or titled man's arm, more than simply being a repository for his passion, a womb for his children, but no one before Frederick had ever questioned the planned ordering of her life according to society's rules.
The idea that Frederick had given her, that she could learn a valuable skill and help by tending the injured and sick had a particular appeal to her. To be of more value than than her pedigree was alluring. She wanted the right to demand such a future, to put her own needs first and damn the consequences.
But Anne had a strong practical side. No one had ever accused her of running away with her emotions, of being impulsive, at least no one besides Lady Russell in their last conversation. She wanted to be more impulsive still, to actually run not away, but toward something and someone, the best someone she knew. Yet her practical side restrained her, leashed her to her previous words asking him to give her up, based on the one final argument that Lady Russell had given her.
Lady Russell said, "Anne, you are as of yet still a child. Can you not trust that my lifetime of experience helps me see your situation with the distance and clarity that you lack? Can you not see that your mother in entrusting you to me, had wisdom and wanted you to have my guidance for just such a situation? She loved you as I do, please believe that I never would unnecessarily cause you pain and neither would she."
Thus, if Anne continued in opposing Lady Russell it would be as if she was rejecting her own mother's wisdom and forethought. The love that Anne bore for her dear departed Mother was the last thing that restrained Anne from going after Frederick.
She wrote in her journal, "I am still yours. Do not give up on me."