Chapter 11

Both Fanny and Henry were now resigned to the upcoming visit of Edmund and Mary, but that did not mean Fanny was not totally out of sorts when the carriage came driving up the lane. Her face drained of colour instantly and her knees buckled. The first meeting was extremely awkward and painful to Fanny, all her regrets came rushing back as she saw the man she had loved all her teenage years for the first time in months, and he was helping another woman out of a carriage.

She stood frozen to the ground, tried to school her expression to neutral, and none to soon, for Henry and her being the only ones waiting outside, Edmund came straight at her and embraced her eagerly: 'My dearest Fanny, how I've missed you!' He had never before touched her so intimately, so closely, with such exultation, she knew not how to handle herself, and was completely overwhelmed.

He continued: 'Let me look at you, my dear, you still look affected by your ordeal, you must have suffered so much. I'm so sorry I never wrote or visited, Fanny, without Crawford you might have just faded away. You know I was totally distraught by...' And he inclined his head to his fair bride-to-be, who was talking to her brother intently, until the latter saw the state Fanny was in and excused himself to rush to her side and support her.

He was just in time, for so much exhuberance from Edmund was more than she could handle. Henry's touch calmed her just enough to hold up under another intense scrutiny by her cousin. Edmund looked at her trembling legs, her desultory expression with true sadness, and held her to his chest again, mumbling softly with intense feeling: 'I'm so very sorry Fanny, I let you down completely, it was so incredibly selfish of me. Can you forgive me?' And he looked at her as if he expected an answer, but there was no way she could speak, held against the man she loved hopelessly, whom she had expected to shake hands with and be done.

When she didn't speak, he gazed at her as if he could see right through her, and he said feelingly: 'I think we need to take a turn in the shrubbery again, like we used to do when one of us had something on his heart. Or have I lost my right to your confidence?'

His eyes promised her he would seek her out, and then he cordially greeted Henry, who was at Fanny's side again from the moment Edmund had released her from his embrace, shaking his hand and saying: 'Crawford, I was thrilled beyond imagination when I heard of your engagement, and Fanny's account of your visit to Everingham was charming and everything we both wanted to hear. But now I'm starting to feel anxious, is everything all right between the two of you?'

Henry looked straight at him and replied frankly: 'Everything is exactly as your cousin and I agreed upon just after I brought her your letter in Portsmouth.' Of course this was not going to reassure Edmund, and he quickly turned back into the rather reserved, upright man Fanny knew and loved with so much intensity.

He said: 'I was nervous meeting you just now, Fanny, I felt I had let you down, nearly losing you to deprivation because I neglected you, put to shame by Crawford who didn't just worry from a distance, but did the right thing straight away. But now I find you not deliriously happy, but fighting tears, even faint. What is going on? I'm going to greet my mother and father, for I suppose they know nothing of this, and then we'll go to the shrubbery and you will tell me. Will you not?'

His plea cut Fanny to the bone, and she finally broke down and cried. Henry now embraced her openly, and said ruefully: 'I guess that is a yes. I'm taking Fanny there now, before your parents can see her, will you join us when you're done here?'

Openly distressed now, Edmund confirmed, and went inside with Miss Crawford, trying to control his face so as not to alarm his parents.

When they reached the shrubbery, Henry sat Fanny down on a bench that was relatively screened from view by a thick laurel hedge. He sat next to her and took her in his arms, letting her cry herself out against his chest, as he had done nearly every day since Fanny had learned the news of Edmund's engagement.

Her sorrow had lessened over the course of the three weeks they had been here, and even more in the near week they had spent in Norfolk, but now it was back in full force. He could do nothing but hold her and let her spill her grief, no longer feeling the optimism that had taken hold of him during the past weeks, as his beloved had come out of her shell slowly, and had started to give him hope of maybe finding love for him somewhere within herself.

That was all gone now.

It wasn't long before Bertram arrived, Mary beside him, both looking worried almost to death. Finding Fanny crying in Henry's arms, and him not looking any brighter, they pushed to know the truth. Was Fanny consumptive, had their inattention doomed her?

Why else would Henry be allowed to hold her without her being happy?

On hearing them arrive, Fanny had checked her crying as she had learned to check a horse, but she could not face them. The shame and the hurt were just too much to bear. With a look, Henry silenced his sister and future brother, and he asked Fanny in a tone coloured by intense feeling: 'Fanny, look up, you have to tell them. Edmund at least has a right to know, he's totally cut up with fear. Do try, please.'

But what could she tell him, how to begin? What would he think? She couldn't speak.

Now Edmund urged Henry: 'Crawford, what is wrong, is she dying, is Fanny in consumption?'

Fanny could see the need to tell them now, but she just couldn't get her voice to work. She looked at Henry in supplication and he said: 'Then I guess it falls to me to tell you.

You remember when I took your letter, Edmund, and I drove to Portsmouth with it, to tell Fanny the good news and check on her health. She was in a pityable state, nervous, weak, incredibly thin, I took her to a little park to read the letter, and she barely dared open it. She managed though, and when she had read maybe three lines she fainted dead away. I carried her to my hotel, nobody should live in her parent's house, but it was certainly no place for a delicate girl who had fallen ill.

A woman belonging to the hotel brought her around, and the first thing Fanny did was ask if it was true that you were engaged to Mary. I confirmed, and she started to cry her eyes out. I decided to forget propriety and comfort her, and after some time she told me the reason for her pityable state: she had been in love with you, Edmund, for all her life, and each day she expected your letter to announce your engagement to another. Having lost every chance at happiness, she grew so despondent, on top of her physical weakness, that I was sure she would not survive a month in Portsmouth, or a year in Mansfield Park. And since all I ever wanted to do was make her happy, I offered her my companionship and all the comfort I could give to soften the blow, and once she was a little better, to ride with her and enjoy nature together, and visit plays and concerts, get to know the world before she decided what to do next.

I knew I could not compete with her memory of your perfection, but I could not love another woman either, and I could not leave her to die. To do the things I promised I did need to be able to see her alone, travel together, so Fanny agreed to enter an engagement with me to obtain leave to be together. We were doing quite well until you showed up.'

Henry was sorry to pain his friend by that last remark, but he lost all his hope seeing the girl he loved back to the state she was in when she had first heard the news, and he could no longer control his intense disappointment.

But that was not going to happen, not if Edmund could help it. He asked his intended: 'Mary, can you please take your brother somewhere quiet and let him tell you about the weeks they have spent together? I need to speak to Fanny, alone.'

As Henry carefully got up and left Fanny sitting on the stone bench, Edmund took his place by his cousin's side, not hesitating to wrap his arms around her as Henry had done. Having done so he did nothing and said nothing, he just held her, and at first she felt a queer thrill to be in the arms of the man she loved most in this world.

But then she became aware of a feeling that something was not quite right, it was just not the same. Edmund now broke the silence and asked: 'Does it feel differently when I hold you, Fanny?'

It was a serious question, and Fanny wanted to give him a serious answer, so she tried to find the reason why something was off. She compared the feel of her head against his chest, which was similar, though Henry was a little smaller, which meant her head rested in exactly the right spot on his chest, right between the most developed part of his arms. And Edmund didn't smell the same, he didn't smell bad, it just wasn't exactly right.

And suddenly she remembered that passionate, almost violent kiss Henry had given her, and the flash of heat it had caused her. She could not imagine Edmund ever doing that, he could never let himself go like that, the idea of Edmund kissing anyone was almost unreal.

'So, what's the verdict,' her cousin asked, 'does it feel the same when I hold you?' Starting to feel really comfortable now in his arms, Fanny relaxed, found her voice willing to do its job, and said, surprisingly dryly: 'No it doesn't. When Henry holds me my head is in just the right place, you're a little too tall, and not as muscular. And he smells nicer, not that you smell bad, but his smell is just right. And when I am in his arms for a while I always remember something that happened on the road: I wanted to thank him for his kindness and I embraced him spontaneously, when he took hold of me quite firmly, buried his face in my hair and smelled it, and then kissed me right here on my throat, passionately, almost violently.

I froze, and he let go and asked forgiveness, and told me I had overwhelmed him, men apparently need to control themselves constantly to keep from being ruled by passion.' 'And do you mind being reminded of that moment of passion? Were you scared?' Edmund asked calmly.

'No I wasn't,' Fanny admitted almost ashamedly, remembering that Edmund was a clergyman. 'I felt curious, as if there was a whole new world somewhere out there, just waiting to be explored. Each time I remember, I secretly want him to do it again, but of course he never does, he is too much a gentleman to do something like that.'

'Do you like Henry better now, Fanny?' Edmund asked, 'you used to quite dislike him, didn't you? When he first offered you his hand?' She had totally fallen back into their habit of quiet exchange of confidence, except that she was in his arms, but that somehow felt right as well, and she replied: 'I do, he is much less annoying, less spirited as he calls it, and he seems to know me better than I do myself, he has gotten me to gallop over the hills, and I enjoyed it very much, going faster and faster each time. He surprised me with a horse of my own, and taught me to jump obstacles. And he has helped me gain weight, reminding me to eat, offering me what I liked, even in the middle of a ride, and he has read to me, walked with me, taught me to talk back to aunt Norris when she is down on me. His estate is well-managed, and his people like him a lot, he is a much better man than I thought.

His spirits have lifted me the last month, and we have both changed a lot, we're different people. He told me Miss Crawford would adapt to you, become more decorous, and that she would lift your spirits, making you happy, exactly like...no he didn't say that. I suppose he just thought it: like he would make me happier. Except that I told him I couldn't love him because I loved you.'

'Of course you love me Fanny, I practically raised you, we shared everything, every secret, well except for one, apparently, and we did everything together,' Edmund said. Fanny retorted: 'Actually, that is not true. Riding with Henry I realised, you never took me anywhere, riding or going out, you never wrote me a letter, and you often left me with my aunts, who bossed me around all day. You set it to rights afterwards, but you never took me with you to prevent them.'

He looked crushed, as if he realised this himself only now: 'You are so right, I never did any of those things, did I? I should have. Not every time, for I was older than you, but I could have taken you to see a view, or to Thornton Lacey, or to a concert, or to London to the theatre. And I never did. It never occurred to me that you might have wanted to, I took you for granted just as much as my mother and aunt did.

I'm sorry Fanny, I was as neglectful as they were, and I never realised it.' But this she protested: 'No you were not as bad as they, you helped me often, and you believed in my intelligence, and taught me how to enjoy reading, you did confide in me and heard my secrets, except that one, or I would not have loved you so well.'

'I will remember our little talk at a later moment, for we are talking of another matter now, but we will get back to doing things together another time. First I want to ask you an important question, which is a bit indecent, so you'll have to forgive me: you have been sitting here with me for quite some time now, you have rested your head against my chest, you have smelled my very personal scent, now, do you want me to hold you tightly and kiss you passionately, almost violently, right there?' pointing at a certain spot on her throat, close to her ear.