IV.
At Kellynch Lodge, with Lady Russell, Anne has to fall into a new, or rather an old set of interests, in which the house her father has taken in Camden Place, Bath, and the disagreeable fact that Mrs. Clay, the daughter of Sir Walter Elliott’s agent, and a humble companion of Elizabeth, is still on a visit there, figure prominently; while Anne’s thoughts are still hovering, in spite of herself, about Lyme and her friends there.
Elizabeth Elliott’s last letter to Kellynch Lodge has communicated an unexpected piece of news of some interest. There has been a reconciliation between the head of the house and his heir. Mr. Elliot is in Bath, and has called more than once or twice in Camden Place. If Elizabeth and her father are right, he is now as anxious to renew and proclaim the connexion as he had formerly been to treat it with scorn.
A degree of unlooked-for warmth in the welcome home which Anne receives does her good, but Jane Austen is careful to mention that Anne’s father and sister are glad to see her for the sake of showing her the house and furniture. Besides, they are unwontedly happy in finding themselves people of consequence in Bath, and in receiving once more the attentions of Mr. Elliot. He is now everything and without a fault in his cousins’ eyes. Even the old offence of his marriage—when Sir Walter had destined him for Elizabeth, and Elizabeth had fully acquiesced in the arrangement—has been partly smoothed away. A friend of Mr. Elliot’s, a Colonel Wallis, whom Mr. Elliot has introduced to Sir Walter, mentions in confidence various particulars which soften the delinquency. The late Mrs. Elliot had not been a woman of family, but she had been a very fine woman, with a large fortune, excessively in love with her husband.
Anne is rendered very uneasy by Mrs. Clay’s protracted stay in Camden Place, and by the increasing influence she is gaining over her host as well as over his eldest daughter. That Mrs. Clay cherishes designs of becoming Lady Elliot, opposed as the match might seem to Sir Walter’s vanity and conceit, Anne does not doubt, and she begins to fear more and more that Mrs. Clay’s designs may prove successful. How relentlessly Anne is made to gauge her father’s character is shown by the impetus given to her fears, in the course of a conversation with him. He has just complimented Anne on her greater clearness and freshness of complexion, and attributed the improvement to Gowland’s Lotion. On her saying she uses no lotion, he expresses his surprise. She cannot do better than she is doing, otherwise he would recommend Gowland—the constant use of Gowland during the spring. Mrs. Clay has been using it at his recommendation, and Anne can see what it has done for her; Anne can see how it has carried away her freckles.
The most alarming symptom of all is, that it does not appear to Anne Mrs. Clay’s freckles are lessened.
But there is no use in warning Elizabeth, without whose countenance Mrs. Clay could not stay on in Camden Place. Mrs. Clay’s flattery infatuates Elizabeth, and in any circumstances she would have been incapable of accepting beforehand a suggestion so injurious and disagreeable to her, especially if it came from her sister Anne.
Lady Russell is quite won by Mr. Elliot, whose steadiness of character and coolness of judgment, in addition to what she believes to be his high principles and warmth of heart, unite all the recommendations which she prizes most highly. She is delighted to find that his previous marriage—suspected to have been an unhappy one—has not soured him, or prevented him from thinking of another wife—not in the person of Elizabeth, but in that of Anne Elliot, as is soon plain to Lady Russell. She rejoices to believe that Anne is at last done justice to, in becoming the object of Mr. Elliot’s constant presence in Camden Place. Anne, in her turn, allows herself to be more and more pleased with her cousin’s good qualities and friendship, although she still retains doubts of the consistency of his sentiments and behaviour, and of the motives which actuate him.