A Parent's Heart

Blurb: A Persuasion what-if, depicting what the aftermath of Anne's rejection of Captain Wentworth might have been like if Sophia had been at Monkford in the year six with her brothers.

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When I returned to the cottage of my residence, I was scarcely able to conceal my foul spirits. Fortunately for him, Edward was out discharging his duties in the parish, but it could not escape Sophia’s eyes that I displayed somewhat more restlessness and ennui than was my usual wont.

“You have been thrown over by Miss Anne,” she remarked rather too perceptively, drawing naught but a scowl from me in response. Such an observation deserved no affirmation, when it laid bare my abject humiliation to all the world.

“Ay”, I said, after as long a silence as could possibly be deemed polite. At Sophia’s knowing nod, I could not help but be sardonic. “Et tu, Brute? Should even my own sister think me undeserving?”

“I do not,” replied Sophia, with perhaps more forbearance than I deserved. “In fact, I believe there to be none more deserving than you. But you cannot know a parent’s heart, and that is why you may perhaps be harsher on yourself than you need to be.”

If it were ever possible, that next remark laid open an even deeper wound, one that had been festering ever since I was a little child.

“It is not my fault,” I protested. “One’s family circumstances are not of one’s own choosing.”

“No, they are not. You cannot know what a mother feels, when our dear mother passed while you were still a babe in arms. And you have been your own master at too young an age; you know not the heart of a father, either. I believe, if either of our parents had been living, they would have counselled you that you were perhaps too precipitate in paying your addresses.”

“Precipitate! It has been nearly six months,” I cried indignantly. “It would not be prudent for me to remain without a command for much longer, and I have no honourable option but to make my declarations to Miss Anne before leaving, for I have not the means to return after I make to Portsmouth to seek a command. Besides, how many days did it take for you to settle with Captain Croft after making his acquaintance? You, of all people, could scarcely have the right to call me precipitate.”

“They are hardly the same circumstances,” said Sophia. “I was three-and-twenty, with Edward on the cusp of entering the university, and neither dowry nor beauty to recommend myself. Ever since Papa’s passing, we had both been dependent on you – on the earnings of a child. At only sixteen, you could not possibly have provided for me to set up an establishment of my own, without our brother to keep me respectable. And all of our mother’s portion, as well as our inheritance from our father, was needed to pay for Edward’s fees and keep our lodgings. What else could I have done, but to marry the first man who came along? I am fortunate in the extreme that Captain Croft was both a good match from a pecuniary sense and a love match for me, and it is perhaps our good luck as well that we both knew each other by character long before we set eyes upon each other.”

“And what of Miss Anne?” continued Sophia. “She is the daughter of a baronet, and as you already have said yourself, for anyone discerning enough to appreciate her, she is no common beauty. Surely her parents – and I use the plural, for Lady Russell acts in the stead of her mother – must needs be assured that she can continue in the life to which she was accustomed, or at the minimum, make the barest claims to gentility after her marriage. They would be most derelict in their duty if they did not do so.

“You have been wise in determining that remaining on half pay will not do. Marriage to Miss Anne, or any woman of gentle birth, would not be possible if you did not seek a command. But even with the benefit of one, you have no holdings presently; should you perish, there is nothing you could leave behind to improve her situation.”

“I have not yet been fortunate enough for my income to exceed my needs,” I admitted. “But through honest toil, I have contributed to our maintenance in some level of respectability and paid back the debt we owed to the kind parishioners who contributed the funds required to send me to sea. With the next step in rank, I should be able to accumulate more funds, especially with the increase in my portion of any prize money that should come.”

“I know,” Sophia acknowledged. “No one could have done more than you. And would that I could have been the one to go to sea instead – but that is neither here nor there. You have played your cards the best you could within unfortunate circumstances, and you have triumphed in securing the affections of such a treasure as Miss Anne. Had either party a parent with the willingness and ability to guarantee a gentlewoman’s income on Miss Anne in the unfortunate event that you were to perish, there would be nothing left to do but wish you joy. And as it is, you still have hope for the future. Your circumstances are not immutable.”

“Are they not? Had it been Sir Walter withholding his consent, I may still have hope, for I could renew my addresses two years hence, and his objections would not signify then. Nay, all is lost, when the objections were voiced by Miss Anne herself. First, she professed that her feelings would transcend our income, and then upon the counsel of her father and that infernal Lady Russell, she has now claimed otherwise. That is weakness of character at the very best, and cruelty and duplicity at worst.”

“Did she truly retract her feelings?” asked Sophia. “Or did she only retract the engagement?”

“Is there a difference? I cannot discern any. From the very beginning, I had been cognizant of the possibility for a long engagement of unknown duration, but when she has renounced the engagement itself, it shows that I have been played false indeed. What use is the claim of constancy when the first action she has taken, upon the lack of funds from her father and the negative counsel of Lady Russell, is to free herself to be available to the highest bidder?”

“So, she has claimed constancy, then? With someone of the character of Miss Anne, I should assume the veracity of her words,” came Sophia’s pointed reply. “Tell me true, if she were to faithfully await your return and her majority, the lack of a formal engagement notwithstanding, how would that be in any way different than maintaining the engagement?”

“An engagement would give us the right to correspond,” I said, trying not to sound overly petulant. “Even if all I could have of her are her letters, I would not miss her company half as much.”

“That can be remedied, though I would be trivializing the matter to claim that there is an easy solution,” came Sophia’s ready rejoinder. “We know not how far hence Edward shall be in this area, but as long as he remains at Monkford, you can carry news of yourself in your correspondence with him and entreat him to convey news of Miss Anne in the same. And should Edward find a living elsewhere, I can invoke my friendship with Miss Anne to perform that same office. Though you may need to put up with substantial delays, after I go to sea with Captain Croft again.

“And if I may be a little impertinent – for it is the prerogative of an elder sister to be so, as you know – what reason did Miss Anne give for breaking off the engagement? For, I am certain, it is not the lack of constancy. I have seen her after she accepted your addresses, and she was in such an exquisite state of felicity indeed. There is no way, when she was so delighted at making a match with no monetary benefit to her whatsoever – in fact, quite the opposite – that she could possibly be saving herself for ‘the highest bidder’, so to speak.”

“She said something about it being solely for my benefit,” I said absently, furrowing my brows. “I cannot make it out, for she spoke of her filial duty and how much it pained her that the people whom she respected as elders, both the one closest to her in familial ties, and the one who is nearest to her heart, should disparage and disrespect our connexion. And then, she said, it would be sheer misery for both of us to proceed in wilfulness, having to live with their rejection always. She could bear it, she said, and bear the guilt for both of us, but she wanted me to have the freedom to think upon it and seek someone who could give me the familial approval that I deserve, if I should so choose. At the time, I thought her duplicitous – that it was a roundabout subterfuge to drive me away – for her family’s objections mean naught to me when my profession will take us far away from here, for a good portion of our time. But I see now what you speak of – I have not an understanding of the importance she places on parental approval, not having a living parent of my own.”

Though I could not truthfully claim that the ensuing years held no pain of separation, I must admit that my worst pain – the belief that I had been ill-used and played false by the only woman I ever loved – was assuaged by Sophia’s counsel. For someone who had never known a parent’s heart, I could only give thanks that I had an elder sister acting in the stead of a parent to me.