Captain Benwick and Louisa Musgrove!The high-spirited, joyous-talking Louisa Musgrove,and the dejected, thinking, feeling, reading,Captain Benwick, seemed each of them everything that would not suit the other.Their minds most dissimilar!Where could have been the attraction?The answer soon presented itself.It had been in situation.They had been thrown together several weeks;they had been living in the same small family party:since Henrietta’s coming away,they must have been depending almost entirely on each other,and Louisa, just recovering from illness,had been in an interesting state,and Captain Benwick was not inconsolable.That was a point which Anne had not been able to avoid suspecting before;and instead of drawing the same conclusion as Mary,from the present course of events,they served only to confirm the idea of his having felt some dawning of tenderness toward herself. She did not mean, however, to derive much more from it to gratify her vanity, than Mary might have allowed. She was persuaded that any tolerably pleasing young woman who had listened and seemed to feel for him would have received the same compliment. He had an affectionate heart. He must love somebody.
She saw no reason against their being happy.Louisa had fine naval fervour to begin with,and they would soon grow more alike.He would gain cheerfulness,and she would learn to be an enthusiast for Scott and Lord Byron;nay, that was probably learnt already;of course they had fallen in love over poetry.The idea of Louisa Musgrove turned into a person of literary taste,and sentimental reflection was amusing,but she had no doubt of its being so. The day at Lyme,the fall from the Cobb, might influence her health,her nerves, her courage,her character to the end of her life,as thoroughly as it appeared to have influenced her fate.
The conclusion of the whole was,that if the woman who had been sensible of Captain Wentworth’s merits could be allowed to prefer another man, there was nothing in the engagement to excite lasting wonder; and if Captain Wentworth lost no friend by it, certainly nothing to be regretted. No, it was not regret which made Anne’s heart beat in spite of herself, and brought the colour into her cheeks when she thought of Captain Wentworth unshackled and free. She had some feelings which she was ashamed to investigate. They were too much like joy, senseless joy!
She longed to see the Crofts;but when the meeting took place,it was evident that no rumour of the news had yet reached them.The visit of ceremony was paid and returned;and Louisa Musgrove was mentioned, and Captain Benwick,too, without even half a smile.
The Crofts had placed themselves in lodgings in Gay Street,perfectly to Sir Walter’s satisfaction.He was not at all ashamed of the acquaintance, and did,in fact, think and talk a great deal more about the Admiral,than the Admiral ever thought or talked about him.
The Crofts knew quite as many people in Bath as they wished for,and considered their intercourse with the Elliots as a mere matter of form,and not in the least likely to afford them any pleasure.They brought with them their country habit of being almost always together.He was ordered to walk to keep off the gout,and Mrs Croft seemed to go shares with him in everything,and to walk for her life to do him good.Anne saw them wherever she went.Lady Russell took her out in her carriage almost every morning,and she never failed to think of them,and never failed to see them.Knowing their feelings as she did,it was a most attractive picture of happiness to her.She always watched them as long as she could,delighted to fancy she understood what they might be talking of,as they walked along in happy independence,or equally delighted to see the Admiral’s hearty shake of the hand when he encountered an old friend, and observe their eagerness of conversation when occasionally forming into a little knot of the navy, Mrs Croft looking as intelligent and keen as any of the officers around her.
Anne was too much engaged with Lady Russell to be often walking herself;but it so happened that one morning,about a week or ten days after the Croft’s arrival,it suited her best to leave her friend,or her friend’s carriage,in the lower part of the town,and return alone to Camden Place,and in walking up Milsom Street she had the good fortune to meet with the Admiral. He was standing by himself at a printshop window, with his hands behind him, in earnest contemplation of some print, and she not only might have passed him unseen, but was obliged to touch as well as address him before she could catch his notice. When he did perceive and acknowledge her, however, it was done with all his usual frankness and good humour. “Ha!is it you?Thank you, thank you. This is treating me like a friend.Here I am, you see, staring at a picture.I can never get by this shop without stopping.But what a thing here is, by way of a boat!Do look at it. Did you ever see the like?What queer fellows your fine painters must be,to think that anybody would venture their lives in such a shapeless old cockleshell as that?And yet here are two gentlemen stuck up in it mightily at their ease,and looking about them at the rocks and mountains,as if they were not to be upset the next moment,which they certainly must be.I wonder where that boat was built!” (laughing heartily);“I would not venture over a horsepond in it. Well,” (turning away), “now, where are you bound?Can I go anywhere for you, or with you?Can I be of any use?”
“None, I thank you, unless you will give me the pleasure of your company the little way our road lies together. I am going home.”
“That I will, with all my heart, and farther, too. Yes,yes we will have a snug walk together,and I have something to tell you as we go along. There,take my arm; that’s right;I do not feel comfortable if I have not a woman there. Lord!what a boat it is!” taking a last look at the picture,as they began to be in motion.
“Did you say that you had something to tell me, sir?”
“Yes, I have, presently. But here comes a friend,Captain Brigden; I shall only say, ‘How d’ye do?’ as we pass, however. I shall not stop. ‘How d’ye do?’ Brigden stares to see anybody with me but my wife.She, poor soul, is tied by the leg.She has a blister on one of her heels,as large as a three-shilling piece.If you look across the street,you will see Admiral Brand coming down and his brother.Shabby fellows, both of them!I am glad they are not on this side of the way.Sophy cannot bear them.They played me a pitiful trick once:got away with some of my best men.I will tell you the whole story another time.There comes old Sir Archibald Drew and his grandson.Look, he sees us; he kisses his hand to you;he takes you for my wife. Ah!the peace has come too soon for that younker.Poor old Sir Archibald!How do you like Bath, Miss Elliot?It suits us very well.We are always meeting with some old friend or other;the streets full of them every morning;sure to have plenty of chat;and then we get away from them all,and shut ourselves in our lodgings,and draw in our chairs,and are as snug as if we were at Kellynch, ay,or as we used to be even at North Yarmouth and Deal.We do not like our lodgings here the worse,I can tell you, for putting us in mind of those we first had at North Yarmouth.The wind blows through one of the cupboards just in the same way. ”
When they were got a little farther,Anne ventured to press again for what he had to communicate.She hoped when clear of Milsom Street to have her curiosity gratified;but she was still obliged to wait,for the Admiral had made up his mind not to begin till they had gained the greater space and quiet of Belmont; and as she was not really Mrs Croft, she must let him have his own way. As soon as they were fairly ascending Belmont, he began—