Persuasion (The Wild and Wanton Edition)

by Micah Persell

  Chapter 24

  Who can be in doubt of what followed? When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other’s ultimate comfort. This may be bad morality to conclude with, but I believe it to be truth; and if such parties succeed, how should a Captain Wentworth and an Anne Elliot, with the advantage of maturity of mind, consciousness of right, and one independent fortune between them, fail of bearing down every opposition? They might in fact, have borne down a great deal more than they met with, for there was little to distress them beyond the want of graciousness and warmth. Sir Walter made no objection, and Elizabeth did nothing worse than look cold and unconcerned. Captain Wentworth, with five-and-twenty thousand pounds, and as high in his profession as merit and activity could place him, was no longer nobody. He was now esteemed quite worthy to address the daughter of a foolish, spendthrift baronet, who had not had principle or sense enough to maintain himself in the situation in which Providence had placed him, and who could give his daughter at present but a small part of the share of ten thousand pounds which must be hers hereafter.

  Sir Walter, indeed, though he had no affection for Anne, and no vanity flattered, to make him really happy on the occasion, was very far from thinking it a bad match for her. On the contrary, when he saw more of Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight, and eyed him well, he was very much struck by his personal claims, and felt that his superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced against her superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by his well-sounding name, enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen, with a very good grace, for the insertion of the marriage in the volume of honour.

  The only one among them, whose opposition of feeling could excite any serious anxiety was Lady Russell. Anne knew that Lady Russell must be suffering some pain in understanding and relinquishing Mr. Elliot, and be making some struggles to become truly acquainted with, and do justice to Captain Wentworth. This however was what Lady Russell had now to do. She must learn to feel that she had been mistaken with regard to both; that she had been unfairly influenced by appearances in each; that because Captain Wentworth’s manners had not suited her own ideas, she had been too quick in suspecting them to indicate a character of dangerous impetuosity; and that because Mr. Elliot’s manners had precisely pleased her in their propriety and correctness, their general politeness and suavity, she had been too quick in receiving them as the certain result of the most correct opinions and well-regulated mind. There was nothing less for Lady Russell to do, than to admit that she had been pretty completely wrong, and to take up a new set of opinions and of hopes.

  There is a quickness of perception in some, a nicety in the discernment of character, a natural penetration, in short, which no experience in others can equal, and Lady Russell had been less gifted in this part of understanding than her young friend. But she was a very good woman, and if her second object was to be sensible and well-judging, her first was to see Anne happy. She loved Anne better than she loved her own abilities; and when the awkwardness of the beginning was over, found little hardship in attaching herself as a mother to the man who was securing the happiness of her other child.

  Of all the family, Mary was probably the one most immediately gratified by the circumstance. It was creditable to have a sister married, and she might flatter herself with having been greatly instrumental to the connexion, by keeping Anne with her in the autumn; and as her own sister must be better than her husband’s sisters, it was very agreeable that Captain Wentworth should be a richer man than either Captain Benwick or Charles Hayter. She had something to suffer, perhaps, when they came into contact again, in seeing Anne restored to the rights of seniority, and the mistress of a very pretty landaulette; but she had a future to look forward to, of powerful consolation. Anne had no Uppercross Hall before her, no landed estate, no headship of a family; and if they could but keep Captain Wentworth from being made a baronet, she would not change situations with Anne.

  It would be well for the eldest sister if she were equally satisfied with her situation, for a change is not very probable there. She had soon the mortification of seeing Mr. Elliot withdraw, and no one of proper condition has since presented himself to raise even the unfounded hopes which sunk with him.

  The news of his cousin Anne’s engagement burst on Mr. Elliot most unexpectedly. It deranged his best plan of domestic happiness, his best hope of keeping Sir Walter single by the watchfulness which a son-in-law’s rights would have given. But, though discomfited and disappointed, he could still do something for his own interest and his own enjoyment. He soon quitted Bath; and on Mrs. Clay’s quitting it soon afterwards, and being next heard of as established under his protection in London, it was evident how double a game he had been playing, and how determined he was to save himself from being cut out by one artful woman, at least.

  Mrs. Clay’s affections had overpowered her interest, and she had sacrificed, for the young man’s sake, the possibility of scheming longer for Sir Walter. She has abilities, however, as well as affections; and it is now a doubtful point whether his cunning, or hers, may finally carry the day; whether, after preventing her from being the wife of Sir Walter, he may not be wheedled and caressed at last into making her the wife of Sir William.

  It cannot be doubted that Sir Walter and Elizabeth were shocked and mortified by the loss of their companion, and the discovery of their deception in her. They had their great cousins, to be sure, to resort to for comfort; but they must long feel that to flatter and follow others, without being flattered and followed in turn, is but a state of half enjoyment.

  Anne, satisfied at a very early period of Lady Russell’s meaning to love Captain Wentworth as she ought, had no other alloy to the happiness of her prospects than what arose from the consciousness of having no relations to bestow on him which a man of sense could value. There she felt her own inferiority very keenly. The disproportion in their fortune was nothing; it did not give her a moment’s regret; but to have no family to receive and estimate him properly, nothing of respectability, of harmony, of good will to offer in return for all the worth and all the prompt welcome which met her in his brothers and sisters, was a source of as lively pain as her mind could well be sensible of under circumstances of otherwise strong felicity. She had but two friends in the world to add to his list, Lady Russell and Mrs. Smith. To those, however, he was very well disposed to attach himself. Lady Russell, in spite of all her former transgressions, he could now value from his heart. While he was not obliged to say that he believed her to have been right in originally dividing them, he was ready to say almost everything else in her favour, and as for Mrs. Smith, she had claims of various kinds to recommend her quickly and permanently.

  Her recent good offices by Anne had been enough in themselves, and their marriage, instead of depriving her of one friend, secured her two. She was their earliest visitor in their settled life; and Captain Wentworth, by putting her in the way of recovering her husband’s property in the West Indies, by writing for her, acting for her, and seeing her through all the petty difficulties of the case with the activity and exertion of a fearless man and a determined friend, fully requited the services which she had rendered, or ever meant to render, to his wife.

  Mrs. Smith’s enjoyments were not spoiled by this improvement of income, with some improvement of health, and the acquisition of such friends to be often with, for her cheerfulness and mental alacrity did not fail her; and while these prime supplies of good remained, she might have bid defiance even to greater accessions of worldly prosperity. She might have been absolutely rich and perfectly healthy, and yet be happy. Her spring of felicity was in the glow of her spirits, as her friend Anne’s was in the warmth of her heart. Anne was tenderness itself, and she had the full worth of it in Captain Wentworth’s affection. She went with him wherever he went, on land and on sea. His profe
ssion was all that could ever make her friends wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim her sunshine, but she loved the water, and she loved travelling it with Frederick. As he came up behind her while she watched the setting sun from the deck of the ship, he wrapt his arms around her and splayed his hands across the swell of her belly that housed their growing child. He pressed a kiss to her neck, and Anne turned her face from the warmth of the sun to bask in the warmth of his love. She gloried in being a sailor’s wife, but she must pay the tax of quick alarm for belonging to that profession which is, if possible, more distinguished in its domestic virtues than in its national importance.

  More from This Author

  (From Of Consuming Fire)

  Dr. Grace Tucker pulled herself deeper into the corner and tucked her arms tighter around her unshapely belly. As her hands and arms touched her large middle, it repulsed her nearly as much as it seemed to repulse the opposite sex. No, there was no disappearing a plus-sized woman, but her sloppy appearance got most people to look away quickly, which was as close as Grace was ever going to get to being blessedly invisible.

  And, not for the first time, she desperately wished to be invisible.

  Grace huddled in the main room of the top-secret government facility where the Trees stood. As always, she ignored them. She was never awed by the ancient trees. She’d taken one cursory glance at their branches that most described as majestic. Their fruit — covered in glittering diamonds for the Tree of Eternal Life, swirling black and white for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil — was interesting only in that it loosely related to her work. She didn’t stand there and stare at them for hours as she was told was the expected behavior for new employees.

  And yet right now, Grace wasn’t the only one ignoring the Trees. The somber mood in the facility was nearly suffocating. Not one of the dozens of employees had spoken in hours. They moped from room to room, desk to desk, casting great, wide-eyed glances upon everyone they crossed. But that wasn’t the reason Grace retreated to the corner.

  They were touching one another.

  Any person they came into reaching distance with. A hand on the shoulder. A hug. A squeeze of the arm or lingering pat on the back.

  It was only a matter of time before one of them tried to touch her. And that simply was not going to work. End of story.

  And, so, she was in the closest thing to a corner the domed room provided.

  A young soldier in army fatigues walked by, and Grace went rigid, holding her breath until he passed.

  He didn’t once glance in her direction. Grace’s breath flew from her frozen lungs even as her heart seized at the casual snub. She hugged herself tighter as she cursed her weak emotions. Without fail, every time her carefully cultivated armor of acerbic wit and slovenly appearance actually worked as she’d meant it to by keeping others away, her irrational side would come up bruised, as though it didn’t know perfectly well the reasons human contact was not in Grace’s cards.

  She sighed almost silently, and forced herself to look cheerfully upon the fact that standing in the corner was working. She would make it through this. She would. It wouldn’t be like all of the other times. There would be no scene. No gut-wrenching screams shooting from her body without her control. No hysterical sobs. No sedation. No awkward return to work. No inevitable summons to the boss. No starting over with the knowledge that this was her life — on repeat.

  She closed her eyes. The sad truth was, this was her life. And right now, she was huddled in the corner, praying to be invisible, worrying with all of her strength that someone would touch her.

  But her friend’s impending death? Not even a blip on her emotional radar. Jericho Edwards was dying, and Grace was worried about herself.

  Jericho was everyone’s favorite, but for a reason Grace couldn’t explain, he was her favorite as well. It had been thirteen long years since Grace considered a man as anything other than something to be avoided at all costs. Thirteen years since Grace had carefully erected a wall around her heart. And yet, somehow, Jericho found his way around that wall the tiniest bit.

  It might have been the very obvious fact that Jericho would never, ever pose a threat to her. She’d known two seconds after being introduced to him that he was head over heels in love with someone: his Impulse mate, Dahlia. Jericho was nice to everyone, men and women alike. In fact, Grace had never met anyone so good.

  And he’d taken one look at her — her frumpy clothes, excess body weight, bird’s nest of red hair, black-rimmed glasses, and man-hating glare — and deemed her a friend, working tirelessly at cultivating a relationship with her when everyone else just avoided her.

  And now, he was dying. Worse, his survival depended upon Grace and Grace’s work.

  Three months and a week or so ago, Jericho cut his finger on the sword — the artifact that Grace was commissioned to work on. It was a flesh wound that should have healed in seconds given that Jericho, Dahlia, Eli, and Abilene were all immortal after eating the fruit from the Tree of Eternal Life. But the simple wound hadn’t healed. And things came to a head a few days ago when Jericho returned to the facility with his brand new wife, Dahlia. In the process of moving, Jericho managed to rip the tiny, unhealed wound wide open from the tip of his finger into his palm. It had been bleeding profusely ever since, and his body couldn’t keep up.

  And suddenly, Dr. Grace Tucker was very much in demand. She couldn’t count the number of times she had to remind them “I’m not that kind of doctor.” Their situation was so unique that her PhD in dead languages made her much more qualified to help Jericho than an MD would on its best day, but her work took more time than medication or surgery ever would.

  She’d made her breakthrough this morning.

  The ancient, dead language on the sword said What the Tree gives, the Sword takes. What the Sword takes, the Tree gives.

  At least, she was ninety-nine percent sure that’s what it said.

  Grace gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, and reassured herself that she was never wrong when it came to her work. Never. She was wrong when it came to everything else, but her work was infallible.

  That’s why she was here. She was the single most prestigious language expert in the world. And it was going to change her life. That was the plan. She’d worked hard to make sure no one noticed her. The weight she’d gained, the fashion-backward wardrobe, the overt hostility — when she couldn’t disappear into her surroundings, she kept people away with every weapon her extensive intelligence and vast vocabulary could come up with.

  But Grace’s secret dream was recognition. She just wanted it on her terms. She was going to make the discovery of all time with this sword. It was the work she’d been waiting for her entire career. And now it was here. And, as long as her translation was right, it was about to save one of only four immortal human beings on the planet.

  Career. Made.

  Everyone would know her name; everyone would know she was something. And the best part? She’d be absolutely untouchable in a way she could not dream of cultivating on her own. No one walked up to the winner of the Nobel Prize and gave them a hug. They got the recognition without all the messy social baggage associated with being members of the human race. They were members of a class considered above such things. And Grace couldn’t wait to be admitted into their ranks.

  Grace’s eyes snapped open when she heard the sharp clack of men’s shoes on the hard floor of the facility. Sergeant Collins was approaching.

  Grace shrank back further into her corner, her shoulders bending in on themselves, but it was too late: he was looking right at her, and double damn, he’d noticed she was trying to turn into wallpaper if the arch of one of his salt and pepper eyebrows was any indication.

  He stopped before her, and Grace couldn’t prevent the hitch in her breathing. Reaching distance. The man was within reaching distance. She bit her bottom lip to avoid a whimper.

  “Dr. Tucker?” Sergeant Collins asked in his sm
ooth, Southern whisky drawl. He then looked her over once more. His eyes softened. He took a step back and crossed his arms behind him, effecting “at ease” posture.

  Relief flooded through her so strongly it momentarily overshadowed the embarrassment she felt at having someone else recognize her reticence at human contact. But only momentarily. Damn it, why couldn’t she be normal?

  She straightened to her full height — a whole five feet five inches — and worked her hardest to look as un-crazy as possible. “What can I do for you, sir?” A lock of her frizzy, red hair fell over her glasses, blocking Sergeant Collins from sight. She shoved it out of the way, tucking it behind one of the pencils stuffed into her “style” of the day.

  “Nothing more than you’ve done, ma’am,” he said with polite distance. “I’ve come to report that your findings seem to be accurate.”

  Grace wanted to sag in relief, but was so wary of causing Sergeant Collins to think any less of her that she clenched her jaw and forced iron into her spine. No one would know how worried she’d been about her translation. She’d emit cool confidence all day long. Her “findings” included the recommendation that whatever damage the sword caused could be un-done by administering the fruit of the Tree of Eternal Life topically. They’d been forcing the fruit down Jericho’s throat for days to no effect. It was a nuance of the language that had given Grace the idea to apply the fruit to the site of Jericho’s wound.