Complete Works of Jane Austen

by Jane Austen

  It was in one of these short meetings, each apparently occupied in admiring a fine display of greenhouse plants, that she said —

  “I have been thinking over the past, and trying impartially to judge of the right and wrong, I mean with regard to myself; and I must believe that I was right, much as I suffered from it, that I was perfectly right in being guided by the friend whom you will love better than you do now. To me, she was in the place of a parent. Do not mistake me, however. I am not saying that she did not err in her advice. It was, perhaps, one of those cases in which advice is good or bad only as the event decides; and for myself, I certainly never should, in any circumstance of tolerable similarity, give such advice. But I mean, that I was right in submitting to her, and that if I had done otherwise, I should have suffered more in continuing the engagement than I did even in giving it up, because I should have suffered in my conscience. I have now, as far as such a sentiment is allowable in human nature, nothing to reproach myself with; and if I mistake not, a strong sense of duty is no bad part of a woman’s portion.”

  He looked at her, looked at Lady Russell, and looking again at her, replied, as if in cool deliberation —

  “Not yet. But there are hopes of her being forgiven in time. I trust to being in charity with her soon. But I too have been thinking over the past, and a question has suggested itself, whether there may not have been one person more my enemy even than that lady? My own self. Tell me if, when I returned to England in the year eight, with a few thousand pounds, and was posted into the Laconia, if I had then written to you, would you have answered my letter? Would you, in short, have renewed the engagement then?”

  “Would I!” was all her answer; but the accent was decisive enough.

  “Good God!” he cried, “you would! It is not that I did not think of it, or desire it, as what could alone crown all my other success; but I was proud, too proud to ask again. I did not understand you. I shut my eyes, and would not understand you, or do you justice. This is a recollection which ought to make me forgive every one sooner than myself. Six years of separation and suffering might have been spared. It is a sort of pain, too, which is new to me. I have been used to the gratification of believing myself to earn every blessing that I enjoyed. I have valued myself on honourable toils and just rewards. Like other great men under reverses,” he added, with a smile. “I must endeavour to subdue my mind to my fortune. I must learn to brook being happier than I deserve.”

  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 g
reat 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. His profession was all that could ever make her friends wish that tenderness less, the dread of a future war all that could dim her sunshine. 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.

  Finis

  LADY SUSAN

  Lady Susan is a short novel written in epistolary form during the early-mid 1790’s, when Austen was in her teenage years. She recopied the novel in 1805, but did not amend it or chose to publish the work during her lifetime. In 1871 James Edward Austen–Leigh, the author’s nephew, completed a biography of his aunt which included Lady Susan and fragments of other works. The novel is an interesting exception to Austen’s canon not only due to the epistolary style, but also because it centres on an almost wholly immoral character. Lady Susan is unlike any other Austen heroine; she is calculating, devious, selfish, deceitful, cold-hearted and manipulative. She is also depicted and revealed to be a cruel mother who treats her daughter with contempt and disdain. At the start of the book she is newly widowed and intent on attaining a wealthy husband for herself and also marrying off her daughter. When she arrives at her in-laws’ estate, she is already mired in scandal, with tales of her involvement with married men and attempts to seduce those bequeathed to others. When her sister-in-law’s brother, Reginald de Courcy, arrives at the estate, he is wary of Lady Susan and mistrustful of her. However, Susan prides herself on the ability to manipulate and entice those that are dismissive of her and so begins the many attempted deceptions and out manoeuvrings between Lady Susan and those around her.

  Austen certainly does not endorse Lady Susan’s behaviour, nor does she provide the happy ending reserved for the heroines of her six major novels. However, Susan’s fate is not as horrendous as might have been possible and the work also subtly exposes the limitations for women in a conservative, patriarchal society; even wealth does not offer any real independence or freedom.

  CONTENTS

  I. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. VERNON

  II. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

  III. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  IV. MR. DE COURCY TO MRS. VERNON

  V. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

  VI. MRS. VERNON TO MR. DE COURCY

  VII. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

  VIII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  IX. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY S. VERNON

  X. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XI. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  XII. SIR REGINALD DE COURCY TO HIS SON

  XIII. LADY DE COURCY TO MRS. VERNON

  XIV. MR. DE COURCY TO SIR REGINALD

  XV. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  XVI. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XVII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  XVIII. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

  XIX. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XX. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  XXI. MISS VERNON TO MR DE COURCY

  XXII. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XXIII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  XXIV. FROM THE SAME TO THE SAME

  XXV. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XXVI. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN

  XXVII. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  XXVIII. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN

  XXIX. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XXX. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. DE COURCY

  XXXI. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XXXII. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN

  XXXIII. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XXXIV. MR. DE COURCY TO LADY SUSAN

  XXXV. LADY SUSAN TO MR. DE COURCY

  XXXVI. MR. DE COURCY TO LADY SUSAN

  XXXVII. LADY SUSAN TO MR. DE COURCY

  XXXVIII. MRS. JOHNSON TO LADY SUSAN VERNON

  XXXIX. LADY SUSAN TO MRS. JOHNSON

  XL. LADY DE COURCY TO MRS. VERNON

  XLI. MRS. VERNON TO LADY DE COURCY

  CONCLUSION.

  I. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MR. VERNON

  Langford, Dec.

  MY DEAR BROTHER, — I can no longer refuse myself the pleasure of profiting by your kind invitation when we last parted of spending some weeks with you at Churchhill, and, therefore, if quite convenient to you and Mrs. Vernon to receive me at present, I shall hope within a few days to be introduced to a sister whom I have so long desired to be acquainted with. My kind friends here are most affectionately urgent with me to prolong my stay, but their hospitable and cheerful dispositions lead them too much into society for my present situation and state of mind; and I impatiently look forward to the hour when I shall be admitted into your delightful retirement.

  I long to be made known to your dear little children, in whose hearts I shall be very eager to secure an interest I shall soon have need for all my fortitude, as I am on the point of separation from my own daughter. The long illness of her dear father prevented my paying her that attention which duty and affection equally dictated, and I have too much reason to fear that the governess to whose care I consigned her was unequal to the charge. I have therefore resolved on placing her at one of the best private schools in town, where I shall have an opportunity of leaving her myself in my way to you. I am determined, you see, not to be denied admittance at Churchhill. It would indeed give me most painful sensations to know that it were not in your power to receive me.

  Your most obliged and affectionate sister,

  S. VERNON.

  II. LADY SUSAN VERNON TO MRS. JOHNSON

  Langford.

  You were mistaken,
my dear Alicia, in supposing me fixed at this place for the rest of the winter: it grieves me to say how greatly you were mistaken, for I have seldom spent three months more agreeably than those which have just flown away. At present, nothing goes smoothly; the females of the family are united against me. You foretold how it would be when I first came to Langford, and Mainwaring is so uncommonly pleasing that I was not without apprehensions for myself. I remember saying to myself, as I drove to the house, “I like this man, pray Heaven no harm come of it!” But I was determined to be discreet, to bear in mind my being only four months a widow, and to be as quiet as possible: and I have been so, my dear creature; I have admitted no one’s attentions but Mainwaring’s. I have avoided all general flirtation whatever; I have distinguished no creature besides, of all the numbers resorting hither, except Sir James Martin, on whom I bestowed a little notice, in order to detach him from Miss Mainwaring; but, if the world could know my motive THERE they would honour me. I have been called an unkind mother, but it was the sacred impulse of maternal affection, it was the advantage of my daughter that led me on; and if that daughter were not the greatest simpleton on earth, I might have been rewarded for my exertions as I ought.