by Lona Manning
* * * * * *
After dinner, peace and calm descended upon the Price household as all of its male members were abroad, and Fanny sat sewing with her mother and Susan, helping to get William’s shirts and linen ready. Although Fanny had not been amongst her family for many years, she was not an object of curiosity or solicitude for her mother, a fact that both surprised and grieved her but to which she could do nothing but resign herself. Mrs. Price had no questions for her long-absent daughter even about the doings of her sister Bertram. Only Susan showed some curiosity about life at Mansfield Park, and how Fanny’s life there differed from the family she had left behind. She asked Fanny about the kitchens at Mansfield and “were they not prodigious big”? and Fanny could hardly reply, having scarcely ever been in them, and Susan silently wondered how her sister could have attained the age of eighteen without knowing how to make an oyster stew or even boil an egg. She supposed that her sister, though a grown woman, must have to sit and wait helplessly for someone to come along and feed her, a circumstance she could hardly comprehend or respect.
By Susan’s questions, however, Fanny understood that Susan saw that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. This accounted for her impatience with her mother, her angry remonstrance of her brothers. That a girl of fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err in the method of reform, was not wonderful; and Fanny soon became more disposed to admire the natural light of the mind which could so early distinguish justly, than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it led.
In the late afternoon, Mr. Crawford came to fetch her and was invited to join the family for tea, and she was grateful for the tranquility and good humour with which he took his seat and waited, without appearing to wait, for tea which in all probability might not come until darkness fell. He made himself very agreeable to the three Price boys as they came rattling in, and even took little Betsey up on his lap to admire her.
As Fanny now sat looking at Betsey, she could not but think particularly of another sister, a very pretty little girl, whom she had left there when she went into Northamptonshire, who had died a few years afterwards. There had been something remarkably amiable about her. While considering her with these ideas, she saw that Betsey 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.
It was a silver knife. Up jumped Susan, claiming it as her own, and trying to get it away; but the child hopped off of Mr. Crawford’s lap and 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. 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.”
Fanny was quite surprised at Susan’s disrespect to their mother and her mother’s partial and ill-judging answer.
“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!”
Without a word, Henry Crawford reached into his pocket, extracted his watch and fob, and removed from its chain, a very elegant little mother-of-pearl-handled knife which he promptly and with ceremony, presented to Betsey, who snatched at it with cries of joy. Susan, now confirmed in the undisputed ownership of Mary’s knife, thanked him warmly, and Fanny envied the decisiveness of a character which so quickly saw a solution to the dilemma and acted upon it.
Acknowledging her smile of thanks, Crawford reflected to himself that there were some young ladies in the world who were pleased by other things than idle flattery.
On the following day, the Crawfords, man and wife, called one last time at the Price’s door, but only to bid them adieu. The entire household lined up outside the front door to watch as Mr. Crawford assisted Fanny into the carriage and tucked a travelling robe carefully around her. At the last moment, Mrs. Price held up her hand, signaling them to wait, ran inside, and in a few moments she returned with a little package. “William left this for me to give to you, Fanny, and he should have been very put out if I had forgotten!” Fanny opened the package and found a little amber cross that William had bought for her while in Sicily, and Fanny looked at it affectionately, then looked up at Mr. Crawford, who silently mouthed the words “one… two…three….” and she knew he was counting off the time before her tears would start to flow, so she smiled, and checked herself.
No sooner had the carriage pulled out of sight when Mrs. Price exclaimed, “Bless me, I forgot to give Fanny those letters for her! I found them and put them away most carefully in my wardrobe so no one could lose them again. Still, I don’t suppose it signifies any more. She is no longer our Fanny, but Mrs. Crawford now.”
Shilling! Betsey exclaimed to herself.
* * * * * *
“Now, Mrs. Crawford, what do you think? We will stop off in London and get your wedding clothes made up and your portrait taken, shall we? Then heigh ho, for Norfolk and the peace and quiet of the countryside! For you, that is.”
Fanny’s eyes widened with alarm. “But—London—my cousins—Maria!”
“Never fear, Mrs. Crawford,” he said, leaning forward as though to impart a great confidence. “London is a great place, and we need not worry about encountering them.”
“Still—are there not mantua-makers and portrait-takers to be found in Norfolk? In fact,” she added, thinking she could appeal to frugality if nothing else, “isn’t everything twice as dear in London?”
“By heaven, that’s so,” agreed Henry. “But, you see, if it was put about that Mrs. Crawford had not had her wedding clothes made in London, then all my acquaintance would wonder what sort of wife I had married. Any woman taking the name of Mrs. Henry Crawford would expect nothing less—and in addition, new livery for the servants and a carriage for herself.”
Fanny knew not how to dispute with this line of reasoning, so she fell silent, resolving to let as little money as possible pass through Mr. Crawford’s fingers on her account, and trembling at the thought that by some accident, she might spy Edmund or his sisters coming out of a shop. What could she say? How would they look? How could Maria greet her as ‘Mrs. Crawford’? It was past imagining.
Henry Crawford was in the highest spirits as the carriage sped along, loudly singing,
A North Country maid up to London has strayed
Although with her nature it did—not –agree.
So she wept and she sighed and bitterly she cried,
“Oh, I wish once again in the north I could be.”
For the oak and the ash and the bonny ivy tree
They all grow green in the North Country.
“By the bye,” he added presently. “Would forty pounds be suitable for you? Could you manage on that sum?”
“To—to pay for the servants, and the victuals in Everingham? And what about candles and, and—”
“No, you little ninny. For your pin money. Your new bonnets and your gaming stakes and your trinkets.”
“Oh! More than amply, I’m sure. I don’t spend twenty pounds in a year, so I wouldn’t know how to spend forty.”
“A year!” More roars of laughter. “You will have forty pounds every quarter, my frugal little bride. Be as miserly as you like with it, but don’t expect any more than forty.”
Fanny was stupefied at the thought of commanding such sums. She knew that
Christopher Jackson was paid thirty pounds a year by Sir Thomas, and according to Aunt Norris, was very generously paid indeed. And she would have more than five times that amount to spend on bonnets and trinkets? She sat quietly, looking out the window, thinking of her family and the poor and needy of Mr. Crawford’s estate, and how materially she would be able to help them, and thus fortified, was able to travel to London as the acknowledged wife of Mr. Henry Crawford without resorting to much use of her handkerchief.
Chapter Nineteen
Mary Crawford had pressed for an early marriage, arguing that her fortune made caution and delay unnecessary. Living as she had been, as a guest of her friends and her sister, she had saved the greater part of her yearly income, and she proposed to use those funds to pay for some alterations, which Henry called ‘absolutely essential,’ to be done at Thornton Lacey. The farmyard was to be cleared away and re-located, and trees planted to shield the house from the blacksmith’s shop; the principal rooms would all be altered to face the east, a new portico would be built on the east side, and finally a new garden would be planted behind the house. Edmund Bertram had left London, at Mary’s bidding, to go to Thornton Lacey to direct the commencement of the work, and knowing that she had a horror of living among half-finished alterations, mud and disorder, he was happy to acquiesce.
Thus confident the two cousins would not meet before she was Edmund’s wife, Mary Crawford called on Fanny at her hotel.
“Fanny, Henry tells me you refused him when he wanted to give you a gift of some jewelry,” she began. “And I am sure your disinterestedness does you great credit, but how shall you wear your brother’s amber cross without a chain?” And as she spoke she was undoing a small parcel. Fanny acknowledged she had no means of wearing the cross, except for a simple ribbon, and she was answered by having a small trinket-box placed before her, and being requested to choose from amongst several gold chains and necklaces. In the kindest manner Mary now urged Fanny's taking one for the cross and to keep for her sake, saying everything she could think of to obviate the scruples which were making Fanny start back at first with a look of horror at the proposal.
“You see what a collection I have,” said she; “more by half than I ever use or think of. I do not offer them as new. I offer nothing but an old necklace. You must forgive the liberty, and oblige me.”
Fanny found herself obliged to yield, that she might not be accused of pride or indifference, or some other littleness; and having with modest reluctance given her consent, proceeded to make the selection. She looked and looked, longing to know which might be least valuable, until Miss Crawford felt she could wrap her hands around Fanny’s little neck and shake her head until it wobbled off. She exclaimed with some irritation, “For the love of heaven, Fanny Price, will you force me to attend on you all morning while you make a parade of your humility? Why must your modesty take such a tiresome form and be such an imposition on others?”
Blushing with shame, Fanny quickly chose a necklace more frequently placed before her eyes by Miss Crawford than the rest. It was of gold, prettily worked; and though Fanny would have preferred a longer and plainer chain also laid before her, she hoped, in fixing on this, to be choosing what Miss Crawford least wished to keep. Miss Crawford smiled her perfect approbation; and hastened to complete the gift by putting the necklace round her, and making her see how well it looked. Fanny had not a word to say against its becomingness. She would rather, perhaps, have been obliged to some other person.
Mary was preparing to depart when she suddenly recollected another matter: “Oh, Fanny! I was coming out of a shop on Jermyn Street and there, on the pavement, was none other than the Baron von Wildenhaim himself—Mr. Yates, that is. He has heard the news of your marriage and asked me, rather impertinently I thought, when you and Henry might receive him at Everingham?”
“Oh Miss Crawford, must I entertain guests at Everingham?” cried Fanny anxiously.
Mary shrugged. “Depend on it, my dear, you will receive many enquiries of this sort. I have heard it said of Mr. Yates, particularly, that once he has arrived at your home, he will ignore all your hints that it is time for him to depart.”
Fanny began to pace up and down, wringing her hands. “Miss Crawford, I do not think I can do this. I cannot impose this lie on the entire world. I had thought I would be left alone at Everingham.”
“There, there,” Mary soothed her. “They are unlikely to travel all the way to the wilds of Norfolk without your invitation. Do you have some writing paper? Allow me to dictate a letter to you. With some slight variations, you can send this reply to all enquiries.”
Fanny sat down at the desk and wrote as Mary dictated:
Dear Sir:
Many thanks for your kind remembrances of the pleasant times we spent together at Mansfield Park.
It would be my pleasure to welcome old friends to Everingham, but, as my husband will be called away on business shortly after my arrival there, and my new obligations and duties will necessarily occupy my time, I must regretfully await a future day when he and I, together, can welcome guests to our home.
I am, obliged, etc.
F. Crawford
“There. No one will fail to understand your sentiments and yet it is polite enough, I think, for the likes of Mr. Yates. I will give this to him for you—we meet tomorrow afternoon at Lady Delingpole’s reception. Do not make yourself uneasy any more, Fanny. As you see, I will do everything in my power to assist you.”
Fanny entreated, and Henry Crawford assented, that their sojourn in London be as quiet as possible—that she not be introduced to any of his acquaintance, nor go to any public places. Thus, although this was her first visit to the great city, Fanny denied herself the pleasures of the theatre, or parks or even the book shops. In the evening she rested in the room Crawford had engaged for her, and the five days they spent there were largely taken up with the business of ordering new clothes, shoes, headdresses and bonnets and having her portrait taken, all of which was tiring enough.
The mantua-makers of the great London warehouses were not kind in their appraisal of Mrs. Henry Crawford, and did not scruple to express their surprise that Mr. Crawford, well-known about the town, should have settled on such a demure little bride. If Mr. Crawford and his bride had made a love match, how to interpret the smiles, the glances between Mr. Crawford and his wife’s lady’s maid? And the seamstresses were not called upon to disguise a growing thickness at the waist, as sometimes did occur in their profession, so that could not explain this strange marriage.
Mrs. Crawford was at best, only tolerable-looking, with only youth and gentleness of manner to recommend her. If she was of noble birth, why did she speak of visiting a younger brother who toiled as a clerk in Wapping, and if she was an heiress, why was she not dressed as one?
Still, the groom was undeniably a charming gentleman, and one with a good eye for lace and muslin and silk. His daring taste was wasted on Mrs. Crawford, however, who blushed as red as a beet root at some of the sheer night gowns he laughingly held up for her approval.
The mantua-makers did conclude that pink was her best colour, she looked dreadful in mustard—although it was the fashionable colour that year—and she was in fact correct that simplicity and modesty suited her best. She had little in the way of embonpoint to show off, but her décolletage could be cut to emphasize her delicate collarbones, and her neck and arms were not contemptible. The high-waisted gowns of the day were made for slender frames, such as hers, but she lacked the height, the assurance, the carriage, which would mark her out as a leader of fashion.
* * * * * *
Lady Bertram was reclining in her usual place when Sir Thomas entered with a letter and a small parcel in his hand. “This has just arrived, my dear, from Mr. Crawford in London. He may have some intelligence of our little Fanny.”
Lady Bertram sat up and pushed her sleeping pug to one end of the sofa with an alacrity which startled Sir Thomas no less than the animal, and invited her husb
and to sit. They read the following:
My dear Sir, the letter began,
I trust that this letter finds you and all your family well. I know that you, and especially Lady Bertram, have been very solicitous on our account, so may I assure you that my sister and I are both well, and that we were fortunate, for the most part, in the weather and the roads during our travels in search of your niece. But I will sport with your patience no longer—I take the greatest satisfaction in informing you that she has been located and she is well.
We discovered your niece toiling as a governess for a respectable family near Bristol. I should assure you that she had not revealed herself to be a relative of Sir Thomas Bertram. My sister and I likewise, wishing to spare you and your Lady any indignity, did not mention the name of ‘Bertram’ to her employers.
Upon our private representations to Miss Price of the distress of your family since her departure from your midst, she agreed to quit her post. Her employers were saddened to part with her, but as she had, one month previously, devotedly nursed their two little children through a grave episode of illness, she had thereby secured their affection and gratitude to the highest degree. They kindly consented for her to depart without the customary notice given in these circumstances.
To continue, I naturally had occasion to hold many conferences with your niece, first at the home of her erstwhile employers and later as we retraced our path to Northamptonshire. I was well aware of your niece’s maidenly modesty and gentleness when I first made her acquaintance, but I soon became sensible as never before of her sweetness of temper—qualities which any judicious man desires to have in a wife. Impelled by the strongest feelings of love and respect, I declared myself to her and am humbled to relate that Miss Price consented to make me the happiest of men. We therefore diverted my carriage north to Gretna Green, and were there confirmed as husband and wife.
