by Paul Butler
The wind was chilly now and I felt unprotected. Without its mentoring fire a spark will die. I knew my days of special errands were coming to an end. But one thing hadn’t changed; I still needed to find Elsie.
14. MRS. SMITH
THE MORE PRECARIOUS THE BUSINESS one is engaged in, the more careful one must be with one’s associates. And Plato, dear boy that he was, had become a worry even before he went so far as to threaten me. It was my fault for letting it build up the way it did, I readily concede as much. I had long adhered to the golden rule not to barter. I paid everyone, Plato included, in shillings and sovereigns. Knowledge was never for sale. Knowledge was exclusively mine to own. Yet I had allowed Plato to insinuate himself into my investment, and this mistake had become a most unfortunate lesson. He had become angry, of course, when I failed to procure the information he required. Why would he not? It was, after all, the payment upon which I had, with reluctance, agreed. The question now was who should pay for Plato’s anger. The answer was clear enough to me. Is it not, after all, the fate of the foot soldier to perish when the strategy of the general demands it? Poor Plato, I thought. The moment he left the room, Nurse Rooke entered to give me news of Captain Wentworth’s approach. The more difficult the decision, I always believe, the more dangerous the delay. I gave the order regarding Plato straightaway; it was time to call upon Henry.
What an eventful morning this was turning out to be. Captain Wentworth’s sturdy tread upon the landing followed Nurse Rooke’s departure. I took up some work, this time choosing the cross-stitch of the rural idyll. The knock came. “Yes,” I replied, wanly, levelling the cross-stitch frame upon my knee, “please come in.”
And in he came, ruddy-faced, breathless, his eyes rather wild. I laid my cross-stich aside and smiled. “My dear Captain Wentworth!” I gave it a moment, pretended to examine him closely, then allowed concern to come into my face. “Is anything wrong?”
He took another step into the room. “Everything is wrong, I fear, Mrs. Smith.”
“Please,” I said, gesturing for him to sit. “Is it Anne?”
“No.” He collected himself at this, and taking the opposite chair, he put his fist to his mouth and gave one sharp gasp. “Anne is well. The problem is Oliver Mason.” His eyes met mine for a moment, and as though forcing himself to be methodical, he crossed his legs and began to lay out the issue before me:
“Mason has written to me, as we had hoped.” He raised his eyebrows ironically at the word ‘hoped.’ “But it is not as we had hoped. Not at all. His letter is hurt and angry. And worse, he is going to come to the wedding. He may be here as early as tomorrow.”
“I see,” I said slowly. “Can you give me some sense of what is in the letter, so I may better advise you how to proceed?”
He gave a short, bitter laugh. I wondered for a moment whether he was mocking the idea of taking my advice, which would not have been good. “It is as bad as can possibly be imagined, Mrs. Smith. It is a thing of accusations and recriminations, of recalling times…” he looked to the floor now and his lips seemed unnaturally white, “…the times we spent together. He doubts, in the boldest of terms, that I could feel any of the regard for Anne that I pretend.” He drew his hand in front of his face again as though ashamed to show himself, and for the moment he paused.
“And, yet, Captain Wentworth, he is coming to the wedding?”
He leaned over in this chair, holding his hands like a steeple between his legs. “Yes,” he choked.
This was a combination of circumstances I had not quite foreseen — that the letter should be so intemperate and that he should also agree to come. The first of these occurrences alone would have been perfection. The main object for this meeting, of course, was still the same. I had heard the faint rustle of paper as he sat, and saw the way his right hand avoided hanging straight against his side; it was clearly avoiding some danger tucked inside his pocket.
“Captain Wentworth, I am so very sorry. Sorry that this event should have cast a cloud over a time that ought to belong to happiness and confidence, and sorry indeed that my imperfect advice may have swayed you in such a direction as to bring about this misfortune.”
He breathed in sharply, looked down at those steepled hands, and let the breath out just as suddenly. I was touched to see my words had brought tears to his eyes. “It is not your fault,” he said through gritted teeth. “I should have told you everything without coyness or reserve.”
Here was a rare opportunity; I could bind him to me now with a loyalty of steel. “No, Captain Wentworth. No,” I said bending towards him as far as my supposed infirmity might allow. I reached out with my hand until my fingers touched his. “You mustn’t say such a thing. Ever! Every man on earth is entitled to his privacy. Every man is entitled also to expect discretion from his peers and colleagues.”
He looked up at me with an expression that seemed to mix amazement with a kind of desperate pleading. One lone tear ran down his cheek unchecked by the hands onto which I now gripped. I gave them a squeeze now, and let him root for his handkerchief and dry his face while I looked to the window. “The world, dear Captain Wentworth, is so much more complex than we like to think it. Nobody is beyond temptation and nobody beyond reproach. You are a good man, a brave man, and you deserve the love you have gained. You must never forget it.”
“Dear Mrs. Smith,” came his next words, muffled by the handkerchief. “I can see why Anne should be so very fond of you.”
I smiled and looked to the floor for the moment as if reflecting.
“But what … what on earth am I to do?”
I looked into his eyes directly now. His right hand seemed to twitch towards his pocket. I titled my head and slowly held out my open hand. He nodded, drew out the letter, a thick clump of folded paper, and he handed it to me. I opened it out to find the letter’s thickness was merely all illusion created by the high grade bond; it was merely one sheet overrunning two sides. The style of the hand was rather loopy and undisciplined. I read once, with Captain Wentworth’s eyes upon me, and then I read it again.
The Captain, I saw, had not been exaggerating. The sentiments on those two sides comprised the most unruly and desperate of passions imaginable. “‘Music to the heavens,’” I said out loud, in the tones of disbelief. “He thinks his purpose is to dissuade you.”
“Yes,” said Captain Wentworth.
It was indeed the most damning piece of penmanship I had ever seen. My eyes ran on again to the “soul to soul confessions” the “loves” and “hopes.” This was a world of decadence among the young nobility of England of which I had heard reports, but which I had never encountered with such startling evidence, and never from an officer of the Royal Navy.
“Do you expect me to come and stand by idly…” I said out loud again as though weighing the words. I caught his pained look as I glanced up at him, and I tried to rearrange my features into an expression of compassion. For the first time in many years, in fact, a kind of panic fluttered in my chest. It seemed, for once, I had been too successful. I had needed something to keep Captain Wentworth in suspense and discomfort, but I had not needed this. I had wished for a single cannon but had received a fully armed frigate. I felt, in short, out of my depth. Still, I had an objective this morning, and this had not changed.
I dropped the paper onto my lap. “Where do you plan to keep this letter?”
“Keep it? I cannot bear to think of it existing anywhere near me.”
My hands hovered over the paper. I had to be careful; I had to not seem too eager. “You planned to destroy it perhaps?”
“Yes.” He gazed at it, face half averted as one might look upon a live cobra.
“I wouldn’t do that, Captain Wentworth.”
“Why?” His face crumpled into a mask of anguish.
“At least not before we’ve thought about the problem and examined it from every vantage point.
It is quite possible, for instance, the very intemperance of the contents may one day be used to discredit the accuracy of the facts that are claimed herein.”
His fingers curled into a fist but he seemed to sag at the news. “I should keep it then,” he sighed, eyes dancing somewhat desperately about my floor.
“As an insurance policy of sorts, until we are through the crisis.” I paused. “But I can see, Captain,” I added softly, “you would not want such a document with you.”
His eyes brightened straightaway. Not for the first time I wondered at my extraordinary luck in having such a malleable subject in Captain Wentworth. His character was so open, so trusting and reliable, he could not even conceive of a personality whose motives might be murky and veiled. One hardly had to strategize with Captain Wentworth; one just thought a thing and he obligingly capitulated with hardly an awkward question. I felt delighted at the direction this interview was taking, yet, for reasons it took a moment to understand, I was also rather sad. At some point in our relationship, perhaps in the not too distant future, I would have to reveal to him that I was not a reliable friend, after all. How would he look upon me when that moment came? It seemed like an eternal question. Mankind is always plagued by the transience of its victories. We cling to our joys with such fierceness because we know they cannot last.
I hesitated, or pretended to, fingertips skimming the letter’s upturned corners. “If you wish, Captain Wentworth, if you desire, I could place it in my own safe deposit box.”
“You would do that?” he said eagerly.
I was distracted suddenly by footsteps on the staircase below us. They were too light for Nurse Rooke but they were ascending. “Very gladly for you, Captain Wentworth,” I said folding the letter. The task for the morning — ignoring for the moment the very real problem of Oliver Mason — had been accomplished, and the important thing now was not to mar these gains by being either too eager to end the meeting or too quick to put away the letter. Someone was indeed coming to see me and they must not encounter any sense of fluster or embarrassment.
Captain Wentworth was preparing to rise. He froze suddenly, as he knew he would, when the knock came on my door.
“Come in, please,” I called straightaway.
Experience had long ago warned me against any pause in welcoming a visitor when a man and woman were together, regardless of how respectable their circumstances. Any silence, any hint of a shifting of furniture or a hasty exchange would be quite fatal to a mind with even the merest hint of suspicion about it. The lesson also extended to secrets of a more obscure nature. Despite Captain Wentworth’s darting stare in its direction, the letter would remain exactly where it was, folded upon my knee, far corner rising slightly under the influence of the warm gusts from the fire.
The smile with which I greeted my visitor was as much for Captain Wentworth’s benefit as for the visitor. Under cannon fire I was sure that the Captain knew how to remain the very picture of decisiveness and composure. But this was quite different. Here I was the officer in charge and I needed to convey to him that of all the enemies to be feared, fear itself stood alone in the perfidiousness of its nature: the visitor, smiling with a rare delight at seeing us both together, was Anne Elliot.
Captain Wentworth remained in his seat as though his lover’s entry had turned him to stone. Anne looked at him with a special kind of affection — not noticing, it seemed, the crimson hue growing upon his cheek — and then turned with almost as much warmth to me before crossing the floor and taking my outstretched hand.
The letter, as I moved, nudged itself along the fabric of my dress but did not seem in immediate danger of falling, but Captain Wentworth, perhaps sensing this danger, now bolted straight upright.
“Dear Anne,” I said calmly, “your Captain Wentworth is an angel of mercy indeed!” I let the comment hang while Anne, still holding my hand, turned briefly to her betrothed then back again. If she noticed how stiff and unyielding was his posture or how alert and unsmiling his expression, her smile gave no indication of it. “Your fiancé has been helping me with my correspondence with the West Indies.”
Only now did I take the letter in my free hand. I hoped that the combination of my fingers obscuring the text and Anne’s discretion in not looking too closely would ensure that nothing of Oliver Mason’s eccentric, looping hand could contradict the stated subject or the purpose of the letter. It seemed we were in luck. Anne’s features seemed to melt at this news, her smile waning into an almost painful knowledge of the Captain’s warm heart. I even saw the beginnings of a tear.
Captain Wentworth moved away from his chair now.
“Please,” I said to Anne indicating the vacancy. Anne backed away and as she sat down raised her hand, touching the fingers of her fiancé whose gaze still swam blindly around the room. While she squeezed his fingers playfully as though to bring him back to himself, I took the opportunity to slide the letter partly under my skirts, though I made sure — so the action could not seem at all suspicious — that a section of it was still in view.
“Is it not a curious thing, Adeline,” Anne said with a rare touch of mischief, “that when a man is seen performing a kindly act, he is all awkwardness and agitation? It is as though he has been caught doing something shameful.”
“Indeed, Anne, it is because they spend so much time hiding their softer emotions for fear of ridicule. But in Captain Wentworth’s case I am sure no one would ever consider him a subject for anything but the most sincere respect.”
Captain Wentworth’s colour was thankfully returning to normal. He looked down at Anne, managing a smile that slowly lost some of its tightness under her gaze.
“I believe you are right, Adeline, and I thank you on Frederick’s behalf as I know he is quite unable to take any compliment.”
“It is true,” said the Captain, lines of past laughter showing near his eyes. “Years at sea in the company of men have made me rough mannered and ill-suited to any type of civilized conversation.” At last, I thought, he was returning to himself; a slight bow as he concluded his speech underlined his playfulness.
“Now, Frederick,” laughed Anne, “it is you who are teasing us! And it is not fair because I was having such fun with your discomfort.”
“I am glad to be of service,” he said with gentle sarcasm.
She smiled up at him for a moment longer, then seemed to remember herself. “But Frederick, I came to find you in a hurry. You must forgive me, Adeline, but we have all been searching for him — the Admiral and Mrs. Croft, and the Harvilles — and then someone mentioned seeing you on your way to Westgate Buildings and it occurred to me you might be here.” She suppressed a rather proud smile.
I guessed from the happy fluster of her manner that the emergency was not too grave in nature. Captain Wentworth waited for the news calmly, his hands locked behind his back in the stoic attitude I had seen in sea captains before.
“It is your chief groomsman, Frederick — Captain Mason — he arrived in Bath this morning, very soon after you left the house. The Harvilles and the Crofts have been thrown into a frenzy of organization to accommodate him.”
One of the Captain’s hands became detached from the other. He leaned forward slightly as though attending carefully to Anne’s words. There were, as yet, no signs of panic.
“Accommodate him?” he repeated hoarsely.
“Yes, Frederick, it has been contrived to create a room for him in your own lodgings.” She turned now to me. “The Crofts have very kindly given up a bed chamber on Frederick’s floor. I believe that on a previous visit, when the Harvilles had stayed in Bath, the room in question had been used by Captain Harville’s dear sister, Fanny.”
I kept my gaze steady upon her and showed in my expression a degree of sympathy natural for the loss of one who was universally admired yet not known to myself. I had sensed the fresh beginnings of a twitchy unrest from Captain Wentwor
th which made it all the more important that my own manner be entirely calm.
“How lucky it is to have friends like the Harvilles,” I said quietly, “and how deserved!”
“Indeed,” said Anne with much warmth. “They were so struck by Captain Mason’s eagerness to get here that Mrs. Harville and Jenny prepared the room immediately. It seemed the poor Captain had travelled through the night and arrived quite exhausted. Frederick—” Anne said, suddenly turning to her intended. “You did not tell me Captain Mason had confirmed he was able to come.”
Captain Wentworth seemed lost. He gazed at her blankly, then looked at me, eyes betraying a fear which seemed to increase with each moment. Then, even more damagingly, he looked towards my skirts and to the strip of letter still showing.
“We were just talking about Captain Mason,” I said. “It seems he has answered after all, but in action rather than words.”
He hesitated, seemed to move his lips, and then managed: “Yes, yes, it does.” Then, with rather forceful animation, he looked down upon Anne. “Have you seen him? Have you met him yourself?”
“No,” said Anne, furrows appearing on her brow. Finally, a touch of curiosity mixed with her good humour. “Mrs. Harville caught me on the street and told me about it. Captain Mason himself, I believe, is too fatigued to meet anyone at present.” Then her smile returned, more brightly than before. “But we shall all meet tonight,” she said. “The Harvilles are arranging a dinner for everyone, including Captain Mason.”
“I see,” said Captain Wentworth, straightening. His manner was as one would expect from an officer who had just heard news of an enemy ship approaching.
“But this was kind of the Harvilles, Frederick.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” he said putting a hand upon the back of her chair, trying to affect a more casual air. “I must thank them heartily.”
“And you must also rush back to your lodgings to greet your old friend, Captain Mason,” Anne said.
