No More Learning

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. I was not explicit enough with him before.
The mischief such a man does on an estate, both as to the credit of his
employer and the welfare of the poor, is inconceivable. I have a great
mind to go back into Norfolk directly, and put everything at once on
such a footing as cannot be afterwards swerved from. Maddison is a
clever fellow; I do not wish to displace him, provided he does not try
to displace _me_; but it would be simple to be duped by a man who has no
right of creditor to dupe me, and worse than simple to let him give me a
hard-hearted, griping fellow for a tenant, instead of an honest man,
to whom I have given half a promise already. Would it not be worse than
simple? Shall I go? Do you advise it? ”

“I advise! You know very well what is right. ”

“Yes. When you give me your opinion, I always know what is right. Your
judgment is my rule of right. ”

“Oh, no! do not say so. We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we
would attend to it, than any other person can be. Good-bye; I wish you a
pleasant journey to-morrow. ”

“Is there nothing I can do for you in town? ”

“Nothing; I am much obliged to you. ”

“Have you no message for anybody? ”

“My love to your sister, if you please; and when you see my cousin, my
cousin Edmund, I wish you would be so good as to say that I suppose I
shall soon hear from him. ”

“Certainly; and if he is lazy or negligent, I will write his excuses
myself. ”

He could say no more, for Fanny would be no longer detained. He pressed
her hand, looked at her, and was gone. _He_ went to while away the next
three hours as he could, with his other acquaintance, till the best
dinner that a capital inn afforded was ready for their enjoyment, and
_she_ turned in to her more simple one immediately.

Their general fare bore a very different character; and could he have
suspected how many privations, besides that of exercise, she endured in
her father’s house, he would have wondered that her looks were not much
more affected than he found them. She was so little equal to Rebecca’s
puddings and Rebecca’s hashes, brought to table, as they all were, with
such accompaniments of half-cleaned plates, and not half-cleaned knives
and forks, that she was very often constrained to defer her heartiest
meal till she could send her brothers in the evening for biscuits and
buns. After being nursed up at Mansfield, it was too late in the day
to be hardened at Portsmouth; and though Sir Thomas, had he known all,
might have thought his niece in the most promising way of being starved,
both mind and body, into a much juster value for Mr. Crawford’s good
company and good fortune, he would probably have feared to push his
experiment farther, lest she might die under the cure.

Fanny was out of spirits all the rest of the day. Though tolerably
secure of not seeing Mr. Crawford again, she could not help being low.
It was parting with somebody of the nature of a friend; and though, in
one light, glad to have him gone, it seemed as if she was now deserted
by everybody; it was a sort of renewed separation from Mansfield; and
she could not think of his returning to town, and being frequently with
Mary and Edmund, without feelings so near akin to envy as made her hate
herself for having them.

Her dejection had no abatement from anything passing around her; a
friend or two of her father’s, as always happened if he was not with
them, spent the long, long evening there; and from six o’clock till
half-past nine, there was little intermission of noise or grog. She
was very low. The wonderful improvement which she still fancied in Mr.
Crawford was the nearest to administering comfort of anything within the
current of her thoughts. Not considering in how different a circle she
had been just seeing him, nor how much might be owing to contrast, she
was quite persuaded of his being astonishingly more gentle and regardful
of others than formerly. And, if in little things, must it not be so in
great? So anxious for her health and comfort, so very feeling as he now
expressed himself, and really seemed, might not it be fairly supposed
that he would not much longer persevere in a suit so distressing to her?



CHAPTER XLIII

It was presumed that Mr. Crawford was travelling back, to London, on the
morrow, for nothing more was seen of him at Mr. Price’s; and two days
afterwards, it was a fact ascertained to Fanny by the following letter
from his sister, opened and read by her, on another account, with the
most anxious curiosity:--

“I have to inform you, my dearest Fanny, that Henry has been down to
Portsmouth to see you; that he had a delightful walk with you to the
dockyard last Saturday, and one still more to be dwelt on the next day,
on the ramparts; when the balmy air, the sparkling sea, and your sweet
looks and conversation were altogether in the most delicious harmony,
and afforded sensations which are to raise ecstasy even in retrospect.
This, as well as I understand, is to be the substance of my information.
He makes me write, but I do not know what else is to be communicated,
except this said visit to Portsmouth, and these two said walks, and his
introduction to your family, especially to a fair sister of yours, a
fine girl of fifteen, who was of the party on the ramparts, taking her
first lesson, I presume, in love. I have not time for writing much, but
it would be out of place if I had, for this is to be a mere letter of
business, penned for the purpose of conveying necessary information,
which could not be delayed without risk of evil. My dear, dear Fanny,
if I had you here, how I would talk to you! You should listen to me till
you were tired, and advise me till you were still tired more; but it is
impossible to put a hundredth part of my great mind on paper, so I will
abstain altogether, and leave you to guess what you like. I have no news
for you. You have politics, of course; and it would be too bad to plague
you with the names of people and parties that fill up my time. I ought
to have sent you an account of your cousin’s first party, but I was
lazy, and now it is too long ago; suffice it, that everything was just
as it ought to be, in a style that any of her connexions must have been
gratified to witness, and that her own dress and manners did her the
greatest credit. My friend, Mrs. Fraser, is mad for such a house, and it
would not make _me_ miserable. I go to Lady Stornaway after Easter;
she seems in high spirits, and very happy. I fancy Lord S. is very
good-humoured and pleasant in his own family, and I do not think him so
very ill-looking as I did--at least, one sees many worse. He will not
do by the side of your cousin Edmund. Of the last-mentioned hero, what
shall I say? If I avoided his name entirely, it would look suspicious.
I will say, then, that we have seen him two or three times, and that
my friends here are very much struck with his gentlemanlike appearance.
Mrs. Fraser (no bad judge) declares she knows but three men in town
who have so good a person, height, and air; and I must confess, when he
dined here the other day, there were none to compare with him, and
we were a party of sixteen. Luckily there is no distinction of dress
nowadays to tell tales, but--but--but Yours affectionately. ”

“I had almost forgot (it was Edmund’s fault: he gets into my head more
than does me good) one very material thing I had to say from Henry and
myself--I mean about our taking you back into Northamptonshire. My dear
little creature, do not stay at Portsmouth to lose your pretty looks.
Those vile sea-breezes are the ruin of beauty and health. My poor aunt
always felt affected if within ten miles of the sea, which the Admiral
of course never believed, but I know it was so. I am at your service
and Henry’s, at an hour’s notice. I should like the scheme, and we would
make a little circuit, and shew you Everingham in our way, and perhaps
you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St.
George’s, Hanover Square. Only keep your cousin Edmund from me at such
a time: I should not like to be tempted. What a long letter! one word
more. Henry, I find, has some idea of going into Norfolk again upon
some business that _you_ approve; but this cannot possibly be permitted
before the middle of next week; that is, he cannot anyhow be spared till
after the 14th, for _we_ have a party that evening. The value of a man
like Henry, on such an occasion, is what you can have no conception
of; so you must take it upon my word to be inestimable. He will see the
Rushworths, which own I am not sorry for--having a little curiosity, and
so I think has he--though he will not acknowledge it. ”

This was a letter to be run through eagerly, to be read deliberately,
to supply matter for much reflection, and to leave everything in greater
suspense than ever. The only certainty to be drawn from it was, that
nothing decisive had yet taken place. Edmund had not yet spoken. How
Miss Crawford really felt, how she meant to act, or might act without
or against her meaning; whether his importance to her were quite what
it had been before the last separation; whether, if lessened, it were
likely to lessen more, or to recover itself, were subjects for endless
conjecture, and to be thought of on that day and many days to come,
without producing any conclusion. The idea that returned the oftenest
was that Miss Crawford, after proving herself cooled and staggered by
a return to London habits, would yet prove herself in the end too much
attached to him to give him up. She would try to be more ambitious than
her heart would allow. She would hesitate, she would tease, she would
condition, she would require a great deal, but she would finally accept.

This was Fanny’s most frequent expectation. A house in town--that, she
thought, must be impossible. Yet there was no saying what Miss Crawford
might not ask. The prospect for her cousin grew worse and worse. The
woman who could speak of him, and speak only of his appearance! What an
unworthy attachment! To be deriving support from the commendations of
Mrs. Fraser! _She_ who had known him intimately half a year! Fanny was
ashamed of her. Those parts of the letter which related only to Mr.
Crawford and herself, touched her, in comparison, slightly. Whether Mr.
Crawford went into Norfolk before or after the 14th was certainly no
concern of hers, though, everything considered, she thought he _would_
go without delay. That Miss Crawford should endeavour to secure a
meeting between him and Mrs. Rushworth, was all in her worst line of
conduct, and grossly unkind and ill-judged; but she hoped _he_ would
not be actuated by any such degrading curiosity. He acknowledged no such
inducement, and his sister ought to have given him credit for better
feelings than her own.

She was yet more impatient for another letter from town after receiving
this than she had been before; and for a few days was so unsettled by
it altogether, by what had come, and what might come, that her usual
readings and conversation with Susan were much suspended. She could
not command her attention as she wished. If Mr. Crawford remembered her
message to her cousin, she thought it very likely, most likely, that he
would write to her at all events; it would be most consistent with his
usual kindness; and till she got rid of this idea, till it gradually
wore off, by no letters appearing in the course of three or four days
more, she was in a most restless, anxious state.

At length, a something like composure succeeded. Suspense must be
submitted to, and must not be allowed to wear her out, and make her
useless. Time did something, her own exertions something more, and she
resumed her attentions to Susan, and again awakened the same interest in
them.

Susan was growing very fond of her, and though without any of the early
delight in books which had been so strong in Fanny, with a disposition
much less inclined to sedentary pursuits, or to information for
information’s sake, she had so strong a desire of not _appearing_
ignorant, as, with a good clear understanding, made her a most
attentive, profitable, thankful pupil. Fanny was her oracle. Fanny’s
explanations and remarks were a most important addition to every essay,
or every chapter of history. What Fanny told her of former times dwelt
more on her mind than the pages of Goldsmith; and she paid her sister
the compliment of preferring her style to that of any printed author.
The early habit of reading was wanting.

Their conversations, however, were not always on subjects so high as
history or morals. Others had their hour; and of lesser matters, none
returned so often, or remained so long between them, as Mansfield Park,
a description of the people, the manners, the amusements, the ways
of Mansfield Park. Susan, who had an innate taste for the genteel and
well-appointed, was eager to hear, and Fanny could not but indulge
herself in dwelling on so beloved a theme. She hoped it was not wrong;
though, after a time, Susan’s very great admiration of everything
said or done in her uncle’s house, and earnest longing to go into
Northamptonshire, seemed almost to blame her for exciting feelings which
could not be gratified.

Poor Susan was very little better fitted for home than her elder sister;
and as Fanny grew thoroughly to understand this, she began to feel that
when her own release from Portsmouth came, her happiness would have a
material drawback in leaving Susan behind. That a girl so capable of
being made everything good should be left in such hands, distressed her
more and more. Were _she_ likely to have a home to invite her to, what
a blessing it would be! And had it been possible for her to return Mr.
Crawford’s regard, the probability of his being very far from objecting
to such a measure would have been the greatest increase of all her own
comforts. She thought he was really good-tempered, and could fancy his
entering into a plan of that sort most pleasantly.



CHAPTER XLIV

Seven weeks of the two months were very nearly gone, when the one
letter, the letter from Edmund, so long expected, was put into Fanny’s
hands. As she opened, and saw its length, she prepared herself for a
minute detail of happiness and a profusion of love and praise towards
the fortunate creature who was now mistress of his fate. These were the
contents--

“My Dear Fanny,--Excuse me that I have not written before. Crawford told
me that you were wishing to hear from me, but I found it impossible to
write from London, and persuaded myself that you would understand my
silence. Could I have sent a few happy lines, they should not have been
wanting, but nothing of that nature was ever in my power. I am returned
to Mansfield in a less assured state than when I left it. My hopes are
much weaker. You are probably aware of this already. So very fond of you
as Miss Crawford is, it is most natural that she should tell you enough
of her own feelings to furnish a tolerable guess at mine. I will not be
prevented, however, from making my own communication. Our confidences in
you need not clash. I ask no questions. There is something soothing
in the idea that we have the same friend, and that whatever unhappy
differences of opinion may exist between us, we are united in our love
of you. It will be a comfort to me to tell you how things now are, and
what are my present plans, if plans I can be said to have. I have been
returned since Saturday. I was three weeks in London, and saw her (for
London) very often. I had every attention from the Frasers that could be
reasonably expected. I dare say I was not reasonable in carrying with
me hopes of an intercourse at all like that of Mansfield. It was her
manner, however, rather than any unfrequency of meeting. Had she been
different when I did see her, I should have made no complaint, but from
the very first she was altered: my first reception was so unlike what I
had hoped, that I had almost resolved on leaving London again directly.
I need not particularise. You know the weak side of her character, and
may imagine the sentiments and expressions which were torturing me. She
was in high spirits, and surrounded by those who were giving all the
support of their own bad sense to her too lively mind. I do not like
Mrs. Fraser. She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely
from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage,
places her disappointment not to faults of judgment, or temper, or
disproportion of age, but to her being, after all, less affluent than
many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister, Lady Stornaway,
and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious,
provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough. I look upon her
intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest misfortune of her life
and mine. They have been leading her astray for years. Could she be
detached from them! --and sometimes I do not despair of it, for the
affection appears to me principally on their side. They are very fond of
her; but I am sure she does not love them as she loves you. When I think
of her great attachment to you, indeed, and the whole of her judicious,
upright conduct as a sister, she appears a very different creature,
capable of everything noble, and I am ready to blame myself for a too
harsh construction of a playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny. She
is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife. If
I did not believe that she had some regard for me, of course I should
not say this, but I do believe it. I am convinced that she is not
without a decided preference. I have no jealousy of any individual. It
is the influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous
of. It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her ideas are not higher
than her own fortune may warrant, but they are beyond what our incomes
united could authorise. There is comfort, however, even here. I could
better bear to lose her because not rich enough, than because of my
profession. That would only prove her affection not equal to sacrifices,
which, in fact, I am scarcely justified in asking; and, if I am refused,
that, I think, will be the honest motive. Her prejudices, I trust, are
not so strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as they arise,
my dear Fanny; perhaps they are sometimes contradictory, but it will
not be a less faithful picture of my mind. Having once begun, it is a
pleasure to me to tell you all I feel. I cannot give her up. Connected
as we already are, and, I hope, are to be, to give up Mary Crawford
would be to give up the society of some of those most dear to me; to
banish myself from the very houses and friends whom, under any other
distress, I should turn to for consolation. The loss of Mary I must
consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were it a
decided thing, an actual refusal, I hope I should know how to bear it,
and how to endeavour to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the course
of a few years--but I am writing nonsense. Were I refused, I must bear
it; and till I am, I can never cease to try for her. This is the truth.
The only question is _how_? What may be the likeliest means? I have
sometimes thought of going to London again after Easter, and sometimes
resolved on doing nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now, she
speaks with pleasure of being in Mansfield in June; but June is at
a great distance, and I believe I shall write to her. I have nearly
determined on explaining myself by letter. To be at an early certainty
is a material object.
My present state is miserably irksome. Considering
everything, I think a letter will be decidedly the best method of
explanation. I shall be able to write much that I could not say, and
shall be giving her time for reflection before she resolves on her
answer, and I am less afraid of the result of reflection than of an
immediate hasty impulse; I think I am. My greatest danger would lie in
her consulting Mrs. Fraser, and I at a distance unable to help my own
cause. A letter exposes to all the evil of consultation, and where
the mind is anything short of perfect decision, an adviser may, in an
unlucky moment, lead it to do what it may afterwards regret. I must
think this matter over a little. This long letter, full of my own
concerns alone, will be enough to tire even the friendship of a Fanny.
The last time I saw Crawford was at Mrs. Fraser’s party. I am more
and more satisfied with all that I see and hear of him. There is not a
shadow of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind, and acts up to his
resolutions: an inestimable quality. I could not see him and my eldest
sister in the same room without recollecting what you once told me,
and I acknowledge that they did not meet as friends. There was
marked coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him draw back
surprised, and I was sorry that Mrs. Rushworth should resent any former
supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You will wish to hear my opinion
of Maria’s degree of comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of
unhappiness. I hope they get on pretty well together. I dined twice in
Wimpole Street, and might have been there oftener, but it is mortifying
to be with Rushworth as a brother. Julia seems to enjoy London
exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there, but have less here. We are
not a lively party. You are very much wanted. I miss you more than I
can express. My mother desires her best love, and hopes to hear from
you soon. She talks of you almost every hour, and I am sorry to find
how many weeks more she is likely to be without you. My father means
to fetch you himself, but it will not be till after Easter, when he has
business in town. You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but this must
not be a yearly visit. I want you at home, that I may have your opinion
about Thornton Lacey. I have little heart for extensive improvements
till I know that it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall certainly
write. It is quite settled that the Grants go to Bath; they leave
Mansfield on Monday. I am glad of it. I am not comfortable enough to be
fit for anybody; but your aunt seems to feel out of luck that such an
article of Mansfield news should fall to my pen instead of hers. --Yours
ever, my dearest Fanny. ”

“I never will, no, I certainly never will wish for a letter again,” was
Fanny’s secret declaration as she finished this. “What do they bring but
disappointment and sorrow? Not till after Easter! How shall I bear it?
And my poor aunt talking of me every hour! ”

Fanny checked the tendency of these thoughts as well as she could, but
she was within half a minute of starting the idea that Sir Thomas was
quite unkind, both to her aunt and to herself. As for the main subject
of the letter, there was nothing in that to soothe irritation. She was
almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. “There is no
good in this delay,” said she. “Why is not it settled? He is blinded,
and nothing will open his eyes; nothing can, after having had truths
before him so long in vain. He will marry her, and be poor and
miserable. God grant that her influence do not make him cease to be
respectable! ” She looked over the letter again. “‘So very fond of me! ’
‘tis nonsense all. She loves nobody but herself and her brother. Her
friends leading her astray for years! She is quite as likely to have led
_them_ astray. They have all, perhaps, been corrupting one another; but
if they are so much fonder of her than she is of them, she is the less
likely to have been hurt, except by their flattery. ‘The only woman in
the world whom he could ever think of as a wife. ’ I firmly believe it.
It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused, his
heart is wedded to her for ever. ‘The loss of Mary I must consider as
comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny. ’ Edmund, you do not know
me. The families would never be connected if you did not connect
them! Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this
suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself. ”

Such sensations, however, were too near akin to resentment to be long
guiding Fanny’s soliloquies. She was soon more softened and sorrowful.
His warm regard, his kind expressions, his confidential treatment,
touched her strongly. He was only too good to everybody. It was a
letter, in short, which she would not but have had for the world, and
which could never be valued enough. This was the end of it.

Everybody at all addicted to letter-writing, without having much to say,
which will include a large proportion of the female world at least, must
feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck in having such a capital
piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath,
occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it, and will admit
that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the
share of her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the
end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest
part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the
epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want of other
employment, and the circumstance of Sir Thomas’s being in Parliament,
got into the way of making and keeping correspondents, and formed for
herself a very creditable, common-place, amplifying style, so that a
very little matter was enough for her: she could not do entirely without
any; she must have something to write about, even to her niece; and
being so soon to lose all the benefit of Dr. Grant’s gouty symptoms and
Mrs. Grant’s morning calls, it was very hard upon her to be deprived of
one of the last epistolary uses she could put them to.

There was a rich amends, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram’s
hour of good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt of Edmund’s
letter, Fanny had one from her aunt, beginning thus--

“My Dear Fanny,--I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming
intelligence, which I make no doubt will give you much concern”.

This was a great deal better than to have to take up the pen to acquaint
her with all the particulars of the Grants’ intended journey, for the
present intelligence was of a nature to promise occupation for the pen
for many days to come, being no less than the dangerous illness of her
eldest son, of which they had received notice by express a few hours
before.

Tom had gone from London with a party of young men to Newmarket, where
a neglected fall and a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever; and
when the party broke up, being unable to move, had been left by himself
at the house of one of these young men to the comforts of sickness and
solitude, and the attendance only of servants. Instead of being soon
well enough to follow his friends, as he had then hoped, his disorder
increased considerably, and it was not long before he thought so ill of
himself as to be as ready as his physician to have a letter despatched
to Mansfield.

“This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose,” observed
her ladyship, after giving the substance of it, “has agitated us
exceedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being greatly alarmed
and apprehensive for the poor invalid, whose state Sir Thomas fears
may be very critical; and Edmund kindly proposes attending his brother
immediately, but I am happy to add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on
this distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me. We shall
greatly miss Edmund in our small circle, but I trust and hope he
will find the poor invalid in a less alarming state than might be
apprehended, and that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly,
which Sir Thomas proposes should be done, and thinks best on every
account, and I flatter myself the poor sufferer will soon be able to
bear the removal without material inconvenience or injury. As I
have little doubt of your feeling for us, my dear Fanny, under these
distressing circumstances, I will write again very soon. ”

Fanny’s feelings on the occasion were indeed considerably more warm and
genuine than her aunt’s style of writing. She felt truly for them all.
Tom dangerously ill, Edmund gone to attend him, and the sadly small
party remaining at Mansfield, were cares to shut out every other care,
or almost every other. She could just find selfishness enough to wonder
whether Edmund _had_ written to Miss Crawford before this summons came,
but no sentiment dwelt long with her that was not purely affectionate
and disinterestedly anxious. Her aunt did not neglect her: she wrote
again and again; they were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund,
and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny, in the same
diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts, hopes, and fears, all
following and producing each other at haphazard. It was a sort of
playing at being frightened. The sufferings which Lady Bertram did not
see had little power over her fancy; and she wrote very comfortably
about agitation, and anxiety, and poor invalids, till Tom was actually
conveyed to Mansfield, and her own eyes had beheld his altered
appearance. Then a letter which she had been previously preparing for
Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language of real feeling
and alarm; then she wrote as she might have spoken. “He is just come, my
dear Fanny, and is taken upstairs; and I am so shocked to see him, that
I do not know what to do. I am sure he has been very ill. Poor Tom! I am
quite grieved for him, and very much frightened, and so is Sir Thomas;
and how glad I should be if you were here to comfort me. But Sir
Thomas hopes he will be better to-morrow, and says we must consider his
journey. ”

The real solicitude now awakened in the maternal bosom was not
soon over. Tom’s extreme impatience to be removed to Mansfield, and
experience those comforts of home and family which had been little
thought of in uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being
conveyed thither too early, as a return of fever came on, and for a week
he was in a more alarming state than ever. They were all very seriously
frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who
might now be said to live upon letters, and pass all her time between
suffering from that of to-day and looking forward to to-morrow’s.
Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, her tenderness
of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of
her principles added yet a keener solicitude, when she considered how
little useful, how little self-denying his life had (apparently) been.

Susan was her only companion and listener on this, as on more common
occasions. Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathise. Nobody else
could be interested in so remote an evil as illness in a family above an
hundred miles off; not even Mrs. Price, beyond a brief question or two,
if she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand, and now and then the
quiet observation of, “My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of
trouble. ”

So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were
little more than nothing. An attachment, originally as tranquil as their
tempers, was now become a mere name. Mrs. Price did quite as much for
Lady Bertram as Lady Bertram would have done for Mrs. Price. Three or
four Prices might have been swept away, any or all except Fanny and
William, and Lady Bertram would have thought little about it; or perhaps
might have caught from Mrs. Norris’s lips the cant of its being a very
happy thing and a great blessing to their poor dear sister Price to have
them so well provided for.



CHAPTER XLV

At about the week’s end from his return to Mansfield, Tom’s immediate
danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother
perfectly easy; for being now used to the sight of him in his suffering,
helpless state, and hearing only the best, and never thinking beyond
what she heard, with no disposition for alarm and no aptitude at a hint,
Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical
imposition. The fever was subdued; the fever had been his complaint;
of course he would soon be well again. Lady Bertram could think nothing
less, and Fanny shared her aunt’s security, till she received a few
lines from Edmund, written purposely to give her a clearer idea of his
brother’s situation, and acquaint her with the apprehensions which
he and his father had imbibed from the physician with respect to some
strong hectic symptoms, which seemed to seize the frame on the departure
of the fever. They judged it best that Lady Bertram should not be
harassed by alarms which, it was to be hoped, would prove unfounded;
but there was no reason why Fanny should not know the truth. They were
apprehensive for his lungs.

A very few lines from Edmund shewed her the patient and the sickroom
in a juster and stronger light than all Lady Bertram’s sheets of paper
could do. There was hardly any one in the house who might not have
described, from personal observation, better than herself; not one who
was not more useful at times to her son. She could do nothing but glide
in quietly and look at him; but when able to talk or be talked to, or
read to, Edmund was the companion he preferred. His aunt worried him by
her cares, and Sir Thomas knew not how to bring down his conversation or
his voice to the level of irritation and feebleness. Edmund was all in
all. Fanny would certainly believe him so at least, and must find that
her estimation of him was higher than ever when he appeared as the
attendant, supporter, cheerer of a suffering brother. There was not only
the debility of recent illness to assist: there was also, as she now
learnt, nerves much affected, spirits much depressed to calm and raise,
and her own imagination added that there must be a mind to be properly
guided.

The family were not consumptive, and she was more inclined to hope than
fear for her cousin, except when she thought of Miss Crawford; but Miss
Crawford gave her the idea of being the child of good luck, and to her
selfishness and vanity it would be good luck to have Edmund the only
son.

Even in the sick chamber the fortunate Mary was not forgotten. Edmund’s
letter had this postscript. “On the subject of my last, I had actually
begun a letter when called away by Tom’s illness, but I have now changed
my mind, and fear to trust the influence of friends. When Tom is better,
I shall go. ”

Such was the state of Mansfield, and so it continued, with scarcely any
change, till Easter. A line occasionally added by Edmund to his
mother’s letter was enough for Fanny’s information. Tom’s amendment was
alarmingly slow.

Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully
considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving
Portsmouth till after it. It came, and she had yet heard nothing of her
return--nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede
her return. Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no
notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended. She supposed
he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay
to her. The end of April was coming on; it would soon be almost three
months, instead of two, that she had been absent from them all, and that
her days had been passing in a state of penance, which she loved them
too well to hope they would thoroughly understand; and who could yet say
when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her?

Her eagerness, her impatience, her longings to be with them, were such
as to bring a line or two of Cowper’s Tirocinium for ever before her.
“With what intense desire she wants her home,” was continually on her
tongue, as the truest description of a yearning which she could not
suppose any schoolboy’s bosom to feel more keenly.

When she had been coming to Portsmouth, she had loved to call it her
home, had been fond of saying that she was going home; the word had
been very dear to her, and so it still was, but it must be applied to
Mansfield. _That_ was now the home. Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield
was home. They had been long so arranged in the indulgence of her secret
meditations, and nothing was more consolatory to her than to find her
aunt using the same language: “I cannot but say I much regret your being
from home at this distressing time, so very trying to my spirits. I
trust and hope, and sincerely wish you may never be absent from home so
long again,” were most delightful sentences to her. Still, however, it
was her private regale. Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to
betray such a preference of her uncle’s house. It was always: “When I go
back into Northamptonshire, or when I return to Mansfield, I shall do
so and so. ” For a great while it was so, but at last the longing grew
stronger, it overthrew caution, and she found herself talking of what
she should do when she went home before she was aware. She reproached
herself, coloured, and looked fearfully towards her father and mother.
She need not have been uneasy. There was no sign of displeasure, or even
of hearing her. They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield.
She was as welcome to wish herself there as to be there.

It was sad to Fanny to lose all the pleasures of spring. She had not
known before what pleasures she _had_ to lose in passing March and April
in a town. She had not known before how much the beginnings and progress
of vegetation had delighted her. What animation, both of body and mind,
she had derived from watching the advance of that season which cannot,
in spite of its capriciousness, be unlovely, and seeing its increasing
beauties from the earliest flowers in the warmest divisions of her
aunt’s garden, to the opening of leaves of her uncle’s plantations, and
the glory of his woods. To be losing such pleasures was no trifle; to
be losing them, because she was in the midst of closeness and noise,
to have confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty,
freshness, fragrance, and verdure, was infinitely worse: but even these
incitements to regret were feeble, compared with what arose from the
conviction of being missed by her best friends, and the longing to be
useful to those who were wanting her!

Could she have been at home, she might have been of service to every
creature in the house. She felt that she must have been of use to all.
To all she must have saved some trouble of head or hand; and were it
only in supporting the spirits of her aunt Bertram, keeping her from
the evil of solitude, or the still greater evil of a restless, officious
companion, too apt to be heightening danger in order to enhance her own
importance, her being there would have been a general good. She loved to
fancy how she could have read to her aunt, how she could have talked to
her, and tried at once to make her feel the blessing of what was, and
prepare her mind for what might be; and how many walks up and down
stairs she might have saved her, and how many messages she might have
carried.

It astonished her that Tom’s sisters could be satisfied with remaining
in London at such a time, through an illness which had now, under
different degrees of danger, lasted several weeks. _They_ might return
to Mansfield when they chose; travelling could be no difficulty to
_them_, and she could not comprehend how both could still keep away.
If Mrs. Rushworth could imagine any interfering obligations, Julia was
certainly able to quit London whenever she chose. It appeared from one
of her aunt’s letters that Julia had offered to return if wanted, but
this was all. It was evident that she would rather remain where she was.

Fanny was disposed to think the influence of London very much at war
with all respectable attachments. She saw the proof of it in Miss
Crawford, as well as in her cousins; _her_ attachment to Edmund had been
respectable, the most respectable part of her character; her friendship
for herself had at least been blameless. Where was either sentiment now?
It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had
some reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so dwelt
on. It was weeks since she had heard anything of Miss Crawford or of
her other connexions in town, except through Mansfield, and she was
beginning to suppose that she might never know whether Mr. Crawford had
gone into Norfolk again or not till they met, and might never hear from
his sister any more this spring, when the following letter was received
to revive old and create some new sensations--

“Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence, and
behave as if you could forgive me directly. This is my modest request
and expectation, for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated
better than I deserve, and I write now to beg an immediate answer. I
want to know the state of things at Mansfield Park, and you, no doubt,
are perfectly able to give it. One should be a brute not to feel for the
distress they are in; and from what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad
chance of ultimate recovery. I thought little of his illness at first.
I looked upon him as the sort of person to be made a fuss with, and to
make a fuss himself in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned
for those who had to nurse him; but now it is confidently asserted that
he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that
part of the family, at least, are aware of it. If it be so, I am sure
you must be included in that part, that discerning part, and therefore
entreat you to let me know how far I have been rightly informed. I need
not say how rejoiced I shall be to hear there has been any mistake, but
the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling. To
have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days is most
melancholy. Poor Sir Thomas will feel it dreadfully. I really am quite
agitated on the subject. Fanny, Fanny, I see you smile and look cunning,
but, upon my honour, I never bribed a physician in my life. Poor young
man! If he is to die, there will be _two_ poor young men less in the
world; and with a fearless face and bold voice would I say to any one,
that wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of
them. It was a foolish precipitation last Christmas, but the evil of
a few days may be blotted out in part. Varnish and gilding hide many
stains. It will be but the loss of the Esquire after his name. With real
affection, Fanny, like mine, more might be overlooked. Write to me by
return of post, judge of my anxiety, and do not trifle with it. Tell me
the real truth, as you have it from the fountainhead. And now, do
not trouble yourself to be ashamed of either my feelings or your own.