Hello.
Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.
Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.
But before we begin,
Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Persuasion by Jane Austen Volume 2,
Chapter 9 Further continued After having discussed the particulars about Mr.
Elliot,
Mrs.
Smith still was not done with.
She had been carried away from her first direction and Anne had forgotten in the interest of her own family concerns how much had been originally implied against him.
But her intention was now called to the explanation of those first hints and she listened to a recital which,
If it did not perfectly justify the unqualified bitterness of Mrs.
Smith,
Proved him to have been very unfeeling in his conduct towards her,
Very deficient both in justice and compassion.
Anne learned that the intimacy between them continuing on,
Impaired by Mr.
Elliot's marriage.
The two friends had been as before always together and Mr.
Elliot had led Mr.
Smith into expenses much beyond his fortune.
Mrs.
Smith did not want to take blame to herself and was most tender of throwing any on her husband.
But Anne could collect that their income had never been equal to their style of living and that from the first there had been a great deal of general and joint extravagance.
From his wife's account of him she could discern Mr.
Smith to have been a man of warm feelings,
Easy temper,
Careless habits and not strong understanding,
Much more amiable than his friend and very unlike him,
Led by him and probably despised by him.
Mr.
Elliot,
Raised by his marriage to great affluence and disposed to every gratification of pleasure and vanity which could be commanded without involving himself,
And beginning to be rich just as his friend ought to have found himself to be poor,
Seemed to have had no concern at all for that friend's probable finances but on the contrary had been prompting and encouraging expenses which could only end in ruin and the Smiths accordingly had been ruined.
The husband had died just in time to be spared the full knowledge of it.
They had previously known embarrassments enough to try the friendship of their friends and to prove that Mr.
Elliot's had better not be tried but it was not until his death that the wretched state of Mr.
Smith's affairs was finally known.
With a confidence in Mr.
Elliot's regard more creditable to his feelings than his judgment,
Mr.
Smith had appointed him the executor of his will but Mr.
Elliot would not act and the difficulties and distress which this refusal had heaped on her,
Mrs.
Smith,
In addition to the inevitable sufferings of her situation,
Had been such as could not be related without anguish of spirit or listened to without corresponding indignation.
Anne was shown some letters of his on this occasion,
Answers to urgent applications from Mrs.
Smith,
Which all breathe the same stern resolution of not engaging in a fruitless trouble and under a cold civility the same hard-hearted indifference to any of the evils it might bring on her.
It was a dreadful picture of ingratitude and inhumanity and Anne felt at some moments that no flagrant open crime could have been worse.
She had a great deal to listen to,
All the particulars of past sad scenes,
All the minutae of distress upon distress,
Which in former conversations had been mainly hinted at,
Were dwelt on now with natural indulgence.
Anne could perfectly comprehend the exquisite relief and was only the more inclined to wonder at the composure of her friend's usual state of mind.
There was one circumstance in the history of her grievances of particular irritation.
She had good reason to believe that some property of her husband in the West Indies,
Which had been for many years under a sort of sequestration for the payment of its own encumbrances,
Might be recoverable by proper measures,
And this property,
Though not large,
Would be enough to make her comparatively rich.
But there was nobody to stir in it.
Mr Elliot would do nothing and she could do nothing herself,
Equally disabled from personal exertion by her state of bodily weakness and from employing others by her want of money.
She had no natural connections to assist her even with their counsel and she could not afford to purchase the assistance of the law.
This was a cruel aggravation of actually strained means.
To feel that she ought to be in better circumstances,
That a little trouble in the right place might do it,
And to fear that delay might even be weakening her claims,
Was hard to bear.
It was on this point she hoped to engage Anne's good offices with Mr Elliot.
She had previously,
In the anticipation of their marriage,
Been very apprehensive of losing her friend by it,
But on being assured that he could have made no attempt of that nature,
Since he did not even know her to be in Bath,
It immediately occurred that something might be done in her favour by the influence of the woman he loved,
And she had been hastily preparing to interest Anne's feelings,
As far as the observances due to Mr Elliot's character would allow,
When Anne's refutation of the supposed engagement changed the face of everything.
And while it took from her the new-formed hope of succeeding in the object of her first anxiety,
Left her at least the comfort of telling the whole story her own way.
After listening to this full description of Mr Elliot,
Anne could not but express some surprise at Mrs Smith's having spoken of him so favourably in the beginning of their conversation.
She had seemed to recommend and praise him.
My dear,
Was Mrs Smith's reply,
There was nothing else to be done.
I considered your marrying him certain,
Though he might not yet have made the offer,
And I could no more speak the truth of him than if he had been your husband.
My heart bled for you as I talked of happiness,
And yet he is sensible,
He is agreeable,
And with such a woman as you,
It was not absolutely hopeless.
He was very unkind to his first wife,
They were wretched together,
But she was too ignorant and giddy for respect,
And he had never loved her.
I was willing to hope you must fare better.
Anne could just acknowledge within herself such a possibility of having been induced to marry him,
As made her shudder at the idea of the misery which might have followed.
It was just possible she might have been persuaded by Lady Russell,
And under such a supposition,
Which would have been most miserable when time had disclosed all,
Too late.
It was very desirable that Lady Russell should be no longer deceived,
And one of the concluding arrangements of this important conference,
Which carried them through the greater part of the morning,
Was that Anne had full liberty to communicate to her friend everything relative to Mrs Smith,
Into which Mr Elliot's conduct was involved.
