Mansfield Park
As he left the room, two rosy-faced boys, ragged and dirty, about eight
and nine years old, rushed into it just released from school, and
coming eagerly to see their sister, and tell that the Thrush was gone
out of harbour; Tom and Charles. Charles had been born since Fanny’s
going away, but Tom she had often helped to nurse, and now felt a
particular pleasure in seeing again. Both were kissed very tenderly,
but Tom she wanted to keep by her, to try to trace the features of the
baby she had loved, and talked to, of his infant preference of herself.
Tom, however, had no mind for such treatment: he came home not to stand
and be talked to, but to run about and make a noise; and both boys had
soon burst from her, and slammed the parlour-door till her temples
ached.
She had now seen all that were at home; there remained only two
brothers between herself and Susan, one of whom was a clerk in a public
office in London, and the other midshipman on board an Indiaman. But
though she had _seen_ all the members of the family, she had not yet
_heard_ all the noise they could make. Another quarter of an hour
brought her a great deal more. William was soon calling out from the
landing-place of the second story for his mother and for Rebecca. He
was in distress for something that he had left there, and did not find
again. A key was mislaid, Betsey accused of having got at his new hat,
and some slight, but essential alteration of his uniform waistcoat,
which he had been promised to have done for him, entirely neglected.
Mrs. Price, Rebecca, and Betsey all went up to defend themselves, all
talking together, but Rebecca loudest, and the job was to be done as
well as it could in a great hurry; William trying in vain to send
Betsey down again, or keep her from being troublesome where she was;
the whole of which, as almost every door in the house was open, could
be plainly distinguished in the parlour, except when drowned at
intervals by the superior noise of Sam, Tom, and Charles chasing each
other up and down stairs, and tumbling about and hallooing.
Fanny was almost stunned. The smallness of the house and thinness of
the walls brought everything so close to her, that, added to the
fatigue of her journey, and all her recent agitation, she hardly knew
how to bear it. _Within_ the room all was tranquil enough, for Susan
having disappeared with the others, there were soon only her father and
herself remaining; and he, taking out a newspaper, the accustomary loan
of a neighbour, applied himself to studying it, without seeming to
recollect her existence. The solitary candle was held between himself
and the paper, without any reference to her possible convenience; but
she had nothing to do, and was glad to have the light screened from her
aching head, as she sat in bewildered, broken, sorrowful contemplation.
She was at home. But, alas! it was not such a home, she had not such a
welcome, as—she checked herself; she was unreasonable. What right had
she to be of importance to her family? She could have none, so long
lost sight of! William’s concerns must be dearest, they always had
been, and he had every right. Yet to have so little said or asked about
herself, to have scarcely an inquiry made after Mansfield! It did pain
her to have Mansfield forgotten; the friends who had done so much—the
dear, dear friends! But here, one subject swallowed up all the rest.
Perhaps it must be so. The destination of the Thrush must be now
preeminently interesting. A day or two might shew the difference. _She_
only was to blame. Yet she thought it would not have been so at
Mansfield. No, in her uncle’s house there would have been a
consideration of times and seasons, a regulation of subject, a
propriety, an attention towards everybody which there was not here.
The only interruption which thoughts like these received for nearly
half an hour was from a sudden burst of her father’s, not at all
calculated to compose them. At a more than ordinary pitch of thumping
and hallooing in the passage, he exclaimed, “Devil take those young
dogs! How they are singing out! Ay, Sam’s voice louder than all the
rest! That boy is fit for a boatswain. Holla, you there! Sam, stop your
confounded pipe, or I shall be after you.”
This threat was so palpably disregarded, that though within five
minutes afterwards the three boys all burst into the room together and
sat down, Fanny could not consider it as a proof of anything more than
their being for the time thoroughly fagged, which their hot faces and
panting breaths seemed to prove, especially as they were still kicking
each other’s shins, and hallooing out at sudden starts immediately
under their father’s eye.
The next opening of the door brought something more welcome: it was for
the tea-things, which she had begun almost to despair of seeing that
evening. Susan and an attendant girl, whose inferior appearance
informed Fanny, to her great surprise, that she had previously seen the
upper servant, brought in everything necessary for the meal; Susan
looking, as she put the kettle on the fire and glanced at her sister,
as if divided between the agreeable triumph of shewing her activity and
usefulness, and the dread of being thought to demean herself by such an
office. “She had been into the kitchen,” she said, “to hurry Sally and
help make the toast, and spread the bread and butter, or she did not
know when they should have got tea, and she was sure her sister must
want something after her journey.”
Fanny was very thankful. She could not but own that she should be very
glad of a little tea, and Susan immediately set about making it, as if
pleased to have the employment all to herself; and with only a little
unnecessary bustle, and some few injudicious attempts at keeping her
brothers in better order than she could, acquitted herself very well.
Fanny’s spirit was as much refreshed as her body; her head and heart
were soon the better for such well-timed kindness. Susan had an open,
sensible countenance; she was like William, and Fanny hoped to find her
like him in disposition and goodwill towards herself.
In this more placid state of things William reentered, followed not far
behind by his mother and Betsey. He, complete in his lieutenant’s
uniform, looking and moving all the taller, firmer, and more graceful
for it, and with the happiest smile over his face, walked up directly
to Fanny, who, rising from her seat, looked at him for a moment in
speechless admiration, and then threw her arms round his neck to sob
out her various emotions of pain and pleasure.
Anxious not to appear unhappy, she soon recovered herself; and wiping
away her tears, was able to notice and admire all the striking parts of
his dress; listening with reviving spirits to his cheerful hopes of
being on shore some part of every day before they sailed, and even of
getting her to Spithead to see the sloop.
The next bustle brought in Mr. Campbell, the surgeon of the Thrush, a
very well-behaved young man, who came to call for his friend, and for
whom there was with some contrivance found a chair, and with some hasty
washing of the young tea-maker’s, a cup and saucer; and after another
quarter of an hour of earnest talk between the gentlemen, noise rising
upon noise, and bustle upon bustle, men and boys at last all in motion
together, the moment came for setting off; everything was ready,
William took leave, and all of them were gone; for the three boys, in
spite of their mother’s entreaty, determined to see their brother and
Mr. Campbell to the sally-port; and Mr. Price walked off at the same
time to carry back his neighbour’s newspaper.
Something like tranquillity might now be hoped for; and accordingly,
when Rebecca had been prevailed on to carry away the tea-things, and
Mrs. Price had walked about the room some time looking for a
shirt-sleeve, which Betsey at last hunted out from a drawer in the
kitchen, the small party of females were pretty well composed, and the
mother having lamented again over the impossibility of getting Sam
ready in time, was at leisure to think of her eldest daughter and the
friends she had come from.
A few inquiries began: but one of the earliest—“How did sister Bertram
manage about her servants?” “Was she as much plagued as herself to get
tolerable servants?”—soon led her mind away from Northamptonshire, and
fixed it on her own domestic grievances, and the shocking character of
all the Portsmouth servants, of whom she believed her own two were the
very worst, engrossed her completely. The Bertrams were all forgotten
in detailing the faults of Rebecca, against whom Susan had also much to
depose, and little Betsey a great deal more, and who did seem so
thoroughly without a single recommendation, that Fanny could not help
modestly presuming that her mother meant to part with her when her year
was up.
“Her year!” cried Mrs. Price; “I am sure I hope I shall be rid of her
before she has staid a year, for that will not be up till November.
Servants are come to such a pass, my dear, in Portsmouth, that it is
quite a miracle if one keeps them more than half a year. I have no hope
of ever being settled; and if I was to part with Rebecca, I should only
get something worse. And yet I do not think I am a very difficult
mistress to please; and I am sure the place is easy enough, for there
is always a girl under her, and I often do half the work myself.”
Fanny was silent; but not from being convinced that there might not be
a remedy found for some of these evils. As she now sat looking at
Betsey, she could not but think particularly of another sister, a very
pretty little girl, whom she had left there not much younger when she
went into Northamptonshire, who had died a few years afterwards. There
had been something remarkably amiable about her. Fanny in those early
days had preferred her to Susan; and when the news of her death had at
last reached Mansfield, had for a short time been quite afflicted. The
sight of Betsey brought the image of little Mary back again, but she
would not have pained her mother by alluding to her for the world.
While considering her with these ideas, Betsey, at a small distance,
was holding out something to catch her eyes, meaning to screen it at
the same time from Susan’s.
“What have you got there, my love?” said Fanny; “come and shew it to
me.”
It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and
trying to get it away; but the child ran to her mother’s protection,
and Susan could only reproach, which she did very warmly, and evidently
hoping to interest Fanny on her side. “It was very hard that she was
not to have her _own_ knife; it was her own knife; little sister Mary
had left it to her upon her deathbed, and she ought to have had it to
keep herself long ago. But mama kept it from her, and was always
letting Betsey get hold of it; and the end of it would be that Betsey
would spoil it, and get it for her own, though mama had _promised_ her
that Betsey should not have it in her own hands.”
Fanny was quite shocked. Every feeling of duty, honour, and tenderness
was wounded by her sister’s speech and her mother’s reply.
“Now, Susan,” cried Mrs. Price, in a complaining voice, “now, how can
you be so cross? You are always quarrelling about that knife. I wish
you would not be so quarrelsome. Poor little Betsey; how cross Susan is
to you! But you should not have taken it out, my dear, when I sent you
to the drawer. You know I told you not to touch it, because Susan is so
cross about it. I must hide it another time, Betsey. Poor Mary little
thought it would be such a bone of contention when she gave it me to
keep, only two hours before she died. Poor little soul! she could but
just speak to be heard, and she said so prettily, ‘Let sister Susan