Mr Shepherd lays down the newspaper and tells Sir Walter the peace is in their favour. Rich naval officers will be turned ashore and will want homes, and a rich admiral would be a responsible tenant. Sir Walter's reply is that such a man would be lucky. Kellynch Hall would be a prize to him, the greatest prize of all, however many he had taken before. Shepherd laughs, as he knows he must, and adds that gentlemen of the navy have liberal notions and are as likely to make desirable tenants as any set of people. Consequence, he says, has its tax. John Shepherd could hide a family matter, because nobody would watch him. Sir Walter Elliot has eyes on him. If a rumour gets abroad, applications will follow, and the wealthy commanders are the ones worth attending to. Sir Walter only nods. Then he rises, paces, and says few navy gentlemen would not be surprised to find themselves in a house of this description.
Mrs Clay is in the room. Her father drove her over, nothing being so useful to her health as a drive to Kellynch. She agrees a sailor might do very well: neat, careful, safe with the pictures, and not likely to neglect Miss Elliot's flower gardens. Sir Walter is cool. Supposing he were induced to let the house, he has not made up his mind what privileges go with it. He is not disposed to favour a tenant. The park would be open. The pleasure-grounds are another thing. He is very little disposed to grant any extraordinary favour, sailor or soldier. Shepherd promises that no tenant will have more than his just rights, and that John Shepherd will be more jealous for Sir Walter than Sir Walter is for himself. Then Anne speaks. The navy, who have done so much, have at least an equal claim with any other set of men to all the comforts a home can give. Sailors work hard enough for those comforts. Shepherd and Mrs Clay call that very true. Sir Walter says the profession has its utility, but he should be sorry to see any friend of his belonging to it. It offends him in two points. It brings persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raises them to honours their fathers never dreamt of. And it cuts up a man's youth. A sailor grows old sooner than any other man. Last spring in town he had to give place to Lord St Ives, whose father was a country curate, and he saw Admiral Baldwin, face the colour of mahogany, nine grey hairs of a side, looking sixty and aged forty. It is a pity, he says, they are not knocked on the head at once, before they reach that age. Mrs Clay asks a little mercy. Not everyone is born handsome. Soldiers, lawyers, physicians, even clergymen in infected rooms, all lose their looks. Only those who are not obliged to follow any profession, living on their own property and choosing their own hours, keep health and a good appearance to the utmost.
The first application is from Admiral Croft. Shepherd meets him at the quarter sessions in Taunton, after a hint from a London correspondent. The Admiral is a native of Somersetshire, with a handsome fortune, wishing to settle in his own country. Advertised places nearby have not suited him. Hearing that Kellynch may be to let, just as Shepherd had foretold the secret could not be kept, he asks particulars and seems a most responsible tenant. Sir Walter's inquiry is cold: who is Admiral Croft? Shepherd answers for a gentleman's family. Anne, after a little pause, adds that he is a rear admiral of the white, was in the Trafalgar action, and has been in the East Indies since. Sir Walter takes it for granted the Admiral's face is about as orange as the cuffs of his livery. Shepherd hastens to call him hale, hearty, well-looking, only a little weather-beaten, quite the gentleman, ready to pay for a comfortable home and to get into it soon. He is married and without children, the state most to be wished, because a lady without a family is the best preserver of furniture in the world. Mrs Croft, seen at Taunton, asked more questions about the house, the terms, and the taxes than the Admiral, and seemed more conversant with business. She is sister to a gentleman who once lived at Monkford. Shepherd cannot recollect the name. Mrs Clay, talking with Miss Elliot, does not hear. Sir Walter remembers no gentleman at Monkford since old Governor Trent. Anne says, "You mean Mr Wentworth, I suppose?" Shepherd is all gratitude. Wentworth was the curate of Monkford for two or three years. Sir Walter says Shepherd misled him by the word gentleman. Mr Wentworth was nobody, quite unconnected, nothing to do with the Strafford family. One wonders how the names of nobility become so common. Shepherd sees that this connection does the Crofts no service, and mentions it no more. He returns to their fortune and their extraordinary taste for being Sir Walter's tenants. It succeeds. Sir Walter must ever look with an evil eye on anyone intending to inhabit that house, yet he is talked into letting Shepherd proceed, and into fixing a day for the house to be seen. "I have let my house to Admiral Croft" will sound extremely well, better than to any mere Mr. An admiral speaks his own consequence, and can never make a baronet look small. Elizabeth is happy to have the removal fixed, and does not say a word to suspend it. Anne, who has listened to the whole, leaves the room for cool air to meet her flushed cheeks, and as she walks a favourite grove she says, with a gentle sigh, "A few months more, and he, perhaps, may be walking here."
