Mansfield Park
added, ‘I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister’s expense.’ So she
began, but how she went on, Fanny, is not fit, is hardly fit to be
repeated to you. I cannot recall all her words. I would not dwell upon
them if I could. Their substance was great anger at the _folly_ of
each. She reprobated her brother’s folly in being drawn on by a woman
whom he had never cared for, to do what must lose him the woman he
adored; but still more the folly of poor Maria, in sacrificing such a
situation, plunging into such difficulties, under the idea of being
really loved by a man who had long ago made his indifference clear.
Guess what I must have felt. To hear the woman whom—no harsher name
than folly given! So voluntarily, so freely, so coolly to canvass it!
No reluctance, no horror, no feminine, shall I say, no modest
loathings? This is what the world does. For where, Fanny, shall we find
a woman whom nature had so richly endowed? Spoilt, spoilt!”
After a little reflection, he went on with a sort of desperate
calmness. “I will tell you everything, and then have done for ever. She
saw it only as folly, and that folly stamped only by exposure. The want
of common discretion, of caution: his going down to Richmond for the
whole time of her being at Twickenham; her putting herself in the power
of a servant; it was the detection, in short—oh, Fanny! it was the
detection, not the offence, which she reprobated. It was the imprudence
which had brought things to extremity, and obliged her brother to give
up every dearer plan in order to fly with her.”
He stopt. “And what,” said Fanny (believing herself required to speak),
“what could you say?”
“Nothing, nothing to be understood. I was like a man stunned. She went
on, began to talk of you; yes, then she began to talk of you,
regretting, as well she might, the loss of such a—. There she spoke
very rationally. But she has always done justice to you. ‘He has thrown
away,’ said she, ‘such a woman as he will never see again. She would
have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever.’ My dearest
Fanny, I am giving you, I hope, more pleasure than pain by this
retrospect of what might have been—but what never can be now. You do
not wish me to be silent? If you do, give me but a look, a word, and I
have done.”
No look or word was given.
“Thank God,” said he. “We were all disposed to wonder, but it seems to
have been the merciful appointment of Providence that the heart which
knew no guile should not suffer. She spoke of you with high praise and
warm affection; yet, even here, there was alloy, a dash of evil; for in
the midst of it she could exclaim, ‘Why would not she have him? It is
all her fault. Simple girl! I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted
him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage,
and Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other
object. He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth
again. It would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in
yearly meetings at Sotherton and Everingham.’ Could you have believed
it possible? But the charm is broken. My eyes are opened.”
“Cruel!” said Fanny, “quite cruel. At such a moment to give way to
gaiety, to speak with lightness, and to you! Absolute cruelty.”
“Cruelty, do you call it? We differ there. No, hers is not a cruel
nature. I do not consider her as meaning to wound my feelings. The evil
lies yet deeper: in her total ignorance, unsuspiciousness of there
being such feelings; in a perversion of mind which made it natural to
her to treat the subject as she did. She was speaking only as she had
been used to hear others speak, as she imagined everybody else would
speak. Hers are not faults of temper. She would not voluntarily give
unnecessary pain to any one, and though I may deceive myself, I cannot
but think that for me, for my feelings, she would—. Hers are faults of
principle, Fanny; of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind.
Perhaps it is best for me, since it leaves me so little to regret. Not
so, however. Gladly would I submit to all the increased pain of losing
her, rather than have to think of her as I do. I told her so.”
“Did you?”
“Yes; when I left her I told her so.”
“How long were you together?”
“Five-and-twenty minutes. Well, she went on to say that what remained
now to be done was to bring about a marriage between them. She spoke of
it, Fanny, with a steadier voice than I can.” He was obliged to pause
more than once as he continued. “‘We must persuade Henry to marry her,’
said she; ‘and what with honour, and the certainty of having shut
himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. Fanny he must
give up. I do not think that even _he_ could now hope to succeed with
one of her stamp, and therefore I hope we may find no insuperable
difficulty. My influence, which is not small shall all go that way; and
when once married, and properly supported by her own family, people of
respectability as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a
certain degree. In some circles, we know, she would never be admitted,
but with good dinners, and large parties, there will always be those
who will be glad of her acquaintance; and there is, undoubtedly, more
liberality and candour on those points than formerly. What I advise is,
that your father be quiet. Do not let him injure his own cause by
interference. Persuade him to let things take their course. If by any
officious exertions of his, she is induced to leave Henry’s protection,
there will be much less chance of his marrying her than if she remain
with him. I know how he is likely to be influenced. Let Sir Thomas
trust to his honour and compassion, and it may all end well; but if he
get his daughter away, it will be destroying the chief hold.’”
After repeating this, Edmund was so much affected that Fanny, watching
him with silent, but most tender concern, was almost sorry that the
subject had been entered on at all. It was long before he could speak
again. At last, “Now, Fanny,” said he, “I shall soon have done. I have
told you the substance of all that she said. As soon as I could speak,
I replied that I had not supposed it possible, coming in such a state
of mind into that house as I had done, that anything could occur to
make me suffer more, but that she had been inflicting deeper wounds in
almost every sentence. That though I had, in the course of our
acquaintance, been often sensible of some difference in our opinions,
on points, too, of some moment, it had not entered my imagination to
conceive the difference could be such as she had now proved it. That
the manner in which she treated the dreadful crime committed by her
brother and my sister (with whom lay the greater seduction I pretended
not to say), but the manner in which she spoke of the crime itself,
giving it every reproach but the right; considering its ill
consequences only as they were to be braved or overborne by a defiance
of decency and impudence in wrong; and last of all, and above all,
recommending to us a compliance, a compromise, an acquiescence in the
continuance of the sin, on the chance of a marriage which, thinking as
I now thought of her brother, should rather be prevented than sought;
all this together most grievously convinced me that I had never
understood her before, and that, as far as related to mind, it had been
the creature of my own imagination, not Miss Crawford, that I had been
too apt to dwell on for many months past. That, perhaps, it was best
for me; I had less to regret in sacrificing a friendship, feelings,
hopes which must, at any rate, have been torn from me now. And yet,
that I must and would confess that, could I have restored her to what
she had appeared to me before, I would infinitely prefer any increase
of the pain of parting, for the sake of carrying with me the right of
tenderness and esteem. This is what I said, the purport of it; but, as
you may imagine, not spoken so collectedly or methodically as I have
repeated it to you. She was astonished, exceedingly astonished—more
than astonished. I saw her change countenance. She turned extremely
red. I imagined I saw a mixture of many feelings: a great, though short
struggle; half a wish of yielding to truths, half a sense of shame, but
habit, habit carried it. She would have laughed if she could. It was a
sort of laugh, as she answered, ‘A pretty good lecture, upon my word.
Was it part of your last sermon? At this rate you will soon reform
everybody at Mansfield and Thornton Lacey; and when I hear of you next,
it may be as a celebrated preacher in some great society of Methodists,
or as a missionary into foreign parts.’ She tried to speak carelessly,
but she was not so careless as she wanted to appear. I only said in
reply, that from my heart I wished her well, and earnestly hoped that
she might soon learn to think more justly, and not owe the most
valuable knowledge we could any of us acquire, the knowledge of
ourselves and of our duty, to the lessons of affliction, and
immediately left the room. I had gone a few steps, Fanny, when I heard
the door open behind me. ‘Mr. Bertram,’ said she. I looked back. ‘Mr.
Bertram,’ said she, with a smile; but it was a smile ill-suited to the
conversation that had passed, a saucy playful smile, seeming to invite
in order to subdue me; at least it appeared so to me. I resisted; it
was the impulse of the moment to resist, and still walked on. I have
since, sometimes, for a moment, regretted that I did not go back, but I
know I was right, and such has been the end of our acquaintance. And
what an acquaintance has it been! How have I been deceived! Equally in
brother and sister deceived! I thank you for your patience, Fanny. This
has been the greatest relief, and now we will have done.”
And such was Fanny’s dependence on his words, that for five minutes she
thought they _had_ done. Then, however, it all came on again, or
something very like it, and nothing less than Lady Bertram’s rousing
thoroughly up could really close such a conversation. Till that
happened, they continued to talk of Miss Crawford alone, and how she
had attached him, and how delightful nature had made her, and how
excellent she would have been, had she fallen into good hands earlier.
Fanny, now at liberty to speak openly, felt more than justified in
adding to his knowledge of her real character, by some hint of what
share his brother’s state of health might be supposed to have in her
wish for a complete reconciliation. This was not an agreeable
intimation. Nature resisted it for a while. It would have been a vast
deal pleasanter to have had her more disinterested in her attachment;
but his vanity was not of a strength to fight long against reason. He
submitted to believe that Tom’s illness had influenced her, only
reserving for himself this consoling thought, that considering the many
counteractions of opposing habits, she had certainly been _more_
attached to him than could have been expected, and for his sake been
more near doing right. Fanny thought exactly the same; and they were
also quite agreed in their opinion of the lasting effect, the indelible
impression, which such a disappointment must make on his mind. Time
would undoubtedly abate somewhat of his sufferings, but still it was a
sort of thing which he never could get entirely the better of; and as
to his ever meeting with any other woman who could—it was too
impossible to be named but with indignation. Fanny’s friendship was all
that he had to cling to.
CHAPTER XLVIII
Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects
as soon as I can, impatient to restore everybody, not greatly in fault
themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.