Posted on 2008-10-31

Anne Elliot Conceives of a Plan

When still at Kellynch, the pitter-patter of tiny rat feet had been plaguing Anne every night. Or rather, every late evening and early morning. Sometimes there had been screeching and wailing as well. Anne did not know what was up in the attics, but something was and she feared it was much larger than a common rat. She had had the misfortune of seeing a rat now and then and she could not imagine it was responsible for the sounds she had heard.

Due to her move to Uppercross she had thankfully forgotten about the creatures in her father's attic, but hearing Charles Musgrove speak of rat hunting now brought it all back. It gave her an idea. She had never before thought she would be able to send anybody up there, because real though it had been, it had all been in her imagination, or so she had feared.

The Crofts were at Kellynch now, but so was Captain Wentworth and if he enjoyed hunting rats, which Charles said he did, together with Charles he might enjoy ridding Kellynch Hall of them -- or of whatever other creatures were up there.

She considered the matter carefully. Speaking to Captain Wentworth directly was out of the question. It would have to be done through Charles and he, though undoubtedly enthusiastic about the venture, might nevertheless feel they needed the Crofts' permission. Mrs Croft would insist on being one of the party. Captain Wentworth would not allow a lady to take part and his sister would not allow him to go up and the scheme would be dismissed. This was one option.

But she still held hopes of returning to live at Kellynch Hall some day and she would rather the rats were gone by then. Rats multiplied rather too quickly. If it got too crowded in the attics they might venture down to the floor below -- and that was almost where Anne slept. She shuddered when she imagined a rat sneaking into bed with her. A mouse she might just condone, but not a rat. There must be another option.

"'Tis nothing," Charles said with manly reassurance when she saw her shudder in response to his story. "Do you have any idea how small they are?"

Mary, who had climbed onto a chair the evening before upon seeing a mouse, cried out in indignation. "Small? Charles, you need spectacles! The rat I saw last night was the size of my forearm."

Anne, who could not stop shuddering, managed to speak privately to Charles and to propose the scheme to him. He was as willing to chase large rats as she had expected, until he realised that neither of them lived at Kellynch and that neither of them was at present able to enter the house at will.

"But the admiral said I could come in any time," Anne said softly, although uncharacteristically for her she had overlooked the matter initially. She was a resourceful young lady, however. "He did not tell me to restrict myself to daytime."

"But that will be what he meant. And rats are creatures of the night."

"But how could I know he did not mean at night? I thought..." she hesitated. "You could perhaps enlist Captain Wentworth's help in case there are too many rats for the two of us."

"The two of us! Anne!" Charles was appalled, but he had to lower his voice when Wentworth gave them a suspicious look. "You? You are not coming, surely?"

"The admiral said that I could come in, not that you could. If you came with me, it would be a different matter."

Anne and Charles Go Hunting

And so it came to be that on a moonlit evening Charles Musgrove and Anne Elliot rode to Kellynch Hall. Charles had told Mary he was taking Anne to Kellynch Lodge because a boring relative of Lady Russell had arrived unexpectedly. Mary did not like boring relatives and she had not said a word about coming with them. She had been too busy lamenting Anne's departure, for surely the children would become troublesome when she was gone.

They had ignored her.

Some distance from the Hall they left the groom with the horses and Charles told him to be back by daylight. Anne and he had agreed that. It would take some time to catch just one rat, but she had estimated their number much higher. Charles, experienced as he was, had decided they would try the entire night. If they finished sooner they could always find a place to sleep. Anne knew every room of the house.

She even knew how to enter the house and the attics unnoticed. Around her neck there was a key. It opened the door to one of the four slender towers that graced the corners of the house. She had kept her keys -- Admiral and Mrs Croft would never have been so indelicate as to ask if all the Elliots had returned them -- not for entering, but they were so dear to her. Anne would never use her keys in ordinary circumstances, but she would be doing everybody a favour now.

Inside the tower there was a narrow staircase. Only one other tower had such a staircase; that was the servants' side entrance. The stairs led all the way up to the lower attics. Anne had not been there since she was about twelve, when she had been forced to behave like a genteel young lady. Staircases and attics that were never cleaned were not considered a good environment, or perhaps it would then come to light that they were never cleaned. Still, she remembered the way well. On the other side of the house the servants slept in the lower attics, but on this side there was nothing. They had not increased the number of servants in recent years.

Charles had lit them candles. The moonlight coming in through the dirty windows was not enough. Anne directed him almost to the top of the tower. Now and then she had tried doors on floors they passed, but those were all locked. She paused by the first unlocked door. "This must be above the house. Nobody ever comes here, so the door does not have to be locked."

"Is this where the rats are?"

"It is where they may be," Anne said cautiously. "I think. Let me have a look." But all she saw was shadowy darkness. She had to walk into a dark passage to see if she recognised it. There were no paintings on the walls, no cabinets or tables with trinkets.

"This looks deserted," Charles whispered. "But I hear nothing."

"We shall wait." They explored the passage a little as they waited. It was surprisingly clean, or perhaps the weak light from their candles did not catch the cobwebs.

Suddenly there was the slamming of a door on the floor above them. Anne froze. "Did you hear that?"

There was also a gust of wind when a door near them blew open. They could see into an empty room, lit by flashes of lightning. Charles entered it. "You know, Anne, you cannot have heard mice, but what would rats eat in your attics?"

She watched him inspect the walls and floors. "I have no idea. What are you doing?"

"Can we go upstairs? I should gladly slay rats for you, but I think it highly unlikely for rats to have ensconced themselves in your attics, simply because there cannot be any food for them, not for the sort of rats I know."

"Then what did I hear?" As she spoke those words, there were sounds over their heads.

"If that is a rat, it is the size of a small child," Charles said decidedly.

"But that is impossible."

"I think it was not a rat as I know them. I am not a worldly man, Anne, and it is possible for creatures to exist of which I have no knowledge."

Waking Captain Wentworth

Charles still wished to go upstairs, but given the size he expected the creatures to have, he did not feel he could chase them at the same time as he defended Anne from them. A bright idea struck him. "Which room do you presume Wentworth to be sleeping in?"

She shrank back at his name. "I do not know."

"You know the house."

"Elizabeth's? Why?"

"We have to get him up," he decided. "I cannot go alone and I cannot go with you. They may bite."

She was reluctant to wake the captain, but Charles was insistent. First they had to find a way downstairs, but while the doors leading out of the tower had all been locked, the main staircases could not be shut off and it was rather simple to go down one floor -- if one knew the way. Charles felt lost.

Soon they found themselves in the corridor with all the main bedrooms. It was not lit, although it always had been when the Elliots had still been in residence. Charles kept nudging Anne and so she was forced to point at a door with a trembling hand. He did not even knock and she was shocked. The room, however, was empty.

"What now?" Charles whispered.

The thought that Captain Wentworth might be sleeping in her old room made Anne feel faint and she could not answer.

"Anne!" He nudged her again.

"My room perhaps." She led him there and hid beside the door.

"Where is that man hiding?" Charles grumbled. Wentworth was again not in the room.

Anne was relieved that Captain Wentworth was not sleeping in her bed, but she was distracted from thinking where he might be instead by a faint noise upstairs. It sounded like crying or wailing. "There! Listen!"

"That is not a rat. We need Wentworth for certain. Let me try the other rooms. Tell me where the Crofts will be. We do not want to disturb them."

When they had tried all bedrooms save for the two suites that had once belonged to Sir Walter and Lady Elliot and not found any occupants, an idea occurred to Charles. "I say, do you think they are sharing? I am going to try Lady Elliot's room."

"But --" Anne pulled him back in shock. "You may disturb Mrs Croft."

"I doubt they banned Wentworth to the attics, although that would explain the noise. Wentworth is here and Mrs Croft is in Sir Walter's suite."

"And the admiral?"

"Anne, sometimes you are such a goose, a bookish goose." He opened the door and barged in with all the delicacy Charles could muster.

Thanks to the candle the captain could see who the intruder was, for such an entrance had waken him instantly. "Musgrove?" he asked in amazement.

"I am here on an errand from Anne," Charles whispered.

"Anne?" That sounded rather flat.

"Anne wishes me to kill rats in the attics. I need help. I am not afraid of rats, as you know, but I do not think they are rats at all. I cannot go up with only Anne. They may bite her -- or worse -- so I thought you could defend Anne while I attack the beasts."

"Tttttpppphhhtttt!" spluttered the captain. "Defend while you attack? Have you forgotten my profession?" He swung himself out of bed and spoke courageously.

"Well, honestly. It is difficult to think of you as a fighter if you wear a white gown," Charles pointed out. "What if they get under your skirts and bite you in the -- forgive me, Anne."

"Anne? Where is she?" the captain asked sharply.

"She was beside me an instant ago. Anne?" he asked in a worried tone. "Anne?"

"I am here," she said softly. "It is not proper for me to come in."

"So that is what you were up to together," Wentworth said accusingly.

Saying Goodbye to Charles

The gentlemen did not think Anne should accompany them, but only she knew the way. Charles did not trust himself to find his way again in the dark and at last the captain gave in. Anne could come if she stayed close to them. He had changed into trousers and brought his pocket knife, afraid he might accidentally pierce Musgrove or Anne with his sword.

"There!" Anne whispered when there was another cry.

Charles was curious and a little annoyed that he did not recognise the sound of what must be some kind of animal. "What say you, Wentworth? What sort of animal?"

"I can think of a few sea birds --"

"Sea birds? Here? I cannot think what it is. It sounds like little Charles most of all. Do you think it could be a ghost?"

"A ghost!" Anne said with a gasp.

"I am not good with ghosts," Charles admitted. "But we shall see. And you, Wentworth?"

"I do not believe in ghosts." Wentworth was a little distracted by Anne walking directly behind them, so directly that she frequently touched them.

The closer they came to the narrow staircase that Anne knew would lead them to the upper attics and the roof, the louder the crying became. They could hear more sounds now -- muffled thumping and something that was very much like footsteps.

Then, a thin, but piercing wail. "Mamaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

Anne gasped again.

"Your dead brother," Charles suggested. "Though he died before he was born, was he not? I shall never understand how ghosts work. Do they grow on after they die?"

"They do not work, Musgrove," Captain Wentworth said very decidedly. "There are no such things as ghosts."

"But where do people go when they die?"

"To the bottom of the sea. They do not scream for their mothers in other people's attics. It is probably a particularly way the wind blows through a crack in a window. There can be some interesting sound effects that way. I was once in a very old ship where the wind --"

Charles did not care for sound effects or how they might be achieved and he hushed him. They had reached the top of the stairs and he stood still, tense and expectant. It was quiet around them, but then there was a sound. It was faint, but it most resembled a woman singing.

"Oh Neptune," Wentworth remarked in a low voice that was still audibly sarcastic. "The landlubber's variation on the mermaid."

Anne stood frozen. She knew the tune, as difficult as it was to make out. Her mother had always sung it to her when she could not sleep. She could not move her feet, but she could still grab one of the gentlemen as they started to move away from her. It was Captain Wentworth, but she did not care. "It is my mother."

"Your mother?"

"She used to sing that song to me."

He was a little hesitant now, as his ears had also picked up that the singing was in fact a real tune. But he refused to believe it. "But your mother is dead."

"Yes," Anne said unhappily.

"Lady Elliot's ghost," Charles said in awe. "We should not disturb the lady."

"I do not believe in ghosts," Wentworth maintained. A sudden clap of thunder half drowned his words. They were now closer to the roof.

"I wonder who else live here. All your ancestors? It is bad form to disturb ghosts. If they want to see us, they will come out themselves. That is what I have always been taught." Charles did not want to bother them.

"But that was a real sound," Anne said pleadingly. She did not know what she wanted, but she was loath to go away again without ever finding out what she had heard. It was her mother, she was sure of it.

"Ghosts make real sounds, but they are not real," said Charles. "I do not want to bring curses upon myself, Anne. I am going downstairs."

"You are simply afraid of ghosts," she accused.

"I will slay any animal for you, Anne, but I will not touch a ghost. Take the captain." And with those words he was gone.

Alone in the Darkness...or not?

"...traipsing around in the darkness with Charles Musgrove."

Anne only then heard that Wentworth had been speaking. She had been straining her ears to catch more of that mesmerising song. It was the only thing she could do; he was not moving. He was not retreating like Charles, but he was not going ahead either. "I am sorry. What did you say?" The thunder rumbled above. She wished it would stop.

"Improper."

"Could we move on?" She stepped forwards and tried the door at the top of the stairs. It was locked. There was a padlock on the door.

"Odd. Do they not know they can move through walls?"

"Who?"

"Ghosts. No use locking them in." He pulled out a gun. "I am going to shoot the lock off that door. Step back. I am going to shoot at the next thunder claps, so we do not wake the admiral and my sister. They love a good joke. Finding me looking for ghosts would be just the thing."

Anne gave him her candle and stepped back. It took only a minute and then he shot. The sound was covered by the thunder.

"There. I bet it is nothing but your great-grandmother's favourite but ugly china. It cannot be sold by the family but it cannot be stolen by the servants either if it is locked up."

"China cannot sing." Anne was glad she was not a useless, frightened female. She was a little afraid, but Frederick's gun reassured her a great deal.

Captain Wentworth opened the door and moved his candle from left to right to take his bearings. Suddenly a short, white-clad shape soundlessly moved into view. It stood staring at them.

Anne did not know who it was. Since she could not imagine there were children playing up here at this hour and in this weather, it had to be a ghost, but she was inclined to take the captain's viewpoint on them, if only because she had a greater trust in his mind than in that of Charles.

"Who are you?" the captain inquired.

"James Elliot. This is my house," said the ghost in a youthful voice. He wore a nightgown and he had bare feet.

Anne could not remember a boy who had died around the age of five and she wondered who he could be. Perhaps she had not been told, but he should have been in the Baronetage. All Elliots were in it. And all Elliots had a working knowledge of its contents.

"What are you doing here?" James Elliot asked.

"James is not a family name," Anne remarked. There were not many of those, as the Elliots never seemed to have a large number of children, and they were passed on to every generation. But there had never been a James Elliot.

"He looks too young to be making it up," Captain Wentworth pointed out.

"What is that?" James Elliot pointed at the net Anne was holding.

"It is a net."

"For fish?"

"For rats."

"There are no rats here."

"Have you been running around, young man?" Captain Wentworth inquired.

"Who are you to ask me questions?" the young man wondered, betraying a pride and arrogance beyond his years.

"My name is Captain Wentworth. I came up here to see who was making such a racket," said the captain in his most authoritative voice.

Upon these stern words, or perhaps at the sight of the gun, the boy looked frightened and he turned to run away. Evidently he knew his way around in the darkness. Further ahead a door opened and closed softly.

A Glimpse of a Ghost

"That was a boy," Captain Wentworth remarked, sounding completely unafraid. "No more a ghost than you or I."

Anne did not know what to think. She would agree that he had looked like a boy, but he could not be. "He said his name was Elliot, but how could that be? James is not a family name. He is furthermore not in the Baronetage."

The captain rolled his eyes at hearing one could not exist if one was not in that particular tome, although in the eyes of Sir Walter Elliot that was probably exactly how it was. "Depending on when the last edition came out, he may well be too young."

"But I was thinking of a James in the past. There were none."

"That is because he is not a thing of the past, but very much a thing of the present. Let us see where he went."

He moved ahead and more of the space they were in became visible. It was a sort of corridor with doors on either side, much like the other floors below them, but it was short and it led to a large open space full of old furniture. The best-looking pieces of it had been set out as if in a sitting room, but a great part of it was simply pushed together and old.

He could see how this would be a wonderful playground for children, but there was something about it that did not strike him as very childish. "The type of ghosts you believe in, do they sit on sofas?"

"I do not think I really believe in them," Anne said nervously.

"Do they not float? They could sit everywhere if they so desired, even in the middle of nothing. However, if they have retained some pretensions to being human, they may wish to arrange their furniture in this manner." He studied it. "But they can move through things, so they could not in fact move things."

Should they not be having so many abilities that they could do both? If they existed at all, that was. Anne did not dare to voice that. "Therefore they did not do this?"

"Therefore they do not exist." He set his candle on the table and looked around. "It is more likely that this has been used as a playground by your servants' children."

"But why in the middle of the night?"

"Because that is more exciting, of course. What do we tell Musgrove when we return? That he fled from a little boy?"

"I do not think any servants' children would dare to assume our family name," Anne said quietly. She could not ignore what she had heard. "And what about my mother singing?"

He had forgotten about her. "The wind?"

"No, you know it was not the wind."

"Then your mother is here." Captain Wentworth refused to admit to the existence of ghosts.

"But she is dead."

"Then she is not dead."

"How is it in any way more logical for her not to be dead than for her to be a ghost?" Anne was frustrated. She very much wished for her mother to be alive. She had always wished that, but it simply could not be. Frederick should not tease her so by making her think it was possible.

"Let us go and find her. She cannot be far away."

Raising the Dead and Those Who Were Never Dead

Captain Wentworth tried the first door. It led into a small room, hardly more than a cell. It was almost completely occupied by a bed, from where the sound of breathing emanated. A shape could also be seen under the covers. "Pray inspect that creature, madam," he said to Anne. "I think you will find it very human."

Anne ventured forwards. She was a little apprehensive, for she could not think of anybody likely to be in bed here in the attics. It was a child, a girl, she would say, of perhaps ten or twelve years old.

Captain Wentworth had a look as well. He even stretched out a hand to touch the hair of the sleeping girl. She was real. He led Anne out of the room and on to the next. When they had checked all the rooms on this side, they had found three children, one of whom was the little boy they had seen earlier. He was awake but hiding under his blanket.

"Is someone running an orphanage or a school up here?" the captain wondered. All these children were real and not ghosts.

On the other side they found two empty rooms, but then a room in which a lady in white sat by a bed with a child in her arms. Anne gasped upon seeing her and she fainted. The captain could not catch her with a candle in his hand, but he could push her towards the bed so that she fell on it.

"Who are you, madam?" he asked.

"Who are you?" she retorted in a soft but sharp voice. "How did you come up here?"

"I shot the lock. Are you being kept a prisoner here?" He glance at Anne, but no doubt she would revive shortly.

The lady laid the child -- the smallest so far -- in the bed and gestured at Wentworth to remove Anne from it. Then she nodded at the door. They stepped out and she closed the door. "I am a voluntary prisoner."

"What is that?"

"Someone who is not here against her will. Is that Anne?"

He wondered why he had not seen she resembled Anne. "Neptune, I raised Lady Elliot from the dead," he said.

The Captain Takes out his Gun

"Exactly," said the lady. "But is that what is being said about me downstairs? That I am dead?"

"Of course. You even have a grave."

"But I am not dead," she protested. "Nor have I ever been. I went up here and I have been here all along. I wanted nothing more to do with the feeble-brained fop and I was too proud to come down. And then he declared me dead?"

She had gone up here and left her children alone. He pitied Anne for being the product of such parents. "You are a cruel and selfish woman. I wonder why you did not stay with your husband? You are one of a kind." He went back into the room and lifted Anne up. Then he laid her on one of the sofas. It was no wonder she had fainted.

"He could not admit his defeat and locked me up." She sounded incredulous.

"You have three daughters." And she had left them all alone.

"Five."

"Oh." He remembered they had seen four children. So two of them were girls. It did not make her offence any smaller, perhaps only greater. "Who is their father?"

"My husband."

That would explain why James Elliot claimed to be James Elliot. It was who he was. "Oh."

"But he does not know. I have kept it from him. He is not up here very often."

"Four times at least," Captain Wentworth would say.

"A little more than that -- every Christmas."

"Is that his treat to himself?" It was absolutely unbelievable -- Sir Walter deprived his wife of her marital rights, such as hosting parties, by keeping her locked up, but he could not forego his own and every Christmas he indulged himself by going upstairs.

She did not like his indelicate impertinence. "Who are you and what are you doing with Anne? You touch her very improperly."

He could not believe his ears. He had merely carried her -- and Lady Elliot had relinquished every right to defend her daughter's honour when she chose to lock herself away in the attics. She had furthermore relinquished every right to behave as the mistress of the house. "How I touch Anne is nobody's business but my own."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Frederick Wentworth, Captain. I am staying with my sister and her husband, Admiral Croft. They are renting the house from Sir Walter. He was out of money." There was a certain glee in his voice as he said that.

"Only now?" was Lady Elliot's unpredictable reaction. "Anne is coming to."

Anne opened her eyes indeed. "I saw my mother."

"I do not think she deserves the appellation, considering how she deserted you and how much grief she caused you," said the captain. He did not know who was the worse parent, Sir Walter or his wife. He would like to shoot both.

"I heard they were all very happy," Lady Elliot protested.

Captain Wentworth guffawed. "From Sir Walter? He cares about no one's happiness but his own."

"That is why I left him."

"Because you too cared about no one's happiness but your own," he accused. "Wake the children. You are coming downstairs with me now. I have a gun."

"Do not shoot!" Anne cried. "I will forgive my mother if you promise not to shoot."

"I make no promises," he said, but he stuck the gun back in his belt. "Wake the children and we shall examine your claims in better light."

"Have you any idea how much time it cost me to put Stephen to sleep?" Lady Elliot protested.

"Carry him sleeping," Anne begged of the captain. He would not be able to shoot anybody then.

Final Reckoning

Captain Wentworth lifted up Stephen. Anne ordered him to give her the gun, which surprised him, but he could not comply. He was even more surprised when she took it from him and prodded him in the back with it. "Downstairs," she ordered. "Get the other children," she told her mother. "We have proper rooms for them downstairs."

"We?" the captain said with a sneer. "You forget that my sister is mistress of the house now. But she will undoubtedly not mind ordering a carriage to convey Lady Elliot to her husband in Bath." Besides, Anne had no right to take control in such a confident manner. This befuddled him. He had found her evil mother for her and instead of being angry with the woman for having deserted her, or being confused by why it had happened, she was all happiness. Was this how she treated people who had abandoned her?

"I do not think she will want to go," said Anne while her mother woke the three other children. "I do not want her to go. Do you want to separate me from my mother now that I finally have her back?"

"After such a long separation you ought to have forgotten her."

She regarded him steadily, although it was dark. "I do not forget people."

"Surely if separations are long enough..."

"No. I do not forget people so easily as they forget me. Whose are those children?"

"They are your brothers and sisters. I beg you to lead us all downstairs so that I may dispose of this insane family." He watched as Anne tried to make sense of it all. He hoped for her sake that Lady Elliot would have some attention for her, in spite of having three sleepy children hanging onto her.

He told Anne to lead the way and they descended into the habitable quarters of the house, with him bringing up the rear. He ignored the surprised and excited whispers from the children in front of him. He might start to feel sorry for them and not shoot their mother.

A loud knock on their door raised his sister and the admiral. Only the admiral came to the door.

"I beg you to order a carriage for Lady Elliot," Captain Wentworth spoke.

The admiral was silent for a long while before he spoke. "Have you been entertaining a woman and you wish to order a carriage now that you have finished with her? If so, it would behoove you to pack and go with her."

The captain did not flinch. "It is the reverse. This is the woman whom Sir Walter has been entertaining in the attics every Christmas. He forgot to take her with him. I do not believe the story entirely. Perhaps he wishes to save money by leaving her here to plunder our kitchens during the night."

"I am the mistress of this house, regardless of where in the house I choose to take up domicile!" Lady Elliot protested.

"Regardless of whether she chose to live up there or she was locked up, the fact remains that Sir Walter is renting the house to you, Admiral. The contract does not stipulate that you must provide board and lodging to five Elliots."

"Five? Has the man five wives? How does he keep their names straight?" The admiral asked in a bemused tone.

"Not wives. Apparently since locking his wife in the attics he has managed to father four more children, which is more than he did before then."

"What were you doing in the attics, Frederick?" Mrs Croft could not for long stay out of anything in which her husband was involved. She appeared beside him and took in the crowd outside her door.

"Well, Anne --"

"Oh, Anne! But we should approve. There is no need to meet her in draughty attics. Lady Elliot," she said with a curtsey, nudging her husband with an elbow because he had neglected to be civil. "I am delighted to make your acquaintance."

"Perhaps we should have your grave removed if you are not dead?" the admiral suggested.

"No, she still needs it," Frederick said ominously. "Soon..."