No More Learning

Price’s answer arrived, there remained but a very few
days more to be spent at Mansfield; and for part of one of those days
the young travellers were in a good deal of alarm on the subject of
their journey, for when the mode of it came to be talked of, and Mrs.
Norris found that all her anxiety to save her brother-in-law’s money
was vain, and that in spite of her wishes and hints for a less expensive
conveyance of Fanny, they were to travel post; when she saw Sir Thomas
actually give William notes for the purpose, she was struck with the
idea of there being room for a third in the carriage, and suddenly
seized with a strong inclination to go with them, to go and see her poor
dear sister Price. She proclaimed her thoughts. She must say that she
had more than half a mind to go with the young people; it would be such
an indulgence to her; she had not seen her poor dear sister Price for
more than twenty years; and it would be a help to the young people in
their journey to have her older head to manage for them; and she could
not help thinking her poor dear sister Price would feel it very unkind
of her not to come by such an opportunity.

William and Fanny were horror-struck at the idea.

All the comfort of their comfortable journey would be destroyed at
once. With woeful countenances they looked at each other. Their suspense
lasted an hour or two. No one interfered to encourage or dissuade. Mrs.
Norris was left to settle the matter by herself; and it ended, to the
infinite joy of her nephew and niece, in the recollection that she could
not possibly be spared from Mansfield Park at present; that she was a
great deal too necessary to Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram for her to
be able to answer it to herself to leave them even for a week, and
therefore must certainly sacrifice every other pleasure to that of being
useful to them.

It had, in fact, occurred to her, that though taken to Portsmouth for
nothing, it would be hardly possible for her to avoid paying her own
expenses back again. So her poor dear sister Price was left to all the
disappointment of her missing such an opportunity, and another twenty
years’ absence, perhaps, begun.

Edmund’s plans were affected by this Portsmouth journey, this absence of
Fanny’s. He too had a sacrifice to make to Mansfield Park as well as his
aunt. He had intended, about this time, to be going to London; but he
could not leave his father and mother just when everybody else of most
importance to their comfort was leaving them; and with an effort, felt
but not boasted of, he delayed for a week or two longer a journey which
he was looking forward to with the hope of its fixing his happiness for
ever.

He told Fanny of it. She knew so much already, that she must know
everything. It made the substance of one other confidential discourse
about Miss Crawford; and Fanny was the more affected from feeling it to
be the last time in which Miss Crawford’s name would ever be mentioned
between them with any remains of liberty. Once afterwards she was
alluded to by him. Lady Bertram had been telling her niece in the
evening to write to her soon and often, and promising to be a good
correspondent herself; and Edmund, at a convenient moment, then added
in a whisper, “And _I_ shall write to you, Fanny, when I have anything
worth writing about, anything to say that I think you will like to hear,
and that you will not hear so soon from any other quarter. ” Had she
doubted his meaning while she listened, the glow in his face, when she
looked up at him, would have been decisive.

For this letter she must try to arm herself. That a letter from Edmund
should be a subject of terror! She began to feel that she had not yet
gone through all the changes of opinion and sentiment which the progress
of time and variation of circumstances occasion in this world of
changes. The vicissitudes of the human mind had not yet been exhausted
by her.

Poor Fanny! though going as she did willingly and eagerly, the last
evening at Mansfield Park must still be wretchedness. Her heart was
completely sad at parting. She had tears for every room in the house,
much more for every beloved inhabitant. She clung to her aunt, because
she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling
sobs, because she had displeased him; and as for Edmund, she could
neither speak, nor look, nor think, when the last moment came with
_him_; and it was not till it was over that she knew he was giving her
the affectionate farewell of a brother.

All this passed overnight, for the journey was to begin very early in
the morning; and when the small, diminished party met at breakfast,
William and Fanny were talked of as already advanced one stage.



CHAPTER XXXVIII

The novelty of travelling, and the happiness of being with William, soon
produced their natural effect on Fanny’s spirits, when Mansfield Park
was fairly left behind; and by the time their first stage was ended, and
they were to quit Sir Thomas’s carriage, she was able to take leave of
the old coachman, and send back proper messages, with cheerful looks.

Of pleasant talk between the brother and sister there was no end.
Everything supplied an amusement to the high glee of William’s mind, and
he was full of frolic and joke in the intervals of their higher-toned
subjects, all of which ended, if they did not begin, in praise of the
Thrush, conjectures how she would be employed, schemes for an action
with some superior force, which (supposing the first lieutenant out of
the way, and William was not very merciful to the first lieutenant) was
to give himself the next step as soon as possible, or speculations upon
prize-money, which was to be generously distributed at home, with only
the reservation of enough to make the little cottage comfortable,
in which he and Fanny were to pass all their middle and later life
together.

Fanny’s immediate concerns, as far as they involved Mr. Crawford, made
no part of their conversation. William knew what had passed, and from
his heart lamented that his sister’s feelings should be so cold towards
a man whom he must consider as the first of human characters; but he was
of an age to be all for love, and therefore unable to blame; and knowing
her wish on the subject, he would not distress her by the slightest
allusion.

She had reason to suppose herself not yet forgotten by Mr. Crawford. She
had heard repeatedly from his sister within the three weeks which had
passed since their leaving Mansfield, and in each letter there had been
a few lines from himself, warm and determined like his speeches. It
was a correspondence which Fanny found quite as unpleasant as she had
feared. Miss Crawford’s style of writing, lively and affectionate, was
itself an evil, independent of what she was thus forced into reading
from the brother’s pen, for Edmund would never rest till she had read
the chief of the letter to him; and then she had to listen to his
admiration of her language, and the warmth of her attachments. There
had, in fact, been so much of message, of allusion, of recollection, so
much of Mansfield in every letter, that Fanny could not but suppose it
meant for him to hear; and to find herself forced into a purpose of
that kind, compelled into a correspondence which was bringing her the
addresses of the man she did not love, and obliging her to administer
to the adverse passion of the man she did, was cruelly mortifying. Here,
too, her present removal promised advantage. When no longer under the
same roof with Edmund, she trusted that Miss Crawford would have no
motive for writing strong enough to overcome the trouble, and that at
Portsmouth their correspondence would dwindle into nothing.

With such thoughts as these, among ten hundred others, Fanny proceeded
in her journey safely and cheerfully, and as expeditiously as could
rationally be hoped in the dirty month of February. They entered Oxford,
but she could take only a hasty glimpse of Edmund’s college as they
passed along, and made no stop anywhere till they reached Newbury, where
a comfortable meal, uniting dinner and supper, wound up the enjoyments
and fatigues of the day.

The next morning saw them off again at an early hour; and with no
events, and no delays, they regularly advanced, and were in the environs
of Portsmouth while there was yet daylight for Fanny to look around her,
and wonder at the new buildings. They passed the drawbridge, and
entered the town; and the light was only beginning to fail as, guided
by William’s powerful voice, they were rattled into a narrow street,
leading from the High Street, and drawn up before the door of a small
house now inhabited by Mr. Price.

Fanny was all agitation and flutter; all hope and apprehension. The
moment they stopped, a trollopy-looking maidservant, seemingly in
waiting for them at the door, stepped forward, and more intent on
telling the news than giving them any help, immediately began with, “The
Thrush is gone out of harbour, please sir, and one of the officers has
been here to--” She was interrupted by a fine tall boy of eleven years
old, who, rushing out of the house, pushed the maid aside, and while
William was opening the chaise-door himself, called out, “You are just
in time. We have been looking for you this half-hour. The Thrush went
out of harbour this morning. I saw her. It was a beautiful sight. And
they think she will have her orders in a day or two. And Mr. Campbell
was here at four o’clock to ask for you: he has got one of the Thrush’s
boats, and is going off to her at six, and hoped you would be here in
time to go with him. ”

A stare or two at Fanny, as William helped her out of the carriage, was
all the voluntary notice which this brother bestowed; but he made no
objection to her kissing him, though still entirely engaged in detailing
farther particulars of the Thrush’s going out of harbour, in which
he had a strong right of interest, being to commence his career of
seamanship in her at this very time.

Another moment and Fanny was in the narrow entrance-passage of the
house, and in her mother’s arms, who met her there with looks of true
kindness, and with features which Fanny loved the more, because they
brought her aunt Bertram’s before her, and there were her two sisters:
Susan, a well-grown fine girl of fourteen, and Betsey, the youngest of
the family, about five--both glad to see her in their way, though with
no advantage of manner in receiving her. But manner Fanny did not want.
Would they but love her, she should be satisfied.

She was then taken into a parlour, so small that her first conviction
was of its being only a passage-room to something better, and she stood
for a moment expecting to be invited on; but when she saw there was
no other door, and that there were signs of habitation before her, she
called back her thoughts, reproved herself, and grieved lest they should
have been suspected. Her mother, however, could not stay long enough
to suspect anything. She was gone again to the street-door, to welcome
William. “Oh! my dear William, how glad I am to see you. But have you
heard about the Thrush? She is gone out of harbour already; three days
before we had any thought of it; and I do not know what I am to do about
Sam’s things, they will never be ready in time; for she may have her
orders to-morrow, perhaps. It takes me quite unawares. And now you must
be off for Spithead too. Campbell has been here, quite in a worry about
you; and now what shall we do? I thought to have had such a comfortable
evening with you, and here everything comes upon me at once. ”

Her son answered cheerfully, telling her that everything was always for
the best; and making light of his own inconvenience in being obliged to
hurry away so soon.

“To be sure, I had much rather she had stayed in harbour, that I might
have sat a few hours with you in comfort; but as there is a boat ashore,
I had better go off at once, and there is no help for it. Whereabouts
does the Thrush lay at Spithead? Near the Canopus? But no matter; here’s
Fanny in the parlour, and why should we stay in the passage? Come,
mother, you have hardly looked at your own dear Fanny yet. ”

In they both came, and Mrs. Price having kindly kissed her daughter
again, and commented a little on her growth, began with very natural
solicitude to feel for their fatigues and wants as travellers.

“Poor dears! how tired you must both be! and now, what will you have? I
began to think you would never come. Betsey and I have been watching for
you this half-hour. And when did you get anything to eat? And what would
you like to have now? I could not tell whether you would be for some
meat, or only a dish of tea, after your journey, or else I would have
got something ready. And now I am afraid Campbell will be here before
there is time to dress a steak, and we have no butcher at hand. It is
very inconvenient to have no butcher in the street. We were better off
in our last house. Perhaps you would like some tea as soon as it can be
got. ”

They both declared they should prefer it to anything. “Then, Betsey, my
dear, run into the kitchen and see if Rebecca has put the water on; and
tell her to bring in the tea-things as soon as she can. I wish we could
get the bell mended; but Betsey is a very handy little messenger. ”

Betsey went with alacrity, proud to shew her abilities before her fine
new sister.

“Dear me! ” continued the anxious mother, “what a sad fire we have got,
and I dare say you are both starved with cold. Draw your chair nearer,
my dear. I cannot think what Rebecca has been about. I am sure I told
her to bring some coals half an hour ago. Susan, you should have taken
care of the fire. ”

“I was upstairs, mama, moving my things,” said Susan, in a fearless,
self-defending tone, which startled Fanny. “You know you had but just
settled that my sister Fanny and I should have the other room; and I
could not get Rebecca to give me any help. ”

Farther discussion was prevented by various bustles: first, the driver
came to be paid; then there was a squabble between Sam and Rebecca about
the manner of carrying up his sister’s trunk, which he would manage all
his own way; and lastly, in walked Mr. Price himself, his own loud voice
preceding him, as with something of the oath kind he kicked away his
son’s port-manteau and his daughter’s bandbox in the passage, and called
out for a candle; no candle was brought, however, and he walked into the
room.

Fanny with doubting feelings had risen to meet him, but sank down again
on finding herself undistinguished in the dusk, and unthought of. With
a friendly shake of his son’s hand, and an eager voice, he instantly
began--“Ha! welcome back, my boy. Glad to see you. Have you heard the
news? The Thrush went out of harbour this morning. Sharp is the
word, you see! By G--, you are just in time! The doctor has been here
inquiring for you: he has got one of the boats, and is to be off for
Spithead by six, so you had better go with him. I have been to Turner’s
about your mess; it is all in a way to be done. I should not wonder if
you had your orders to-morrow: but you cannot sail with this wind, if
you are to cruise to the westward; and Captain Walsh thinks you will
certainly have a cruise to the westward, with the Elephant. By G--, I
wish you may! But old Scholey was saying, just now, that he thought you
would be sent first to the Texel. Well, well, we are ready, whatever
happens. But by G--, you lost a fine sight by not being here in the
morning to see the Thrush go out of harbour! I would not have been out
of the way for a thousand pounds. Old Scholey ran in at breakfast-time,
to say she had slipped her moorings and was coming out, I jumped up, and
made but two steps to the platform. If ever there was a perfect beauty
afloat, she is one; and there she lays at Spithead, and anybody in
England would take her for an eight-and-twenty. I was upon the platform
two hours this afternoon looking at her. She lays close to the Endymion,
between her and the Cleopatra, just to the eastward of the sheer hulk. ”

“Ha! ” cried William, “_that’s_ just where I should have put her myself.
It’s the best berth at Spithead. But here is my sister, sir; here is
Fanny,” turning and leading her forward; “it is so dark you do not see
her. ”

With an acknowledgment that he had quite forgot her, Mr. Price now
received his daughter; and having given her a cordial hug, and observed
that she was grown into a woman, and he supposed would be wanting a
husband soon, seemed very much inclined to forget her again. Fanny
shrunk back to her seat, with feelings sadly pained by his language and
his smell of spirits; and he talked on only to his son, and only of the
Thrush, though William, warmly interested as he was in that subject,
more than once tried to make his father think of Fanny, and her long
absence and long journey.

After sitting some time longer, a candle was obtained; but as there was
still no appearance of tea, nor, from Betsey’s reports from the kitchen,
much hope of any under a considerable period, William determined to
go and change his dress, and make the necessary preparations for
his removal on board directly, that he might have his tea in comfort
afterwards.

As he left the room, two rosy-faced boys, ragged and dirty, about eight
and nine years old, rushed into it just released from school, and coming
eagerly to see their sister, and tell that the Thrush was gone out of
harbour; Tom and Charles. Charles had been born since Fanny’s going
away, but Tom she had often helped to nurse, and now felt a particular
pleasure in seeing again. Both were kissed very tenderly, but Tom she
wanted to keep by her, to try to trace the features of the baby she had
loved, and talked to, of his infant preference of herself. Tom, however,
had no mind for such treatment: he came home not to stand and be talked
to, but to run about and make a noise; and both boys had soon burst from
her, and slammed the parlour-door till her temples ached.

She had now seen all that were at home; there remained only two brothers
between herself and Susan, one of whom was a clerk in a public office
in London, and the other midshipman on board an Indiaman. But though she
had _seen_ all the members of the family, she had not yet _heard_ all
the noise they could make. Another quarter of an hour brought her a
great deal more. William was soon calling out from the landing-place of
the second story for his mother and for Rebecca. He was in distress
for something that he had left there, and did not find again. A key was
mislaid, Betsey accused of having got at his new hat, and some slight,
but essential alteration of his uniform waistcoat, which he had been
promised to have done for him, entirely neglected.

Mrs. Price, Rebecca, and Betsey all went up to defend themselves, all
talking together, but Rebecca loudest, and the job was to be done as
well as it could in a great hurry; William trying in vain to send Betsey
down again, or keep her from being troublesome where she was; the whole
of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could be plainly
distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned at intervals by the
superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each other up and down
stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing.

Fanny was almost stunned. The smallness of the house and thinness of the
walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the fatigue of
her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew how to
bear it. _Within_ the room all was tranquil enough, for Susan having
disappeared with the others, there were soon only her father and herself
remaining; and he, taking out a newspaper, the accustomary loan of a
neighbour, applied himself to studying it, without seeming to recollect
her existence. The solitary candle was held between himself and the
paper, without any reference to her possible convenience; but she had
nothing to do, and was glad to have the light screened from her aching
head, as she sat in bewildered, broken, sorrowful contemplation.

She was at home. But, alas! it was not such a home, she had not such a
welcome, as--she checked herself; she was unreasonable. What right had
she to be of importance to her family? She could have none, so long lost
sight of! William’s concerns must be dearest, they always had been, and
he had every right. Yet to have so little said or asked about herself,
to have scarcely an inquiry made after Mansfield! It did pain her to
have Mansfield forgotten; the friends who had done so much--the dear,
dear friends! But here, one subject swallowed up all the rest. Perhaps
it must be so. The destination of the Thrush must be now preeminently
interesting. 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.