Mansfield Park
She succeeded. She was safe in the breakfast-room, with her aunt, when
Miss Crawford did come; and the first misery over, and Miss Crawford
looking and speaking with much less particularity of expression than
she had anticipated, Fanny began to hope there would be nothing worse
to be endured than a half-hour of moderate agitation. But here she
hoped too much; Miss Crawford was not the slave of opportunity. She was
determined to see Fanny alone, and therefore said to her tolerably
soon, in a low voice, “I must speak to you for a few minutes
somewhere”; words that Fanny felt all over her, in all her pulses and
all her nerves. Denial was impossible. Her habits of ready submission,
on the contrary, made her almost instantly rise and lead the way out of
the room. She did it with wretched feelings, but it was inevitable.
They were no sooner in the hall than all restraint of countenance was
over on Miss Crawford’s side. She immediately shook her head at Fanny
with arch, yet affectionate reproach, and taking her hand, seemed
hardly able to help beginning directly. She said nothing, however, but,
“Sad, sad girl! I do not know when I shall have done scolding you,” and
had discretion enough to reserve the rest till they might be secure of
having four walls to themselves. Fanny naturally turned upstairs, and
took her guest to the apartment which was now always fit for
comfortable use; opening the door, however, with a most aching heart,
and feeling that she had a more distressing scene before her than ever
that spot had yet witnessed. But the evil ready to burst on her was at
least delayed by the sudden change in Miss Crawford’s ideas; by the
strong effect on her mind which the finding herself in the East room
again produced.
“Ha!” she cried, with instant animation, “am I here again? The East
room! Once only was I in this room before”; and after stopping to look
about her, and seemingly to retrace all that had then passed, she
added, “Once only before. Do you remember it? I came to rehearse. Your
cousin came too; and we had a rehearsal. You were our audience and
prompter. A delightful rehearsal. I shall never forget it. Here we
were, just in this part of the room: here was your cousin, here was I,
here were the chairs. Oh! why will such things ever pass away?”
Happily for her companion, she wanted no answer. Her mind was entirely
self-engrossed. She was in a reverie of sweet remembrances.
“The scene we were rehearsing was so very remarkable! The subject of it
so very—very—what shall I say? He was to be describing and recommending
matrimony to me. I think I see him now, trying to be as demure and
composed as Anhalt ought, through the two long speeches. ‘When two
sympathetic hearts meet in the marriage state, matrimony may be called
a happy life.’ I suppose no time can ever wear out the impression I
have of his looks and voice as he said those words. It was curious,
very curious, that we should have such a scene to play! If I had the
power of recalling any one week of my existence, it should be that
week—that acting week. Say what you would, Fanny, it should be _that_;
for I never knew such exquisite happiness in any other. His sturdy
spirit to bend as it did! Oh! it was sweet beyond expression. But alas,
that very evening destroyed it all. That very evening brought your most
unwelcome uncle. Poor Sir Thomas, who was glad to see you? Yet, Fanny,
do not imagine I would now speak disrespectfully of Sir Thomas, though
I certainly did hate him for many a week. No, I do him justice now. He
is just what the head of such a family should be. Nay, in sober
sadness, I believe I now love you all.” And having said so, with a
degree of tenderness and consciousness which Fanny had never seen in
her before, and now thought only too becoming, she turned away for a
moment to recover herself. “I have had a little fit since I came into
this room, as you may perceive,” said she presently, with a playful
smile, “but it is over now; so let us sit down and be comfortable; for
as to scolding you, Fanny, which I came fully intending to do, I have
not the heart for it when it comes to the point.” And embracing her
very affectionately, “Good, gentle Fanny! when I think of this being
the last time of seeing you for I do not know how long, I feel it quite
impossible to do anything but love you.”
Fanny was affected. She had not foreseen anything of this, and her
feelings could seldom withstand the melancholy influence of the word
“last.” She cried as if she had loved Miss Crawford more than she
possibly could; and Miss Crawford, yet farther softened by the sight of
such emotion, hung about her with fondness, and said, “I hate to leave
you. I shall see no one half so amiable where I am going. Who says we
shall not be sisters? I know we shall. I feel that we are born to be
connected; and those tears convince me that you feel it too, dear
Fanny.”
Fanny roused herself, and replying only in part, said, “But you are
only going from one set of friends to another. You are going to a very
particular friend.”
“Yes, very true. Mrs. Fraser has been my intimate friend for years. But
I have not the least inclination to go near her. I can think only of
the friends I am leaving: my excellent sister, yourself, and the
Bertrams in general. You have all so much more _heart_ among you than
one finds in the world at large. You all give me a feeling of being
able to trust and confide in you, which in common intercourse one knows
nothing of. I wish I had settled with Mrs. Fraser not to go to her till
after Easter, a much better time for the visit, but now I cannot put
her off. And when I have done with her I must go to her sister, Lady
Stornaway, because _she_ was rather my most particular friend of the
two, but I have not cared much for _her_ these three years.”
After this speech the two girls sat many minutes silent, each
thoughtful: Fanny meditating on the different sorts of friendship in
the world, Mary on something of less philosophic tendency. _She_ first
spoke again.
“How perfectly I remember my resolving to look for you upstairs, and
setting off to find my way to the East room, without having an idea
whereabouts it was! How well I remember what I was thinking of as I
came along, and my looking in and seeing you here sitting at this table
at work; and then your cousin’s astonishment, when he opened the door,
at seeing me here! To be sure, your uncle’s returning that very
evening! There never was anything quite like it.”
Another short fit of abstraction followed, when, shaking it off, she
thus attacked her companion.
“Why, Fanny, you are absolutely in a reverie. Thinking, I hope, of one
who is always thinking of you. Oh! that I could transport you for a
short time into our circle in town, that you might understand how your
power over Henry is thought of there! Oh! the envyings and
heartburnings of dozens and dozens; the wonder, the incredulity that
will be felt at hearing what you have done! For as to secrecy, Henry is
quite the hero of an old romance, and glories in his chains. You should
come to London to know how to estimate your conquest. If you were to
see how he is courted, and how I am courted for his sake! Now, I am
well aware that I shall not be half so welcome to Mrs. Fraser in
consequence of his situation with you. When she comes to know the truth
she will, very likely, wish me in Northamptonshire again; for there is
a daughter of Mr. Fraser, by a first wife, whom she is wild to get
married, and wants Henry to take. Oh! she has been trying for him to
such a degree. Innocent and quiet as you sit here, you cannot have an
idea of the _sensation_ that you will be occasioning, of the curiosity
there will be to see you, of the endless questions I shall have to
answer! Poor Margaret Fraser will be at me for ever about your eyes and
your teeth, and how you do your hair, and who makes your shoes. I wish
Margaret were married, for my poor friend’s sake, for I look upon the
Frasers to be about as unhappy as most other married people. And yet it
was a most desirable match for Janet at the time. We were all
delighted. She could not do otherwise than accept him, for he was rich,
and she had nothing; but he turns out ill-tempered and _exigeant_, and
wants a young woman, a beautiful young woman of five-and-twenty, to be
as steady as himself. And my friend does not manage him well; she does
not seem to know how to make the best of it. There is a spirit of
irritation which, to say nothing worse, is certainly very ill-bred. In
their house I shall call to mind the conjugal manners of Mansfield
Parsonage with respect. Even Dr. Grant does shew a thorough confidence
in my sister, and a certain consideration for her judgment, which makes
one feel there _is_ attachment; but of that I shall see nothing with
the Frasers. I shall be at Mansfield for ever, Fanny. My own sister as
a wife, Sir Thomas Bertram as a husband, are my standards of
perfection. Poor Janet has been sadly taken in, and yet there was
nothing improper on her side: she did not run into the match
inconsiderately; there was no want of foresight. She took three days to
consider of his proposals, and during those three days asked the advice
of everybody connected with her whose opinion was worth having, and
especially applied to my late dear aunt, whose knowledge of the world
made her judgment very generally and deservedly looked up to by all the
young people of her acquaintance, and she was decidedly in favour of
Mr. Fraser. This seems as if nothing were a security for matrimonial
comfort. I have not so much to say for my friend Flora, who jilted a
very nice young man in the Blues for the sake of that horrid Lord
Stornaway, who has about as much sense, Fanny, as Mr. Rushworth, but
much worse-looking, and with a blackguard character. I _had_ my doubts
at the time about her being right, for he has not even the air of a
gentleman, and now I am sure she was wrong. By the bye, Flora Ross was
dying for Henry the first winter she came out. But were I to attempt to
tell you of all the women whom I have known to be in love with him, I
should never have done. It is you, only you, insensible Fanny, who can
think of him with anything like indifference. But are you so insensible
as you profess yourself? No, no, I see you are not.”
There was, indeed, so deep a blush over Fanny’s face at that moment as
might warrant strong suspicion in a predisposed mind.
“Excellent creature! I will not tease you. Everything shall take its
course. But, dear Fanny, you must allow that you were not so absolutely
unprepared to have the question asked as your cousin fancies. It is not
possible but that you must have had some thoughts on the subject, some
surmises as to what might be. You must have seen that he was trying to
please you by every attention in his power. Was not he devoted to you
at the ball? And then before the ball, the necklace! Oh! you received
it just as it was meant. You were as conscious as heart could desire. I
remember it perfectly.”
“Do you mean, then, that your brother knew of the necklace beforehand?
Oh! Miss Crawford, _that_ was not fair.”
“Knew of it! It was his own doing entirely, his own thought. I am
ashamed to say that it had never entered my head, but I was delighted
to act on his proposal for both your sakes.”
“I will not say,” replied Fanny, “that I was not half afraid at the
time of its being so, for there was something in your look that
frightened me, but not at first; I was as unsuspicious of it at
first—indeed, indeed I was. It is as true as that I sit here. And had I
had an idea of it, nothing should have induced me to accept the
necklace. As to your brother’s behaviour, certainly I was sensible of a
particularity: I had been sensible of it some little time, perhaps two