Persuasion: The Wild and Wanton Edition Page 17

  “Captain Benwick, would not it be better for Captain Benwick? He knows where a surgeon is to be found.”

  Every one capable of thinking felt the advantage of the idea, and in a moment (it was all done in rapid moments) Captain Benwick had resigned the poor corpse-like figure entirely to the brother’s care, and was off for the town with the utmost rapidity.

  As to the wretched party left behind, it could scarcely be said which of the three, who were completely rational, was suffering most: Captain Wentworth, Anne, or Charles, who, really a very affectionate brother, hung over Louisa with sobs of grief, and could only turn his eyes from one sister, to see the other in a state as insensible, or to witness the hysterical agitations of his wife, calling on him for help which he could not give.

  Anne, attending with all the strength and zeal, and thought, which instinct supplied, to Henrietta, still tried, at intervals, to suggest comfort to the others, tried to quiet Mary, to animate Charles, to assuage the feelings of Captain Wentworth. Both seemed to look to her for directions.

  “Anne, Anne,” cried Charles, “What is to be done next? What, in heaven’s name, is to be done next?”

  Captain Wentworth’s eyes were also turned towards her; she knew so without having to look at him for the heat that flared just below her skin.

  “Had not she better be carried to the inn? Yes, I am sure: carry her gently to the inn.”

  “Yes, yes, to the inn,” repeated Captain Wentworth, comparatively collected, and eager to be doing something. “I will carry her myself. Musgrove, take care of the others.” Captain Wentworth cradled Louisa in his arms so gently and with such affection, rubbing a cheek against the top of her head, that Anne was momentarily stunned. She was distracted when Henrietta stirred. Anne turned her attention to Louisa’s sister.

  By this time the report of the accident had spread among the workmen and boatmen about the Cobb, and many were collected near them, to be useful if wanted, at any rate, to enjoy the sight of a dead young lady, nay, two dead young ladies, for it proved twice as fine as the first report. To some of the best-looking of these good people Henrietta was consigned, for, though partially revived, she was quite helpless; and in this manner, Anne walking by her side, and Charles attending to his wife, they set forward, treading back with feelings unutterable, the ground, which so lately, so very lately, and so light of heart, they had passed along.

  They were not off the Cobb, before the Harvilles met them. Captain Benwick had been seen flying by their house, with a countenance which showed something to be wrong; and they had set off immediately, informed and directed as they passed, towards the spot. Shocked as Captain Harville was, he brought senses and nerves that could be instantly useful; and a look between him and his wife decided what was to be done. She must be taken to their house; all must go to their house; and await the surgeon’s arrival there. They would not listen to scruples: he was obeyed; they were all beneath his roof; and while Louisa, under Mrs. Harville’s direction, was conveyed up stairs, and given possession of her own bed, assistance, cordials, restoratives were supplied by her husband to all who needed them.

  Louisa had once opened her eyes, but soon closed them again, without apparent consciousness. This had been a proof of life, however, of service to her sister; and Henrietta, though perfectly incapable of being in the same room with Louisa, was kept, by the agitation of hope and fear, from a return of her own insensibility. Mary, too, was growing calmer.

  The surgeon was with them almost before it had seemed possible. They were sick with horror, while he examined; but he was not hopeless. The head had received a severe contusion, but he had seen greater injuries recovered from: he was by no means hopeless; he spoke cheerfully.

  That he did not regard it as a desperate case, that he did not say a few hours must end it, was at first felt, beyond the hope of most; and the ecstasy of such a reprieve, the rejoicing, deep and silent, after a few fervent ejaculations of gratitude to Heaven had been offered, may be conceived.

  The tone, the look, with which “Thank God!” was uttered by Captain Wentworth, Anne was sure could never be forgotten by her; nor the sight of him afterwards, as he sat near a table, leaning over it with folded arms and face concealed, as if overpowered by the various feelings of his soul, and trying by prayer and reflection to calm them. She remembered with shame that earlier this morning she had imagined him jealous of her interaction with Benwick. He was obviously in love with the young woman.

  Louisa’s limbs had escaped. There was no injury but to the head.

  It now became necessary for the party to consider what was best to be done, as to their general situation. They were now able to speak to each other and consult. That Louisa must remain where she was, however distressing to her friends to be involving the Harvilles in such trouble, did not admit a doubt. Her removal was impossible. The Harvilles silenced all scruples; and, as much as they could, all gratitude. They had looked forward and arranged everything before the others began to reflect. Captain Benwick must give up his room to them, and get another bed elsewhere; and the whole was settled. They were only concerned that the house could accommodate no more; and yet perhaps, by “putting the children away in the maid’s room, or swinging a cot somewhere,” they could hardly bear to think of not finding room for two or three besides, supposing they might wish to stay; though, with regard to any attendance on Miss Musgrove, there need not be the least uneasiness in leaving her to Mrs. Harville’s care entirely. Mrs. Harville was a very experienced nurse, and her nursery-maid, who had lived with her long, and gone about with her everywhere, was just such another. Between these two, she could want no possible attendance by day or night. And all this was said with a truth and sincerity of feeling irresistible.

  Charles, Henrietta, and Captain Wentworth were the three in consultation, and for a little while it was only an interchange of perplexity and terror. “Uppercross, the necessity of some one’s going to Uppercross; the news to be conveyed; how it could be broken to Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove; the lateness of the morning; an hour already gone since they ought to have been off; the impossibility of being in tolerable time.” At first, they were capable of nothing more to the purpose than such exclamations; but, after a while, Captain Wentworth, exerting himself, said —

  “We must be decided, and without the loss of another minute. Every minute is valuable. Some one must resolve on being off for Uppercross instantly. Musgrove, either you or I must go.”

  Charles agreed, but declared his resolution of not going away. He would be as little incumbrance as possible to Captain and Mrs. Harville; but as to leaving his sister in such a state, he neither ought, nor would. So far it was decided; and Henrietta at first declared the same. She, however, was soon persuaded to think differently. The usefulness of her staying! She who had not been able to remain in Louisa’s room, or to look at her, without sufferings which made her worse than helpless! She was forced to acknowledge that she could do no good, yet was still unwilling to be away, till, touched by the thought of her father and mother, she gave it up; she consented, she was anxious to be at home.

  The plan had reached this point, when Anne, coming quietly down from Louisa’s room, could not but hear what followed, for the parlour door was open.

  “Then it is settled, Musgrove,” cried Captain Wentworth, “that you stay, and that I take care of your sister home. But as to the rest, as to the others, if one stays to assist Mrs. Harville, I think it need be only one. Mrs. Charles Musgrove will, of course, wish to get back to her children; but if Anne will stay, no one so proper, so capable as Anne.”

  She paused a moment to recover from the emotion of hearing herself so spoken of. She was perched between elation and despair: Did he wish her to stay so she would be far, far away from him? Or did he wish her to stay because he had the uttermost faith in her ability to maintain a level head in the midst of tragedy? Neither reason pointed to a feeling of warmth on his part for anyone other than Louisa. The other two warmly agreed with what
he said, and Anne then appeared.

  “You will stay, I am sure; you will stay and nurse her;” cried he, turning to her and speaking with a glow, and yet a gentleness, which seemed almost restoring the past. She coloured deeply, and he recollected himself and moved away. She expressed herself most willing, ready, happy to remain. “It was what she had been thinking of, and wishing to be allowed to do. A bed on the floor in Louisa’s room would be sufficient for her, if Mrs. Harville would but think so.”

  One thing more, and all seemed arranged. Though it was rather desirable that Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove should be previously alarmed by some share of delay; yet the time required by the Uppercross horses to take them back, would be a dreadful extension of suspense; and Captain Wentworth proposed, and Charles Musgrove agreed, that it would be much better for him to take a chaise from the inn, and leave Mr. Musgrove’s carriage and horses to be sent home the next morning early, when there would be the farther advantage of sending an account of Louisa’s night.

  Captain Wentworth now hurried off to get everything ready on his part, and to be soon followed by the two ladies. When the plan was made known to Mary, however, there was an end of all peace in it. She was so wretched and so vehement, complained so much of injustice in being expected to go away instead of Anne; Anne, who was nothing to Louisa, while she was her sister, and had the best right to stay in Henrietta’s stead! Why was not she to be as useful as Anne? And to go home without Charles, too, without her husband! No, it was too unkind. And in short, she said more than her husband could long withstand, and as none of the others could oppose when he gave way, there was no help for it; the change of Mary for Anne was inevitable.

  Anne had never submitted more reluctantly to the jealous and ill-judging claims of Mary; but so it must be, and they set off for the town, Charles taking care of his sister, and Captain Benwick attending to her. She gave a moment’s recollection, as they hurried along, to the little circumstances which the same spots had witnessed earlier in the morning. There she had listened to Henrietta’s schemes for Dr. Shirley’s leaving Uppercross; farther on, she had first seen Mr. Elliot; a moment seemed all that could now be given to any one but Louisa, or those who were wrapt up in her welfare.

  Captain Benwick was most considerately attentive to her; and, united as they all seemed by the distress of the day, she felt an increasing degree of good-will towards him, and a pleasure even in thinking that it might, perhaps, be the occasion of continuing their acquaintance.

  Captain Wentworth was on the watch for them, and a chaise and four in waiting, stationed for their convenience in the lowest part of the street; but his evident surprise and vexation at the substitution of one sister for the other, the change in his countenance, the astonishment, the expressions begun and suppressed, with which Charles was listened to, made but a mortifying reception of Anne; or must at least convince her that she was valued only as she could be useful to Louisa.

  She endeavoured to be composed, and to be just. Without emulating the feelings of an Emma towards her Henry, she would have attended on Louisa with a zeal above the common claims of regard, for his sake; and she hoped he would not long be so unjust as to suppose she would shrink unnecessarily from the office of a friend.

  In the mean while she was in the carriage. He had handed them both in, and placed himself between them; and in this manner, under these circumstances, full of astonishment and emotion to Anne, she quitted Lyme. How the long stage would pass; how it was to affect their manners; what was to be their sort of intercourse, she could not foresee. Anne pressed herself as far against the side of the carriage as the unforgiving wall would allow, and still she could not escape the heat of Captain Wentworth’s body, or the familiar smell of his skin. But if she was worried that he would suffer from similar experiences, his conduct could not have proven her more wrong. It was all quite natural. He was devoted to Henrietta; always turning towards her; and when he spoke at all, always with the view of supporting her hopes and raising her spirits. In general, his voice and manner were studiously calm. To spare Henrietta from agitation seemed the governing principle. Once only, when she had been grieving over the last ill-judged, ill-fated walk to the Cobb, bitterly lamenting that it ever had been thought of, he burst forth, as if wholly overcome —

  “Don’t talk of it, don’t talk of it,” he cried. “Oh God! that I had not given way to her at the fatal moment! Had I done as I ought! But so eager and so resolute! Dear, sweet Louisa!”

  Anne wondered whether it ever occurred to him now, to question the justness of his own previous opinion as to the universal felicity and advantage of firmness of character; and whether it might not strike him that, like all other qualities of the mind, it should have its proportions and limits. She thought it could scarcely escape him to feel that a persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

  They got on fast. Anne was astonished to recognise the same hills and the same objects so soon. Their actual speed, heightened by some dread of the conclusion, made the road appear but half as long as on the day before. It was growing quite dusk, however, before they were in the neighbourhood of Uppercross, and there had been total silence among them for some time, Henrietta leaning back in the corner, with a shawl over her face, giving the hope of her having cried herself to sleep; when, as they were going up their last hill, Anne found herself all at once addressed by Captain Wentworth. He turned toward her slowly and looked at her from the corners of his eyes rather than head-on. Even in this, he tried to refrain from direct contact with her. In a low, cautious voice, he said: —

  “I have been considering what we had best do. She must not appear at first. She could not stand it. I have been thinking whether you had not better remain in the carriage with her, while I go in and break it to Mr. and Mrs. Musgrove. Do you think this is a good plan?”

  She did: he was satisfied, and said no more. But the remembrance of the appeal remained a pleasure to her, as a proof of friendship, and of deference for her judgement, a great pleasure; she worked hard to convince herself that the pleasure of his friendship was enough, and when it became a sort of parting proof, its value did not lessen.

  When the distressing communication at Uppercross was over, and he had seen the father and mother quite as composed as could be hoped, and the daughter all the better for being with them, he announced his intention of returning in the same carriage to Lyme; and when the horses were baited, he was off, thanking God that, this time, the carriage held only himself. He drew a massive breath through his teeth, the hissing sound bringing him a measure of comfort that was immediately canceled out by the scent that filled his nostrils.

  “Devil take it!” he swore violently beneath his breath. Her scent still pervaded the carriage! Would he never be free of her? Was it not enough that he had had to ride beside her for hours, literally pressed against the warm, soft curve of her hip? He had tried in vain to distract himself from her close proximity by talking constantly with Henrietta, and it had done nothing — nothing — that it was supposed to do. He had remained hyper-aware of Anne’s presence each second of the eternal carriage ride to Uppercross. His elbow even had the audacity to brush against the side of her breast — more than once! And now, when he was finally alone, she still haunted him? It was too much.

  In a fit of anger, he smacked his palms against the leather of the seat on either side of his thighs. While the sound of the slap reverberated around the close space, Frederick froze. Slowly, he turned his head to the right and allowed his eyes to drift down to the seat. His right hand was planted in a bundle of canary yellow fabric. He watched as his hand clenched, fisting the cloth, and he realized that he was staring at a lady’s shawl — but not the shawl that Henrietta had slept beneath.

  With a sense of foreboding, Frederick raised the shawl to his face, and before he could bury his nose in it, the overwhelming scent of Anne filled his being.

  A harsh groan erupted from his chest, and the knowledge t
hat he no longer had to be strong — was no longer in her presence — overwhelmed him with dark purpose. He gripped the shawl in both hands and allowed himself the pleasure of languishing in her essence. The soft fabric caught in the day’s growth of beard that marred his usually pristinely groomed jaw, and the contrast of rough to smooth shot straight through his body and down to his cock.

  And just like that, the horrors of the day, the tension of the carriage ride, the sharp edge of heartbreak — all drifted away as Frederick’s world narrowed down to one canary yellow bit of cloth and seldom-visited, happy memories of the past.

  “Anne.” The rough use of her name would have startled him had he the mental capacity to recognise he had spoken at all. His mind was embroiled with images of Anne’s skin dappled beneath the checkered shade of their tree; Anne’s sighs as he entered her body, filling her between her thighs; Anne’s soft hands as they touched every inch of him; Anne’s face as she reached her ultimate pleasure.

  His every thought, his every sense, was Anne.

  He closed his eyes; his head fell back. The smooth, cool fabric of Anne’s shawl moved from his face to his neck. He rubbed it against the column of his throat with one hand while the other began to jerk recklessly at the fall of his breeches.

  The feeling of the night’s cool air caressing his erection was enough to pull him from the haze of his thoughts — but only long enough for his mind to ponder if he was truly depraved enough to do what he was about to do. In the next moment, he was swept back into the past, and the shawl made its final journey from his chest down to his lap.

  Without another thought, Frederick wrapt Anne’s shawl around his throbbing cock, and squeezed his fist. His hiss of pleasure was loud and primal, and he did not pause even a moment before moving his fist up the length of his erection, passing the cool satin over the angry, aching head.

  His hips surged up from the seat, thrusting into his grip and starting a series of uncontrollable movements. His left hand belted out to the side, and his palm squeaked against the frosty, cold glass of the carriage window while his right hand kicked up the pace, working his cock at an unforgiving, brutal speed. His hips continued to surge and retreat, and he had to raise one leg, bending it at the knee, to brace his foot on the opposing carriage wall.