After the Letter - A Persuasion Variation

Part 13

A/N - I hope you are enjoying After the Letter - just a few more chapters to go! The finished novella is available for purchase if you can't wait, otherwise I'll be back with more on Thursday.

I have also started work on a second Persuasion-themed story (a prequel this time) which I am hoping to start serializing here in the next week or so. I hope you'll check it out if you've enjoyed After the Letter.

Now back to the story...

Chapter Seven

A Solution

"Oh, Anne, it does do me good to see you." Mrs. Jane Smith eagerly accepted the cup of tea Anne passed to her. "Though I don't doubt, as hostess, I ought to be the one serving you with tea."

"Not at all!" Anne said, taking her own cup and returning to her seat. "We shan't stand on ceremony here, shall we?"

"Indeed not." Jane cast a glance around the small room that served as bedroom, sitting room, parlour and all, and winked heartily at her friend. "I dare say there's little enough free space in here to stand on anything!" She took a sip of her drink. "Now you must tell me more about the Musgrove girl's wedding - only, I suppose she is no longer "Musgrove", is she?"

"Benwick," Anne supplied. "She's Louisa Benwick, and happily wed, by all accounts."

"Wonderful," Jane said. "I do like to hear of happy marriages. Your own is just on the horizon too, I don't doubt?"

Anne didn't answer right away, and her hesitation did not go unnoticed by her friend's eagle eyes.

"Come, now, what are you hiding from me? You know there's no way to keep a secret among friends," She frowned. "Don't tell me fate has thrown another obstacle before you and Captain Wentworth, I scarce can believe it!"

"Not an obstacle," Anne said, taking a sip of her own tea and using the moment of peace it gave her to plan her words carefully. "A delay."

"What more reason can you have to delay?" Jane asked. "Your separation was long enough for two lifetimes! Come on, tell me the trouble and we shall figure a way out of it." She leaned forward and patted Anne on the hand. "If you are reluctant, think how it will be a kindness to me, to give me something new to puzzle over."

"It's hardly a puzzle." Anne sighed. "My father would rather we not marry right away, but wait for a more...propitious time of year."

Jane frowned.

"He means the weather," Anne explained, nodding towards the small window to the outside world that barely brightened Jane Smith's dark room. Her friend turned to look, and laughed at the rain that still hammered Bath into submission.

"Why, there's little point in trying to control the weather! It just as often rains in June as it does January. What difference does that make?"

"Quite my reasoning!" Anne said. "But my father is a difficult man to reason with, when he has made his own mind up."

"Like his daughter." Jane smiled slyly at her friend.

"I hardly think decisiveness is a trait I can claim for myself," Anne said.

"Why ever not?" Her friend protested. "Why, you have come to see me on no less than half a dozen separate occasions. I don't doubt Sir Walter Elliot little enough approves of our friendship and yet you do not let that deter you." She dropped her voice, serious for a moment. "A fact that I am undeniably grateful for."

Anne smiled, warmly. Visiting Jane Smith always did her good, and after the difficult morning she had spent with her family, she had dearly needed to see a friendly face.