Get up and go over all the rooms in the house if you like it."
"Another time, Sir, I thank you, not now."
"Well, whenever it suits you.
You can slip in from the shrubbery at any time; and there you will find we keep our umbrellas hanging up by that door.
A good place is not it?
But," (checking himself), "you will not think it a good place, for yours were always kept in the butler's room.
Ay, so it always is, I believe.
One man's ways may be as good as another's, but we all like our own best. And so you must judge for yourself, whether it would be better for you to go about the house or not."
Anne, finding she might decline it, did so, very gratefully.
"We have made very few changes either," continued the Admiral, after thinking a moment.
"Very few.
We told you about the laundry-door, at Uppercross.
That has been a very great improvement.
The wonder was, how any family upon earth could bear with the inconvenience of its opening as it did, so long!
You will tell Sir Walter what we have done, and that Mr Shepherd thinks it the greatest improvement the house ever had.
Indeed, I must do ourselves the justice to say, that the few alterations we have made have been all very much for the better.
My wife should have the credit of them, however.
I have done very little besides sending away some of the large looking-glasses from my dressing-room, which was your father's.
A very good man, and very much the gentleman I am sure: but I should think, Miss Elliot," (looking with serious reflection), "I should think he must be rather a dressy man for his time of life.
Such a number of looking-glasses! oh Lord! there was no getting away from one's self.
So I got Sophy to lend me a hand, and we soon shifted their quarters; and now I am quite snug, with my little shaving glass in one corner, and another great thing that I never go near."
Anne, amused in spite of herself, was rather distressed for an answer, and the Admiral, fearing he might not have been civil enough, took up the subject again, to say-
"The next time you write to your good father, Miss Elliot, pray give him my compliments and Mrs Croft's, and say that we are settled here quite to our liking, and have no fault at all to find with the place.
The breakfast-room chimney smokes a little, I grant you, but it is only when the wind is due north and blows hard, which may not happen three times a winter.
And take it altogether, now that we have been into most of the houses hereabouts and can judge, there is not one that we like better than this.
Pray say so, with my compliments.
He will be glad to hear it."
Lady Russell and Mrs Croft were very well pleased with each other: but the acquaintance which this visit began was fated not to proceed far at present; for when it was returned, the Crofts announced themselves to be going away for a few weeks, to visit their connexions in the north of the county, and probably might not be at home again before Lady Russell would be removing to Bath.
So ended all danger to Anne of meeting Captain Wentworth at Kellynch Hall, or of seeing him in company with her friend.
Everything was safe enough, and she smiled over the many anxious feelings she had wasted on the subject.
Chapter 14
Though Charles and Mary had remained at Lyme much longer after Mr and Mrs Musgrove's going than Anne conceived they could have been at all wanted, they were yet the first of the family to be at home again; and as soon as possible after their return to Uppercross they drove over to the Lodge.
They had left Louisa beginning to sit up; but her head, though clear, was exceedingly weak, and her nerves susceptible to the highest extreme of tenderness; and though she might be pronounced to be altogether doing very well, it was still impossible to say when she might be able to bear the removal home; and her father and mother, who must return in time to receive their younger children for the Christmas holidays, had hardly a hope of being allowed to bring her with them.
They had been all in lodgings together.
Mrs Musgrove had got Mrs Harville's children away as much as she could, every possible supply from Uppercross had been furnished, to lighten the inconvenience to the Harvilles, while the Harvilles had been wanting them to come to dinner every day; and in short, it seemed to have been only a struggle on each side as to which should be most disinterested and hospitable.
Mary had had her evils; but upon the whole, as was evident by her staying so long, she had found more to enjoy than to suffer.
Charles Hayter had been at Lyme oftener than suited her; and when they dined with the Harvilles there had been only a maid-servant to wait, and at first Mrs Harville had always given Mrs Musgrove precedence; but then, she had received so very handsome an apology from her on finding out whose daughter she was, and there had been so much going on every day, there had been so many walks between their lodgings and the Harvilles, and she had got books from the library, and changed them so often, that the balance had certainly been much in favour of Lyme.
She had been taken to Charmouth too, and she had bathed, and she had gone to church, and there were a great many more people to look at in the church at Lyme than at Uppercross; and all this, joined to the sense of being so very useful, had made really an agreeable fortnight.
Anne enquired after Captain Benwick, Mary's face was clouded directly.
Charles laughed.
"Oh! Captain Benwick is very well, I believe, but he is a very odd young man. I do not know what he would be at.
We asked him to come home with us for a day or two: Charles undertook to give him some shooting, and he seemed quite delighted, and, for my part, I thought it was all settled; when behold! on Tuesday night, he made a very awkward sort of excuse; `he never shot' and he had `been quite misunderstood,' and he had promised this and he had promised that, and the end of it was, I found, that he did not mean to come.
I suppose he was afraid of finding it dull; but upon my word I should have thought we were lively enough at the Cottage for such a heart-broken man as Captain Benwick."
Charles laughed again and said,
"Now Mary, you know very well how it really was.
It was all your doing," (turning to Anne.)
"He fancied that if he went with us, he should find you close by: he fancied everybody to be living in Uppercross; and when he discovered that Lady Russell lived three miles off, his heart failed him, and he had not courage to come. That is the fact, upon my honour, Mary knows it is."
But Mary did not give into it very graciously, whether from not considering Captain Benwick entitled by birth and situation to be in love with an Elliot, or from not wanting to believe Anne a greater attraction to Uppercross than herself, must be left to be guessed.
Anne's good-will, however, was not to be lessened by what she heard.
She boldly acknowledged herself flattered, and continued her enquiries.