Kellynch (Chapters 1–4)

Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall, in Somersetshire, was a man who, for his own amusement, never took up any book but the Baronetage; there he found occupation for an idle hour, and consolation in a distressed one. He always opened it at his own page, which recorded his birth, in 1760, his marriage, the births of his three daughters, and the death of his wife; and to it he had added, in his own hand, the date of the marriage of his youngest daughter. Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character: vanity of person and of situation. He had been remarkably handsome in his youth; and, at fifty-four, was still a very fine man. Few women could think more of their personal appearance than he did; nor could the valet of any new-made lord be more delighted with the place he held in society.

Lady Elliot, an excellent woman, sensible and amiable, had been dead thirteen years. Of their three girls, Elizabeth, the eldest, at twenty-nine, was very like her father, handsome and proud, and had been mistress of Kellynch since she was sixteen. Mary, the youngest, had married Charles Musgrove, the heir of a respectable family at Uppercross, three miles off. But Anne, with an elegance of mind and sweetness of character which must have placed her high with any people of real understanding, was nobody with either father or sister; her word had no weight; her convenience was always to give way; she was only Anne. Her bloom had vanished early; and her father, who had never found much to admire in her, now found nothing.

The Elliots' only friend of real sense was Lady Russell, a widow of good fortune at Kellynch Lodge, who had been Lady Elliot's dearest friend, and who loved Anne as a daughter. Sir Walter's heir, since he had no son, was a distant cousin, Mr. William Walter Elliot, who had once been expected to marry Elizabeth, but who had instead married a rich woman of low birth and spoken disrespectfully of the family; they had not met for years.

Sir Walter and Elizabeth had lived beyond their income, and they were deep in debt. Lady Russell and Mr. Shepherd, Sir Walter's agent, drew up plans of economy; Sir Walter and Elizabeth rejected every one. "What! Every comfort of life knocked off! Journeys, London, servants, horses, table — contractions and restrictions everywhere! To live no longer with the decencies even of a private gentleman! No, he would sooner quit Kellynch Hall at once." And so it was decided: the Hall should be let, and the family move to Bath, where a man of consequence might live at less expense and still be important.

Mr. Shepherd had a widowed daughter, Mrs. Clay, clever and agreeable, with freckles and a projecting tooth and a clumsy wrist, who made herself very useful to Elizabeth. Anne thought her dangerous, and said so to Elizabeth; for Mrs. Clay was clearly hoping to become Lady Elliot. Elizabeth laughed at the idea.

Mr. Shepherd found a tenant at once. The war was over; the navy was coming home; and Admiral Croft, a rear-admiral who had been at the battle of Trafalgar and in the East Indies since, wished to settle in his own county with his wife. Sir Walter objected to the navy on two grounds. "First, as being the means of bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction, and raising men to honours which their fathers and grandfathers never dreamt of; and secondly, as it cuts up a man's youth and vigour most horribly; a sailor grows old sooner than any other man." He had once seen an admiral at a party with a face the colour of mahogany, rough and rugged to the last degree, all lines and wrinkles, nine grey hairs of a side, and nothing but a dab of powder at top. "'In the name of heaven, who is that old fellow?' said I. 'Old fellow!' cried Sir Basil, 'it is Admiral Baldwin. What do you take his age to be?' 'Sixty,' said I, 'or perhaps sixty-two.' 'Forty,' replied Sir Basil, 'forty, and no more.'"

But Admiral Croft was a good tenant; and his wife, Mr. Shepherd mentioned, was a sister of a gentleman who had once lived at Monkford — a curate, Mr. Wentworth. Sir Walter could not remember him. Anne, who could, left the room, and walked up and down in the shrubbery, and said to herself, with a gentle sigh, "A few months more, and he, perhaps, may be walking here."

He was not the curate, but his brother, Captain Frederick Wentworth. In the summer of 1806, when Anne was nineteen, he had come into the neighbourhood, a remarkably fine young man, with a great deal of intelligence, spirit and brilliancy; and they had fallen rapidly and deeply in love. Sir Walter had not forbidden it; he had only given it all the negative of great astonishment, great coldness, great silence, and a resolution to do nothing for his daughter. Lady Russell had disapproved more effectually. A young man with nothing but himself to recommend him, no fortune, no connections, in a most uncertain profession — confident, headstrong, sure he would be rich: it was a wretched alliance. She persuaded Anne that the engagement was wrong — indiscreet, improper, hardly capable of success, and not deserving it — and Anne, believing that she was acting for his good even more than her own, gave him up. He left the country, feeling himself ill-used.

Within a few months he had his first command; he had been lucky, as he said he would be, and had taken prizes; he was now Captain Wentworth, with twenty-five thousand pounds. He had never come back. Anne had never seen him since; she had heard his name in the navy lists and the newspapers. Her attachment and regrets had for a long time clouded every enjoyment of youth, and an early loss of bloom and spirits had been their lasting effect. When she was twenty-two, Charles Musgrove had asked her to marry him; she had refused him, and he had married Mary.

She did not blame Lady Russell; she did not blame herself for having been guided by her. But she felt that, were any young person in similar circumstances to apply to her for counsel, they would never receive any of such certain immediate wretchedness, such uncertain future good. She had been forced into prudence in her youth; she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.