No More Learning

A day or two might shew the difference. _She_ only was to
blame. Yet she thought it would not have been so at Mansfield. No, in
her uncle’s house there would have been a consideration of times and
seasons, a regulation of subject, a propriety, an attention towards
everybody which there was not here.

The only interruption which thoughts like these received for nearly half
an hour was from a sudden burst of her father’s, not at all calculated
to compose them. At a more than ordinary pitch of thumping and hallooing
in the passage, he exclaimed, “Devil take those young dogs! How they are
singing out! Ay, Sam’s voice louder than all the rest! That boy is fit
for a boatswain. Holla, you there! Sam, stop your confounded pipe, or I
shall be after you. ”

This threat was so palpably disregarded, that though within five minutes
afterwards the three boys all burst into the room together and sat down,
Fanny could not consider it as a proof of anything more than their
being for the time thoroughly fagged, which their hot faces and panting
breaths seemed to prove, especially as they were still kicking each
other’s shins, and hallooing out at sudden starts immediately under
their father’s eye.

The next opening of the door brought something more welcome: it was for
the tea-things, which she had begun almost to despair of seeing that
evening. Susan and an attendant girl, whose inferior appearance informed
Fanny, to her great surprise, that she had previously seen the upper
servant, brought in everything necessary for the meal; Susan looking, as
she put the kettle on the fire and glanced at her sister, as if divided
between the agreeable triumph of shewing her activity and usefulness,
and the dread of being thought to demean herself by such an office. “She
had been into the kitchen,” she said, “to hurry Sally and help make the
toast, and spread the bread and butter, or she did not know when they
should have got tea, and she was sure her sister must want something
after her journey. ”

Fanny was very thankful. She could not but own that she should be very
glad of a little tea, and Susan immediately set about making it, as if
pleased to have the employment all to herself; and with only a little
unnecessary bustle, and some few injudicious attempts at keeping her
brothers in better order than she could, acquitted herself very well.
Fanny’s spirit was as much refreshed as her body; her head and heart
were soon the better for such well-timed kindness. Susan had an open,
sensible countenance; she was like William, and Fanny hoped to find her
like him in disposition and goodwill towards herself.

In this more placid state of things William reentered, followed not
far behind by his mother and Betsey. He, complete in his lieutenant’s
uniform, looking and moving all the taller, firmer, and more graceful
for it, and with the happiest smile over his face, walked up directly
to Fanny, who, rising from her seat, looked at him for a moment in
speechless admiration, and then threw her arms round his neck to sob out
her various emotions of pain and pleasure.

Anxious not to appear unhappy, she soon recovered herself; and wiping
away her tears, was able to notice and admire all the striking parts
of his dress; listening with reviving spirits to his cheerful hopes of
being on shore some part of every day before they sailed, and even of
getting her to Spithead to see the sloop.

The next bustle brought in Mr. Campbell, the surgeon of the Thrush, a
very well-behaved young man, who came to call for his friend, and for
whom there was with some contrivance found a chair, and with some hasty
washing of the young tea-maker’s, a cup and saucer; and after another
quarter of an hour of earnest talk between the gentlemen, noise rising
upon noise, and bustle upon bustle, men and boys at last all in motion
together, the moment came for setting off; everything was ready, William
took leave, and all of them were gone; for the three boys, in spite
of their mother’s entreaty, determined to see their brother and Mr.
Campbell to the sally-port; and Mr. Price walked off at the same time to
carry back his neighbour’s newspaper.

Something like tranquillity might now be hoped for; and accordingly,
when Rebecca had been prevailed on to carry away the tea-things,
and Mrs. Price had walked about the room some time looking for a
shirt-sleeve, which Betsey at last hunted out from a drawer in the
kitchen, the small party of females were pretty well composed, and the
mother having lamented again over the impossibility of getting Sam ready
in time, was at leisure to think of her eldest daughter and the friends
she had come from.

A few inquiries began: but one of the earliest--“How did sister Bertram
manage about her servants? ” “Was she as much plagued as herself to get
tolerable servants? ”--soon led her mind away from Northamptonshire, and
fixed it on her own domestic grievances, and the shocking character of
all the Portsmouth servants, of whom she believed her own two were the
very worst, engrossed her completely. The Bertrams were all forgotten
in detailing the faults of Rebecca, against whom Susan had also much
to depose, and little Betsey a great deal more, and who did seem so
thoroughly without a single recommendation, that Fanny could not help
modestly presuming that her mother meant to part with her when her year
was up.

“Her year! ” cried Mrs. Price; “I am sure I hope I shall be rid of her
before she has staid a year, for that will not be up till November.
Servants are come to such a pass, my dear, in Portsmouth, that it is
quite a miracle if one keeps them more than half a year. I have no hope
of ever being settled; and if I was to part with Rebecca, I should
only get something worse. And yet I do not think I am a very difficult
mistress to please; and I am sure the place is easy enough, for there is
always a girl under her, and I often do half the work myself. ”

Fanny was silent; but not from being convinced that there might not be a
remedy found for some of these evils. As she now sat looking at Betsey,
she could not but think particularly of another sister, a very pretty
little girl, whom she had left there not much younger when she went into
Northamptonshire, who had died a few years afterwards. There had been
something remarkably amiable about her. Fanny in those early days had
preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had at last
reached Mansfield, had for a short time been quite afflicted. The sight
of Betsey brought the image of little Mary back again, but she would
not have pained her mother by alluding to her for the world. While
considering her with these ideas, Betsey, at a small distance, was
holding out something to catch her eyes, meaning to screen it at the
same time from Susan’s.

“What have you got there, my love? ” said Fanny; “come and shew it to
me. ”

It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and
trying to get it away; but the child ran to her mother’s protection,
and Susan could only reproach, which she did very warmly, and evidently
hoping to interest Fanny on her side. “It was very hard that she was not
to have her _own_ knife; it was her own knife; little sister Mary had
left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to keep
herself long ago. But mama kept it from her, and was always letting
Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey would
spoil it, and get it for her own, though mama had _promised_ her that
Betsey should not have it in her own hands. ”

Fanny was quite shocked. Every feeling of duty, honour, and tenderness
was wounded by her sister’s speech and her mother’s reply.

“Now, Susan,” cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, “now, how can
you be so cross? You are always quarrelling about that knife. I wish you
would not be so quarrelsome. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is to
you! But you should not have taken it out, my dear, when I sent you to
the drawer. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so
cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little
thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to
keep, only two hours before she died. Poor little soul! she could but
just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, ‘Let sister Susan have
my knife, mama, when I am dead and buried. ’ Poor little dear! she was so
fond of it, Fanny, that she would have it lay by her in bed, all through
her illness. It was the gift of her good godmother, old Mrs. Admiral
Maxwell, only six weeks before she was taken for death. Poor little
sweet creature! Well, she was taken away from evil to come. My own
Betsey” (fondling her), “_you_ have not the luck of such a good
godmother. Aunt Norris lives too far off to think of such little people
as you. ”

Fanny had indeed nothing to convey from aunt Norris, but a message to
say she hoped that her god-daughter was a good girl, and learnt her
book. There had been at one moment a slight murmur in the drawing-room
at Mansfield Park about sending her a prayer-book; but no second sound
had been heard of such a purpose. Mrs. Norris, however, had gone home
and taken down two old prayer-books of her husband with that idea; but,
upon examination, the ardour of generosity went off. One was found
to have too small a print for a child’s eyes, and the other to be too
cumbersome for her to carry about.

Fanny, fatigued and fatigued again, was thankful to accept the first
invitation of going to bed; and before Betsey had finished her cry at
being allowed to sit up only one hour extraordinary in honour of sister,
she was off, leaving all below in confusion and noise again; the boys
begging for toasted cheese, her father calling out for his rum and
water, and Rebecca never where she ought to be.

There was nothing to raise her spirits in the confined and scantily
furnished chamber that she was to share with Susan. The smallness of
the rooms above and below, indeed, and the narrowness of the passage and
staircase, struck her beyond her imagination. She soon learned to think
with respect of her own little attic at Mansfield Park, in _that_ house
reckoned too small for anybody’s comfort.



CHAPTER XXXIX

Could Sir Thomas have seen all his niece’s feelings, when she wrote her
first letter to her aunt, he would not have despaired; for though a good
night’s rest, a pleasant morning, the hope of soon seeing William again,
and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tom and Charles
being gone to school, Sam on some project of his own, and her father
on his usual lounges, enabled her to express herself cheerfully on the
subject of home, there were still, to her own perfect consciousness,
many drawbacks suppressed. Could he have seen only half that she felt
before the end of a week, he would have thought Mr. Crawford sure of
her, and been delighted with his own sagacity.

Before the week ended, it was all disappointment. In the first place,
William was gone. The Thrush had had her orders, the wind had changed,
and he was sailed within four days from their reaching Portsmouth; and
during those days she had seen him only twice, in a short and
hurried way, when he had come ashore on duty. There had been no free
conversation, no walk on the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, no
acquaintance with the Thrush, nothing of all that they had planned and
depended on. Everything in that quarter failed her, except William’s
affection. His last thought on leaving home was for her. He stepped back
again to the door to say, “Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender,
and not used to rough it like the rest of us. I charge you, take care of
Fanny. ”

William was gone: and the home he had left her in was, Fanny could not
conceal it from herself, in almost every respect the very reverse of
what she could have wished. It was the abode of noise, disorder, and
impropriety. Nobody was in their right place, nothing was done as it
ought to be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped. On her
father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent
of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than
she had been prepared for. He did not want abilities but he had no
curiosity, and no information beyond his profession; he read only
the newspaper and the navy-list; he talked only of the dockyard, the
harbour, Spithead, and the Motherbank; he swore and he drank, he was
dirty and gross. She had never been able to recall anything approaching
to tenderness in his former treatment of herself. There had remained
only a general impression of roughness and loudness; and now he scarcely
ever noticed her, but to make her the object of a coarse joke.

Her disappointment in her mother was greater: _there_ she had hoped
much, and found almost nothing. Every flattering scheme of being of
consequence to her soon fell to the ground. Mrs. Price was not unkind;
but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming
more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from
her than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was
soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price’s attachment had no other source. Her
heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor
affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her.
She was fond of her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the
first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most
injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling;
and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her
maternal solicitude, alternately her worries and her comforts. These
shared her heart: her time was given chiefly to her house and her
servants. Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busy
without getting on, always behindhand and lamenting it, without altering
her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity;
dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and
whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power
of engaging their respect.

Of her two sisters, Mrs. Price very much more resembled Lady Bertram
than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity, without any of Mrs.
Norris’s inclination for it, or any of her activity. Her disposition
was naturally easy and indolent, like Lady Bertram’s; and a situation of
similar affluence and do-nothingness would have been much more suited
to her capacity than the exertions and self-denials of the one which her
imprudent marriage had placed her in. She might have made just as good a
woman of consequence as Lady Bertram, but Mrs. Norris would have been a
more respectable mother of nine children on a small income.

Much of all this Fanny could not but be sensible of. She might scruple
to make use of the words, but she must and did feel that her mother was
a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught
nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement
and discomfort from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no
conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her
better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company
that could lessen her sense of such feelings.

Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear above her home,
or in any way disqualified or disinclined, by her foreign education,
from contributing her help to its comforts, and therefore set about
working for Sam immediately; and by working early and late, with
perseverance and great despatch, did so much that the boy was shipped
off at last, with more than half his linen ready. She had great pleasure
in feeling her usefulness, but could not conceive how they would have
managed without her.

Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went,
for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in any errand
in the town; and though spurning the remonstrances of Susan, given as
they were, though very reasonable in themselves, with ill-timed and
powerless warmth, was beginning to be influenced by Fanny’s services
and gentle persuasions; and she found that the best of the three younger
ones was gone in him: Tom and Charles being at least as many years as
they were his juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason, which
might suggest the expediency of making friends, and of endeavouring to
be less disagreeable. Their sister soon despaired of making the smallest
impression on _them_; they were quite untameable by any means of address
which she had spirits or time to attempt. Every afternoon brought a
return of their riotous games all over the house; and she very early
learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday’s constant half-holiday.

Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think the alphabet her
greatest enemy, left to be with the servants at her pleasure, and
then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to
despair of being able to love or assist; and of Susan’s temper she
had many doubts. Her continual disagreements with her mother, her rash
squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were at least
so distressing to Fanny that, though admitting they were by no means
without provocation, she feared the disposition that could push them to
such length must be far from amiable, and from affording any repose to
herself.

Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out of her head, and
teach her to think of her cousin Edmund with moderated feelings. On the
contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates,
its happy ways. Everything where she now was in full contrast to it. The
elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps, above all, the
peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance
every hour of the day, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them
_here_.

The living in incessant noise was, to a frame and temper delicate and
nervous like Fanny’s, an evil which no superadded elegance or harmony
could have entirely atoned for. It was the greatest misery of all. At
Mansfield, no sounds of contention, no raised voice, no abrupt bursts,
no tread of violence, was ever heard; all proceeded in a regular course
of cheerful orderliness; everybody had their due importance; everybody’s
feelings were consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting,
good sense and good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little
irritations sometimes introduced by aunt Norris, they were short, they
were trifling, they were as a drop of water to the ocean, compared with
the ceaseless tumult of her present abode. Here everybody was noisy,
every voice was loud (excepting, perhaps, her mother’s, which resembled
the soft monotony of Lady Bertram’s, only worn into fretfulness).
Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out
their excuses from the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging, the
stairs were never at rest, nothing was done without a clatter, nobody
sat still, and nobody could command attention when they spoke.

In a review of the two houses, as they appeared to her before the end
of a week, Fanny was tempted to apply to them Dr. Johnson’s celebrated
judgment as to matrimony and celibacy, and say, that though Mansfield
Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.



CHAPTER XL

Fanny was right enough in not expecting to hear from Miss Crawford now
at the rapid rate in which their correspondence had begun; Mary’s next
letter was after a decidedly longer interval than the last, but she
was not right in supposing that such an interval would be felt a great
relief to herself. Here was another strange revolution of mind! She was
really glad to receive the letter when it did come. In her present exile
from good society, and distance from everything that had been wont to
interest her, a letter from one belonging to the set where her heart
lived, written with affection, and some degree of elegance, was
thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of increasing engagements was made
in excuse for not having written to her earlier; “And now that I have
begun,” she continued, “my letter will not be worth your reading, for
there will be no little offering of love at the end, no three or four
lines _passionnees_ from the most devoted H. C. in the world, for
Henry is in Norfolk; business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or
perhaps he only pretended to call, for the sake of being travelling
at the same time that you were. But there he is, and, by the bye, his
absence may sufficiently account for any remissness of his sister’s in
writing, for there has been no ‘Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny?
Is not it time for you to write to Fanny? ’ to spur me on. At last, after
various attempts at meeting, I have seen your cousins, ‘dear Julia and
dearest Mrs. Rushworth’; they found me at home yesterday, and we were
glad to see each other again. We _seemed_ _very_ glad to see each other,
and I do really think we were a little. We had a vast deal to say. Shall
I tell you how Mrs. Rushworth looked when your name was mentioned? I did
not use to think her wanting in self-possession, but she had not quite
enough for the demands of yesterday. Upon the whole, Julia was in the
best looks of the two, at least after you were spoken of. There was no
recovering the complexion from the moment that I spoke of ‘Fanny,’ and
spoke of her as a sister should. But Mrs. Rushworth’s day of good looks
will come; we have cards for her first party on the 28th. Then she
will be in beauty, for she will open one of the best houses in Wimpole
Street. I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle’s, and
prefer it to almost any I know in London, and certainly she will then
feel, to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her
penny. Henry could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will
recollect it, and be satisfied, as well as she may, with moving the
queen of a palace, though the king may appear best in the background;
and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never _force_ your name
upon her again. She will grow sober by degrees. From all that I hear
and guess, Baron Wildenheim’s attentions to Julia continue, but I do not
know that he has any serious encouragement. She ought to do better.
A poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine any liking in the
case, for take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothing. What a
difference a vowel makes! If his rents were but equal to his rants! Your
cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish duties. There
may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am unwilling
to fancy myself neglected for a _young_ one. Adieu! my dear sweet Fanny,
this is a long letter from London: write me a pretty one in reply to
gladden Henry’s eyes, when he comes back, and send me an account of all
the dashing young captains whom you disdain for his sake. ”

There was great food for meditation in this letter, and chiefly for
unpleasant meditation; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied, it
connected her with the absent, it told her of people and things about
whom she had never felt so much curiosity as now, and she would
have been glad to have been sure of such a letter every week. Her
correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only concern of higher
interest.

As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends for
deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her father’s
and mother’s acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction: she
saw nobody in whose favour she could wish to overcome her own shyness
and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert,
everybody underbred; and she gave as little contentment as she received
from introductions either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies
who approached her at first with some respect, in consideration of her
coming from a baronet’s family, were soon offended by what they termed
“airs”; for, as she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine
pelisses, they could, on farther observation, admit no right of
superiority.

The first solid consolation which Fanny received for the evils of home,
the first which her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any
promise of durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of
being of service to her. Susan had always behaved pleasantly to herself,
but the determined character of her general manners had astonished
and alarmed her, and it was at least a fortnight before she began to
understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan saw
that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girl of
fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err in the
method of reform, was not wonderful; and Fanny soon became more disposed
to admire the natural light of the mind which could so early distinguish
justly, than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it led.
Susan was only acting on the same truths, and pursuing the same system,
which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine and
yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be
useful, where _she_ could only have gone away and cried; and that Susan
was useful she could perceive; that things, bad as they were, would
have been worse but for such interposition, and that both her mother and
Betsey were restrained from some excesses of very offensive indulgence
and vulgarity.

In every argument with her mother, Susan had in point of reason the
advantage, and never was there any maternal tenderness to buy her off.
The blind fondness which was for ever producing evil around her she had
never known. There was no gratitude for affection past or present to
make her better bear with its excesses to the others.

All this became gradually evident, and gradually placed Susan before her
sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect. That her manner
was wrong, however, at times very wrong, her measures often ill-chosen
and ill-timed, and her looks and language very often indefensible, Fanny
could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they might be rectified.
Susan, she found, looked up to her and wished for her good opinion; and
new as anything like an office of authority was to Fanny, new as it
was to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one, she did
resolve to give occasional hints to Susan, and endeavour to exercise for
her advantage the juster notions of what was due to everybody, and what
would be wisest for herself, which her own more favoured education had
fixed in her.

Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it, originated
in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after many hesitations of
delicacy, she at last worked herself up to. It had very early occurred
to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for
ever on the sore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it now was
continually, and the riches which she was in possession of herself,
her uncle having given her 10 pounds at parting, made her as able as she was
willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused to confer favours,
except on the very poor, so unpractised in removing evils, or bestowing
kindnesses among her equals, and so fearful of appearing to elevate
herself as a great lady at home, that it took some time to determine
that it would not be unbecoming in her to make such a present. It
was made, however, at last: a silver knife was bought for Betsey, and
accepted with great delight, its newness giving it every advantage
over the other that could be desired; Susan was established in the full
possession of her own, Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got
one so much prettier herself, she should never want _that_ again; and
no reproach seemed conveyed to the equally satisfied mother, which Fanny
had almost feared to be impossible.
The deed thoroughly answered: a
source of domestic altercation was entirely done away, and it was the
means of opening Susan’s heart to her, and giving her something more to
love and be interested in. Susan shewed that she had delicacy: pleased
as she was to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for
at least two years, she yet feared that her sister’s judgment had been
against her, and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggled
as to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity of the house.

Her temper was open. She acknowledged her fears, blamed herself for
having contended so warmly; and from that hour Fanny, understanding the
worth of her disposition and perceiving how fully she was inclined to
seek her good opinion and refer to her judgment, began to feel again the
blessing of affection, and to entertain the hope of being useful to a
mind so much in need of help, and so much deserving it. She gave advice,
advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding, and given so
mildly and considerately as not to irritate an imperfect temper, and she
had the happiness of observing its good effects not unfrequently.
More was not expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and
expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic
acuteness of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a girl like
Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subject soon became--not that Susan
should have been provoked into disrespect and impatience against her
better knowledge--but that so much better knowledge, so many good
notions should have been hers at all; and that, brought up in the midst
of negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions
of what ought to be; she, who had had no cousin Edmund to direct her
thoughts or fix her principles.

The intimacy thus begun between them was a material advantage to
each. By sitting together upstairs, they avoided a great deal of the
disturbance of the house; Fanny had peace, and Susan learned to think it
no misfortune to be quietly employed. They sat without a fire; but
that was a privation familiar even to Fanny, and she suffered the
less because reminded by it of the East room. It was the only point of
resemblance. In space, light, furniture, and prospect, there was
nothing alike in the two apartments; and she often heaved a sigh at the
remembrance of all her books and boxes, and various comforts there. By
degrees the girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs, at
first only in working and talking, but after a few days, the remembrance
of the said books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny found it
impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father’s
house; but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers found its
way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber; amazed at being
anything _in propria persona_, amazed at her own doings in every way, to
be a renter, a chuser of books! And to be having any one’s improvement
in view in her choice! But so it was. Susan had read nothing, and Fanny
longed to give her a share in her own first pleasures, and inspire a
taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself.

In this occupation she hoped, moreover, to bury some of the
recollections of Mansfield, which were too apt to seize her mind if her
fingers only were busy; and, especially at this time, hoped it might
be useful in diverting her thoughts from pursuing Edmund to London,
whither, on the authority of her aunt’s last letter, she knew he was
gone. She had no doubt of what would ensue. The promised notification
was hanging over her head. The postman’s knock within the neighbourhood
was beginning to bring its daily terrors, and if reading could banish
the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.



CHAPTER XLI

A week was gone since Edmund might be supposed in town, and Fanny had
heard nothing of him. There were three different conclusions to be drawn
from his silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation; each of
them at times being held the most probable. Either his going had been
again delayed, or he had yet procured no opportunity of seeing Miss
Crawford alone, or he was too happy for letter-writing!

One morning, about this time, Fanny having now been nearly four weeks
from Mansfield, a point which she never failed to think over and
calculate every day, as she and Susan were preparing to remove, as
usual, upstairs, they were stopped by the knock of a visitor, whom they
felt they could not avoid, from Rebecca’s alertness in going to the
door, a duty which always interested her beyond any other.

It was a gentleman’s voice; it was a voice that Fanny was just turning
pale about, when Mr. Crawford walked into the room.

Good sense, like hers, will always act when really called upon; and she
found that she had been able to name him to her mother, and recall her
remembrance of the name, as that of “William’s friend,” though she could
not previously have believed herself capable of uttering a syllable
at such a moment. The consciousness of his being known there only as
William’s friend was some support. Having introduced him, however, and
being all reseated, the terrors that occurred of what this visit might
lead to were overpowering, and she fancied herself on the point of
fainting away.

While trying to keep herself alive, their visitor, who had at first
approached her with as animated a countenance as ever, was wisely and
kindly keeping his eyes away, and giving her time to recover, while he
devoted himself entirely to her mother, addressing her, and attending
to her with the utmost politeness and propriety, at the same time with
a degree of friendliness, of interest at least, which was making his
manner perfect.

Mrs. Price’s manners were also at their best. Warmed by the sight of
such a friend to her son, and regulated by the wish of appearing to
advantage before him, she was overflowing with gratitude--artless,
maternal gratitude--which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out,
which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recovered enough to
feel that _she_ could not regret it; for to her many other sources of
uneasiness was added the severe one of shame for the home in which he
found her. She might scold herself for the weakness, but there was no
scolding it away. She was ashamed, and she would have been yet more
ashamed of her father than of all the rest.

They talked of William, a subject on which Mrs. Price could never tire;
and Mr. Crawford was as warm in his commendation as even her heart could
wish. She felt that she had never seen so agreeable a man in her life;
and was only astonished to find that, so great and so agreeable as he
was, he should be come down to Portsmouth neither on a visit to the
port-admiral, nor the commissioner, nor yet with the intention of going
over to the island, nor of seeing the dockyard. Nothing of all that she
had been used to think of as the proof of importance, or the employment
of wealth, had brought him to Portsmouth. He had reached it late the
night before, was come for a day or two, was staying at the Crown, had
accidentally met with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance since
his arrival, but had no object of that kind in coming.

By the time he had given all this information, it was not unreasonable
to suppose that Fanny might be looked at and spoken to; and she was
tolerably able to bear his eye, and hear that he had spent half an hour
with his sister the evening before his leaving London; that she had
sent her best and kindest love, but had had no time for writing; that he
thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even half an hour, having spent
scarcely twenty-four hours in London, after his return from Norfolk,
before he set off again; that her cousin Edmund was in town, had been in
town, he understood, a few days; that he had not seen him himself, but
that he was well, had left them all well at Mansfield, and was to dine,
as yesterday, with the Frasers.

Fanny listened collectedly, even to the last-mentioned circumstance;
nay, it seemed a relief to her worn mind to be at any certainty; and the
words, “then by this time it is all settled,” passed internally, without
more evidence of emotion than a faint blush.

After talking a little more about Mansfield, a subject in which her
interest was most apparent, Crawford began to hint at the expediency of
an early walk. “It was a lovely morning, and at that season of the year
a fine morning so often turned off, that it was wisest for everybody
not to delay their exercise”; and such hints producing nothing, he soon
proceeded to a positive recommendation to Mrs. Price and her
daughters to take their walk without loss of time. Now they came to an
understanding. Mrs. Price, it appeared, scarcely ever stirred out of
doors, except of a Sunday; she owned she could seldom, with her large
family, find time for a walk. “Would she not, then, persuade her
daughters to take advantage of such weather, and allow him the pleasure
of attending them? ” Mrs. Price was greatly obliged and very complying.
“Her daughters were very much confined; Portsmouth was a sad place; they
did not often get out; and she knew they had some errands in the town,
which they would be very glad to do. ” And the consequence was, that
Fanny, strange as it was--strange, awkward, and distressing--found
herself and Susan, within ten minutes, walking towards the High Street
with Mr. Crawford.

It was soon pain upon pain, confusion upon confusion; for they were
hardly in the High Street before they met her father, whose
appearance was not the better from its being Saturday. He stopt; and,
ungentlemanlike as he looked, Fanny was obliged to introduce him to Mr.
Crawford. She could not have a doubt of the manner in which Mr. Crawford
must be struck. He must be ashamed and disgusted altogether. He must
soon give her up, and cease to have the smallest inclination for the
match; and yet, though she had been so much wanting his affection to
be cured, this was a sort of cure that would be almost as bad as the
complaint; and I believe there is scarcely a young lady in the United
Kingdoms who would not rather put up with the misfortune of being sought
by a clever, agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarity
of her nearest relations.

Mr. Crawford probably could not regard his future father-in-law with any
idea of taking him for a model in dress; but (as Fanny instantly, and to
her great relief, discerned) her father was a very different man, a
very different Mr. Price in his behaviour to this most highly respected
stranger, from what he was in his own family at home. His manners
now, though not polished, were more than passable: they were grateful,
animated, manly; his expressions were those of an attached father, and
a sensible man; his loud tones did very well in the open air, and there
was not a single oath to be heard. Such was his instinctive compliment
to the good manners of Mr. Crawford; and, be the consequence what it
might, Fanny’s immediate feelings were infinitely soothed.

The conclusion of the two gentlemen’s civilities was an offer of Mr.
Price’s to take Mr. Crawford into the dockyard, which Mr. Crawford,
desirous of accepting as a favour what was intended as such, though
he had seen the dockyard again and again, and hoping to be so much the
longer with Fanny, was very gratefully disposed to avail himself of, if
the Miss Prices were not afraid of the fatigue; and as it was somehow or
other ascertained, or inferred, or at least acted upon, that they were
not at all afraid, to the dockyard they were all to go; and but for
Mr. Crawford, Mr. Price would have turned thither directly, without the
smallest consideration for his daughters’ errands in the High Street. He
took care, however, that they should be allowed to go to the shops they
came out expressly to visit; and it did not delay them long, for Fanny
could so little bear to excite impatience, or be waited for, that before
the gentlemen, as they stood at the door, could do more than begin upon
the last naval regulations, or settle the number of three-deckers now in
commission, their companions were ready to proceed.

They were then to set forward for the dockyard at once, and the walk
would have been conducted--according to Mr. Crawford’s opinion--in a
singular manner, had Mr. Price been allowed the entire regulation of it,
as the two girls, he found, would have been left to follow, and keep up
with them or not, as they could, while they walked on together at their
own hasty pace. He was able to introduce some improvement occasionally,
though by no means to the extent he wished; he absolutely would not walk
away from them; and at any crossing or any crowd, when Mr. Price was
only calling out, “Come, girls; come, Fan; come, Sue, take care of
yourselves; keep a sharp lookout! ” he would give them his particular
attendance.

Once fairly in the dockyard, he began to reckon upon some happy
intercourse with Fanny, as they were very soon joined by a brother
lounger of Mr. Price’s, who was come to take his daily survey of how
things went on, and who must prove a far more worthy companion than
himself; and after a time the two officers seemed very well satisfied
going about together, and discussing matters of equal and never-failing
interest, while the young people sat down upon some timbers in the yard,
or found a seat on board a vessel in the stocks which they all went to
look at. Fanny was most conveniently in want of rest. Crawford could not
have wished her more fatigued or more ready to sit down; but he could
have wished her sister away. A quick-looking girl of Susan’s age was the
very worst third in the world: totally different from Lady Bertram, all
eyes and ears; and there was no introducing the main point before her.
He must content himself with being only generally agreeable, and letting
Susan have her share of entertainment, with the indulgence, now and
then, of a look or hint for the better-informed and conscious Fanny.
Norfolk was what he had mostly to talk of: there he had been some time,
and everything there was rising in importance from his present schemes.
Such a man could come from no place, no society, without importing
something to amuse; his journeys and his acquaintance were all of use,
and Susan was entertained in a way quite new to her. For Fanny, somewhat
more was related than the accidental agreeableness of the parties he had
been in. For her approbation, the particular reason of his going into
Norfolk at all, at this unusual time of year, was given. It had been
real business, relative to the renewal of a lease in which the welfare
of a large and--he believed--industrious family was at stake. He had
suspected his agent of some underhand dealing; of meaning to bias
him against the deserving; and he had determined to go himself, and
thoroughly investigate the merits of the case. He had gone, had done
even more good than he had foreseen, had been useful to more than his
first plan had comprehended, and was now able to congratulate himself
upon it, and to feel that in performing a duty, he had secured agreeable
recollections for his own mind. He had introduced himself to some
tenants whom he had never seen before; he had begun making acquaintance
with cottages whose very existence, though on his own estate, had been
hitherto unknown to him. This was aimed, and well aimed, at Fanny. It
was pleasing to hear him speak so properly; here he had been acting as
he ought to do. To be the friend of the poor and the oppressed! Nothing
could be more grateful to her; and she was on the point of giving him an
approving look, when it was all frightened off by his adding a something
too pointed of his hoping soon to have an assistant, a friend, a guide
in every plan of utility or charity for Everingham: a somebody that
would make Everingham and all about it a dearer object than it had ever
been yet.

She turned away, and wished he would not say such things. She was
willing to allow he might have more good qualities than she had been
wont to suppose. She began to feel the possibility of his turning out
well at last; but he was and must ever be completely unsuited to her,
and ought not to think of her.

He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham, and that it would
be as well to talk of something else, and turned to Mansfield. He could
not have chosen better; that was a topic to bring back her attention and
her looks almost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hear or
to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided from everybody who knew the
place, she felt it quite the voice of a friend when he mentioned it,
and led the way to her fond exclamations in praise of its beauties and
comforts, and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowed her
to gratify her own heart in the warmest eulogium, in speaking of her
uncle as all that was clever and good, and her aunt as having the
sweetest of all sweet tempers.

He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so; he looked
forward with the hope of spending much, very much, of his time there;
always there, or in the neighbourhood. He particularly built upon a very
happy summer and autumn there this year; he felt that it would be so: he
depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superior to the last.
As animated, as diversified, as social, but with circumstances of
superiority undescribable.

“Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey,” he continued; “what a society
will be comprised in those houses! And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth
may be added: some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so
dear; for as to any partnership in Thornton Lacey, as Edmund Bertram
once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foresee two objections: two
fair, excellent, irresistible objections to that plan. ”

Fanny was doubly silenced here; though when the moment was passed,
could regret that she had not forced herself into the acknowledged
comprehension of one half of his meaning, and encouraged him to say
something more of his sister and Edmund. It was a subject which she must
learn to speak of, and the weakness that shrunk from it would soon be
quite unpardonable.

When Mr. Price and his friend had seen all that they wished, or had time
for, the others were ready to return; and in the course of their walk
back, Mr. Crawford contrived a minute’s privacy for telling Fanny that
his only business in Portsmouth was to see her; that he was come down
for a couple of days on her account, and hers only, and because he could
not endure a longer total separation. She was sorry, really sorry; and
yet in spite of this and the two or three other things which she wished
he had not said, she thought him altogether improved since she had seen
him; he was much more gentle, obliging, and attentive to other people’s
feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield; she had never seen him so
agreeable--so _near_ being agreeable; his behaviour to her father could
not offend, and there was something particularly kind and proper in the
notice he took of Susan. He was decidedly improved. She wished the next
day over, she wished he had come only for one day; but it was not
so very bad as she would have expected: the pleasure of talking of
Mansfield was so very great!

Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure, and one
of no trivial kind. Her father asked him to do them the honour of taking
his mutton with them, and Fanny had time for only one thrill of horror,
before he declared himself prevented by a prior engagement. He was
engaged to dinner already both for that day and the next; he had met
with some acquaintance at the Crown who would not be denied; he should
have the honour, however, of waiting on them again on the morrow, etc. ,
and so they parted--Fanny in a state of actual felicity from escaping so
horrible an evil!

To have had him join their family dinner-party, and see all their
deficiencies, would have been dreadful! Rebecca’s cookery and Rebecca’s
waiting, and Betsey’s eating at table without restraint, and pulling
everything about as she chose, were what Fanny herself was not yet
enough inured to for her often to make a tolerable meal. _She_ was nice
only from natural delicacy, but _he_ had been brought up in a school of
luxury and epicurism.



CHAPTER XLII

The Prices were just setting off for church the next day when Mr.
Crawford appeared again. He came, not to stop, but to join them; he was
asked to go with them to the Garrison chapel, which was exactly what he
had intended, and they all walked thither together.

The family were now seen to advantage. Nature had given them no
inconsiderable share of beauty, and every Sunday dressed them in their
cleanest skins and best attire. Sunday always brought this comfort to
Fanny, and on this Sunday she felt it more than ever. Her poor mother
now did not look so very unworthy of being Lady Bertram’s sister as she
was but too apt to look. It often grieved her to the heart to think of
the contrast between them; to think that where nature had made so little
difference, circumstances should have made so much, and that her mother,
as handsome as Lady Bertram, and some years her junior, should have an
appearance so much more worn and faded, so comfortless, so slatternly,
so shabby. But Sunday made her a very creditable and tolerably
cheerful-looking Mrs. Price, coming abroad with a fine family of
children, feeling a little respite of her weekly cares, and only
discomposed if she saw her boys run into danger, or Rebecca pass by with
a flower in her hat.

In chapel they were obliged to divide, but Mr. Crawford took care not to
be divided from the female branch; and after chapel he still continued
with them, and made one in the family party on the ramparts.

Mrs. Price took her weekly walk on the ramparts every fine Sunday
throughout the year, always going directly after morning service and
staying till dinner-time. It was her public place: there she met her
acquaintance, heard a little news, talked over the badness of the
Portsmouth servants, and wound up her spirits for the six days ensuing.

Thither they now went; Mr. Crawford most happy to consider the Miss
Prices as his peculiar charge; and before they had been there long,
somehow or other, there was no saying how, Fanny could not have believed
it, but he was walking between them with an arm of each under his,
and she did not know how to prevent or put an end to it. It made her
uncomfortable for a time, but yet there were enjoyments in the day and
in the view which would be felt.

The day was uncommonly lovely. It was really March; but it was April in
its mild air, brisk soft wind, and bright sun, occasionally clouded for
a minute; and everything looked so beautiful under the influence of such
a sky, the effects of the shadows pursuing each other on the ships at
Spithead and the island beyond, with the ever-varying hues of the sea,
now at high water, dancing in its glee and dashing against the ramparts
with so fine a sound, produced altogether such a combination of charms
for Fanny, as made her gradually almost careless of the circumstances
under which she felt them. Nay, had she been without his arm, she would
soon have known that she needed it, for she wanted strength for a two
hours’ saunter of this kind, coming, as it generally did, upon a week’s
previous inactivity. Fanny was beginning to feel the effect of being
debarred from her usual regular exercise; she had lost ground as to
health since her being in Portsmouth; and but for Mr. Crawford and the
beauty of the weather would soon have been knocked up now.

The loveliness of the day, and of the view, he felt like herself. They
often stopt with the same sentiment and taste, leaning against the wall,
some minutes, to look and admire; and considering he was not Edmund,
Fanny could not but allow that he was sufficiently open to the charms
of nature, and very well able to express his admiration. She had a few
tender reveries now and then, which he could sometimes take advantage
of to look in her face without detection; and the result of these looks
was, that though as bewitching as ever, her face was less blooming than
it ought to be. She _said_ she was very well, and did not like to be
supposed otherwise; but take it all in all, he was convinced that her
present residence could not be comfortable, and therefore could not
be salutary for her, and he was growing anxious for her being again at
Mansfield, where her own happiness, and his in seeing her, must be so
much greater.

“You have been here a month, I think? ” said he.

“No; not quite a month. It is only four weeks to-morrow since I left
Mansfield. ”

“You are a most accurate and honest reckoner. I should call that a
month. ”

“I did not arrive here till Tuesday evening. ”

“And it is to be a two months’ visit, is not? ”

“Yes. My uncle talked of two months. I suppose it will not be less. ”

“And how are you to be conveyed back again? Who comes for you? ”

“I do not know. I have heard nothing about it yet from my aunt. Perhaps
I may be to stay longer. It may not be convenient for me to be fetched
exactly at the two months’ end. ”

After a moment’s reflection, Mr. Crawford replied, “I know Mansfield, I
know its way, I know its faults towards _you_. I know the danger of
your being so far forgotten, as to have your comforts give way to the
imaginary convenience of any single being in the family. I am aware
that you may be left here week after week, if Sir Thomas cannot settle
everything for coming himself, or sending your aunt’s maid for you,
without involving the slightest alteration of the arrangements which he
may have laid down for the next quarter of a year. This will not do. Two
months is an ample allowance; I should think six weeks quite enough.
I am considering your sister’s health,” said he, addressing himself to
Susan, “which I think the confinement of Portsmouth unfavourable to. She
requires constant air and exercise. When you know her as well as I do,
I am sure you will agree that she does, and that she ought never to
be long banished from the free air and liberty of the country. If,
therefore” (turning again to Fanny), “you find yourself growing unwell,
and any difficulties arise about your returning to Mansfield, without
waiting for the two months to be ended, _that_ must not be regarded
as of any consequence, if you feel yourself at all less strong or
comfortable than usual, and will only let my sister know it, give her
only the slightest hint, she and I will immediately come down, and take
you back to Mansfield. You know the ease and the pleasure with which
this would be done. You know all that would be felt on the occasion. ”

Fanny thanked him, but tried to laugh it off.

“I am perfectly serious,” he replied, “as you perfectly know. And I
hope you will not be cruelly concealing any tendency to indisposition.
Indeed, you shall _not_; it shall not be in your power; for so long only
as you positively say, in every letter to Mary, ‘I am well,’ and I
know you cannot speak or write a falsehood, so long only shall you be
considered as well. ”

Fanny thanked him again, but was affected and distressed to a degree
that made it impossible for her to say much, or even to be certain of
what she ought to say. This was towards the close of their walk. He
attended them to the last, and left them only at the door of their own
house, when he knew them to be going to dinner, and therefore pretended
to be waited for elsewhere.

“I wish you were not so tired,” said he, still detaining Fanny after all
the others were in the house--“I wish I left you in stronger health. Is
there anything I can do for you in town? I have half an idea of going
into Norfolk again soon. I am not satisfied about Maddison. I am sure
he still means to impose on me if possible, and get a cousin of his own
into a certain mill, which I design for somebody else. I must come to an
understanding with him. I must make him know that I will not be tricked
on the south side of Everingham, any more than on the north: that I will
be master of my own property.