Sir Walter's decision to let Kellynch Hall
Sir Walter Elliot's decision to let Kellynch Hall is the originating event of Persuasion, a choice born not of necessity but of vanity, and one that reshapes every character's fate by displacing the Elliots from their ancestral home and introducing the Crofts—and, through them, Captain Frederick Wentworth—into the very landscape Anne Elliot had thought forever closed to the past.
Causes and Background
Sir Walter Elliot, of Kellynch Hall in Somersetshire, was a man whose vanity of person and of situation was the beginning and end of his character. At fifty-four, still remarkably handsome, he considered the blessing of beauty inferior only to the blessing of a baronetcy. Since the death of his sensible and amiable wife, Lady Elliot, seventeen years earlier, he had constantly exceeded his income, doing nothing but what he was imperiously called on to do, yet growing dreadfully in debt. The Kellynch property was good, but not equal to his apprehension of the state required in its possessor. He had condescended to mortgage as far as he had the power, but he would never condescend to sell; the estate should be transmitted whole and entire as he had received it. His eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who had presided at Kellynch for thirteen years, shared his distress but could propose only trivial economies: cutting off some unnecessary charities, refraining from new furnishing the drawing-room, and taking no present down to Anne. These measures were insufficient, and neither father nor daughter could devise any means of lessening expenses without compromising their dignity or relinquishing comforts in a way not to be borne.
Their confidential friends, Mr Shepherd, a civil, cautious lawyer, and Lady Russell, were called to advise. Lady Russell, a woman of sound rather than quick abilities, was as desirous of saving Sir Walter's feelings as she was solicitous for the credit of the family. She drew up plans of economy and consulted Anne, who wanted more vigorous measures, a more complete reformation, a quicker release from debt, and a much higher tone of indifference for everything but justice and equity. But Lady Russell's gentle reductions could not be put up with. "What! every comfort of life knocked off! Journeys, London, servants, horses, table—contractions and restrictions everywhere!" Sir Walter declared he would sooner quit Kellynch Hall at once than remain on such disgraceful terms.
What Happens
The hint of quitting Kellynch Hall was immediately taken up by Mr Shepherd, whose interest was involved in the reality of Sir Walter's retrenching. He argued that in any other place Sir Walter might judge for himself and be looked up to as regulating the modes of life. After a few days of doubt and indecision, the great question of whither he should go was settled. Three alternatives had been considered: London, Bath, or another house in the country. Anne's wishes were for a small house in their own neighborhood, where she might still have Lady Russell's society and sometimes see the lawns and groves of Kellynch. But the usual fate of Anne attended her: she disliked Bath, and Bath was to be her home. Mr Shepherd, who felt Sir Walter could not be trusted in London, skillfully dissuaded him and made Bath preferred—a much safer place for a gentleman in his predicament, where he might be important at comparatively little expense. Lady Russell, fond of Bath and disposed to think it must suit them all, supported the choice.
A material part of the scheme was that Kellynch Hall was to be let. This was a profound secret, not to be breathed beyond their own circle. Sir Walter could not have borne the degradation of being known to design letting his house; he spurned the idea of its being offered in any manner and would only consent on the supposition of being spontaneously solicited by some most unexceptionable applicant, on his own terms, and as a great favour. Mr Shepherd, gifted with foresight, soon found such an applicant in Admiral Croft, a rear admiral of the white who had been in the Trafalgar action and had acquired a very handsome fortune. Despite Sir Walter's cold suspicion—he objected to the navy as bringing persons of obscure birth into undue distinction and cutting up a man's youth and vigor most horribly—the Admiral's being a married man without children, his gentlemanlike behavior, and the prospect of a tenant who would never make a baronet look small, finally won him over. "I have let my house to Admiral Croft," would sound extremely well. The Crofts were to have possession at Michaelmas, and Sir Walter proposed removing to Bath in the course of the preceding month.
Consequences and Aftermath
The decision to let Kellynch Hall had immediate and far-reaching consequences. Anne, instead of going to Bath with her father and sister, was claimed by Mary to stay at Uppercross Cottage, where she would nurse her nephew and, crucially, find herself in the same social circle as Captain Wentworth when he came to visit his sister, Mrs Croft. The Crofts' tenancy brought Wentworth back into Anne's life after eight years of separation, setting the stage for their gradual reconciliation. For Sir Walter and Elizabeth, the move to Bath brought new preoccupations: the pursuit of fashionable acquaintance, the cultivation of their cousin Mr Elliot, and the dangerous proximity of Mrs Clay. The letting of the house also exposed the Elliots' reduced circumstances to the neighborhood, though Sir Walter, with characteristic vanity, consoled himself that an admiral speaks his own consequence and can never make a baronet look small. The physical displacement from Kellynch Hall—the ancestral home that had witnessed Anne's first engagement and her mother's presence—became a symbol of the family's moral and financial decline, while the Crofts' cheerful, practical occupancy demonstrated a more genuine form of domestic happiness than the Elliots had ever achieved there.
