Chapter Three #2
“Flirt with the young ladies half his age? Make you wish to hide behind the curtains? I shall tell you candidly, Anne, that my mother would have tried the very same stratagem! She once sent one of my sisters to visit a lady on horseback, knowing that it would rain, so that she might encounter her friend’s eligible brother when he returned home from a dinner engagement!
If you can keep my secret, I shall not tell anyone that your father can control the weather. ”
Anne let out a rueful laugh. “I am sure some others may comprehend his intentions. He wishes to have a son, you see.”
Elizabeth nearly snorted with laughter. “And now we come to my mother’s greatest shame – I am the second of five daughters, and no sons at all.”
Anne only grimaced; given Miss Elliot’s behavior, Elizabeth supposed Anne could not like the notion of four such persons.
But she could not account for why her friend should look so wretched; she was resolved to make her laugh at the absurdity.
“Nobody shall think any less of you for having one of two relations of whom you may sometimes be reasonably embarrassed.”
Fresh tears fell from Anne’s eyes. She started to reach for her face, but pressed her hands together in her lap. Elizabeth studied her for a moment, slowly realizing that there was more that troubled Anne than her father’s intrusion on the party.
“I was skeptical about accepting the invitation to this fête, I must confess it. You see, I am acquainted with the Gouldings’ relations in Meryton, and I am aware of the reputation these events have.
Our hostesses are apparently keen on inviting guests that have some prior acquaintance between them; I daresay they should find it endlessly diverting if someone I did not wish to see were to suddenly come amongst us. ”
Anne looked up sharply. “I did not know.”
“But there was somebody?”
Anne inclined her head. “Yes. We met many years ago, when I was eighteen. We were deeply attached, but my mother’s dearest friend counseled me against a match that would displease my father, and I was persuaded to give him up.
Now he has risen in the world, and I am a miserable spinster, past the bloom of youth and disparaged by my family.
I could not bear to meet his eye, just now.
Oh! If he supposes I knew of the reputation of such parties…
if he assumes I had hoped to meet with him again… .”
Elizabeth did not press her new friend to reveal the identity of her former beau, though her curiosity was piqued. More than anything, however, she wished to be of assistance. “What can I do? I would help you, if I can.”
Anne smiled through her tears, and appeared to consider this. “Speak to me, if he will not. Even before I knew he was here, I had some small fear that nobody would wish to speak to me, that I would have nothing to say. I cannot bear to feel alone in a room full of people.”
“Nor I,” Elizabeth agreed, though she never had. She felt herself singularly suited to the sort of aid her friend required, and assured Anne that she would not be idle or excluded so long as she was there to put her at ease.
“In truth, I may yet require the same from you, for I may yet find myself facing a gentleman I am not prepared to meet with again.”
Anne’s eyes widened. “I would not wish this misery on anybody.”
“Mine would be more deserved, I suppose. The gentleman I am loath to encounter, I refused but a month ago, and in the harshest terms you could imagine.”
“Why? Did your family disapprove?”
“Lord, no – my mother would have never ceased her triumphant crowing if I had accepted him. Quite the reverse. In matters of fortune and connection, he is vastly my superior, and he is certainly aware of the fact. He was very eloquent on that score when he asked for my hand, and so I took the liberty of equal candor in expressing my own sentiments. It is a great secret, of which only my sister Jane is aware. My mother would never forgive me for refusing him, even if she has called him the proudest and most disagreeable man she has ever met.”
Anne smiled wistfully. “I suppose it is easier to refuse a man when he is not kind and clever and handsome, and perfect in every way. You can have no regret, I suppose; I have little else.”
Elizabeth felt an unaccountable uneasiness churn in her gut, but she tamped it down and took Anne’s hand. “If you have any… lingering sentiments of hope, I would help you in that, too.”
Anne pressed Elizabeth’s hand before releasing it. “At present, I can only hope to make it through dinner. I hardly know what to expect – I dare not think of it.”
“Then do not trouble yourself. I will be your faithful companion this evening, and if you do not wake tomorrow feeling any better, I shall have to find ways to divert you. Jane will speak with you as much as you like, too, and Miss Smith seems amiable.”
Elizabeth kept her word. The two young ladies returned to the drawing room and fell into easy conversation with Colonel Brandon, who was soon after seated between them at dinner.
Elizabeth supposed he was not the gentleman who inspired so much regret in her friend, for he asked them both all the same questions one generally asks at the opening of an acquaintance.
He was gallant and attentive, in his mild mannered way, and this was enough to satisfy Elizabeth.
She had the added pleasure of seeing Jane happily conversing with Miss Smith and the two captains, though Lady Julia Bixler eventually managed to commandeer Captain Wentworth's attention. He looked vastly uncomfortable as he was drawn into Lady Julia’s clutches, and Jane occasionally betrayed her preference of speaking with him over Captain Benwick, but had clearly made a new friend in Miss Smith.
Elizabeth was equally content in her own new friendship, and she was struck by the notion that Anne had one possible admirer already. All in all, she thought the first night at Richmond Cove was a promising beginning.