Mansfield Park
“And really,” added Edmund, “the day is so mild, that your sitting down
for a few minutes can be hardly thought imprudent. Our weather must not
always be judged by the calendar. We may sometimes take greater
liberties in November than in May.”
“Upon my word,” cried Miss Crawford, “you are two of the most
disappointing and unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no
giving you a moment’s uneasiness. You do not know how much we have been
suffering, nor what chills we have felt! But I have long thought Mr.
Bertram one of the worst subjects to work on, in any little manoeuvre
against common sense, that a woman could be plagued with. I had very
little hope of _him_ from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my sister, my
own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little.”
“Do not flatter yourself, my dearest Mary. You have not the smallest
chance of moving me. I have my alarms, but they are quite in a
different quarter; and if I could have altered the weather, you would
have had a good sharp east wind blowing on you the whole time—for here
are some of my plants which Robert _will_ leave out because the nights
are so mild, and I know the end of it will be, that we shall have a
sudden change of weather, a hard frost setting in all at once, taking
everybody (at least Robert) by surprise, and I shall lose every one;
and what is worse, cook has just been telling me that the turkey, which
I particularly wished not to be dressed till Sunday, because I know how
much more Dr. Grant would enjoy it on Sunday after the fatigues of the
day, will not keep beyond to-morrow. These are something like
grievances, and make me think the weather most unseasonably close.”
“The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!” said Miss Crawford
archly. “Commend me to the nurseryman and the poulterer.”
“My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St.
Paul’s, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you
could be. But we have no such people in Mansfield. What would you have
me do?”
“Oh! you can do nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often,
and never lose your temper.”
“Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, live
where we may; and when you are settled in town and I come to see you, I
dare say I shall find you with yours, in spite of the nurseryman and
the poulterer, perhaps on their very account. Their remoteness and
unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing
forth bitter lamentations.”
“I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort. A
large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It
certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it.”
“You intend to be very rich?” said Edmund, with a look which, to
Fanny’s eye, had a great deal of serious meaning.
“To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?”
“I cannot intend anything which it must be so completely beyond my
power to command. Miss Crawford may chuse her degree of wealth. She has
only to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no
doubt of their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor.”
“By moderation and economy, and bringing down your wants to your
income, and all that. I understand you—and a very proper plan it is for
a person at your time of life, with such limited means and indifferent
connexions. What can _you_ want but a decent maintenance? You have not
much time before you; and your relations are in no situation to do
anything for you, or to mortify you by the contrast of their own wealth
and consequence. Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy
you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much
greater respect for those that are honest and rich.”
“Your degree of respect for honesty, rich or poor, is precisely what I
have no manner of concern with. I do not mean to be poor. Poverty is
exactly what I have determined against. Honesty, in the something
between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am
anxious for your not looking down on.”
“But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must look
down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to
distinction.”
“But how may it rise? How may my honesty at least rise to any
distinction?”
This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an “Oh!”
of some length from the fair lady before she could add, “You ought to
be in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago.”
“_That_ is not much to the purpose now; and as to my being in
parliament, I believe I must wait till there is an especial assembly
for the representation of younger sons who have little to live on. No,
Miss Crawford,” he added, in a more serious tone, “there _are_
distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought myself without
any chance—absolutely without chance or possibility of obtaining—but
they are of a different character.”
A look of consciousness as he spoke, and what seemed a consciousness of
manner on Miss Crawford’s side as she made some laughing answer, was
sorrowfull food for Fanny’s observation; and finding herself quite
unable to attend as she ought to Mrs. Grant, by whose side she was now
following the others, she had nearly resolved on going home
immediately, and only waited for courage to say so, when the sound of
the great clock at Mansfield Park, striking three, made her feel that
she had really been much longer absent than usual, and brought the
previous self-inquiry of whether she should take leave or not just
then, and how, to a very speedy issue. With undoubting decision she
directly began her adieus; and Edmund began at the same time to
recollect that his mother had been inquiring for her, and that he had
walked down to the Parsonage on purpose to bring her back.
Fanny’s hurry increased; and without in the least expecting Edmund’s
attendance, she would have hastened away alone; but the general pace
was quickened, and they all accompanied her into the house, through
which it was necessary to pass. Dr. Grant was in the vestibule, and as
they stopt to speak to him she found, from Edmund’s manner, that he
_did_ mean to go with her. He too was taking leave. She could not but
be thankful. In the moment of parting, Edmund was invited by Dr. Grant
to eat his mutton with him the next day; and Fanny had barely time for
an unpleasant feeling on the occasion, when Mrs. Grant, with sudden
recollection, turned to her and asked for the pleasure of her company
too. This was so new an attention, so perfectly new a circumstance in
the events of Fanny’s life, that she was all surprise and
embarrassment; and while stammering out her great obligation, and her
“but she did not suppose it would be in her power,” was looking at
Edmund for his opinion and help. But Edmund, delighted with her having
such an happiness offered, and ascertaining with half a look, and half
a sentence, that she had no objection but on her aunt’s account, could
not imagine that his mother would make any difficulty of sparing her,
and therefore gave his decided open advice that the invitation should
be accepted; and though Fanny would not venture, even on his
encouragement, to such a flight of audacious independence, it was soon
settled, that if nothing were heard to the contrary, Mrs. Grant might
expect her.
“And you know what your dinner will be,” said Mrs. Grant, smiling—“the
turkey, and I assure you a very fine one; for, my dear,” turning to her
husband, “cook insists upon the turkey’s being dressed to-morrow.”
“Very well, very well,” cried Dr. Grant, “all the better; I am glad to
hear you have anything so good in the house. But Miss Price and Mr.
Edmund Bertram, I dare say, would take their chance. We none of us want
to hear the bill of fare. A friendly meeting, and not a fine dinner, is
all we have in view. A turkey, or a goose, or a leg of mutton, or
whatever you and your cook chuse to give us.”
The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the immediate
discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with the warmest
satisfaction, as so particularly desirable for her in the intimacy
which he saw with so much pleasure established, it was a silent walk;
for having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for
any other.
CHAPTER XXIII
“But why should Mrs. Grant ask Fanny?” said Lady Bertram. “How came she
to think of asking Fanny? Fanny never dines there, you know, in this
sort of way. I cannot spare her, and I am sure she does not want to go.
Fanny, you do not want to go, do you?”
“If you put such a question to her,” cried Edmund, preventing his
cousin’s speaking, “Fanny will immediately say No; but I am sure, my
dear mother, she would like to go; and I can see no reason why she
should not.”
“I cannot imagine why Mrs. Grant should think of asking her? She never
did before. She used to ask your sisters now and then, but she never
asked Fanny.”
“If you cannot do without me, ma’am—” said Fanny, in a self-denying
tone.
“But my mother will have my father with her all the evening.”
“To be sure, so I shall.”
“Suppose you take my father’s opinion, ma’am.”
“That’s well thought of. So I will, Edmund. I will ask Sir Thomas, as
soon as he comes in, whether I can do without her.”
“As you please, ma’am, on that head; but I meant my father’s opinion as
to the _propriety_ of the invitation’s being accepted or not; and I
think he will consider it a right thing by Mrs. Grant, as well as by
Fanny, that being the _first_ invitation it should be accepted.”
“I do not know. We will ask him. But he will be very much surprised
that Mrs. Grant should ask Fanny at all.”
There was nothing more to be said, or that could be said to any
purpose, till Sir Thomas were present; but the subject involving, as it
did, her own evening’s comfort for the morrow, was so much uppermost in
Lady Bertram’s mind, that half an hour afterwards, on his looking in
for a minute in his way from his plantation to his dressing-room, she
called him back again, when he had almost closed the door, with “Sir
Thomas, stop a moment—I have something to say to you.”
Her tone of calm languor, for she never took the trouble of raising her
voice, was always heard and attended to; and Sir Thomas came back. Her
story began; and Fanny immediately slipped out of the room; for to hear
herself the subject of any discussion with her uncle was more than her
nerves could bear. She was anxious, she knew—more anxious perhaps than
she ought to be—for what was it after all whether she went or staid?
but if her uncle were to be a great while considering and deciding, and
with very grave looks, and those grave looks directed to her, and at
last decide against her, she might not be able to appear properly
submissive and indifferent. Her cause, meanwhile, went on well. It
began, on Lady Bertram’s part, with—“I have something to tell you that
will surprise you. Mrs. Grant has asked Fanny to dinner.”
“Well,” said Sir Thomas, as if waiting more to accomplish the surprise.
“Edmund wants her to go. But how can I spare her?”
“She will be late,” said Sir Thomas, taking out his watch; “but what is
your difficulty?”
Edmund found himself obliged to speak and fill up the blanks in his
mother’s story. He told the whole; and she had only to add, “So
strange! for Mrs. Grant never used to ask her.”
“But is it not very natural,” observed Edmund, “that Mrs. Grant should
wish to procure so agreeable a visitor for her sister?”
“Nothing can be more natural,” said Sir Thomas, after a short
deliberation; “nor, were there no sister in the case, could anything,
in my opinion, be more natural. Mrs. Grant’s shewing civility to Miss