Mansfield Park
library to choose from, the same people to look at, the same horse to
ride.”
“Very true. Yes, dear old grey pony! Ah! cousin, when I remember how
much I used to dread riding, what terrors it gave me to hear it talked
of as likely to do me good (oh! how I have trembled at my uncle’s
opening his lips if horses were talked of), and then think of the kind
pains you took to reason and persuade me out of my fears, and convince
me that I should like it after a little while, and feel how right you
proved to be, I am inclined to hope you may always prophesy as well.”
“And I am quite convinced that your being with Mrs. Norris will be as
good for your mind as riding has been for your health, and as much for
your ultimate happiness too.”
So ended their discourse, which, for any very appropriate service it
could render Fanny, might as well have been spared, for Mrs. Norris had
not the smallest intention of taking her. It had never occurred to her,
on the present occasion, but as a thing to be carefully avoided. To
prevent its being expected, she had fixed on the smallest habitation
which could rank as genteel among the buildings of Mansfield parish,
the White House being only just large enough to receive herself and her
servants, and allow a spare room for a friend, of which she made a very
particular point. The spare rooms at the Parsonage had never been
wanted, but the absolute necessity of a spare room for a friend was now
never forgotten. Not all her precautions, however, could save her from
being suspected of something better; or, perhaps, her very display of
the importance of a spare room might have misled Sir Thomas to suppose
it really intended for Fanny. Lady Bertram soon brought the matter to a
certainty by carelessly observing to Mrs. Norris—
“I think, sister, we need not keep Miss Lee any longer, when Fanny goes
to live with you.”
Mrs. Norris almost started. “Live with me, dear Lady Bertram! what do
you mean?”
“Is she not to live with you? I thought you had settled it with Sir
Thomas.”
“Me! never. I never spoke a syllable about it to Sir Thomas, nor he to
me. Fanny live with me! the last thing in the world for me to think of,
or for anybody to wish that really knows us both. Good heaven! what
could I do with Fanny? Me! a poor, helpless, forlorn widow, unfit for
anything, my spirits quite broke down; what could I do with a girl at
her time of life? A girl of fifteen! the very age of all others to need
most attention and care, and put the cheerfullest spirits to the test!
Sure Sir Thomas could not seriously expect such a thing! Sir Thomas is
too much my friend. Nobody that wishes me well, I am sure, would
propose it. How came Sir Thomas to speak to you about it?”
“Indeed, I do not know. I suppose he thought it best.”
“But what did he say? He could not say he _wished_ me to take Fanny. I
am sure in his heart he could not wish me to do it.”
“No; he only said he thought it very likely; and I thought so too. We
both thought it would be a comfort to you. But if you do not like it,
there is no more to be said. She is no encumbrance here.”
“Dear sister, if you consider my unhappy state, how can she be any
comfort to me? Here am I, a poor desolate widow, deprived of the best
of husbands, my health gone in attending and nursing him, my spirits
still worse, all my peace in this world destroyed, with hardly enough
to support me in the rank of a gentlewoman, and enable me to live so as
not to disgrace the memory of the dear departed—what possible comfort
could I have in taking such a charge upon me as Fanny? If I could wish
it for my own sake, I would not do so unjust a thing by the poor girl.
She is in good hands, and sure of doing well. I must struggle through
my sorrows and difficulties as I can.”
“Then you will not mind living by yourself quite alone?”
“Dear Lady Bertram! what am I fit for but solitude? Now and then I
shall hope to have a friend in my little cottage (I shall always have
a bed for a friend); but the most part of my future days will be spent
in utter seclusion. If I can but make both ends meet, that's all I ask
for.”
“I hope, sister, things are not so very bad with you neither
considering Sir Thomas says you will have six hundred a year.”
“Lady Bertram, I do not complain. I know I cannot live as I have done,
but I must retrench where I can, and learn to be a better manager. I
_have_ _been_ a liberal housekeeper enough, but I shall not be ashamed
to practise economy now. My situation is as much altered as my income.
A great many things were due from poor Mr. Norris, as clergyman of the
parish, that cannot be expected from me. It is unknown how much was
consumed in our kitchen by odd comers and goers. At the White House,
matters must be better looked after. I _must_ live within my income, or
I shall be miserable; and I own it would give me great satisfaction to
be able to do rather more, to lay by a little at the end of the year.”
“I dare say you will. You always do, don’t you?”
“My object, Lady Bertram, is to be of use to those that come after me.
It is for your children’s good that I wish to be richer. I have nobody
else to care for, but I should be very glad to think I could leave a
little trifle among them worth their having.”
“You are very good, but do not trouble yourself about them. They are
sure of being well provided for. Sir Thomas will take care of that.”
“Why, you know, Sir Thomas’s means will be rather straitened if the
Antigua estate is to make such poor returns.”
“Oh! _that_ will soon be settled. Sir Thomas has been writing about it,
I know.”
“Well, Lady Bertram,” said Mrs. Norris, moving to go, “I can only say
that my sole desire is to be of use to your family: and so, if Sir
Thomas should ever speak again about my taking Fanny, you will be able
to say that my health and spirits put it quite out of the question;
besides that, I really should not have a bed to give her, for I must
keep a spare room for a friend.”
Lady Bertram repeated enough of this conversation to her husband to
convince him how much he had mistaken his sister-in-law’s views; and
she was from that moment perfectly safe from all expectation, or the
slightest allusion to it from him. He could not but wonder at her
refusing to do anything for a niece whom she had been so forward to
adopt; but, as she took early care to make him, as well as Lady
Bertram, understand that whatever she possessed was designed for their
family, he soon grew reconciled to a distinction which, at the same
time that it was advantageous and complimentary to them, would enable
him better to provide for Fanny himself.
Fanny soon learnt how unnecessary had been her fears of a removal; and
her spontaneous, untaught felicity on the discovery, conveyed some
consolation to Edmund for his disappointment in what he had expected to
be so essentially serviceable to her. Mrs. Norris took possession of
the White House, the Grants arrived at the Parsonage, and these events
over, everything at Mansfield went on for some time as usual.
The Grants showing a disposition to be friendly and sociable, gave
great satisfaction in the main among their new acquaintance. They had
their faults, and Mrs. Norris soon found them out. The Doctor was very
fond of eating, and would have a good dinner every day; and Mrs. Grant,
instead of contriving to gratify him at little expense, gave her cook
as high wages as they did at Mansfield Park, and was scarcely ever seen
in her offices. Mrs. Norris could not speak with any temper of such
grievances, nor of the quantity of butter and eggs that were regularly
consumed in the house. “Nobody loved plenty and hospitality more than
herself; nobody more hated pitiful doings; the Parsonage, she believed,
had never been wanting in comforts of any sort, had never borne a bad
character in _her_ _time_, but this was a way of going on that she
could not understand. A fine lady in a country parsonage was quite out
of place. _Her_ store-room, she thought, might have been good enough
for Mrs. Grant to go into. Inquire where she would, she could not find
out that Mrs. Grant had ever had more than five thousand pounds.”
Lady Bertram listened without much interest to this sort of invective.
She could not enter into the wrongs of an economist, but she felt all
the injuries of beauty in Mrs. Grant’s being so well settled in life
without being handsome, and expressed her astonishment on that point
almost as often, though not so diffusely, as Mrs. Norris discussed the
other.
These opinions had been hardly canvassed a year before another event
arose of such importance in the family, as might fairly claim some
place in the thoughts and conversation of the ladies. Sir Thomas found
it expedient to go to Antigua himself, for the better arrangement of
his affairs, and he took his eldest son with him, in the hope of
detaching him from some bad connexions at home. They left England with
the probability of being nearly a twelvemonth absent.
The necessity of the measure in a pecuniary light, and the hope of its
utility to his son, reconciled Sir Thomas to the effort of quitting the
rest of his family, and of leaving his daughters to the direction of
others at their present most interesting time of life. He could not
think Lady Bertram quite equal to supply his place with them, or
rather, to perform what should have been her own; but, in Mrs. Norris’s
watchful attention, and in Edmund’s judgment, he had sufficient
confidence to make him go without fears for their conduct.
Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she
was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety, or solicitude for his
comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous,
or difficult, or fatiguing to anybody but themselves.
The Miss Bertrams were much to be pitied on the occasion: not for their
sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to
them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his
absence was unhappily most welcome. They were relieved by it from all
restraint; and without aiming at one gratification that would probably
have been forbidden by Sir Thomas, they felt themselves immediately at
their own disposal, and to have every indulgence within their reach.
Fanny’s relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her
cousins’; but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were
ungrateful, and she really grieved because she could not grieve. “Sir
Thomas, who had done so much for her and her brothers, and who was gone
perhaps never to return! that she should see him go without a tear! it
was a shameful insensibility.” He had said to her, moreover, on the
very last morning, that he hoped she might see William again in the
course of the ensuing winter, and had charged her to write and invite
him to Mansfield as soon as the squadron to which he belonged should be
known to be in England. “This was so thoughtful and kind!” and would he
only have smiled upon her, and called her “my dear Fanny,” while he
said it, every former frown or cold address might have been forgotten.
But he had ended his speech in a way to sink her in sad mortification,
by adding, “If William does come to Mansfield, I hope you may be able
to convince him that the many years which have passed since you parted
have not been spent on your side entirely without improvement; though,
I fear, he must find his sister at sixteen in some respects too much
like his sister at ten.” She cried bitterly over this reflection when
her uncle was gone; and her cousins, on seeing her with red eyes, set
her down as a hypocrite.
CHAPTER IV
Tom Bertram had of late spent so little of his time at home that he