The Annotated Persuasion

by Jane Austen

  “Mr. Elliot,” replied Mrs. Smith, “at that period of his life, had one object in view—to make his fortune, and by a rather quicker process than the law.37 He was determined to make it by marriage. He was determined, at least, not to mar it by an imprudent marriage; and I know it was his belief, (whether justly or not, of course I cannot decide) that your father and sister, in their civilities and invitations, were designing a match between the heir and the young lady; and it was impossible that such a match should have answered his ideas of wealth and independance.38 That was his motive for drawing back, I can assure you. He told me the whole story. He had no concealments with me. It was curious, that having just left you behind me in Bath, my first and principal acquaintance on marrying, should be your cousin; and that, through him, I should be continually hearing of your father and sister. He described one Miss Elliot, and I thought very affectionately of the other.”

  “Perhaps,” cried Anne, struck by a sudden idea, “you sometimes spoke of me to Mr. Elliot?”

  “To be sure I did, very often. I used to boast of my own Anne Elliot, and vouch for your being a very different creature from—”

  She checked herself just in time.39

  “This accounts for something which Mr. Elliot said last night,” cried Anne. “This explains it. I found he had been used to hear of me. I could not comprehend how. What wild imaginations one forms, where dear self is concerned! How sure to be mistaken! But I beg your pardon; I have interrupted you. Mr. Elliot married, then, completely for money? The circumstance, probably, which first opened your eyes to his character.”

  Mrs. Smith hesitated a little here. “Oh! those things are too common. When one lives in the world,40 a man or woman’s marrying for money is too common to strike one as it ought. I was very young, and associated only with the young, and we were a thoughtless, gay set, without any strict rules of conduct. We lived for enjoyment. I think differently now; time and sickness, and sorrow, have given me other notions; but, at that period, I must own I saw nothing reprehensible in what Mr. Elliot was doing. ‘To do the best for himself,’ passed as a duty.”

  “But was not she a very low41 woman?”

  “Yes; which I objected to, but he would not regard. Money, money, was all that he wanted. Her father was a grazier,42 her grandfather had been a butcher,43 but that was all nothing. She was a fine44 woman, had had a decent education, was brought forward by some cousins, thrown by chance into Mr. Elliot’s company,45 and fell in love with him; and not a difficulty or a scruple was there on his side, with respect to her birth. All his caution was spent in being secured of the real amount of her fortune, before he committed himself.46 Depend upon it, whatever esteem Mr. Elliot may have for his own situation in life now, as a young man he had not the smallest value for it. His chance of the Kellynch estate was something, but all the honour of the family he held as cheap as dirt. I have often heard him declare, that if baronetcies were saleable, any body should have his for fifty pounds, arms and motto, name and livery included;47 but I will not pretend to repeat half that I used to hear him say on that subject. It would not be fair. And yet you ought to have proof; for what is all this but assertion? and you shall have proof.”

  “Indeed, my dear Mrs. Smith, I want none,” cried Anne. “You have asserted nothing contradictory to what Mr. Elliot appeared to be some years ago. This is all in confirmation, rather, of what we used to hear and believe. I am more curious to know why he should be so different now?”

  “But for my satisfaction; if you will have the goodness to ring for Mary48—stay, I am sure you will have the still greater goodness of going yourself into my bed-room, and bringing me the small inlaid box49 which you will find on the upper shelf of the closet.”50

  Anne, seeing her friend to be earnestly bent on it, did as she was desired. The box was brought and placed before her, and Mrs. Smith, sighing over it as she unlocked it, said,

  “This is full of papers belonging to him, to my husband, a small portion only of what I had to look over when I lost him. The letter I am looking for, was one written by Mr. Elliot to him before our marriage, and happened to be saved; why, one can hardly imagine. But he was careless and immethodical, like other men, about those things;51 and when I came to examine his papers, I found it with others still more trivial from different people scattered here and there, while many letters and memorandums52 of real importance had been destroyed. Here it is. I would not burn it, because being even then very little satisfied with Mr. Elliot, I was determined to preserve every document of former intimacy. I have now another motive for being glad that I can produce it.”

  This was the letter, directed to “Charles Smith, Esq.53 Tunbridge Wells,”54 and dated from London, as far back as July, 1803.

  “Dear Smith,

  “I have received yours. Your kindness almost overpowers me. I wish nature had made such hearts as yours more common, but I have lived three and twenty years in the world, and have seen none like it. At present, believe me, I have no need of your services, being in cash again.55 Give me joy: I have got rid of Sir Walter and Miss.56 They are gone back to Kellynch, and almost made me swear to visit them this summer, but my first visit to Kellynch will be with a surveyor,57 to tell me how to bring it with best advantage to the hammer.58 The baronet, nevertheless, is not unlikely to marry again; he is quite fool enough. If he does, however, they will leave me in peace, which may be a decent equivalent for the reversion.59 He is worse than last year.

  “I wish I had any name but Elliot. I am sick of it. The name of Walter I can drop, thank God! and I desire you will never insult me with my second W. again, meaning, for the rest of my life, to be only yours truly,

  WM. ELLIOT.”60

  Such a letter could not be read without putting Anne in a glow; and Mrs. Smith, observing the high colour in her face, said,

  “The language, I know, is highly disrespectful. Though I have forgot the exact terms, I have a perfect impression of the general meaning. But it shews you the man. Mark his professions to my poor husband. Can any thing be stronger?”61

  Anne could not immediately get over the shock and mortification of finding such words applied to her father.62 She was obliged to recollect that her seeing the letter was a violation of the laws of honour,63 that no one ought to be judged or to be known by such testimonies, that no private correspondence could bear the eye of others, before she could recover calmness enough to return the letter which she had been meditating over, and say,

  “Thank you. This is full proof undoubtedly, proof of every thing you were saying. But why be acquainted with us now?”

  “I can explain this too,” cried Mrs. Smith, smiling.

  “Can you really?”

  “Yes. I have shewn you Mr. Elliot, as he was a dozen years ago, and I will shew him as he is now. I cannot produce written proof again, but I can give as authentic oral testimony as you can desire, of what he is now wanting, and what he is now doing. He is no hypocrite now. He truly wants to marry you. His present attentions to your family are very sincere, quite from the heart. I will give you my authority; his friend Colonel Wallis.”

  “Colonel Wallis! are you acquainted with him?”

  “No. It does not come to me in quite so direct a line as that; it takes a bend or two, but nothing of consequence. The stream is as good as at first; the little rubbish it collects in the turnings, is easily moved away. Mr. Elliot talks unreservedly to Colonel Wallis of his views on you—which said Colonel Wallis I imagine to be in himself a sensible, careful, discerning sort of character; but Colonel Wallis has a very pretty silly wife, to whom he tells things which he had better not, and he repeats it all to her. She, in the overflowing spirits of her recovery,64 repeats it all to her nurse;65 and the nurse, knowing my acquaintance with you, very naturally brings it all to me. On Monday evening my good friend Mrs. Rooke let me thus much into the secrets of Marlborough-buildings. When I talked of a whole history therefore, you see, I was not romancing66 so much as you supposed.”


  “My dear Mrs. Smith, your authority is deficient. This will not do. Mr. Elliot’s having any views on me will not in the least account for the efforts he made towards a reconciliation with my father. That was all prior to my coming to Bath. I found them on the most friendly terms when I arrived.”

  “I know you did; I know it all perfectly, but—”

  “Indeed, Mrs. Smith, we must not expect to get real information in such a line. Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.”

  “Only give me a hearing. You will soon be able to judge of the general credit due, by listening to some particulars which you can yourself immediately contradict or confirm. Nobody supposes that you were his first inducement. He had seen you indeed, before he came to Bath and admired you, but without knowing it to be you. So says my historian at least. Is this true? Did he see you last summer or autumn, ‘somewhere down in the west,’ to use her own words, without knowing it to be you?”

  “He certainly did. So far it is very true. At Lyme; I happened to be at Lyme.”

  “Well,” continued Mrs. Smith triumphantly, “grant my friend the credit due to the establishment of the first point asserted. He saw you then at Lyme, and liked you so well as to be exceedingly pleased to meet with you again in Camden-place, as Miss Anne Elliot, and from that moment, I have no doubt, had a double motive in his visits there. But there was another, and an earlier; which I will now explain. If there is any thing in my story which you know to be either false or improbable, stop me. My account states, that your sister’s friend, the lady now staying with you, whom I have heard you mention, came to Bath with Miss Elliot and Sir Walter as long ago as September, (in short when they first came themselves) and has been staying there ever since; that she is a clever, insinuating, handsome woman, poor and plausible,67 and altogether such in situation68 and manner,69 as to give a general idea among Sir Walter’s acquaintance, of her meaning to be Lady Elliot, and as general a surprise that Miss Elliot should be apparently blind to the danger.”70

  Here Mrs. Smith paused a moment; but Anne had not a word to say, and she continued,

  “This was the light in which it appeared to those who knew the family, long before your return to it; and Colonel Wallis had his eye upon your father enough to be sensible71 of it, though he did not then visit in Camden-place; but his regard for Mr. Elliot gave him an interest in watching all that was going on there,72 and when Mr. Elliot came to Bath for a day or two, as he happened to do a little before Christmas,73 Colonel Wallis made him acquainted with the appearance of things, and the reports beginning to prevail.—Now you are to understand that time had worked a very material change in Mr. Elliot’s opinions as to the value of a baronetcy. Upon all points of blood and connexion, he is a completely altered man. Having long had as much money as he could spend, nothing to wish for on the side of avarice or indulgence, he has been gradually learning to pin his happiness upon the consequence74 he is heir to. I thought it coming on, before our acquaintance ceased, but it is now a confirmed feeling. He cannot bear the idea of not being Sir William. You may guess therefore that the news he heard from his friend, could not be very agreeable, and you may guess what it produced; the resolution of coming back to Bath as soon as possible, and of fixing75 himself here for a time, with the view of renewing his former acquaintance and recovering such a footing in the family, as might give him the means of ascertaining the degree of his danger, and of circumventing the lady if he found it material.76 This was agreed upon between the two friends, as the only thing to be done; and Colonel Wallis was to assist in every way that he could. He was to be introduced, and Mrs. Wallis was to be introduced, and every body was to be introduced.77 Mr. Elliot came back accordingly; and on application was forgiven, as you know, and re-admitted into the family; and there it was his constant object, and his only object (till your arrival added another motive) to watch Sir Walter and Mrs. Clay. He omitted no opportunity of being with them, threw himself in their way, called at all hours—but I need not be particular on this subject. You can imagine what an artful man would do; and with this guide, perhaps, may recollect what you have seen him do.”

  “Yes,” said Anne, “you tell me nothing which does not accord with what I have known, or could imagine. There is always something offensive in the details of cunning. The manœuvres of selfishness and duplicity must ever be revolting, but I have heard nothing which really surprises me. I know those who would be shocked by such a representation of Mr. Elliot, who would have difficulty in believing it; but I have never been satisfied. I have always wanted some other motive for his conduct than appeared.—I should like to know his present opinion, as to the probability of the event he has been in dread of; whether he considers the danger to be lessening or not.”

  “Lessening, I understand,” replied Mrs. Smith. “He thinks Mrs. Clay afraid of him, aware that he sees through her, and not daring to proceed as she might do in his absence. But since he must be absent some time or other, I do not perceive how he can ever be secure, while she holds her present influence. Mrs. Wallis has an amusing idea, as nurse tells me, that it is to be put into the marriage articles78 when you and Mr. Elliot marry, that your father is not to marry Mrs. Clay. A scheme, worthy of Mrs. Wallis’s understanding, by all accounts; but my sensible nurse Rooke sees the absurdity of it.—“Why, to be sure, ma’am,” said she, “it would not prevent his marrying any body else.” And indeed, to own the truth, I do not think nurse in her heart is a very strenuous opposer of Sir Walter’s making a second match. She must be allowed to be a favourer of matrimony you know, and (since self will intrude) who can say that she may not have some flying visions of attending the next Lady Elliot, through Mrs. Wallis’s recommendation?”79

  “I am very glad to know all this,” said Anne, after a little thoughtfulness. “It will be more painful to me in some respects to be in company with him, but I shall know better what to do. My line of conduct will be more direct. Mr. Elliot is evidently a disingenuous, artificial, worldly80 man, who has never had any better principle to guide him than selfishness.”

  But Mr. Elliot was not yet done with. Mrs. Smith had been carried away from her first direction,81 and Anne had forgotten, in the interest of her own family concerns, how much had been originally implied against him; but her attention was now called to the explanation of those first hints, and she listened to a recital which, if it did not perfectly justify the unqualified bitterness of Mrs. Smith, proved him to have been very unfeeling in his conduct towards her, very deficient both in justice and compassion.

  She learned that (the intimacy between them continuing unimpaired by Mr. Elliot’s marriage) they had been as before always together, and Mr. Elliot had led his friend into expenses much beyond his fortune.82 Mrs. Smith did not want to take blame to herself, and was most tender of throwing any on her husband; but Anne could collect83 that their income had never been equal to their style of living, and that from the first, there had been a great deal of general and joint extravagance.84 From his wife’s account of him, she could discern Mr. Smith to have been a man of warm feelings, easy temper,85 careless habits, and not strong understanding,86 much more amiable87 than his friend, and very unlike him—led by him, and probably despised by him.88 Mr. Elliot, raised by his marriage to great affluence, and disposed to every gratification of pleasure and vanity which could be commanded without involving89 himself, (for with all his self-indulgence he had become a prudent man) and beginning to be rich, just as his friend ought to have found himself to be poor,90 seemed to have had no concern at all for that friend’s probable finances, but, on the contrary, had been prompting and encouraging expenses, which could end only in ruin.91 And the Smiths accordingly had been ruined.

  The husband had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of it. They had previously known embarrassments92 enough to try the friendship of their friends, and to prove that Mr. Elliot’s had better no
t be tried; but it was not till his death that the wretched state of his affairs was fully known. With a confidence in Mr. Elliot’s regard, more creditable to his feelings than his judgment, Mr. Smith had appointed him the executor of his will;93 but Mr. Elliot would not act, and the difficulties and distresses which this refusal had heaped on her, in addition to the inevitable sufferings of her situation,94 had been such as could not be related without anguish of spirit, or listened to without corresponding indignation.

  Anne was shewn some letters of his on the occasion, answers to urgent applications from Mrs. Smith, which all breathed the same stern resolution of not engaging in a fruitless trouble, and, under a cold civility, the same hard-hearted indifference to any of the evils it might bring on her. It was a dreadful picture of ingratitude and inhumanity; and Anne felt at some moments, that no flagrant open crime could have been worse. She had a great deal to listen to; all the particulars of past sad scenes, all the minutiæ of distress upon distress, which in former conversations had been merely hinted at, were dwelt on now with a natural indulgence. Anne could perfectly comprehend the exquisite relief, and was only the more inclined to wonder at the composure of her friend’s usual state of mind.

  There was one circumstance in the history of her grievances of particular irritation. She had good reason to believe that some property of her husband in the West Indies,95 which had been for many years under a sort of sequestration96 for the payment of its own incumbrances,97 might be recoverable by proper measures; and this property, though not large, would be enough to make her comparatively rich. But there was nobody to stir in it. Mr. Elliot would do nothing, and she could do nothing herself, equally disabled from personal exertion by her state of bodily weakness,98 and from employing others by her want of money.99 She had no natural connexions100 to assist her even with their counsel, and she could not afford to purchase the assistance of the law. This was a cruel aggravation of actually streightened means.101 To feel that she ought to be in better circumstances, that a little trouble in the right place might do it, and to fear that delay might be even weakening her claims, was hard to bear!