Persuaded

by Alicia J. Chumney

  “But…” Anne started to say before she was cut off.

  “And Elizabeth has her own set of tasks to complete before she comes with me.” Walter pulled out his own single sheet of paper with, what Anne could tell, was about ten items for him to complete. Beside his list, he placed Elizabeth’s list with only fifteen short items.

  “Ten,” Anne read aloud, starting to count the items on each page of her list. “Twelve. Fifteen. Nine. Seven.” Eyes widening, “There are fifty-three items on here!”

  “And you have until August to complete them,” Walter Elliot shrugged. “It’s early June. You have time.”

  “I was going to that North Carolina beach with Aunt Cassandra again. It’s tradition.” She returned every year in hopes that she would run into Derek Worth again. It was one of her well-kept secrets; not even Aunt Cassandra realized Anne’s true reason for going with her.

  “Look,” he stated. “Elizabeth and Penelope will be going down in two weeks to get the place in order. “

  “Penelope?”

  “Yes. Elizabeth asked her to go and keep her company.” He left out the part where Penelope was helping Elizabeth sell her clothes on eBay.

  “What about her kids? Doesn’t she have two of them?”

  “Her parents will watch her kids,” her father dismissed Anne’s point. “They are twenty-five years old and still young enough to have some fun. Besides, Mr. Shepard complains that he doesn’t get to spend enough time with his grandkids all the time.”

  The look on his face told Anne that he wished he saw less of his own grandsons. He had a false sense of his youth and felt – not so secretly – that having two grandchildren under the age of three needlessly aged him.

  Nobody else wanted to point out that he was in his sixties and other men his age had grandchildren.

  “Okay. I’ll just go tell Aunt that I have to cancel my trip with her.” Anne once again stood up and began to leave the room. She paused briefly at the doorway, expecting him to call her back again. After a long moment, she exited the room, grabbed her jacket, and left the house.

  She didn’t know if she was going to throw something or cry if she stayed within its walls a moment longer. Possibly both.

  After giving the doorbell two short rings, as per her signal, Anne let herself into her aunt’s house. “Aunt Cassandra!” she called out.

  “I’m in here!” Cassandra Russell called back.

  Sniffling, Anne attempted to hold back the tears from her roller coaster of emotions. “I can’t go to the beach with you this year,” she sniffed. “Father is making me tackle this ridiculous to-do list in addition to figuring out where I’m going to live and how to pay my tuition this year!”

  Spinning around in her rolling chair, Cassandra moved to face her frantic niece. “Slow down and start from the beginning.”

  “Father is broke,” Anne cried. “After Mama died, he apparently mortgaged the house to help pay for the medical bills and funeral expenses that their health insurance and Mama’s life insurance policy didn’t cover. He didn’t dare touch his savings, or so he claims.”

  “I knew about that,” her aunt replied. “But I thought…the law firm…”

  “Father wasn’t the people person Uncle Warren was. Once the law firm was dissolved, Father steadily lost clients; they went over to Uncle Warren instead. At some point, Father sold Uncle Warren his half of the building since he couldn’t maintain the upkeep and employee salaries with only the three clients who were just as vain and conceited as Father is,” she finished bitterly.

  “Anne! That is your father you are speaking of!”

  “He has ten mirrors in his bedroom that he wants me to pack up and have ready to be shipped down to the Florida Beach House!”

  “Ten mirrors!” Cassandra exclaimed, shocked. “Who needs ten mirrors in their bedroom?” Although, in the back of her mind she could see some benefits of having so many mirrors when one is young and newly married… but not for somebody in their early sixties!

  “He has fifteen,” Anne corrected. “He wants to leave five of them behind.”

  “Oh my.”

  “He’s going down to Florida in two weeks and left me a list of chores to take care of while Elizabeth, Penelope, and himself are settling into the beach house before too many tourists start arriving. He’s considering opening up a law firm down there if he can work through the red tape of transferring his practice from one state to another.” They both knew that would never happen out of laziness.

  “Penelope?”

  “Penelope Shepherd Clay,” Anne supplied. “Elizabeth’s new best friend. His lawyer’s daughter.”

  “And why aren’t you going with them?”

  “I have to get the house ready for the new tenants…”

  Interrupting, Cassandra exclaimed, “New tenants!”

  “Father is renting out Kellynch Place to help with the utilities and supply some income.”

  “Why not rent out the beach house?”

  “He doesn’t like the idea of people throwing parties and orgies in his house.”

  “But we’re in a college town…”

  “There’s a guest pre-law professor that he’s hoping will rent the house.” She had seen the notes on his desk about potential renters. “I’ll have to move out, find someplace to stay, and figure out how to pay for my last year of school.”

  “Oh dear,” Cassandra sighed, sinking down into her chair. “That’s not good at all.”

  “Aunt?” Anne whispered, “I can stay here, can’t I? It’ll be a big help and I won’t have to try to get so much in student loans.”

  “Why would you need student loans?” she asked instead of answering her niece’s question.

  “Father used my college fund to pay off the house mortgage.”

  “But that’s your college fund.” She held back what she really wanted to say.

  Anne merely shrugged her response. There was no use being angry over something she couldn’t control or even stop at this point. It was a waste of time at this point.

  “What about your trust fund from your mother?”

  “None of us can touch money that until we turn twenty-five. I’m not even certain that Mary has access to her money and she’s married. Elizabeth might have spent hers on that new sports car.” Looking pleadingly at her aunt, she asked, “I can stay here right? Instead of in the dorms?”

  Shaking her head slowly, Cassandra answered negatively. “I’m leasing it out for the semester to an English professor friend of mine while I’m away on business. They had a water leak and it destroyed their entire house. I mean, water damage, mold, destroyed furniture. The works. Maybe for the Spring semester, but not the Fall semester.”

  Sinking down into the seat opposite Cassandra’s desk, Anne buried her face in her hands and mumbled, “What am I going to do?”

  “Have you asked Mary and Charles?”

  “What?”

  “They are close to campus and you already have a room from when you stayed over last spring when you had that night class.”

  If Anne ever wanted to be honest with herself, she would admit that she barely liked her sister Mary more than Elizabeth. Whereas Elizabeth overlooked everything Anne had done around the house to keep things running smoothly, Mary needed Anne for everything.

  Also, nothing was ever good enough.

  “I wish my father-in-law would have bought a house in a better location,” Mary complained. “The neighbors are too noisy and throw parties every weekend.”

  Charles, Mary’s husband would say nothing; usually, his head was buried inside a textbook.

  “Well,” Anne slowly started to point out, “it is within walking distance of campus. I’m sure that saves Charles on gas money, and you get to use the car to take Little Charles and Baby Walter…” - also known as Henry Walter, or Baby Henry depending on who was holding him - “…to appointments and Mommy and Me classes.”

  “I would rather have an SUV like I drove in high school.
”

  “Well,” Charles pointed out, “you did wreck it last year.”

  “Wait. What? Why am I just now hearing about this?” Anne asked, looking back and forth between Charles and Mary with concern. “Was anybody hurt?”

  “No,” he grumbled in response. “She had just dropped the kids off with my mom.”

  “I wish she wouldn’t give Little Charles so much sugar,” Mary grumbled under her breath.

  Nobody said anything. Charles had gone back to studying and Anne wondered how she had turned out to be as unspoiled as her siblings were spoiled.

  She would love to have a father-in-law as generous as Mr. Musgraves. After Mary had gotten pregnant, he had bought Charles and Mary this house so that Charles could continue with his studying without having to provide for a family. Everything was paid for by the Musgraves.

  Drawing in a deep breath, Anne prepared to announce her intentions for this visit. “Mary, Charles, I have some news.”

  Charles waved his hand distractedly, wordlessly urging her to continue.

  Mary, however, started to ramble off guesses before Anne could say anything else.

  “Mary!” Charles finally snapped, “if you would shut up for two minutes, Anne would be able to tell you what is going on.”

  Glowering at her husband, she dramatically clamped her mouth shut.

  “Father is filing for bankruptcy and is planning on using what is left in my college fund to pay off the mortgage he had taken out on Kellynch Place.”

  Plopping down on the sofa, Mary’s eyes widened comically. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Anne regretfully answered her. “In fact, he already withdrew all of my college funds and paid off the mortgage this morning.”

  That discovery had left her angry. Just because Mary and Elizabeth didn’t use their college funds for its intended purposes, didn’t mean that she hadn’t been using it to pay for her tuition. He’d even given them that money as soon as they’d shown no interest in college or, as with Mary, had gotten married.

  She even knew where Elizabeth’s money went. There were the new car and clothes – some which still hung in her closet with price tags still hanging on them. She was a bit bitter over that still.

  Mary’s money, however… Anne didn’t have a clue. She’d hoped that it was going towards Charles’ tuition, but it was also possible that Charles had managed to put some of it away in a rainy-day fund or in trust for the boys.

  But no. The responsible daughter gets shafted and has her college fund stolen from her.

  “What does that mean?” Charles asked.

  Biting her lower lip, Anne admitted that she had managed to get some financial aid information to pay for what her academic scholarship did not cover, but that still didn’t leave anything for her room and board. “I guess I’ll have to get a job and work. I also have to fill out the paperwork that the Financial Aid Office pointed me in the direction of when I went to visit them this morning.” She left out the part that she had went to the bank first but had been an hour too late.

  “That sounds dreadful,” Mary shuddered. “You’ll never catch me working.”

  Right at that moment Anne fully became aware of the disservice that her father and Mr. Musgraves did to Mary – and by extension Charles – by paying her way through life. At least Charles had a strong work ethic. She doubted that they would have ever been friends if he was as spoiled as her sisters.

  But Mary…

  Interrupting her thoughts, Charles asked, “Where are you going to live?”

  Anne shrugged, not saying anything for a few minutes. “I won’t have enough to cover the dorms and they want that money upfront. I guess I’ll have to find a roommate and rent out one of those cheap apartments on the other side of campus.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Mary jumped up, dramatically waving her arms around. “You are an Elliot and Elliots do not live in cheap apartments. What did Father and Elizabeth have to say about this plan?”

  “Father and Elizabeth have no say in the matter after they stole my college fund and started making plans to trot off to Florida to stay in the house down there!” Anne snapped. “You have no say where I’m living either since I’ll be paying for it.”

  Charles closed his book before dropping it down on the table. The loud thud caught the sisters’ attention and they both turned to look at him. For a moment, after studying Anne’s flushed and angry expression, he wondered where the calm and quiet Anne Elliot he’d known since sophomore year of high school was hiding. “Anne,” he carefully stated, “you will stay here in the attic room. That’s where you sleep when you stay over anyway.”

  “But your father…” she weakly protested. She didn’t dare share the real reason she was reluctant to ask to stay in their house.

  “My father loves you and won’t mind footing your room and board bill as soon as he finds out what happened.”

  “Oh!” Mary clapped her hands together, “That is a wonderful idea! And the children love you, Anne.” Visions of a live-in babysitter flashed through her mind, even if she didn’t express that thought aloud.

  “Then it’s settled,” Charles stated, opening his book back to the page he was studying. “Now, if I could actually pass my history class this year, I just might be able to graduate in the spring.”

  Anne looked back and forth between her sister and brother-in-law. Part of her felt bad because she hadn’t come over with the expectation of being offered a place to stay for almost a year. She just needed to tell Mary about what had happened with their father and explain why she wouldn’t be coming around that much anymore.

  But with Charles’ offer, she’d be able to fully focus on her classes and not worry about money. At least as much money as she would have before his offer.

  But with Charles’ offer, she would have to live with Mary, which was almost as bad as living with Elizabeth. If not worse.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Anne would be lying if she said that time passed by quickly as she knocked off items from her various to-do lists.

  Deposit the remainder of her college fund into her checking account that her father could not touch. Deposit the check that Aunt Cassandra had given her to help her out.

  Pack up the list of books Elizabeth wanted to be shipped to Florida. Books Anne was well aware that Elizabeth would not actually be reading and was for decorative purposes only.

  “Why can’t you just sell some of these?” Anne mumbled to herself as she packed away a hardback copy of Great Expectations. Elizabeth had never read that book; she’d dropped the class before they had even gotten around to that assigned reading.

  Although she silently admitted, the campus bookstore didn’t sell the hardback copies to their students. Shaking her head, she chalked it up to one more way that Elizabeth tried to show she was better than the others around her.

  “Let’s see how well you do without your personal trainer,” she grumbled as she tackled the next item on her list: packing up and shipping out Elizabeth’s clothes that had been – surprisingly – listed and sold on eBay.

  But at the same time, slowly taking the clothes out of Elizabeth’s closet was one small victory that she savored. “This would have gone much quicker if we could have had a yard sale,” she told the empty room. “Although that would have netted a lot less money.”

  Hours later found Anne on her computer filling out student loan information. “FAFSA, right,” she grumbled as she input vital piece of information after vital piece of information in hopes that she would be approved.

  “I might have to find a job anyway,” she whispered to herself.

  With that thought, she added one more thing to her to-do list.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  There were a few things that Anne was well aware of when it came to living with her sister and her brother-in-law.

  The silence that echoed through Kellynch Place was starting to wear on her sanity as she found herself talking to herself more and
more often than she felt was healthy. At least at Mary’s house, Anne could feel useful.

  “Are you sure it’s okay if I move in early?” she asked over the phone as she packed up yet another odd item on her list.

  “Anne,” Charles’ voice sounded over the speaker phone, “I’m surprised that you didn’t join us right after your father and Elizabeth left.”

  “There was a lot of stuff I had to do.”

  “Well, feel free to join us anytime,” he assured her. “Mary and the boys will be thrilled to see you.”

  “I still have to finish up some things, so I’ll be in and out all the time.”

  “You also need to get settled in before the Fall semester starts. I wish I could help you, but I have to take these summer classes to hopefully get back on track.”

  “You only missed one semester,” his sister-in-law reminded him. “How could we predict that Mary was going to have severe post-partum depression after Little Henry was born?”

  “Don’t you let Mary hear you calling him Henry,” Charles needlessly reminded her.

  “I know, I know. Around Mary, he’s Baby Walter,” Anne sighed. She felt bad for that kid for when he’d be old enough to decide what name he wanted to go by. “But his first name is still Henry.” And she didn’t want to point out that she had little faith in men named Walter at this current moment. “I’ll be by on Wednesday to get myself situated.”

  “I wish I could be there to help. I have class until noon and then I’m meeting my new history tutor so that maybe I can actually pass that class this time. He’s coming in for the day so he can get some scheduling issues sorted with his advisor and agreed to meet with me afterward. Those dates just get twisted together in my head and I need all the help I can get.”

  “At least you won’t have to deal with history when you start working at your father’s furniture store,” Anne reassured him. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  She didn’t want to admit that she’d lost some weight with all of the lifting and moving she’d been doing for the past six weeks. Well, her body was looking more toned than it had been, and her clothes fit a little differently, even if her clothing size hadn’t changed.