Mansfield Park
long: in the elation of her spirits Lady Bertram became talkative, and
what were the sensations of her children upon hearing her say, “How do
you think the young people have been amusing themselves lately, Sir
Thomas? They have been acting. We have been all alive with acting.”
“Indeed! and what have you been acting?”
“Oh! they’ll tell you all about it.”
“The _all_ will soon be told,” cried Tom hastily, and with affected
unconcern; “but it is not worth while to bore my father with it now.
You will hear enough of it to-morrow, sir. We have just been trying, by
way of doing something, and amusing my mother, just within the last
week, to get up a few scenes, a mere trifle. We have had such incessant
rains almost since October began, that we have been nearly confined to
the house for days together. I have hardly taken out a gun since the
3rd. Tolerable sport the first three days, but there has been no
attempting anything since. The first day I went over Mansfield Wood,
and Edmund took the copses beyond Easton, and we brought home six brace
between us, and might each have killed six times as many, but we
respect your pheasants, sir, I assure you, as much as you could desire.
I do not think you will find your woods by any means worse stocked than
they were. _I_ never saw Mansfield Wood so full of pheasants in my life
as this year. I hope you will take a day’s sport there yourself, sir,
soon.”
For the present the danger was over, and Fanny’s sick feelings
subsided; but when tea was soon afterwards brought in, and Sir Thomas,
getting up, said that he found that he could not be any longer in the
house without just looking into his own dear room, every agitation was
returning. He was gone before anything had been said to prepare him for
the change he must find there; and a pause of alarm followed his
disappearance. Edmund was the first to speak—
“Something must be done,” said he.
“It is time to think of our visitors,” said Maria, still feeling her
hand pressed to Henry Crawford’s heart, and caring little for anything
else. “Where did you leave Miss Crawford, Fanny?”
Fanny told of their departure, and delivered their message.
“Then poor Yates is all alone,” cried Tom. “I will go and fetch him. He
will be no bad assistant when it all comes out.”
To the theatre he went, and reached it just in time to witness the
first meeting of his father and his friend. Sir Thomas had been a good
deal surprised to find candles burning in his room; and on casting his
eye round it, to see other symptoms of recent habitation and a general
air of confusion in the furniture. The removal of the bookcase from
before the billiard-room door struck him especially, but he had
scarcely more than time to feel astonished at all this, before there
were sounds from the billiard-room to astonish him still farther. Some
one was talking there in a very loud accent; he did not know the
voice—more than talking—almost hallooing. He stepped to the door,
rejoicing at that moment in having the means of immediate
communication, and, opening it, found himself on the stage of a
theatre, and opposed to a ranting young man, who appeared likely to
knock him down backwards. At the very moment of Yates perceiving Sir
Thomas, and giving perhaps the very best start he had ever given in the
whole course of his rehearsals, Tom Bertram entered at the other end of
the room; and never had he found greater difficulty in keeping his
countenance. His father’s looks of solemnity and amazement on this his
first appearance on any stage, and the gradual metamorphosis of the
impassioned Baron Wildenheim into the well-bred and easy Mr. Yates,
making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was such an
exhibition, such a piece of true acting, as he would not have lost upon
any account. It would be the last—in all probability—the last scene on
that stage; but he was sure there could not be a finer. The house would
close with the greatest eclat.
There was little time, however, for the indulgence of any images of
merriment. It was necessary for him to step forward, too, and assist
the introduction, and with many awkward sensations he did his best. Sir
Thomas received Mr. Yates with all the appearance of cordiality which
was due to his own character, but was really as far from pleased with
the necessity of the acquaintance as with the manner of its
commencement. Mr. Yates’s family and connexions were sufficiently known
to him to render his introduction as the “particular friend,” another
of the hundred particular friends of his son, exceedingly unwelcome;
and it needed all the felicity of being again at home, and all the
forbearance it could supply, to save Sir Thomas from anger on finding
himself thus bewildered in his own house, making part of a ridiculous
exhibition in the midst of theatrical nonsense, and forced in so
untoward a moment to admit the acquaintance of a young man whom he felt
sure of disapproving, and whose easy indifference and volubility in the
course of the first five minutes seemed to mark him the most at home of
the two.
Tom understood his father’s thoughts, and heartily wishing he might be
always as well disposed to give them but partial expression, began to
see, more clearly than he had ever done before, that there might be
some ground of offence, that there might be some reason for the glance
his father gave towards the ceiling and stucco of the room; and that
when he inquired with mild gravity after the fate of the
billiard-table, he was not proceeding beyond a very allowable
curiosity. A few minutes were enough for such unsatisfactory sensations
on each side; and Sir Thomas having exerted himself so far as to speak
a few words of calm approbation in reply to an eager appeal of Mr.
Yates, as to the happiness of the arrangement, the three gentlemen
returned to the drawing-room together, Sir Thomas with an increase of
gravity which was not lost on all.
“I come from your theatre,” said he composedly, as he sat down; “I
found myself in it rather unexpectedly. Its vicinity to my own room—but
in every respect, indeed, it took me by surprise, as I had not the
smallest suspicion of your acting having assumed so serious a
character. It appears a neat job, however, as far as I could judge by
candlelight, and does my friend Christopher Jackson credit.” And then
he would have changed the subject, and sipped his coffee in peace over
domestic matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to
catch Sir Thomas’s meaning, or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion
enough to allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the
others with the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the
topic of the theatre, would torment him with questions and remarks
relative to it, and finally would make him hear the whole history of
his disappointment at Ecclesford. Sir Thomas listened most politely,
but found much to offend his ideas of decorum, and confirm his
ill-opinion of Mr. Yates’s habits of thinking, from the beginning to
the end of the story; and when it was over, could give him no other
assurance of sympathy than what a slight bow conveyed.
“This was, in fact, the origin of _our_ acting,” said Tom, after a
moment’s thought. “My friend Yates brought the infection from
Ecclesford, and it spread—as those things always spread, you know,
sir—the faster, probably, from _your_ having so often encouraged the
sort of thing in us formerly. It was like treading old ground again.”
Mr. Yates took the subject from his friend as soon as possible, and
immediately gave Sir Thomas an account of what they had done and were
doing: told him of the gradual increase of their views, the happy
conclusion of their first difficulties, and present promising state of
affairs; relating everything with so blind an interest as made him not
only totally unconscious of the uneasy movements of many of his friends
as they sat, the change of countenance, the fidget, the hem! of
unquietness, but prevented him even from seeing the expression of the
face on which his own eyes were fixed—from seeing Sir Thomas’s dark
brow contract as he looked with inquiring earnestness at his daughters
and Edmund, dwelling particularly on the latter, and speaking a
language, a remonstrance, a reproof, which _he_ felt at his heart. Not
less acutely was it felt by Fanny, who had edged back her chair behind
her aunt’s end of the sofa, and, screened from notice herself, saw all
that was passing before her. Such a look of reproach at Edmund from his
father she could never have expected to witness; and to feel that it
was in any degree deserved was an aggravation indeed. Sir Thomas’s look
implied, “On your judgment, Edmund, I depended; what have you been
about?” She knelt in spirit to her uncle, and her bosom swelled to
utter, “Oh, not to _him_! Look so to all the others, but not to _him_!”
Mr. Yates was still talking. “To own the truth, Sir Thomas, we were in
the middle of a rehearsal when you arrived this evening. We were going
through the three first acts, and not unsuccessfully upon the whole.
Our company is now so dispersed, from the Crawfords being gone home,
that nothing more can be done to-night; but if you will give us the
honour of your company to-morrow evening, I should not be afraid of the
result. We bespeak your indulgence, you understand, as young
performers; we bespeak your indulgence.”
“My indulgence shall be given, sir,” replied Sir Thomas gravely, “but
without any other rehearsal.” And with a relenting smile, he added, “I
come home to be happy and indulgent.” Then turning away towards any or
all of the rest, he tranquilly said, “Mr. and Miss Crawford were
mentioned in my last letters from Mansfield. Do you find them agreeable
acquaintance?”
Tom was the only one at all ready with an answer, but he being entirely
without particular regard for either, without jealousy either in love
or acting, could speak very handsomely of both. “Mr. Crawford was a
most pleasant, gentleman-like man; his sister a sweet, pretty, elegant,
lively girl.”
Mr. Rushworth could be silent no longer. “I do not say he is not
gentleman-like, considering; but you should tell your father he is not
above five feet eight, or he will be expecting a well-looking man.”
Sir Thomas did not quite understand this, and looked with some surprise
at the speaker.
“If I must say what I think,” continued Mr. Rushworth, “in my opinion
it is very disagreeable to be always rehearsing. It is having too much
of a good thing. I am not so fond of acting as I was at first. I think
we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among
ourselves, and doing nothing.”
Sir Thomas looked again, and then replied with an approving smile, “I
am happy to find our sentiments on this subject so much the same. It
gives me sincere satisfaction. That I should be cautious and
quick-sighted, and feel many scruples which my children do _not_ feel,
is perfectly natural; and equally so that my value for domestic
tranquillity, for a home which shuts out noisy pleasures, should much
exceed theirs. But at your time of life to feel all this, is a most
favourable circumstance for yourself, and for everybody connected with
you; and I am sensible of the importance of having an ally of such
weight.”
Sir Thomas meant to be giving Mr. Rushworth’s opinion in better words
than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a
genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with
better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to
value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to
smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but
by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly pleased with Sir