There was so much attachment to Captain Wentworth in all this,and such a bewitching charm in a degree of hospitality so uncommon,so unlike the usual style of give-and-take invitations,and dinners of formality and display,that Anne felt her spirits not likely to be benefited by an increasing acquaintance among his brother-officers. “These would have been all my friends,” was her thought; and she had to struggle against a great tendency to lowness.
On quitting the Cobb,they all went in-doors with their new friends,and found rooms so small as none but those who invite from the heart could think capable of accommodating so many. Anne had a moment’s astonishment on the subject herself; but it was soon lost in the pleasanter feelings which sprang from the sight of all the ingenious contrivances and nice arrangements of Captain Harville, to turn the actual space to the best account, to supply the deficiencies of lodging-house furniture, and defend the windows and doors against the winter storms to be expected. The varieties in the fitting-up of the rooms, where the common necessaries provided by the owner, in the common indifferent plight, were contrasted with some few articles of a rare species of wood, excellently worked up, and with something curious and valuable from all the distant countries Captain Harville had visited, were more than amusing to Anne; connected as it all was with his profession, the fruit of its labours, the effect of its influence on his habits, the picture of repose and domestic happiness it presented, made it to her a something more, or less, than gratification.
Captain Harville was no reader;but he had contrived excellent accommodations,and fashioned very pretty shelves,for a tolerable collection of well-bound volumes,the property of Captain Benwick.His lameness prevented him from taking much exercise;but a mind of usefulness and ingenuity seemed to furnish him with constant employment within. He drew, he varnished, he carpentered, he glued; he made toys for the children; he fashioned new netting-needles and pins with improvements; and if everything else was done, sat down to his large fishing-net at one corner of the room.
Anne thought she left great happiness behind her when they quitted the house;and Louisa, by whom she found herself walking,burst forth into raptures of admiration and delight on the character of the navy; their friendliness, their brotherliness, their openness, their uprightness; protesting that she was convinced of sailors having more worth and warmth than any other set of men in England; that they only knew how to live, and they only deserved to be respected and loved.
They went back to dress and dine;and so well had the scheme answered already,that nothing was found amiss;though its being “so entirely out of season,” and the “no thoroughfare of Lyme,” and the “no expectation of company,” had brought many apologies from the heads of the inn.
Anne found herself by this time growing so much more hardened to being in Captain Wentworth’s company than she had at first imagined could ever be, that the sitting down to the same table with him now, and the interchange of the common civilities attending on it (they never got beyond), was become a mere nothing.
The nights were too dark for the ladies to meet again till the morrow,but Captain Harville had promised them a visit in the evening;and he came, bringing his friend also,which was more than had been expected,it having been agreed that Captain Benwick had all the appearance of being oppressed by the presence of so many strangers. He ventured among them again, however, though his spirits certainly did not seem fit for the mirth of the party in general.
While Captains Wentworth and Harville led the talk on one side of the room,and by recurring to former days,supplied anecdotes in abundance to occupy and entertain the others,it fell to Anne’s lot to be placed rather apart with Captain Benwick;and a very good impulse of her nature obliged her to begin an acquaintance with him. He was shy, and disposed to abstraction; but the engaging mildness of her countenance, and gentleness of her manners, soon had their effect; and Anne was well repaid the first trouble of exertion. He was evidently a young man of considerable taste in reading, though principally in poetry; and besides the persuasion of having given him at least an evening’s indulgence in the discussion of subjects, which his usual companions had probably no concern in, she had the hope of being of real use to him in some suggestions as to the duty and benefit of struggling against affliction, which had naturally grown out of their conversation. For, though shy, he did not seem reserved; it had rather the appearance of feelings glad to burst their usual restraints; and having talked of poetry, the richness of the present age, and gone through a brief comparison of opinion as to the first-rate poets, trying to ascertain whether _Marmion_ or _The Lady of the Lake_ were to be preferred, and how ranked the _Giaour_ and _The Bride of Abydos;_ and moreover, how the _Giaour_ was to be pronounced, he showed himself so intimately acquainted with all the tenderest songs of the one poet, and all the impassioned descriptions of hopeless agony of the other; he repeated, with such tremulous feeling, the various lines which imaged a broken heart, or a mind destroyed by wretchedness, and looked so entirely as if he meant to be understood, that she ventured to hope he did not always read only poetry, and to say, that she thought it was the misfortune of poetry to be seldom safely enjoyed by those who enjoyed it completely; and that the strong feelings which alone could estimate it truly were the very feelings which ought to taste it but sparingly.
His looks shewing him not pained,but pleased with this allusion to his situation,she was emboldened to go on;and feeling in herself the right of seniority of mind,she ventured to recommend a larger allowance of prose in his daily study;and on being requested to particularize,mentioned such works of our best moralists,such collections of the finest letters,such memoirs of characters of worth and suffering,as occurred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse and fortify the mind by the highest precepts, and the strongest examples of moral and religious endurances.
Captain Benwick listened attentively,and seemed grateful for the interest implied;and though with a shake of the head,and sighs which declared his little faith in the efficacy of any books on grief like his, noted down the names of those she recommended, and promised to procure and read them.
When the evening was over,Anne could not but be amused at the idea of her coming to Lyme to preach patience and resignation to a young man whom she had never seen before; nor could she help fearing, on more serious reflection, that, like many other great moralists and preachers, she had been eloquent on a point in which her own conduct would ill bear examination.
CHAPTER XII.
Anne and Henrietta, finding themselves the earliest of the party the next morning, agreed to stroll down to the sea before breakfast. They went to the sands, to watch the flowing of the tide, which a fine south-easterly breeze was bringing in with all the grandeur which so flat a shore admitted. They praised the morning; gloried in the sea; sympathized in the delight of the fresh-feeling breeze—and were silent; till Henrietta suddenly began again with—