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It is a return to proper skirting boards at her heels, appropriate for the confines of high-ceilinged parlours, rather than the makeshift ones on ships that require altogether different mouldings in order to keep throughout the salt-filled months and months, that solidifies to her that the so-called glory—less so nationally acknowledged than it is domestically prized, as often is the case—of Mrs Wentworth's (previously Miss Anne Elliot) being a Navy captain's spouse is at an end. Many years into the state of matrimony, naval prizes have been dwindling, and Frederick's luck has not been sparking as much as it used to, leading to an adjustment in their situation and a return to England, to retire where many memories lay.
Now, a solitary figure stood toeing at the edge of the precipice of one of the many cliffs Lyme boasts, overlooking the Cobb and the sea she knows so well and the jagged contour of the horizon she has only just begun to find familiar, Anne fiddles with the ribbons of her straw bonnet, securing it against the wilful breeze. The waters beneath might be rippling gently and solemnly with the low tide, but gusts of wind are seemingly always awaiting their chance to steal away unsuspecting headgear from the careless and comfortable. The latter she rarely indulges, the former she has never been; thus she does not allow her now silver-hued head to be parted from its cover.
Shortly, she is solitary no more, as she dimly believed she would not be when she set out. Although habitually halting to allow his gaze to stray seawards, his strong legs digging into the ground for stability as if seeking the wood of a ship beneath them, Frederick's stride is swift enough, joining her at the edge within minutes of her first sighting him making his way towards her across sand and stone, his posture bending with the salty gales breaking against his form, his brow furrowed from the pale sun and persistent salt.
She possesses little doubt indeed that she is not the only one who, since their arrival, has been overwhelmed by the past as much as she has been missing what she has believed would be their constant future—shorelines a distant thought, the water's surface an abiding companion. It is plain in his everyday gestures and expressions how the shore and he have been parted for far too long, even though it has been not even a year since they have returned. She worries. Not enough to suggest a different course, however.
Nonetheless, it has been an adjustment, a choice they must make again and again, to remain and to form roots, where before they could indulge themselves for as long as they desired before setting off yet again. Their friends would know they would need to part with them and they, too, would rejoice while their acquaintance lasted, made all the more sweeter for its brevity. Invitations would always come and they could choose which to take, an excuse always at the ready should they wish to deny anyone. Thus the sea has been useful in many ways.
Now, they must seek out as they have been in the past sought. The liberty of choice has transmuted into that of stability, in a manner of speaking, though Anne would confess without guile nor guilt to preferring the former. Letters and ink, in constant flow on the daily, remind her that there is a world outside of the two of them. From the start she has had a potent inkling that their now previous life would have always been cut short, at one time or another. Plans and decisions would have always been made around them, ideas would have always been set into motion without their differing desires being of note, and their presence would have always been required back in England. That is the way of things, and she is no longer a child needing to bury such and similar knowledge in fear of shattering the illusion. She wonders if, all this time, they have merely been escaping an inevitability. She does not believe so, though it cannot be denied that she has enjoyed this state of affairs much more than any other she could have dreamt of. No other opportunity could she have envisioned to be as desired than that which she stumbled into upon becoming Mrs Wentworth. Although hardly worth pondering what life would have been like otherwise, she often indulges herself in such thoughts, the myriad of possibilities, the lives she could have lived.
She blinks. Distracted as she has been, she finds herself a willing object under Frederick's curious gaze. The silence between them has been comfortable, as it always is, but now his eyes probe at hers.
His voice is gruff yet gentle. "Has my arrival deprived you of your thoughts?" While no smile graces his features, his eyes shine with mirth, a mutual understanding of the jest belying his words forming between them. Their temperaments are so that they instantly and undoubtedly know that no other interpretation of his words could exist, not between them, regardless of their circumstances or their time of life. The sincerity of their rapport could lead to no other meaning.
As such, Anne does not need to ponder his enquiry.
"It has liberated me from their being idle," she responds immediately. He would know that there be depths there, for her alone, while the certainty of their truthfulness could not be denied.
He nods. With a subtle slip of the fingers, one of his hands envelops one of hers, a gesture of gentle comfort, steadier than any anchor which has stilled the greatest of ships.
"Then I am glad to have provided the service," he replies.
It is always the case that silence engulfs them. In the here and now, their gazes naturally drift towards the horizon, watching the line shift and meander with the coming waves, the sun's rays (such as they are) dimming, the gulls seeking their attention.
Later, they descend the path back with care, the past at their heels and their future between the palms of their hands.