The Letter — Persuasion

Anne puts off Lady Russell again. She has promised the Musgroves the day, and Mr Elliot's character can wait. Rain makes her late to the White Hart. Mrs Musgrove and Mrs Croft agree that a long or uncertain engagement is a folly. Anne feels the words on her own case. At the far table Captain Wentworth's pen stops, and he looks at her. Captain Harville calls her to the window with a miniature of Benwick, drawn for Fanny Harville and now to be set for Louisa. Poor Fanny, he says, would not have forgotten so soon. Anne answers that no woman who truly loved would. He trusts the strength of men's feelings. She says women feel more tenderly, and that men have work and change to carry them back into the world. When he appeals to books, she refuses them. Men have held the pen. Her only claim is that women love longest when hope is gone.

A pen falls. He is nearer than she thought. He leaves with Harville without a look at her, then returns for forgotten gloves and lays a letter before her. The room thought he was writing to Benwick. The page is for her. He can listen no longer in silence. She pierces his soul. He is half agony, half hope. He offers himself again, more hers than when she almost broke his heart eight and a half years ago. He has loved none but her. She alone brought him to Bath. A word or a look will decide whether he enters her father's house this evening or never.

Charles, Mary, and Henrietta return before she is calm. She pleads illness and will not take a chair, because a chair would cost her the chance of meeting him in the street. She also makes Mrs Musgrove promise to tell both captains that they are wanted tonight. On Union Street he joins her and Charles. Charles, eager to see a gun, asks Wentworth to take her on. Alone, they turn to the gravel walk, and nothing in the letter is taken back. Jealousy of Mr Elliot had begun the hour he saw her in Bath, had ruined the concert, and had ruled the last day, until her tone with Harville ended it. He had meant to forget her. At Lyme he learned the difference between Louisa's self-will and Anne's steadiness, then found the Harvilles treating him as engaged. Honour held him until Benwick freed him, and he came to Bath at once. He had one encouragement he kept to himself. She had once refused a man of better pretensions than his, and he had asked whether that refusal was for him.

That evening's card party feels short. Beside the plants she tells him she was right to obey Lady Russell, who stood in a parent's place, though the advice was wrong and she would never give it again. He may forgive Lady Russell in time. He asks about a worse enemy, himself. If he had written in the year eight, posted to the Laconia with a few thousand pounds, would she have renewed the engagement? Would I, she says. The accent is enough. Pride had wasted six years. He must learn to brook being happier than he deserves.