Fair Winds and Homeward Sail: Sophy Croft's Story Read online

  Sophy exerted herself to draw Miss Anne Elliot out, first by offering an apology lest reference to Kellynch Hall should be awkward. On Miss Anne’s well-bred assurance to the contrary, Sophy then took the opportunity to offer justly deserved praise of the gardens, the situation from the windows, the finest rooms, and watched the wistful expression of Miss Anne’s face.

  Miss Anne, in her turn, asked no questions outside of the most general politeness, and so Sophy finally brought herself around to Monkford: “It was you, and not your sister, I find, that my brother had the pleasure of being acquainted with, when he was in this country?”

  Miss Anne’s wan complexion, if possible, paled further, and Sophy knew that she had struck home. She shifted her gaze away at once, for the shuttered eyelashes, the compressed breathing called instantly to mind Frederick’s shuttered expression. Sophy’s curiosity must increase, but not for the world would she give pain.

  Therefore, since she had brought up the subject and the lady plainly did not want to be detected, she must in compassion shift the context to Edward, so she said in her easiest voice, “Perhaps you may have heard that he is married,” full knowing that Miss Hopgood’s engagement, as a local affair, would have been known to Miss Anne.

  It sufficed. Miss Anne’s color betrayed her though her manner did not, and the conventional compliments were offered and received with thanks, before Mrs. Charles Musgrove broke in to talk about what a splendid wedding party had been made up, though the neighbors of the first stare had not all attended.

  It was time to bring the call to a close. Sophy signaled the admiral, and he, excellent man, promptly rose to leave. Then with beaming good will he said to Mrs. Musgrove, “We are expecting a brother of Mrs. Croft’s here soon; I dare say you know him by name.”

  Mrs. Mary Musgrove began to say, “I have not had the pleasure of—here, Charles, what are you about?”

  The little boys had interrupted, and Sophy did not see the effect of these words on Miss Anne. The admiral must give the boys one last joke, one last story, before they were able to make their departure at last, and call at the Great House on their way.

  Though it transpired the squire was from home, all the rest of the household was there, including Mr. Charles Musgrove, apparently seeing to estate affairs in his father’s absence. Sophy was delighted to discover the kind of noisy, merry gathering she liked the most. The Miss Musgroves, pretty and friendly, like their mother welcomed the visitors and treated them as old friends. Their insistence that they call again—and to bring the brother when he came—she accepted as meant.

  As they drove away, the admiral said, “I like that family. Young Charles is an affable fellow, like his father. No pretense or pomposity about the squire! The little boys, I think, would soon learn discipline aboard a ship and be the better for it, ha ha. Perhaps Frederick will convince them—do you think we ought to introduce him? I am thinking he might be sadly bored with just the two of us rattling around that large house, and not a drop of water in sight, much less a boat to sail in it.”

  Sophy remembered that shuttered look—almost of pain—in Miss Anne’s face. “Yes,” she said. “I think we ought.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Before Frederick arrived, Sophy had time to consider the situation.

  She had learned to be patient. Long ago their Great-Uncle Bainbridge had called Frederick proud, and there was some justice in that, but Sophy knew that proud countenance hid profound sensibilities. There was not a particle of proof, but Sophy was convinced that Frederick had never recovered from his disappointment, and further, if the impression of a single visit could be counted upon, neither had Miss Anne.

  She must therefore wait, and take her cue from Frederick. He would instantly recognize Kellynch Hall. If he said anything, she could speak; if he pretended ignorance, she must as well.

  Though she had long been in the habit of sharing most all her thoughts with the admiral, she must withhold the particulars of this situation. His ignorance would be his protection, in affording him an easy, natural manner she knew he would not feel if he were told.

  o0o

  Frederick Wentworth had sustained a difficult time. On his arrival at Plymouth he had discovered the shocking news about Miss Harville, and had left everything undone to run to Portsmouth.

  He remained aboard Benwick’s Grappler, paying off its crew and seeing to all the necessary trouble of bringing in a ship at the end of a commission, while his friend was prostrate with grief.

  When Benwick had at last pronounced himself able to row ashore, Frederick then had to return to Portsmouth and it was all to do again for his own ship. At last he was able to depart for Somerset. He arrived in Taunton to discover his brother had departed, leaving with Dr. Gregory a letter directing him to Kellynch Hall.

  Kellynch Hall?

  He had sworn never to set foot in that parish again. His luck, so excellent for so long, seemed to have turned for the worse: Harville laid up somewhere beyond reach, Benwick struck down by grief. And now his sister had somehow ended up in the place he least expected to find her—and least wanted.

  He could see how it came about by accident: Edward’s bride came from that neighborhood—Sir Walter had run aground and decided to let it—the admiral heard about it from the new Mrs. Wentworth—the house was very handsome—yes, it was a comedy of errors, but only for him. To the world it would seem natural enough, therefore there was nothing for it but to pretend that it was no matter for him either.

  Still, his spirits were in turmoil, throwing him back to the grief and anger of those days eight years previous when he had last traveled the familiar road.

  He was spared memories of the house, for he had never seen any of the place but the formal drawing room, and that on a single visit. He found Sophy and the admiral happily ensconced.

  As Croft conducted him from room to room, pointing out small improvements (“Just as we did aboard the Athene, you’ll remember, nothing could be more neat and complete, eh?”) all Frederick could think was how once Anne had lived and worked here, all but ignored, and certainly not respected by her fine lady sister and pompous humbug of a father.

  He did not want to think about Anne. But he must, for over dinner the admiral offered the information he refused to ask: “. . . and you will like the Musgroves, I venture to say, with one of the daughters of this house among ’em. No, I mistake.”

  “Two, Admiral,” Sophy said. “Frederick, may I help you to some more strawberries? I loved living aboard a man-of-war, but I will admit that one thing I sorely missed was vegetables and fruit fresh from the garden.”

  “No, thank you.”

  The admiral went on. “Lively and noisy, the Musgroves, very much in the style of our most famous gatherings at Gib, and Lisbon, and even Yarmouth, eh, Sophy? Remember when Lord Nelson came among us, the entire city kicked up its heels. Oh, I wonder what he would make of things now.”

  Frederick could take this much comfort: the Crofts seemed unaware of his wretched error here. He knew that if he had arrived and found pity and knowing looks, he would have mounted his horse and gone away again—somewhere.

  But the admiral spoke again. “I am fairly certain one or other of the Musgroves will call, now you are come. I like the father, and his son as well. Sensible, think just as they ought about matters of land, sheep, and so forth, but not above taking out a pistol for some sport. Hi, Sophy, they were among the first of our callers, eh?”

  “Indeed,” Sophy said, always tranquil—exactly as their mother had been. “And all of them wild for the navy, especially the little boys. You are not wanting to send Frederick to spirit those boys away for the navy’s benefit, are you, my dear? I think their parents might object.”

  The admiral thought this sally the primest of jests, and was still laughing over it from time to time as they walked into the sitting room for coffee.

  o0o

  The admiral was correct in his prediction. The squire himself came to call, after wh
ich the Crofts saw Frederick ride off to make his visit.

  He returned promptly with the news that one of those lively boys had fallen out of a tree and broken a bone, but nothing alarming having been found in consequence, he had been pressed to dine the next day.

  Sophy would have given anything to be there to see Frederick and Miss Anne together, but it was not to be. She had been aware of a sharp glance or two from Frederick and sensed that she must maintain an affect of ignorance equal to the admiral’s real lack of awareness.

  The next evening Frederick was gone for a very long time; when he came in late to drink tea before they all retired, he said only that the Musgroves were very good company, and that Mr. Charles Musgrove had invited him to go shooting on the morrow. He did not mention Anne. An innocent question from the admiral elicited the information that Miss Elliot had not been among the company, but had remained with the sick boy.

  Late the next day, Sophy saw Frederick’s return from a back window, from which she had been watching. Nothing could be seen of his demeanor below his hat. She waited impatiently for a time, then finally descended swiftly to the laundry room behind the kitchen, from whose wide window she could look into the stable.

  There she witnessed Frederick standing very still, his arms extended, hands pressing against the wall with fingers spread. His stillness, his head bent, his entire aspect shocked her nerves.

  She backed away hastily, as if she had been caught in some act she could ill-define, and without thinking snatched up her hat and shawl and sped out through the terrace door to take a good, brisk ramble through the garden.

  She met the gentlemen at dinner. Pressed by the admiral, Frederick readily praised the countryside, and those he’d met.

  “I did not think about it until I laid eyes on them,” the admiral said, “but here are young ladies in plenty. What with Boney safe at Elba, why, if you was to get married, who is to stop you? Take these two Musgrove girls, pretty, wild about the navy, and always ready to kick up their heels in a dance at the slightest excuse.”

  “That is my object,” Frederick said, with a sardonic curl to his lip. “I shall settle as soon as properly tempted—have a heart for either of your Miss Musgroves if she can catch it. In short, for almost any pleasing young woman.”

  “Pleasing?” Sophy asked, having heard his emphasis on the word.

  He turned her way, his black eyes a-glitter with warning, though he readily smiled, and his tone was joking. “Yes, here I am, Sophia, quite ready to make a foolish match. Anybody between fifteen and thirty may have me for the asking. A little beauty, and a few smiles, and a few compliments to the navy, and I am a lost man. Should this not be enough for a sailor, who has had no society among women to make him nice?”

  Sophy sensed the challenge there, but she maintained her resolve and looked uncomprehending, only smiled and nodded as the admiral clapped his hands.

  “A strong mind,” Frederick said in a lower tone. “With sweetness of manner. This is the woman I want. Something a little inferior I shall of course put up with, but it must not be much. If I am a fool, I shall be a fool indeed, for I have thought on the subject more than most men.”

  Sophy kept a prudent silence.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Frederick rode to Uppercross regularly, for he had a standing invitation.

  It was soon known in the parish that he was flirting with the Miss Musgroves, who flirted back with happy indiscrimination; as the sisters readily invited all the young ladies within riding distance to impromptu dances, there was no whispering beyond smiling wagers on which one he might pick.

  Sophy saw Frederick drawn back again and again, though there appeared to be no desire to exchange flirtation for courtship, that is, to walk alone with one or other of the Miss Musgroves in the apple orchard, or along a lonely road.

  More important to Sophy, though he flirted readily and openly with both Musgrove sisters, her brother did not behave like a man in love.

  She had learnt by now by years of experience with young men as well as those not so young, that love manifested in many ways.

  She had never seen Frederick in love, still, her vast experience among naval gentlemen had led her to expect some discussion, at least, however trivial: “Miss Harriet looked especially charming last night, I thought,” or “Miss Louisa expressed a partiality for Carlo Campioni. I will look out the music to a melody of his I once heard in Naples.” There was none of that, and even less the gaiety of a man about to make a choice, certain of his reward—for she knew from bits of parish gossip that both of the young ladies enthusiastically did everything they could to encourage the connection.

  That was as much as she could observe from a distance, until the little boy was deemed recovered enough for the Musgroves to invite the Crofts as well as Captain Wentworth to dine. At last Sophy would see Frederick in company with Anne Elliot. She had hopes she would understand more.

  Initially she had little enough to go on. Anne Elliot was so quiet and retiring that her voice was never heard above the more boisterous exclamations of the Musgroves.

  During and after the dinner the Miss Musgroves united in arch displays of naval ignorance, prompting Frederick for details of shipboard life, and afterward with a shared air of triumph produced the navy list. Each gave Frederick smiles of invitation to sit on the couch between them, with the stated wish to look out a listing of his own ships.

  Sophy watched Miss Anne, whose dark gaze darted from speaker to speaker as the Musgrove girls commented and Frederick answered. The subject of the navy list roused the admiral’s attention, and he gave over talking of sport with the Musgrove gentlemen to laugh and expostulate.

  “Pho! Pho! What stuff these young fellows talk,” said he, and more besides.

  Sophy looked for an opportunity to guide the talk in such a way as to draw Miss Anne into contributing, but hard on the admiral’s well-intentioned, “What should a young fellow like you do ashore for half a year together? If a man has not a wife, he soon wants to be afloat again,” Sophy felt all the danger that these easy words brought.

  She saw the impact in the tightening of Frederick’s lips, and Anne Elliot’s getting up to move to the farther sofa, where Mrs. Musgrove sat with a complacent air, obviously following little of the conversation.

  And here was Miss Louisa, equally unaware of any currents but her own, crying archly with a play of pretty eyes, “But Captain Wentworth, how vexed you must have been when you came to the Asp, to see what an old thing they had given you.”

  Frederick was the first to recollect himself. As he went on to relate some his exploits—rendered suitable for present company—loudly did the sisters unite in their pretense of shock and horror. Sophy saw the real emotion in Anne’s paled complexion.

  “And so then, I suppose,” observed Mrs. Musgrove to her eldest son, “so then he went away to the Laconia, and there he met with our poor boy.”

  She went on in a low voice to Charles Musgrove, but not too low to be overheard. Sophy could see in Charles’ private grimace his misgivings about this unknown brother, apparently lost at sea. Their mother’s sighs and laments went completely unheeded by both sisters, who were obviously wanting Frederick’s attention back again, as they turned their exclamations to the Laconia.

  They did without success. Sophy then understood that the missing son had been one of Frederick’s reefers, moreover, from the way he was avoiding the hints, a troublesome one, however in response to direct appeal from Mrs. Musgrove, he smoothed the derisive curl of his lip, sat down at the farther end of the sofa from Anne, and uttered diplomatic phrases best suited to a grieving parent.

  Sophy suspected strongly that the admiral also knew of this troublesome son, for he had taken to walking about the room in his quarterdeck stride.

  Sophy raised her voice in one of their Yarmouth signals, “Admiral, may I pour you some tea?” whereby he recollected himself.

  But in his effort to return to his social duty, he blundered again,
all unknowing, “If you had been a week later at Lisbon, last spring, Frederick, you would have been asked to give a passage to Lady Mary Grierson and her daughters.”

  Perhaps the admiral meant to be gallant, but he inspired the opposite effect. Sophy was aghast at the anger Frederick masked beneath his cold words about women aboard ship, ending with, “I hate to hear of women on board, or to see them on board; and no ship under my command shall ever convey a family of ladies anywhere, if I can help it.”

  “Oh, Frederick!” Sophy frowned his way. “I cannot believe it of you. All idle refinement!” Against whom had that been directed? Though she knew women aplenty who deserved this opprobrium, she could not believe it of Anne Elliot, and she saw how the works struck the young lady. “Women maybe be as comfortable on board as in the best house in England,” she said, and a great deal more to the point.

  Proud as Lucifer! He argued right back, until at last she was driven to exclaim, “I hate to hear you talking so, like a fine gentleman.” She saw that strike home, and added, “As if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days.”

  “Ah, my dear.” The admiral stepped up behind Sophy, taking her hand. “When he has got a wife, he will sing a different tune. When he is married, if we have the good luck to live to another war, we shall see him do as you and I, and a great many others have done. We shall have him very thankful to anybody that will bring him his wife.”

  “Ay, that we shall,” she said, relenting.

  “Now I have done,” Frederick cried, raising his hands.

  The Musgrove girls laughed appreciatively as he spoke rallying words, and he moved away from them all to where the squire and his son began to talk of shooting the next morning.