Mansfield Park
“forgive me. Perhaps I have as yet no right; but by what other name can
I call you? Do you suppose you are ever present to my imagination under
any other? No, it is ‘Fanny’ that I think of all day, and dream of all
night. You have given the name such reality of sweetness, that nothing
else can now be descriptive of you.”
Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, or have refrained
from at least trying to get away in spite of all the too public
opposition she foresaw to it, had it not been for the sound of
approaching relief, the very sound which she had been long watching
for, and long thinking strangely delayed.
The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and
cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her from a grievous
imprisonment of body and mind. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She
was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected.
Edmund was not sorry to be admitted again among the number of those who
might speak and hear. But though the conference had seemed full long to
him, and though on looking at Fanny he saw rather a flush of vexation,
he inclined to hope that so much could not have been said and listened
to without some profit to the speaker.
CHAPTER XXXV
Edmund had determined that it belonged entirely to Fanny to chuse
whether her situation with regard to Crawford should be mentioned
between them or not; and that if she did not lead the way, it should
never be touched on by him; but after a day or two of mutual reserve,
he was induced by his father to change his mind, and try what his
influence might do for his friend.
A day, and a very early day, was actually fixed for the Crawfords’
departure; and Sir Thomas thought it might be as well to make one more
effort for the young man before he left Mansfield, that all his
professions and vows of unshaken attachment might have as much hope to
sustain them as possible.
Sir Thomas was most cordially anxious for the perfection of Mr.
Crawford’s character in that point. He wished him to be a model of
constancy; and fancied the best means of effecting it would be by not
trying him too long.
Edmund was not unwilling to be persuaded to engage in the business; he
wanted to know Fanny’s feelings. She had been used to consult him in
every difficulty, and he loved her too well to bear to be denied her
confidence now; he hoped to be of service to her, he thought he must be
of service to her; whom else had she to open her heart to? If she did
not need counsel, she must need the comfort of communication. Fanny
estranged from him, silent and reserved, was an unnatural state of
things; a state which he must break through, and which he could easily
learn to think she was wanting him to break through.
“I will speak to her, sir: I will take the first opportunity of
speaking to her alone,” was the result of such thoughts as these; and
upon Sir Thomas’s information of her being at that very time walking
alone in the shrubbery, he instantly joined her.
“I am come to walk with you, Fanny,” said he. “Shall I?” Drawing her
arm within his. “It is a long while since we have had a comfortable
walk together.”
She assented to it all rather by look than word. Her spirits were low.
“But, Fanny,” he presently added, “in order to have a comfortable walk,
something more is necessary than merely pacing this gravel together.
You must talk to me. I know you have something on your mind. I know
what you are thinking of. You cannot suppose me uninformed. Am I to
hear of it from everybody but Fanny herself?”
Fanny, at once agitated and dejected, replied, “If you hear of it from
everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell.”
“Not of facts, perhaps; but of feelings, Fanny. No one but you can tell
me them. I do not mean to press you, however. If it is not what you
wish yourself, I have done. I had thought it might be a relief.”
“I am afraid we think too differently for me to find any relief in
talking of what I feel.”
“Do you suppose that we think differently? I have no idea of it. I dare
say that, on a comparison of our opinions, they would be found as much
alike as they have been used to be: to the point—I consider Crawford’s
proposals as most advantageous and desirable, if you could return his
affection. I consider it as most natural that all your family should
wish you could return it; but that, as you cannot, you have done
exactly as you ought in refusing him. Can there be any disagreement
between us here?”
“Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me.
This is such a comfort!”
“This comfort you might have had sooner, Fanny, had you sought it. But
how could you possibly suppose me against you? How could you imagine me
an advocate for marriage without love? Were I even careless in general
on such matters, how could you imagine me so where your happiness was
at stake?”
“My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you.”
“As far as you have gone, Fanny, I think you perfectly right. I may be
sorry, I may be surprised—though hardly _that_, for you had not had
time to attach yourself—but I think you perfectly right. Can it admit
of a question? It is disgraceful to us if it does. You did not love
him; nothing could have justified your accepting him.”
Fanny had not felt so comfortable for days and days.
“So far your conduct has been faultless, and they were quite mistaken
who wished you to do otherwise. But the matter does not end here.
Crawford’s is no common attachment; he perseveres, with the hope of
creating that regard which had not been created before. This, we know,
must be a work of time. But” (with an affectionate smile) “let him
succeed at last, Fanny, let him succeed at last. You have proved
yourself upright and disinterested, prove yourself grateful and
tender-hearted; and then you will be the perfect model of a woman which
I have always believed you born for.”
“Oh! never, never, never! he never will succeed with me.” And she spoke
with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund, and which she blushed at
the recollection of herself, when she saw his look, and heard him
reply, “Never! Fanny!—so very determined and positive! This is not like
yourself, your rational self.”
“I mean,” she cried, sorrowfully correcting herself, “that I _think_ I
never shall, as far as the future can be answered for; I think I never
shall return his regard.”
“I must hope better things. I am aware, more aware than Crawford can
be, that the man who means to make you love him (you having due notice
of his intentions) must have very uphill work, for there are all your
early attachments and habits in battle array; and before he can get
your heart for his own use he has to unfasten it from all the holds
upon things animate and inanimate, which so many years’ growth have
confirmed, and which are considerably tightened for the moment by the
very idea of separation. I know that the apprehension of being forced
to quit Mansfield will for a time be arming you against him. I wish he
had not been obliged to tell you what he was trying for. I wish he had
known you as well as I do, Fanny. Between us, I think we should have
won you. My theoretical and his practical knowledge together could not
have failed. He should have worked upon my plans. I must hope, however,
that time, proving him (as I firmly believe it will) to deserve you by
his steady affection, will give him his reward. I cannot suppose that
you have not the _wish_ to love him—the natural wish of gratitude. You
must have some feeling of that sort. You must be sorry for your own
indifference.”
“We are so totally unlike,” said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, “we
are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I
consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy
together, even if I _could_ like him. There never were two people more
dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable.”
“You are mistaken, Fanny. The dissimilarity is not so strong. You are
quite enough alike. You _have_ tastes in common. You have moral and
literary tastes in common. You have both warm hearts and benevolent
feelings; and, Fanny, who that heard him read, and saw you listen to
Shakespeare the other night, will think you unfitted as companions? You
forget yourself: there is a decided difference in your tempers, I
allow. He is lively, you are serious; but so much the better: his
spirits will support yours. It is your disposition to be easily
dejected and to fancy difficulties greater than they are. His
cheerfulness will counteract this. He sees difficulties nowhere: and
his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your
being so far unlike, Fanny, does not in the smallest degree make
against the probability of your happiness together: do not imagine it.
I am myself convinced that it is rather a favourable circumstance. I am
perfectly persuaded that the tempers had better be unlike: I mean
unlike in the flow of the spirits, in the manners, in the inclination
for much or little company, in the propensity to talk or to be silent,
to be grave or to be gay. Some opposition here is, I am thoroughly
convinced, friendly to matrimonial happiness. I exclude extremes, of
course; and a very close resemblance in all those points would be the
likeliest way to produce an extreme. A counteraction, gentle and
continual, is the best safeguard of manners and conduct.”
Full well could Fanny guess where his thoughts were now: Miss
Crawford’s power was all returning. He had been speaking of her
cheerfully from the hour of his coming home. His avoiding her was quite
at an end. He had dined at the Parsonage only the preceding day.
After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes, Fanny,
feeling it due to herself, returned to Mr. Crawford, and said, “It is
not merely in _temper_ that I consider him as totally unsuited to
myself; though, in _that_ respect, I think the difference between us
too great, infinitely too great: his spirits often oppress me; but
there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say,
cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of
him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared
to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly—I may speak of it now because
it is all over—so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care
how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria,
which—in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which
will never be got over.”
“My dear Fanny,” replied Edmund, scarcely hearing her to the end, “let
us not, any of us, be judged by what we appeared at that period of
general folly. The time of the play is a time which I hate to
recollect. Maria was wrong, Crawford was wrong, we were all wrong
together; but none so wrong as myself. Compared with me, all the rest
were blameless. I was playing the fool with my eyes open.”
“As a bystander,” said Fanny, “perhaps I saw more than you did; and I
do think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous.”
“Very possibly. No wonder. Nothing could be more improper than the
whole business. I am shocked whenever I think that Maria could be
capable of it; but, if she could undertake the part, we must not be
surprised at the rest.”
“Before the play, I am much mistaken if _Julia_ did not think he was
paying her attentions.”
“Julia! I have heard before from some one of his being in love with
Julia; but I could never see anything of it. And, Fanny, though I hope
I do justice to my sisters’ good qualities, I think it very possible
that they might, one or both, be more desirous of being admired by
Crawford, and might shew that desire rather more unguardedly than was