Mansfield Park
reason away in Fanny. She feared for William; by no means convinced by
all that he could relate of his own horsemanship in various countries,
of the scrambling parties in which he had been engaged, the rough
horses and mules he had ridden, or his many narrow escapes from
dreadful falls, that he was at all equal to the management of a
high-fed hunter in an English fox-chase; nor till he returned safe and
well, without accident or discredit, could she be reconciled to the
risk, or feel any of that obligation to Mr. Crawford for lending the
horse which he had fully intended it should produce. When it was
proved, however, to have done William no harm, she could allow it to be
a kindness, and even reward the owner with a smile when the animal was
one minute tendered to his use again; and the next, with the greatest
cordiality, and in a manner not to be resisted, made over to his use
entirely so long as he remained in Northamptonshire.
CHAPTER XXV
The intercourse of the two families was at this period more nearly
restored to what it had been in the autumn, than any member of the old
intimacy had thought ever likely to be again. The return of Henry
Crawford, and the arrival of William Price, had much to do with it, but
much was still owing to Sir Thomas’s more than toleration of the
neighbourly attempts at the Parsonage. His mind, now disengaged from
the cares which had pressed on him at first, was at leisure to find the
Grants and their young inmates really worth visiting; and though
infinitely above scheming or contriving for any the most advantageous
matrimonial establishment that could be among the apparent
possibilities of any one most dear to him, and disdaining even as a
littleness the being quick-sighted on such points, he could not avoid
perceiving, in a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was somewhat
distinguishing his niece—nor perhaps refrain (though unconsciously)
from giving a more willing assent to invitations on that account.
His readiness, however, in agreeing to dine at the Parsonage, when the
general invitation was at last hazarded, after many debates and many
doubts as to whether it were worth while, “because Sir Thomas seemed so
ill inclined, and Lady Bertram was so indolent!” proceeded from
good-breeding and goodwill alone, and had nothing to do with Mr.
Crawford, but as being one in an agreeable group: for it was in the
course of that very visit that he first began to think that any one in
the habit of such idle observations _would_ _have_ _thought_ that Mr.
Crawford was the admirer of Fanny Price.
The meeting was generally felt to be a pleasant one, being composed in
a good proportion of those who would talk and those who would listen;
and the dinner itself was elegant and plentiful, according to the usual
style of the Grants, and too much according to the usual habits of all
to raise any emotion except in Mrs. Norris, who could never behold
either the wide table or the number of dishes on it with patience, and
who did always contrive to experience some evil from the passing of the
servants behind her chair, and to bring away some fresh conviction of
its being impossible among so many dishes but that some must be cold.
In the evening it was found, according to the predetermination of Mrs.
Grant and her sister, that after making up the whist-table there would
remain sufficient for a round game, and everybody being as perfectly
complying and without a choice as on such occasions they always are,
speculation was decided on almost as soon as whist; and Lady Bertram
soon found herself in the critical situation of being applied to for
her own choice between the games, and being required either to draw a
card for whist or not. She hesitated. Luckily Sir Thomas was at hand.
“What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation; which will amuse
me most?”
Sir Thomas, after a moment’s thought, recommended speculation. He was a
whist player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much
amuse him to have her for a partner.
“Very well,” was her ladyship’s contented answer; “then speculation, if
you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach
me.”
Here Fanny interposed, however, with anxious protestations of her own
equal ignorance; she had never played the game nor seen it played in
her life; and Lady Bertram felt a moment’s indecision again; but upon
everybody’s assuring her that nothing could be so easy, that it was the
easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford’s stepping forward with a
most earnest request to be allowed to sit between her ladyship and Miss
Price, and teach them both, it was so settled; and Sir Thomas, Mrs.
Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant being seated at the table of prime
intellectual state and dignity, the remaining six, under Miss
Crawford’s direction, were arranged round the other. It was a fine
arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with his
hands full of business, having two persons’ cards to manage as well as
his own; for though it was impossible for Fanny not to feel herself
mistress of the rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to
inspirit her play, sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which,
especially in any competition with William, was a work of some
difficulty; and as for Lady Bertram, he must continue in charge of all
her fame and fortune through the whole evening; and if quick enough to
keep her from looking at her cards when the deal began, must direct her
in whatever was to be done with them to the end of it.
He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease, and
preeminent in all the lively turns, quick resources, and playful
impudence that could do honour to the game; and the round table was
altogether a very comfortable contrast to the steady sobriety and
orderly silence of the other.
Twice had Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment and success of his
lady, but in vain; no pause was long enough for the time his measured
manner needed; and very little of her state could be known till Mrs.
Grant was able, at the end of the first rubber, to go to her and pay
her compliments.
“I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game.”
“Oh dear, yes! very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know
what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does
all the rest.”
“Bertram,” said Crawford, some time afterwards, taking the opportunity
of a little languor in the game, “I have never told you what happened
to me yesterday in my ride home.” They had been hunting together, and
were in the midst of a good run, and at some distance from Mansfield,
when his horse being found to have flung a shoe, Henry Crawford had
been obliged to give up, and make the best of his way back. “I told you
I lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew-trees,
because I can never bear to ask; but I have not told you that, with my
usual luck—for I never do wrong without gaining by it—I found myself in
due time in the very place which I had a curiosity to see. I was
suddenly, upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the
midst of a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small
stream before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to
my right—which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place,
and not a gentleman or half a gentleman’s house to be seen excepting
one—to be presumed the Parsonage—within a stone’s throw of the said
knoll and church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton Lacey.”
“It sounds like it,” said Edmund; “but which way did you turn after
passing Sewell’s farm?”
“I answer no such irrelevant and insidious questions; though were I to
answer all that you could put in the course of an hour, you would never
be able to prove that it was _not_ Thornton Lacey—for such it certainly
was.”
“You inquired, then?”
“No, I never inquire. But I _told_ a man mending a hedge that it was
Thornton Lacey, and he agreed to it.”
“You have a good memory. I had forgotten having ever told you half so
much of the place.”
Thornton Lacey was the name of his impending living, as Miss Crawford
well knew; and her interest in a negotiation for William Price’s knave
increased.
“Well,” continued Edmund, “and how did you like what you saw?”
“Very much indeed. You are a lucky fellow. There will be work for five
summers at least before the place is liveable.”
“No, no, not so bad as that. The farmyard must be moved, I grant you;
but I am not aware of anything else. The house is by no means bad, and
when the yard is removed, there may be a very tolerable approach to
it.”
“The farmyard must be cleared away entirely, and planted up to shut out
the blacksmith’s shop. The house must be turned to front the east
instead of the north—the entrance and principal rooms, I mean, must be
on that side, where the view is really very pretty; I am sure it may be
done. And _there_ must be your approach, through what is at present the
garden. You must make a new garden at what is now the back of the
house; which will be giving it the best aspect in the world, sloping to
the south-east. The ground seems precisely formed for it. I rode fifty
yards up the lane, between the church and the house, in order to look
about me; and saw how it might all be. Nothing can be easier. The
meadows beyond what _will_ _be_ the garden, as well as what now _is_,
sweeping round from the lane I stood in to the north-east, that is, to
the principal road through the village, must be all laid together, of
course; very pretty meadows they are, finely sprinkled with timber.
They belong to the living, I suppose; if not, you must purchase them.
Then the stream—something must be done with the stream; but I could not
quite determine what. I had two or three ideas.”
“And I have two or three ideas also,” said Edmund, “and one of them is,
that very little of your plan for Thornton Lacey will ever be put in
practice. I must be satisfied with rather less ornament and beauty. I
think the house and premises may be made comfortable, and given the air
of a gentleman’s residence, without any very heavy expense, and that
must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me.”
Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain tone of
voice, and a certain half-look attending the last expression of his
hope, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price; and
securing his knave at an exorbitant rate, exclaimed, “There, I will
stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. I am not
born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be
from not striving for it.”
The game was hers, and only did not pay her for what she had given to
secure it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about
Thornton Lacey.
“My plan may not be the best possible: I had not many minutes to form
it in; but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it, and you will
find yourself not satisfied with much less than it is capable of.
(Excuse me, your ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie
just before you.) The place deserves it, Bertram. You talk of giving it
the air of a gentleman’s residence. _That_ will be done by the removal
of the farmyard; for, independent of that terrible nuisance, I never
saw a house of the kind which had in itself so much the air of a
gentleman’s residence, so much the look of a something above a mere
parsonage-house—above the expenditure of a few hundreds a year. It is
not a scrambling collection of low single rooms, with as many roofs as
windows; it is not cramped into the vulgar compactness of a square
farmhouse: it is a solid, roomy, mansion-like looking house, such as
one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in from