Mr Shepherd will not be the one to say the disagreeable thing. He asks that the question be left to Lady Russell, and he fully expects her good sense to advise the resolute measures he already means to see adopted. She is zealous, and slow. Two principles pull against each other. She has a delicate sense of honour, and she is as anxious to save Sir Walter's feelings, and the credit of the family, as anybody of sense and honesty can be. Rank blinds her a little. She is the widow of only a knight, and a baronet, as being Sir Walter, seems to her entitled to a great deal of compassion. They must retrench. That is not in doubt. She wants it done with the least pain to him and to Elizabeth. She draws plans, she makes exact calculations, and she does what nobody else thinks of doing. She consults Anne. Every change Anne makes is on the side of honesty against importance. Anne wants a quicker release from debt, and a much higher indifference to everything but justice. If he will adopt these regulations, Lady Russell says, in seven years he will be clear. The person who has contracted debts must pay them. A great deal is due to the feelings of a gentleman, and still more to the character of an honest man.
Anne wants that principle urged on him as a duty. She thinks a complete reformation may be no harder to win than half of one, because giving up one pair of horses would hardly be less painful to her father and Elizabeth than giving up both. Her stricter list never has to be tested. Lady Russell's gentle one cannot be borne. Journeys, London, servants, horses, table: Sir Walter calls it every comfort of life knocked off. He would sooner quit Kellynch Hall at once than remain in it on such disgraceful terms. Mr Shepherd takes those words up at once. Nothing, he is persuaded, will be done without a change of abode. In a house with that character of hospitality and ancient dignity, Sir Walter could not alter his style. Anywhere else he might judge for himself, and be looked up to for it.
Three places are possible: London, Bath, or another house in the country. Anne wants the last, a small house in the neighbourhood, near Lady Russell, near Mary, and near enough to see the lawns of Kellynch sometimes. The usual fate of Anne attends her. She dislikes Bath, and Bath is to be her home. Shepherd talks Sir Walter off London, where he could not be trusted. Bath is safer. A gentleman in his predicament may be important there at comparatively little expense. It is only fifty miles from Kellynch, and Lady Russell spends part of every winter there. Her first views had been for Bath. She feels obliged to oppose Anne. A small house in his own neighbourhood would be too much to ask of him, and Anne's dislike of Bath, she decides, is a prejudice from three years at school there and one winter of low spirits. Then the scheme grows a second part, kept a profound secret. Kellynch Hall is to be let. Sir Walter cannot bear to be known to design it. Shepherd says advertise once, and never dares again. The house will be let only if some most unexceptionable applicant asks for it, on Sir Walter's own terms, and as a great favour. How quick come the reasons for approving what we like. Elizabeth has taken up Mrs Clay, the clever daughter of Mr Shepherd, home after an unprosperous marriage with two children, and already a guest at Kellynch more than once. Lady Russell has almost no influence with Elizabeth, who has turned from Anne to confide in a woman who should have been nothing but an object of distant civility. The seven-year plan is dead. No applicant has asked for the hall. Lady Russell is already extremely glad to leave, because the move will leave Mrs Clay behind.
