Jane Austen's Persuasion, Part IV

and a Memorial Day sale

In honor of Memorial Day weekend, but even more in honor of our family’s last-minute removal to Michigan from Brooklyn after an unexpected rent increase, The Chatner is offering a special 20% off deal for the next year to anyone who becomes a paying subscriber this week. This week we’re off to the Midwest to retrench…just like Sir Walter Elliot in Bath. (Synergy!)

Previously in this series: Persuasion, parts I, II, and III.

ADMIRAL CROFT [Whinnying like a pony]: WHAT’S THIS I HEAR ABOUT YOUNG WENTWORTH GOING AROUND CONCUSSING LADIES ON THE STREET

Also Sense & Sensibility and Mansfield Park.

MARY MUSGROVE: Dear Anne:

Having fine time in Lyme

Louisa not dead after all

I am allowed to eat dinner first because no one in town has a more important father than me

Previously I had to eat dinner second because Mrs. Harville thought Mrs. Musgrove had the most important father but once we cleared that up I was happy to forgive her

By the way nobody here has a crush on you

Love,

Mary

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SIR WALTER: Is it just me or is Anne finally looking right these days?

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: No she’s finally looking right to me

SIR WALTER: Do you think her bloom is back?

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: oh her bloom is absoLUTEly back

SIR WALTER: Restored bloom, yes?

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: that is the FIRST thing I said to myself when she arrived

her bloom is absolutely restored

SIR WALTER: I think she’s ready to see the furniture

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: Oh, do you think so?

SIR WALTER: I wasn’t sure before but she really looks good these days

I think it’s safe

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: Because we both made a promise that nobody unattractive would ever get a chance to see the Elliot furniture in Bath

new house new rules, we said

SIR WALTER: I remember

and if she looked like she did last year I wouldn’t show her so much as a fork

but anyone who recovers her bloom at forty deserves a chance to see our sofas and chesterfields and so on

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: Is Anne forty?

SIR WALTER: Isn’t she?

well if she isn’t now, she certainly was this time last year

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SIR WALTER: OH and we’re good friends with Mr Elliot now

it turns out he only married his first wife instead of Elizabeth because she was beautiful and rich and in love with him

so all is forgiven

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: well all is something, anyhow

MRS. CLAY: Isn’t it WONDERFUL how HANDSOME and FORGIVEN everybody is

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SIR WALTER: I’m heading out to the High Street so I can rank the faces of passersby in order from passably handsome to intolerable

Send a horse after me if anyone I’m related to comes by the house

but otherwise I’m not to be disturbed

ANNE: Do you remember when you used to be a landowner

SIR WALTER: A what? Anne, I already told you that I find your new face entirely acceptable, don’t fish for compliments

If you need something to do, why don’t you write to Mary and remind her to do something about her nose

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SIR WALTER: You might have noticed that Mrs. Clay is considerably lessened in personal ugliness since the last time you saw her

I’ve taken responsibility for her skin care regimen since we arrived and I confess I am gratified by the results

ANNE: When are you planning on tackling her freckles?

SIR WALTER: Oh, are they still there? Damn, I thought I’d bleached the last of ‘em

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ANNE: There’s something deeply humiliating about my father’s frantic chasing after the Dalrymples’ acquaintance

especially when they clearly care nothing about the relationship

MR ELLIOT: You’re too hard on your family, Anne

Dare I say…our family

Obviously in London the Dalrymples would care nothing about us

but consider that Bath is a much smaller town than London, with less to do

ANNE: That doesn’t make me feel better at all

MR ELLIOT: But you certainly can’t argue that we’re not in Bath right now

You must concede at least that much

ANNE: I suppose so

MR ELLIOT: Well, there you are then

ANNE: Where am I?

MR ELLIOT: In Bath

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SIR WALTER: And where do you think you’re going?

ANNE: I’m going out to see an old school friend

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: But we’re going to see the Dalrymples

ANNE: That’s fine

have a nice time

Like I said, I’m going to see an old school friend, Mrs Smith

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: Doesn’t she live in a BATHTUB

ANNE: She is ill, and poor. She makes a living selling geegaws

SIR WALTER: Selling what

ANNE: Gimcracks

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: selling WHAT

ANNE: whatnots. Curios. You know

Doodads

ELIZABETH ELLIOT: why can’t you visit your ash-can friend another day

ANNE: I CAN’T

she’s going into the water tomorrow

SIR WALTER: Leave her, Elizabeth. If your sister wants to waste her bloom visiting syphilitic riverboat captains who sell garbage for a living, then let her

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MARY MUSGROVE: Anne

Do you remember that Captain Benwick who everybody but me thought had a crush on you?

well he’s engaged now to LOUISA MUSGROVE, who did NOT die, so I think that must settle the question of how he feels about Anne Elliot pretty definitively

if you remember I never thought he liked you

so let that be a lesson on listening to people

On the one hand they have absolutely nothing in common but on the other hand it makes sense when you think about it: After falling off the sea-wall at Lyme she probably wants to stay indoors more often anyhow

Mary

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