After the Letter - A Persuasion Variation

Part 8

Anne busied herself with pouring tea, hoping that it would serve as a distraction, but if it did it wasn't enough of one.

"I heard Charles was walking you home and cried off to allow Captain Wentworth to escort you, and the next any of us knew you were engaged!"

"It wasn't quite as simple as that," Anne said, smiling. "Of course, we had known each other quite some time before, though I am not sure you knew that."

"I'd heard you had had a friendship, perhaps even a romance..." Louisa mused, taking a sip of her tea. "That you had parted rather than married, obviously. It was before Charles -"

"Was that why you refused Charles?" Henrietta jumped in. "Because you were still in love with...well, with Captain Wentworth - though I don't suppose he was a Captain back then, was he?"

"He was. He had just recently been made one and was in port awaiting his first real commission at the point that we met," Anne said. "And that point was made quite compellingly to me, that if I did intend to marry him I would be chancing my future on the hope that he excelled in the Navy." She blinked, remembering Lady Russell's words. She had been kinder at least than Sir Walter, who had scarcely contained himself. Who is this Wentworth? What does he have to recommend himself to you? He has no name, no fortune, and yet he considers himself an adequate match for Anne Elliot? No. No Elliot will throw herself away on someone so far below her status. At least he had tempered his words a little in Frederick's hearing, and Anne had borne Sir Walter's true feelings alone, in silence. Elizabeth's, too, who had found the whole thing deliciously amusing.

"I don't believe I should have allowed myself to be so easily persuaded," Louisa said, with a dreamy tone. "See, even with Captain Benwick, my parents were unsure of the match." She folded her hands in her lap. "I merely convinced them of his feelings for me, and once they saw our mutual affection they could not stand in our way."

"But Mother and Father are just so pleased to have you well again, they will bend to your will on any matter on which you care to share an opinion," Henrietta grumbled, with more than a note of bitterness.

"And why not use that to my advantage? They were already delighted about your marrying Charles, you didn't need to apply any persuasion for that marriage to take place."

Anne watched the sisters in conversation, grateful to be out of the spotlight one moment more. Subconsciously, her hand slid to her reticule, and she ran a fingertip over the edge of Frederick's letter, a reminder that no matter the bitterness in their past, their love had merely grown stronger with separation, and now no amount of interference from others could tear it down.

"What are you hiding there, Anne?" Louisa asked, spying the movement.

Anne snatched her hand out of her purse, but the motion brought the reticule with it, upending the bag and sending its contents onto the floor.

"What is it?" Henrietta cried, bending as Anne did to retrieve her belongings.

"Nothing," Anne said, quickly, though she felt colour rising in her cheeks ready to betray her.

"You fib!" Louisa said. "Is it a love note? Oh, do, do let us see it."

"Here, I have it!" Henrietta said, reaching the note just before Anne could, and whisking it out of her reach. "Here, let's read what it says."

Anne retrieved the rest of her belongings and returned her reticule to the table as the two younger girls bent over her note. Anne watched them carefully, her heart pounding in her chest. She did not like to think of people reading something that was so special to her, yet how could she stop it without mortally offending her two young friends?

The door opened, and Anne held her hand out for the letter as she heard Charles and Mary crossing the small tea room to join them.

"You see Mary, I told them we would find them without any difficulty," Charles spoke patiently in an attempt to smooth Mary's ruffled feathers.

"That is not the point," Mary asserted. "I merely said it was a pity that you, Anne, could not be prevailed on to wait but a minute until I was ready to join you."

"Were you quite ready Mary?" Louisa asked, with an impish grin. "We thought you were probably still fast asleep."

"What are you looking at?" Mary asked, her eyes sharp on the table top. "Charles, you may go and enquire about your gun or whatever it was you wanted. I am settled now."

"Fine," Charles said, and bid the women a polite farewell, swiftly departing the uncomfortably feminine environment for something altogether more interesting.

"I asked what you were looking at," Mary repeated. "Anne, you have just hidden something away in your reticule, what have I missed?"

"Nothing." Anne said, quickly.

"A love note!" Henrietta trilled. "Here, let Mary read it. Captain Wentworth wrote it to Anne, isn't it wonderful?"

Mary's eyes scanned the few short lines quickly. She passed it back to Anne, with an unimpressed frown.

"Why, I don't think it is that elegant a letter. After all, it's not as if he said the words to you in person."

"No indeed!" Louisa agreed. "I believe declaring one's love openly, as one feels it, is the truest mark of one's affection. I shouldn't marry a man who isn't brave enough to wear his heart on his sleeve. I don't want a husband who's afraid of his feelings for me."

"Hardly afraid!" Anne said. "It was a difficult situation, for we neither of us were quite sure how the other felt -"

"All the more reason to declare it!" Louisa said. "Can you not imagine, walking along the river and all of a sudden he stops and informs you that all the affection he once had for you, all that you had assumed was lost, not only remained but had in fact grown in the interceding years...?" She sighed. "That would be so romantic."

"I still don't see why you didn't just get married in the first place," Henrietta said. "Eight years is far too long to live without each other, never knowing if he still loved you, or if there would ever be a chance of your reconciling." She shuddered. "I am glad Charles and I shall marry soon."

"Not before Captain Benwick and I," Louisa said. She turned to Anne. "You are coming to our wedding aren't you? I know he will want Captain Wentworth to come, and you must too, oh, Anne, you must!"

"Of course, I intend to," Anne said, taking her letter back and slipping it safely inside her reticule once more.

"I don't see why you should be so desperate for Anne to attend your wedding any more than me," Mary said. She lifted the lid of the tea pot and peered inside. "Is there another cup anywhere, or am I merely to sit and watch you drink tea?"

"Let me fetch one," Anne said, hurrying to her feet before either of the other girls could offer to undertake the task.

The matter-of-fact dismissal her letter had received from her friends made Anne sigh. Clearly they did not understand Frederick Wentworth the way she did. Nor her, even. Great sweeping declarations of love had never suited her, nor would they! This showed true kinship, true alikeness of character and sentiment. And surely Frederick's willingness to spend time with Sir Walter and Lady Russell even after they had so summarily dismissed him eight years ago showed his commitment to Anne far more deeply than any romantic notion that captured the hearts and minds of the Musgroves.

Anne returned to their table and poured her sister a cup of tea.

"...must we hear yet again of the intricacies of your wedding plans, Louisa?" Mary was saying. "I do declare, you seem convinced that you are the only person to ever get married..."