by Lona Manning
“Yes, your letter which I found in that den of disorder which my poor sister Price calls her home. Before I left, you may be sure that I saw everything scrubbed and scoured and set to rights, from cellar to garret. I found some letters in the attic, including some letters to Fanny, one from my sister Bertram, and one from you, Mary,” she nodded to Mary.
“Ah, I think I recall the letter you speak of. We thought Fanny had decamped to Portsmouth but she had in fact, deceived everyone on that point. I had written a few lines to her at Portsmouth. What became of that letter, ma’am?” asked Mary, in indifferent tones.
“Why, as the seal was broken, I read it myself and I must congratulate you, Mary, on your perception. You saw through Fanny’s machinations, as no one else has.”
“Oh, please say nothing of it, ma’am. Will you have some more ragout?”
“No, there is no need to be modest, my dear Mary. I will speak of it.” It was clear that their guest had been anxious to unfold this topic, and had only waited until they were all seated at dinner to bring it forward. Turning to Edmund, Mrs. Norris added eagerly, “Fanny had written you a letter upon quitting the house, had she not? A very sly, insinuating letter, I gather, isn’t that so?”
Before Edmund could reply in the negative, Mrs. Norris went on. “Well, your future wife understood that this so-called farewell letter was actually a disguised invitation to an assignation. Moreover, Mary quite rightly shamed Fanny for her lack of gratitude to your father and us all. It is all there in Mary’s letter. Here,” and to Mary’s horror, she pulled a much-crumpled note out of her pocket and handed it to Edmund, who took it gravely.
“This is my wife’s private correspondence with my cousin?”
“Oh, that doesn’t signify—I was reading it quite unawares, I do assure you, before I saw who it was from. But do read it, and congratulate yourself that your future wife warned Fanny off in no uncertain terms. Didn’t I always say that Fanny was always trying to put herself forward? And of course,” Mrs. Norris nodded at Mary, “you preserved Edmund from her designs but then your own brother was ensnared. I believe that she would marry any man of means who would have her, you know.”
Increasingly perplexed, Edmund was preparing to hand the letter, unread, to his wife, when he beheld her expression. He paused, and gently asked, “Is there any reason, my dear, why you would wish me to not read this letter?”
Mary coloured, “I believe, Edmund, that you and I, for some time, have not shared quite the same opinion about Fanny, so my letter may cause you some pain. On that account, I ask you to return it to me, as many events have occurred since then, and none of us are the persons that we were last autumn, when that little note was written. I can barely recall what it said, at any rate.” Edmund held it out to her, feeling it only right, and Mary, with every show of casual indifference, was about to take it, when Mrs. Norris, leaning forward, snatched it back.
“Then allow me to read it to you now, Mary! You were so correct in what you said!”
“Pray do not trouble yourself, ma’am. Please, allow me to help you to some roast vegetables.”
“Hmmm….. hmmmm. Here: ‘Edmund has shown me the letter you left for him upon your departure from Mansfield, Fanny, and as a friend—"
“A letter from Fanny to me—that I showed to you, Mary?” said Edmund slowly and quietly.
Mrs. Norris ignored the interruption, exulting that Fanny’s character was exposed at last: “Let’s see. ah, yes: ‘I write to you candidly as a friend and, soon to be a relation of yours, for Edmund has chosen me as his future partner, in despite of your efforts to blacken my character to him, as your letter so clearly evidences. Your arrogance in presuming to give advice to Edmund on the question of whom he ought to marry is of a piece with your mistaken notions of your place in the family.’ Too true, Mary, didn’t I always say so, she was forever imagining that she was the same as dear Maria or dear Julia. Well. I wish she had received your letter, Mary, and profited by it.”
And so on and on spoke Mrs. Norris, who did not perceive, by Edmund’s grave silence and Mary’s lowered eyes, that a dangerous and silent conversation was unravelling between her host and hostess.
“This would be a letter which Fanny left for me in... the East Room, where you, Mary, were so good as to go in search of her, after we had first discovered her to be missing?” Edmund could not resist asking, as he endeavoured to keep his voice as level as possible.
Mary looked back at him defiantly. “If there is any point of confusion about those events which occurred so many months ago, I can assure you that whatever I did, was done for the best. Now, I pray, both of you will excuse me. I find I have a violent headache.”
Mary did not ordinarily flee the field of battle, but she wanted to speak to Edmund privately, without having to contradict herself in front of Mrs. Norris. You knew this must come to light sooner or later, she reminded herself, and, you are now married. There is nothing he can do.
Edmund remained at the table, unmoving, as his aunt exulted in the fact that in Mary, she had found another person who saw through Fanny Price’s machinations. When she finally rose from the table, he asked her if she could entertain herself for the rest of the evening, as he wished to go for a long walk. “And I find that I must return to Thornton Lacey early in the morning, Aunt Norris. I should be very much obliged if you could remain here, and keep Mary company for so long as she stays in London? I should dislike to leave her with no companion.”
Mrs. Norris had never been backward about proposing herself as a guest in the homes of others, and she in fact had had it at her tongue’s end to suggest the same; she happily assented, and settled herself down in the parlour with her needlework. She heard Edmund slowly walk down the front steps, and she congratulated herself on being back in the bosom of her family, and being as useful and necessary to them all as she had always been.
It was unseasonably cold, and raining steadily the following morning when Edmund left Wimpole Street soon after the dawn, and before anyone else in the household had stirred. Edmund was grateful for the rain and the solitude of his own little carriage. He needed time to be alone with his thoughts, on this, the greyest morning of his life. He was most grievously convinced that he had never understood his wife before, and that, as far as related to mind, it had been a creature of his own imagination, not a real woman, with whom he had fallen in love and married. He had often praised the sweetness of her disposition and the openness of her temper. These, along with the superior endowments of her mind, were what had beguiled him into loving her. Now he discovered that rather than possessing those advantages, he would be obliged to put up with exactly the reverse for the rest of his life. He had already discovered her to be short-tempered and impulsive; but worse, she was deceitful.
There could be no mitigation, no palliation to explain the letter which last night, he had examined with his own eyes, again and again. His wife’s handwriting, speaking of a letter from Fanny to him—a letter that she claimed he had shown to her, a letter they had discussed together—how often had he lamented to her, how often had he spoken of his regret that Fanny had left him no note! How often had she comforted and distracted him! How often had he consoled himself that, whatever else, in Mary he had a loving and sympathetic companion. It was all falsehood, all lies.
And then, unbidden, he began to think of everything that could be said to extenuate, to excuse, to explain, his wife’s conduct. Jealousy, it appeared, had impelled her to the course she took. Her apparent love for him, her choice of him as her husband, she who had been sought by so many, and further, the more than unfortunate childhood she had endured, the polluting influence of her friends—did not all of this urge him to seek a reconciliation? To understand and to forgive?
But, her carelessness for the safety of Maria this past spring, her indifference when Maria was abandoned by her brother, her willingness to say anything false about his cousin Fanny, the ease with which she lied to him to secure her own ends, all
of this spoke to severe faults of principle, of blunted delicacy and a corrupted, vitiated mind.
He began to catalogue all the ways that the Crawfords, between them, had deceived and hurt his family. The list of their crimes grew and multiplied in his mind—the destruction of Maria, the injury to Julia, the calumnies directed toward Fanny.
And after thoroughly canvassing the character of his wife and her brother, he began to examine himself and he could nearly despair. He castigated himself for his own folly, and as he revolved the events of the last half-year, he reviled his own blindness and complacency in believing everything Mary had told him about Fanny’s coldness toward him. He wished to write to Fanny, but even more ardently, wished to see her in person.
Then, with growing self-condemnation, he asked himself if he had been as blind as regards Fanny as he had been toward Mary, assuming Fanny’s complaisance and agreement with him on all points, including his regard for Mary Crawford. What silent wounds had he inflicted on Fanny, when praising Mary Crawford to her face? Supposing that she indeed held him in tender esteem, as Mary evidently believed, how painful must it have been when he, without her leave, forced her to be his confidante as he discussed his growing love for Mary, along with his doubts as to her character, and thus forced her to witness as his attraction to Mary triumphed over his scruples?
He recalled their final private conversation when he had in fact compelled her to agree with him in his decision to take the part of Anhalt, to spare Mary from the indelicacy of playing love scenes with a stranger in Lovers' Vows! Perhaps Fanny knew, but could not suggest to him, that Mary was far from fastidious as to points of delicacy and modesty. Perhaps her sudden departure—
He could only hope that this suggestion, that Fanny loved him as more than a cousin, was an invention of Mary’s jealous mind. His love for Fanny had always been as a devoted brother, for they were, so far as he was concerned, as close as brother and sister, though merely cousins. Now, he could never atone for the pain he had unconsciously caused her, nor, as a married man, ever return that devotion which might have been his for the asking. They were both married to others now—out of delicacy, he could not pursue the supposition.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Fanny was learning that the objects of our benevolence do not always conform to our conception of them. She had supposed that she and Susan would spend hours studying books together, as she and Edmund had done, but discovered that Susan was no reader; she preferred to learn by watching and doing, and declared that she did not aspire to be a fine “useless” lady, but wanted to learn how to manage a household. She petitioned to be allowed to follow the housekeeper, and to help in the kitchen, and learn how to cook, instead of being cooped up in the library poring over The Theory of Moral Sentiments. The cook and kitchen maids at first regarded her as a spy and a sneak, and indeed, as she had grown up in her mother’s house, Susan had no other conception of servants but as persons to be watched and reported on, but when the servants saw that she truly wished to understand the doings of a great house, they were happy to relieve themselves of the tedious chores, such as beating egg whites, in favour of the eager apprentice.
Fanny then engaged a music master to teach them both the pianoforte, and she and Susan practised companionably together for a time, until Susan grew weary of the monotony of playing scales, and gave up the enterprise. Nor was Susan of a contemplative character; although she loved the freedom of the outdoors, she would rather run through the shrubbery, than walk sedately while exchanging quotations from favourite poets in praise of the sublimity of Nature.
Susan earnestly desired to learn horse-riding, but Fanny had qualms—she feared the horses in Mr. Crawford’s stables were too high-spirited. The coachmen and stable-grooms undertook to let the ladies take turns on the oldest and most docile mare on the estate whilst they escorted them about in the paddocks. Fanny would not permit anything more daring, out of her sense of responsibility for Mr. Crawford’s possessions, as well as her anxious fears for her sister.
To have someone to talk to, to sit down to meals with, and have by her side when she ventured about the neighbourhood, was inestimably precious to Fanny. She was forced to exert herself daily for Susan’s sake and not brood over the news of Edmund's marriage. In fact, Fanny had never been in such good health, or looks, as during that summer in Norfolk. She was, for the first time in her life, in command of her own time, mistress of her own affairs and household, and these new freedoms and responsibilities engrossed her entirely.
Fanny and Susan were at breakfast one morning in late August when they opened a letter from Mrs. Butters with no sensation other than happiness and curiosity, but how swiftly did an ordinary day, with its little projects, plans and pleasures, turn into a day whose terrors and fears they would long recall. Mrs. Butters had sent a note reading:
Alarming news, my dear Mrs. Crawford. My home is open to you if you wish to travel hither. We await further bulletins. She had copied out a small notice from the Times of London of 23rd August:
Yesterday Captain Columbine arrived at the Admiralty with dispatches announcing the surrender of Senegal to his Majesty’s arms. Captain Columbine commanded the Solebay frigate, which, we regret to state, has been lost on the coast of Africa, but in what way we do not know.
Fanny endeavoured to keep her composure for the sake of her younger sister, but her anxiety was severe, and with one accord, they both left the table to walk in the garden and exclaim over the letter, trying, if it were possible, by reading it again and again, to find some detail which would allay their anxiety. “We see that Captain Columbine is alive—why should not our own dear William have survived likewise?” asked Fanny, her voice trembling.
“This report is two days old—by now, more will be known,” offered Susan. “Fanny, could we not go to London, and then to Portsmouth? Oh, I want to be home if something has happened!”
“But how shall we travel to London?” asked Fanny, forgetting that as a married woman she could travel without a chaperone; indeed, she could be a chaperone for Susan. Susan’s perplexed look reminded her that she had the independence, the servants, and the means to travel anywhere in Great Britain.
“Yes, of course—we will hire a post chaise! Let us be off immediately! Change into your travelling clothes, Susan, and send for a maid to pack our trunks. I will inform the housekeeper.”
The agitated pair were at the front door with their luggage not long after the coachman drove round. Mr. Maddison, with feelings known only to himself, handed them in, whilst assuring Fanny that the affairs of Everingham would be managed scrupulously in her absence. She had hardly time or sense to make an intelligible reply—Fanny and Susan left Everingham behind, determined to reach Mrs. Butters’ home in Stoke Newington as soon as possible. In Thetford they bid farewell to the old coachman and, attended by one manservant, engaged a post chaise, whose postilions obligingly hurried the horses along as swiftly as Fanny’s nerves could bear.
Fanny had her younger sister’s spirits to support—but oh! Susan could not know of the remorse that tore at Fanny’s heart, which she dare not share with a living soul. For she felt that she, Fanny Price, had been the one who placed her brother on the deck of the ageing frigate; it was done by her agency, her intervention—had she not challenged Henry Crawford to help her brother, he might still be alive and well, a midshipman in Gibraltar rather than, as her fears betokened, lost beneath the deep, his last thoughts, as the waves closed over his head for the final time, of home and the ones who loved him so dearly! She felt dreadful anxiety for William Gibson, and sorrow for the prospect of his loss, but it was the thought that by creating Lieutenant William Price she had also destroyed him, which brought tears to her eyes, despite her best endeavours at self-control. She had yielded to the temptation of trying to extract a benefit out of deceit and prevarication—what if she had, in fact, brought about her own brother’s death? Could the judgments of Heaven be so swift, so cruel? Was her brother to be punished for
her wrongdoing?
* * * * * *
Edmund Bertram warily climbed the stairs to the townhouse on Wimpole Street. Some other men might have brought flowers or even jewels to a reunion with an unhappy wife, but Edmund Bertram could never be brought to regard women as a species of irrational creatures whose affections could be bought with trinkets. He had thought his own wife in particular was above the petty female vices of jealousy and vanity and, while possessed of acute sensibilities, was also a creature of reason. He had written to her from Thornton Lacey, announcing his return to London after preaching his usual Sunday sermon, and expressed the hope that they might reconcile. The butler welcomed him gravely; his Aunt Norris, still tenaciously in residence, ordered tea for him, but no wife appeared, and upon his enquiry, he learned that Mary was visiting her friend Lady Stornoway in Richmond. He was embarrassed to be exposed in this fashion—he said, clumsily, “Ah yes, she had written to me of the invitation but I must have misremembered the date.”
“As you men so often do,” returned his aunt, “I made it a rule with my late husband to inform him of everything at least three times, so I could be certain he would recall it.”
“A wise precaution, aunt, and no doubt he was grateful for it.”
“Your brother Tom is in town, I believe,” his aunt replied, unperturbed, as she retook her seat and resumed her sewing. “I wonder he does not stay here with us, we have bedchambers enough and I have seen that everything has been scrubbed and aired out and put in order. Your wife has engaged this house until the New Year, I suppose you know—and I do not wonder at it, for we are so well situated! The offices are too small, and the bedchambers are oppressively warm in the evening, but taken all in all, we are fortunate to have this for our family home in London.”
Edmund was going to raise his eyebrow at his aunt’s use of “we” and “our,” but, as he had invited her to stay, he had only himself to blame.
