Mansfield Park
allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being
obliged to submit to all this attention, and to being assisted and
waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning
downstairs, to be fixed in their drawing-room for an hour while the
rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to see and think of was
thus extended to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits to the
period of dressing and dinner.
The two sisters were so kind to her, and so pleasant, that Fanny might
have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way,
and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at
the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant’s
carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she was
threatened. As to anxiety for any alarm that her absence in such
weather might occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that
score; for as her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was
perfectly aware that none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage
aunt Norris might chuse to establish her during the rain, her being in
such cottage would be indubitable to aunt Bertram.
It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp in the
room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to an
acknowledgment of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession,
which could hardly be believed, of her having never yet heard it since
its being in Mansfield. To Fanny herself it appeared a very simple and
natural circumstance. She had scarcely ever been at the Parsonage since
the instrument’s arrival, there had been no reason that she should; but
Miss Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed wish on the subject,
was concerned at her own neglect; and “Shall I play to you now?” and
“What will you have?” were questions immediately following with the
readiest good-humour.
She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener, and a listener
who seemed so much obliged, so full of wonder at the performance, and
who shewed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny’s eyes,
straying to the window on the weather’s being evidently fair, spoke
what she felt must be done.
“Another quarter of an hour,” said Miss Crawford, “and we shall see how
it will be. Do not run away the first moment of its holding up. Those
clouds look alarming.”
“But they are passed over,” said Fanny. “I have been watching them.
This weather is all from the south.”
“South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not
set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play
something more to you—a very pretty piece—and your cousin Edmund’s
prime favourite. You must stay and hear your cousin’s favourite.”
Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that
sentence to be thinking of Edmund, such a memento made her particularly
awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that room again and
again, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with
constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared to her,
with superior tone and expression; and though pleased with it herself,
and glad to like whatever was liked by him, she was more sincerely
impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she had been before;
and on this being evident, she was so kindly asked to call again, to
take them in her walk whenever she could, to come and hear more of the
harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no objection arose at
home.
Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy which took place between
them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams’ going away—an
intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford’s desire of something
new, and which had little reality in Fanny’s feelings. Fanny went to
her every two or three days: it seemed a kind of fascination: she could
not be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, without
ever thinking like her, without any sense of obligation for being
sought after now when nobody else was to be had; and deriving no higher
pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and _that_
often at the expense of her judgment, when it was raised by pleasantry
on people or subjects which she wished to be respected. She went,
however, and they sauntered about together many an half-hour in Mrs.
Grant’s shrubbery, the weather being unusually mild for the time of
year, and venturing sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches
now comparatively unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the
midst of some tender ejaculation of Fanny’s on the sweets of so
protracted an autumn, they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold
gust shaking down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and
walk for warmth.
“This is pretty, very pretty,” said Fanny, looking around her as they
were thus sitting together one day; “every time I come into this
shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago,
this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the
field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything;
and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say
whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and perhaps, in
another three years, we may be forgetting—almost forgetting what it was
before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and
the changes of the human mind!” And following the latter train of
thought, she soon afterwards added: “If any one faculty of our nature
may be called _more_ wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory.
There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers,
the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our
intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so
obedient; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so
tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way;
but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly
past finding out.”
Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and
Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she thought
must interest.
“It may seem impertinent in _me_ to praise, but I must admire the taste
Mrs. Grant has shewn in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in
the plan of the walk! Not too much attempted!”
“Yes,” replied Miss Crawford carelessly, “it does very well for a place
of this sort. One does not think of extent _here_; and between
ourselves, till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country
parson ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind.”
“I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!” said Fanny, in reply. “My
uncle’s gardener always says the soil here is better than his own, and
so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in general.
The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen!
When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some
countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that
does not make it less amazing that the same soil and the same sun
should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their
existence. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors,
especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into
this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one’s eyes on the
commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling
fancy.”
“To say the truth,” replied Miss Crawford, “I am something like the
famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no
wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had
told me a year ago that this place would be my home, that I should be
spending month after month here, as I have done, I certainly should not
have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; and,
moreover, the quietest five months I ever passed.”
“_Too_ quiet for you, I believe.”
“I should have thought so _theoretically_ myself, but,” and her eyes
brightened as she spoke, “take it all and all, I never spent so happy a
summer. But then,” with a more thoughtful air and lowered voice, “there
is no saying what it may lead to.”
Fanny’s heart beat quick, and she felt quite unequal to surmising or
soliciting anything more. Miss Crawford, however, with renewed
animation, soon went on—
“I am conscious of being far better reconciled to a country residence
than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to spend
_half_ the year in the country, under certain circumstances, very
pleasant. An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family
connexions; continual engagements among them; commanding the first
society in the neighbourhood; looked up to, perhaps, as leading it even
more than those of larger fortune, and turning from the cheerful round
of such amusements to nothing worse than a _tête-à-tête_ with the
person one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing
frightful in such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy
the new Mrs. Rushworth with such a home as _that_.”
“Envy Mrs. Rushworth!” was all that Fanny attempted to say. “Come,
come, it would be very un-handsome in us to be severe on Mrs.
Rushworth, for I look forward to our owing her a great many gay,
brilliant, happy hours. I expect we shall be all very much at Sotherton
another year. Such a match as Miss Bertram has made is a public
blessing; for the first pleasures of Mr. Rushworth’s wife must be to
fill her house, and give the best balls in the country.”
Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till
suddenly looking up at the end of a few minutes, she exclaimed, “Ah!
here he is.” It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who then
appeared walking towards them with Mrs. Grant. “My sister and Mr.
Bertram. I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he may be Mr.
Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr. _Edmund_ Bertram
so formal, so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it.”
“How differently we feel!” cried Fanny. “To me, the sound of _Mr._
Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning, so entirely without warmth or
character! It just stands for a gentleman, and that’s all. But there is
nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; of
kings, princes, and knights; and seems to breathe the spirit of
chivalry and warm affections.”
“I grant you the name is good in itself, and _Lord_ Edmund or _Sir_
Edmund sound delightfully; but sink it under the chill, the
annihilation of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr.
Thomas. Well, shall we join and disappoint them of half their lecture
upon sitting down out of doors at this time of year, by being up before
they can begin?”
Edmund met them with particular pleasure. It was the first time of his
seeing them together since the beginning of that better acquaintance
which he had been hearing of with great satisfaction. A friendship
between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished:
and to the credit of the lover’s understanding, be it stated, that he
did not by any means consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater
gainer by such a friendship.
“Well,” said Miss Crawford, “and do you not scold us for our
imprudence? What do you think we have been sitting down for but to be
talked to about it, and entreated and supplicated never to do so
again?”
“Perhaps I might have scolded,” said Edmund, “if either of you had been
sitting down alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a
great deal.”
“They cannot have been sitting long,” cried Mrs. Grant, “for when I
went up for my shawl I saw them from the staircase window, and then
they were walking.”