After the Letter - A Persuasion Variation

Part 16

"Four days and still this rain persists!" Sir Walter sighed, looking up from his chess game to glance woefully out of the window.

Four days, Anne thought, staring straight ahead. It had been four days since her morning visit to Mrs. Smith. Four days since she had bumped into first Mr. Elliot and then Admiral and Mrs. Croft. Four days since she had heard of Frederick's plans to leave Bath, and she still had had no word from him.

"There is to be another concert this evening," Elizabeth observed, glancing over a newspaper.

"Oh?" her father asked. "What will be playing?"

Elizabeth read out the programme, a list of new pieces that drew little or no recognition from the room's occupants. "It will be worth attending merely to escape these walls!" she declared, folding the newspaper and laying it aside.

"Is our company stifling you, Elizabeth?" Mr. Elliot asked, leaning over and lifting a chess piece, before setting it down, thoughtfully, in a new position. "Sir Walter, I believe I have just placed your king in check."

"What?" Sir Walter forced his attention back to the languid game he and Mr. Elliot had been playing for the length of the afternoon. He grumbled quietly to himself as he attempted to evade the manoeuvre.

"Your company is never stifling, Mr. Elliot. No more yours, Lady Russell," Elizabeth said, turning an ingratiating smile on the two guests who had spent much of the day with them. "It is just this weather! I would dearly love to go for a walk, to see people and get some fresh air, but if one is to be drowned by stepping more than two feet out of doors, there is no question of walking anywhere!"

"Anne, what do you think?" Lady Russell asked. She had been watching her god-daughter carefully, and whilst Anne made every appearance of reading the book she held in front of her, Lady Russell had noticed it had been almost a quarter-hour since she had turned a page.

"I do not mind the rain," Anne answered, looking up from her book for just the briefest of moments. "It affords one time for reading and reflecting."

"And what are you reflecting on?" Mr. Elliot stood, crossing the small room and settling into the chaise nearest Anne. He leaned forward, tilting the book slightly so he could ascertain its title. "Poetry? Why, it seems all this talk of romance has yet managed to penetrate your rational mind," he smiled. "Where is the good Captain? I do not believe he has been in this place this few days. Surely you are wild with loss at his prolonged absence."

Anne closed her book with a thud.

"He has been taken away on - on business." Anne's voice faltered. "To Shropshire, I believe. To visit his brother."

"His brother?" Elizabeth interrupted. "Who - oh, of course, the curate." She unfolded the newspaper and began to scan its contents once more, evidently deeming Frederick Wentworth's brother of even less significance than Frederick himself.

"Here, Mr. Elliot," Sir Walter called. "It appears I was not quite bested. If I move thus -" He exaggerated lifting his piece, and placing it down again, so that his genius might be seen even from halfway across the room. "I evade your attempt on my king." He chuckled. "And now it is your turn."

Mr. Elliot flicked an apologetic glance at Anne, which went largely unnoticed, and returned to his seat opposite Sir Walter, turning his attention back to their game.

Mrs. Clay, who had up to now sat in a state of near perfect silence, was drawn into a discussion with Elizabeth over a newspaper advertisement pertaining to bonnets, and Anne was left alone with her thoughts once more. I am not sure how long he intends being away, Sophia Croft had said. Anne had wanted to find out more, but their conversation was curtailed by a crack of thunder, and the rain that had kept her sister uncomfortably indoors for the past four days had also kept Anne from visiting her friend for a fuller account of Frederick's flight. They had not spoken a word since their return from Captain Benwick's wedding, since she had told him of her father's desire to delay the wedding. He had received her note, she felt sure of that, for what else would have caused him to so abruptly to depart Bath? But why? She knew him well by now, ought to understand his motives, but in this case she was lost. It merely brought back memories of the last time he had left - when she had dissolved their first engagement, and he had written her one sad, short note and disappeared from her life, she had feared forever. Was history about to repeat itself? But I didn't dissolve our engagement - I made it clear in my note that any thought of delay was my father's alone, that if the concern was only mine we could marry without hesitation. Surely he must know how I feel.