After listening to this full description of Mr Elliot,
Anne could not but express some surprise at Mrs Smith’s
having spoken of him so favourably in the beginning
of their conversation. “She had seemed
to recommend and praise him!”
“My dear,” was Mrs Smith’s reply,
“there was nothing else to be done. I considered
your marrying him as certain, though he might not yet
have made the offer, and I could no more speak the
truth of him, than if he had been your husband.
My heart bled for you, as I talked of happiness;
and yet he is sensible, he is agreeable, and with
such a woman as you, it was not absolutely hopeless.
He was very unkind to his first wife. They were
wretched together. But she was too ignorant and
giddy for respect, and he had never loved her.
I was willing to hope that you must fare better.”
Anne could just acknowledge within herself such a
possibility of having been induced to marry him, as
made her shudder at the idea of the misery which must
have followed. It was just possible that she
might have been persuaded by Lady Russell! And
under such a supposition, which would have been most
miserable, when time had disclosed all, too late?
It was very desirable that Lady Russell should be
no longer deceived; and one of the concluding arrangements
of this important conference, which carried them through
the greater part of the morning, was, that Anne had
full liberty to communicate to her friend everything
relative to Mrs Smith, in which his conduct was involved.
Anne went home to think over all that she had heard.
In one point, her feelings were relieved by this
knowledge of Mr Elliot. There was no longer anything
of tenderness due to him. He stood as opposed
to Captain Wentworth, in all his own unwelcome obtrusiveness;
and the evil of his attentions last night, the irremediable
mischief he might have done, was considered with sensations
unqualified, unperplexed. Pity for him was all
over. But this was the only point of relief.
In every other respect, in looking around her, or penetrating
forward, she saw more to distrust and to apprehend.
She was concerned for the disappointment and pain
Lady Russell would be feeling; for the mortifications
which must be hanging over her father and sister,
and had all the distress of foreseeing many evils,
without knowing how to avert any one of them.
She was most thankful for her own knowledge of him.
She had never considered herself as entitled to reward
for not slighting an old friend like Mrs Smith, but
here was a reward indeed springing from it!
Mrs Smith had been able to tell her what no one else
could have done. Could the knowledge have been
extended through her family? But this was a vain
idea. She must talk to Lady Russell, tell her,
consult with her, and having done her best, wait the
event with as much composure as possible; and after
all, her greatest want of composure would be in that
quarter of the mind which could not be opened to Lady
Russell; in that flow of anxieties and fears which
must be all to herself.
