Mansfield Park
of that, she disliked Fanny, because she had neglected her; and she
would have grudged such an elevation to one whom she had been always
trying to depress.
Sir Thomas gave her more credit for discretion on the occasion than she
deserved; and Fanny could have blessed her for allowing her only to see
her displeasure, and not to hear it.
Lady Bertram took it differently. She had been a beauty, and a
prosperous beauty, all her life; and beauty and wealth were all that
excited her respect. To know Fanny to be sought in marriage by a man of
fortune, raised her, therefore, very much in her opinion. By convincing
her that Fanny _was_ very pretty, which she had been doubting about
before, and that she would be advantageously married, it made her feel
a sort of credit in calling her niece.
“Well, Fanny,” said she, as soon as they were alone together
afterwards, and she really had known something like impatience to be
alone with her, and her countenance, as she spoke, had extraordinary
animation; “Well, Fanny, I have had a very agreeable surprise this
morning. I must just speak of it _once_, I told Sir Thomas I must
_once_, and then I shall have done. I give you joy, my dear niece.” And
looking at her complacently, she added, “Humph, we certainly are a
handsome family!”
Fanny coloured, and doubted at first what to say; when, hoping to
assail her on her vulnerable side, she presently answered—
“My dear aunt, _you_ cannot wish me to do differently from what I have
done, I am sure. _You_ cannot wish me to marry; for you would miss me,
should not you? Yes, I am sure you would miss me too much for that.”
“No, my dear, I should not think of missing you, when such an offer as
this comes in your way. I could do very well without you, if you were
married to a man of such good estate as Mr. Crawford. And you must be
aware, Fanny, that it is every young woman’s duty to accept such a very
unexceptionable offer as this.”
This was almost the only rule of conduct, the only piece of advice,
which Fanny had ever received from her aunt in the course of eight
years and a half. It silenced her. She felt how unprofitable contention
would be. If her aunt’s feelings were against her, nothing could be
hoped from attacking her understanding. Lady Bertram was quite
talkative.
“I will tell you what, Fanny,” said she, “I am sure he fell in love
with you at the ball; I am sure the mischief was done that evening. You
did look remarkably well. Everybody said so. Sir Thomas said so. And
you know you had Chapman to help you to dress. I am very glad I sent
Chapman to you. I shall tell Sir Thomas that I am sure it was done that
evening.” And still pursuing the same cheerful thoughts, she soon
afterwards added, “And I will tell you what, Fanny, which is more than
I did for Maria: the next time Pug has a litter you shall have a
puppy.”
CHAPTER XXXIV
Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were
awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the
appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through
the village as he rode into it. He had concluded—he had meant them to
be far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight
purposely to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield with
spirits ready to feed on melancholy remembrances, and tender
associations, when her own fair self was before him, leaning on her
brother’s arm, and he found himself receiving a welcome, unquestionably
friendly, from the woman whom, two moments before, he had been thinking
of as seventy miles off, and as farther, much farther, from him in
inclination than any distance could express.
Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped for,
had he expected to see her. Coming as he did from such a purport
fulfilled as had taken him away, he would have expected anything rather
than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning. It
was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the
properest state for feeling the full value of the other joyful
surprises at hand.
William’s promotion, with all its particulars, he was soon master of;
and with such a secret provision of comfort within his own breast to
help the joy, he found in it a source of most gratifying sensation and
unvarying cheerfulness all dinner-time.
After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny’s
history; and then all the great events of the last fortnight, and the
present situation of matters at Mansfield were known to him.
Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual
in the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her;
and when tea at last brought them away, and she was to be seen by
Edmund again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He came to her, sat down by
her, took her hand, and pressed it kindly; and at that moment she
thought that, but for the occupation and the scene which the tea-things
afforded, she must have betrayed her emotion in some unpardonable
excess.
He was not intending, however, by such action, to be conveying to her
that unqualified approbation and encouragement which her hopes drew
from it. It was designed only to express his participation in all that
interested her, and to tell her that he had been hearing what quickened
every feeling of affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father’s
side of the question. His surprise was not so great as his father’s at
her refusing Crawford, because, so far from supposing her to consider
him with anything like a preference, he had always believed it to be
rather the reverse, and could imagine her to be taken perfectly
unprepared, but Sir Thomas could not regard the connexion as more
desirable than he did. It had every recommendation to him; and while
honouring her for what she had done under the influence of her present
indifference, honouring her in rather stronger terms than Sir Thomas
could quite echo, he was most earnest in hoping, and sanguine in
believing, that it would be a match at last, and that, united by mutual
affection, it would appear that their dispositions were as exactly
fitted to make them blessed in each other, as he was now beginning
seriously to consider them. Crawford had been too precipitate. He had
not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end.
With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers,
Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion.
Meanwhile, he saw enough of Fanny’s embarrassment to make him
scrupulously guard against exciting it a second time, by any word, or
look, or movement.
Crawford called the next day, and on the score of Edmund’s return, Sir
Thomas felt himself more than licensed to ask him to stay dinner; it
was really a necessary compliment. He staid of course, and Edmund had
then ample opportunity for observing how he sped with Fanny, and what
degree of immediate encouragement for him might be extracted from her
manners; and it was so little, so very, very little—every chance, every
possibility of it, resting upon her embarrassment only; if there was
not hope in her confusion, there was hope in nothing else—that he was
almost ready to wonder at his friend’s perseverance. Fanny was worth it
all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every exertion
of mind, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any
woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage than his
eyes could discern in hers. He was very willing to hope that Crawford
saw clearer, and this was the most comfortable conclusion for his
friend that he could come to from all that he observed to pass before,
and at, and after dinner.
In the evening a few circumstances occurred which he thought more
promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his
mother and Fanny were sitting as intently and silently at work as if
there were nothing else to care for. Edmund could not help noticing
their apparently deep tranquillity.
“We have not been so silent all the time,” replied his mother. “Fanny
has been reading to me, and only put the book down upon hearing you
coming.” And sure enough there was a book on the table which had the
air of being very recently closed: a volume of Shakespeare. “She often
reads to me out of those books; and she was in the middle of a very
fine speech of that man’s—what’s his name, Fanny?—when we heard your
footsteps.”
Crawford took the volume. “Let me have the pleasure of finishing that
speech to your ladyship,” said he. “I shall find it immediately.” And
by carefully giving way to the inclination of the leaves, he did find
it, or within a page or two, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram,
who assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey,
that he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had
Fanny given; not a syllable for or against. All her attention was for
her work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else. But
taste was too strong in her. She could not abstract her mind five
minutes: she was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her
pleasure in good reading extreme. To _good_ reading, however, she had
been long used: her uncle read well, her cousins all, Edmund very well,
but in Mr. Crawford’s reading there was a variety of excellence beyond
what she had ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey,
Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, the
happiest power of jumping and guessing, he could always alight at will
on the best scene, or the best speeches of each; and whether it were
dignity, or pride, or tenderness, or remorse, or whatever were to be
expressed, he could do it with equal beauty. It was truly dramatic. His
acting had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his
reading brought all his acting before her again; nay, perhaps with
greater enjoyment, for it came unexpectedly, and with no such drawback
as she had been used to suffer in seeing him on the stage with Miss
Bertram.
Edmund watched the progress of her attention, and was amused and
gratified by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework,
which at the beginning seemed to occupy her totally: how it fell from
her hand while she sat motionless over it, and at last, how the eyes
which had appeared so studiously to avoid him throughout the day were
turned and fixed on Crawford—fixed on him for minutes, fixed on him, in
short, till the attraction drew Crawford’s upon her, and the book was
closed, and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into
herself, and blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been
enough to give Edmund encouragement for his friend, and as he cordially
thanked him, he hoped to be expressing Fanny’s secret feelings too.
“That play must be a favourite with you,” said he; “you read as if you
knew it well.”
“It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour,” replied Crawford;
“but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand
before since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I
have heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But
Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part
of an Englishman’s constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so
spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with
him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of
his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately.”
“No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree,” said Edmund,
“from one’s earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by
everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk
Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions; but