Mansfield Park
“If I had made any difficulty about fetching the key, there might have
been some excuse, but I went the very moment she said she wanted it.”
“Nothing could be more obliging than your manner, I am sure, and I dare
say you walked as fast as you could; but still it is some distance, you
know, from this spot to the house, quite into the house; and when
people are waiting, they are bad judges of time, and every half minute
seems like five.”
He got up and walked to the gate again, and “wished he had had the key
about him at the time.” Fanny thought she discerned in his standing
there an indication of relenting, which encouraged her to another
attempt, and she said, therefore, “It is a pity you should not join
them. They expected to have a better view of the house from that part
of the park, and will be thinking how it may be improved; and nothing
of that sort, you know, can be settled without you.”
She found herself more successful in sending away than in retaining a
companion. Mr. Rushworth was worked on. “Well,” said he, “if you really
think I had better go: it would be foolish to bring the key for
nothing.” And letting himself out, he walked off without farther
ceremony.
Fanny’s thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so
long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of
them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just
turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford
once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings
brought them before her. They were just returned into the wilderness
from the park, to which a sidegate, not fastened, had tempted them very
soon after their leaving her, and they had been across a portion of the
park into the very avenue which Fanny had been hoping the whole morning
to reach at last, and had been sitting down under one of the trees.
This was their history. It was evident that they had been spending
their time pleasantly, and were not aware of the length of their
absence. Fanny’s best consolation was in being assured that Edmund had
wished for her very much, and that he should certainly have come back
for her, had she not been tired already; but this was not quite
sufficient to do away with the pain of having been left a whole hour,
when he had talked of only a few minutes, nor to banish the sort of
curiosity she felt to know what they had been conversing about all that
time; and the result of the whole was to her disappointment and
depression, as they prepared by general agreement to return to the
house.
On reaching the bottom of the steps to the terrace, Mrs. Rushworth and
Mrs. Norris presented themselves at the top, just ready for the
wilderness, at the end of an hour and a half from their leaving the
house. Mrs. Norris had been too well employed to move faster. Whatever
cross-accidents had occurred to intercept the pleasures of her nieces,
she had found a morning of complete enjoyment; for the housekeeper,
after a great many courtesies on the subject of pheasants, had taken
her to the dairy, told her all about their cows, and given her the
receipt for a famous cream cheese; and since Julia’s leaving them they
had been met by the gardener, with whom she had made a most
satisfactory acquaintance, for she had set him right as to his
grandson’s illness, convinced him that it was an ague, and promised him
a charm for it; and he, in return, had shewn her all his choicest
nursery of plants, and actually presented her with a very curious
specimen of heath.
On this _rencontre_ they all returned to the house together, there to
lounge away the time as they could with sofas, and chit-chat, and
Quarterly Reviews, till the return of the others, and the arrival of
dinner. It was late before the Miss Bertrams and the two gentlemen came
in, and their ramble did not appear to have been more than partially
agreeable, or at all productive of anything useful with regard to the
object of the day. By their own accounts they had been all walking
after each other, and the junction which had taken place at last
seemed, to Fanny’s observation, to have been as much too late for
re-establishing harmony, as it confessedly had been for determining on
any alteration. She felt, as she looked at Julia and Mr. Rushworth,
that hers was not the only dissatisfied bosom amongst them: there was
gloom on the face of each. Mr. Crawford and Miss Bertram were much more
gay, and she thought that he was taking particular pains, during
dinner, to do away any little resentment of the other two, and restore
general good-humour.
Dinner was soon followed by tea and coffee, a ten miles’ drive home
allowed no waste of hours; and from the time of their sitting down to
table, it was a quick succession of busy nothings till the carriage
came to the door, and Mrs. Norris, having fidgeted about, and obtained
a few pheasants’ eggs and a cream cheese from the housekeeper, and made
abundance of civil speeches to Mrs. Rushworth, was ready to lead the
way. At the same moment Mr. Crawford, approaching Julia, said, “I hope
I am not to lose my companion, unless she is afraid of the evening air
in so exposed a seat.” The request had not been foreseen, but was very
graciously received, and Julia’s day was likely to end almost as well
as it began. Miss Bertram had made up her mind to something different,
and was a little disappointed; but her conviction of being really the
one preferred comforted her under it, and enabled her to receive Mr.
Rushworth’s parting attentions as she ought. He was certainly better
pleased to hand her into the barouche than to assist her in ascending
the box, and his complacency seemed confirmed by the arrangement.
“Well, Fanny, this has been a fine day for you, upon my word,” said
Mrs. Norris, as they drove through the park. “Nothing but pleasure from
beginning to end! I am sure you ought to be very much obliged to your
aunt Bertram and me for contriving to let you go. A pretty good day’s
amusement you have had!”
Maria was just discontented enough to say directly, “I think _you_ have
done pretty well yourself, ma’am. Your lap seems full of good things,
and here is a basket of something between us which has been knocking my
elbow unmercifully.”
“My dear, it is only a beautiful little heath, which that nice old
gardener would make me take; but if it is in your way, I will have it
in my lap directly. There, Fanny, you shall carry that parcel for me;
take great care of it: do not let it fall; it is a cream cheese, just
like the excellent one we had at dinner. Nothing would satisfy that
good old Mrs. Whitaker, but my taking one of the cheeses. I stood out
as long as I could, till the tears almost came into her eyes, and I
knew it was just the sort that my sister would be delighted with. That
Mrs. Whitaker is a treasure! She was quite shocked when I asked her
whether wine was allowed at the second table, and she has turned away
two housemaids for wearing white gowns. Take care of the cheese, Fanny.
Now I can manage the other parcel and the basket very well.”
“What else have you been spunging?” said Maria, half-pleased that
Sotherton should be so complimented.
“Spunging, my dear! It is nothing but four of those beautiful
pheasants’ eggs, which Mrs. Whitaker would quite force upon me: she
would not take a denial. She said it must be such an amusement to me,
as she understood I lived quite alone, to have a few living creatures
of that sort; and so to be sure it will. I shall get the dairymaid to
set them under the first spare hen, and if they come to good I can have
them moved to my own house and borrow a coop; and it will be a great
delight to me in my lonely hours to attend to them. And if I have good
luck, your mother shall have some.”
It was a beautiful evening, mild and still, and the drive was as
pleasant as the serenity of Nature could make it; but when Mrs. Norris
ceased speaking, it was altogether a silent drive to those within.
Their spirits were in general exhausted; and to determine whether the
day had afforded most pleasure or pain, might occupy the meditations of
almost all.
CHAPTER XI
The day at Sotherton, with all its imperfections, afforded the Miss
Bertrams much more agreeable feelings than were derived from the
letters from Antigua, which soon afterwards reached Mansfield. It was
much pleasanter to think of Henry Crawford than of their father; and to
think of their father in England again within a certain period, which
these letters obliged them to do, was a most unwelcome exercise.
November was the black month fixed for his return. Sir Thomas wrote of
it with as much decision as experience and anxiety could authorise. His
business was so nearly concluded as to justify him in proposing to take
his passage in the September packet, and he consequently looked forward
with the hope of being with his beloved family again early in November.
Maria was more to be pitied than Julia; for to her the father brought a
husband, and the return of the friend most solicitous for her happiness
would unite her to the lover, on whom she had chosen that happiness
should depend. It was a gloomy prospect, and all she could do was to
throw a mist over it, and hope when the mist cleared away she should
see something else. It would hardly be _early_ in November, there were
generally delays, a bad passage or _something_; that favouring
_something_ which everybody who shuts their eyes while they look, or
their understandings while they reason, feels the comfort of. It would
probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November was
three months off. Three months comprised thirteen weeks. Much might
happen in thirteen weeks.
Sir Thomas would have been deeply mortified by a suspicion of half that
his daughters felt on the subject of his return, and would hardly have
found consolation in a knowledge of the interest it excited in the
breast of another young lady. Miss Crawford, on walking up with her
brother to spend the evening at Mansfield Park, heard the good news;
and though seeming to have no concern in the affair beyond politeness,
and to have vented all her feelings in a quiet congratulation, heard it
with an attention not so easily satisfied. Mrs. Norris gave the
particulars of the letters, and the subject was dropt; but after tea,
as Miss Crawford was standing at an open window with Edmund and Fanny
looking out on a twilight scene, while the Miss Bertrams, Mr.
Rushworth, and Henry Crawford were all busy with candles at the
pianoforte, she suddenly revived it by turning round towards the group,
and saying, “How happy Mr. Rushworth looks! He is thinking of
November.”
Edmund looked round at Mr. Rushworth too, but had nothing to say.
“Your father’s return will be a very interesting event.”
“It will, indeed, after such an absence; an absence not only long, but
including so many dangers.”
“It will be the forerunner also of other interesting events: your
sister’s marriage, and your taking orders.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t be affronted,” said she, laughing, “but it does put me in mind
of some of the old heathen heroes, who, after performing great exploits
in a foreign land, offered sacrifices to the gods on their safe
return.”
“There is no sacrifice in the case,” replied Edmund, with a serious
smile, and glancing at the pianoforte again; “it is entirely her own
doing.”
“Oh yes I know it is. I was merely joking. She has done no more than
what every young woman would do; and I have no doubt of her being
extremely happy. My other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand.”
“My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria’s
marrying.”
“It is fortunate that your inclination and your father’s convenience