Merriment & Wisdom

A Mansfield Park fanfiction

Part Nine:

Further Persuasions, From All Parties

Imagine you are a goose. A goose who has lived, largely, only with ducks and turkeys your entire life. Imagine you have seen – probably – only one other goose in all the years of being alive. Then, one day, you are confronted by another goose, just like yourself, and you realise that – in a single glance – you know each other at once.

Imagine you are dumbfounded, struck at the sight of this other goose, longing for its acceptance simply because you are both the same.

Can you imagine it?

If you can, you will have a good idea of what Fanny Price felt when she first saw Edmund Bertram in the flesh.

Poor Fanny.

Apart from William, she had never encountered another person whose soul seemed to be made of the same stuff as her own. She might have had her suspicions from seeing Tom's drawing, but it is very different in person. It was not that it didn't distress her, Edmund clearly angry with his brother and not desiring him to marry her, but to argue with him then – to leave him with the view that she was wilful and intrusive – she could not have endured. Perhaps, if she had thought – even for a moment – Tom truly suspected her of liking Edmund better than himself, she might have been more reassuring. Alas, she was not like Susan when it came to such things, despite being older, and so could not see it.

But, honestly, the thought never crossed her mind. The danger for that was quite beyond either of them. Had she met Edmund first, before spending much time alone with Tom, she'd have no doubt been lost to Tom forever, her heart given up from the very beginning, but with the reverse having occurred, her heart claimed by the merry brother rather than the serious one, there was no chance – beyond their obvious spiritual connection – of her feeling more than a platonic infatuation for Edmund as far as earthly affections went.

The strength of this infatuation probably had something to do with Fanny being the only member of the Price household who did not react coldly when Edmund came to call on them.

Her father had no respect for a parson – he thought clergymen rather feeble, pathetic things. "I shan't stir from my seat for the likes of 'im!" Mr. Price had hacked out bitterly, and very much within Edmund's mortified hearing. "You can't make me, Frances! Not for that snivelling, pasty-faced parson!"

Mrs. Price might have loved another nephew, but she was not inclined to feel grateful for the arrival of one who – by all accounts – wished to prevent the marriage of her sickly eldest child, a burden which needed to be lifted from all their weary shoulders, when Fanny's betrothed was an heir, and when there had been such fuss and bother about getting her to agree in the first place.

She could be no more than polite to him – a brief kiss on the cheek and a half-hearted offer of tea was about the most she had to give.

The boys did not think he would play with them as Tom had, and so rejected him outright; he was far too sombre and grave for their liking. He seemed as much a schoolmaster in their eyes as a parson. Betsey could tell he had no presents for her concealed about his person, so she avoided him as well. For once, Susan agreed with their mother, and she was as set on snubbing Edmund as she'd once been on snubbing Tom. She did her best to harden her heart to the fact that Fanny's disappointment in her coldness to Edmund was very little concealed, but she refused to cry over it as she had cried over Fanny's reproaching her for Tom's sake. Her elder sister could say what she liked about him being a parson and deserving respect! Anyone who could arrive in so ill a temper as he had, its quietness notwithstanding, with a mind to readily shorten their pleasure walk so that he might scold his brother, deserved to be cut dead, so far as Susan was concerned.

This all distressed Fanny beyond even what little she managed to express. For, despite what he was obviously trying to do and the pain and great embarrassment it would cause her if he succeeded, she loved him as a brother already. So her relief was great when – even as they spoke their agreement with ice in their stares – her parents concluded it would be appropriate enough for Edmund to walk with Fanny down to the dockyard alone. He was a clergyman as well as a cousin, and she was betrothed to his brother – no one sensible could think it improper or accuse Fanny of being indecent.

They walked the length of the narrow street together in amiable silence, before Edmund finally brought himself to speak.

"I imagine you must think very badly of me."

Fanny's mouth parted in surprise. "Indeed not, cousin."

"Tom was right, then, about your good nature, at least."

Her smile was brittle, but it was kindly meant.

"You've known Tom only for a short while, Miss Price–"

"Fanny, please."

"Yes – it is foolish of me to try and be formal now. Fanny. Yes." He cleared his throat. "I have something of a delicate question for you, which I hope you will not be offended by. Is your willingness to marry my brother influenced in any way by your..." He glanced over his shoulder, in the direction of the house they'd left. "Your...lack of financial stability...?"

She shook her head.

"I have a comfortable living, but it is nothing excessive – I cannot give you even perhaps what others – let us not be disrespectful and put names to it – ought to. However, if you will agree to forget Tom, I can see to it that charity is dispensed to your family through the church. You would not be wealthy, but you would not be desolate. You should have money to buy...that is..." – he coloured brightly about the face – "...pigs..."

Why, Fanny wondered, bemused, does he suppose us to be in need of pigs?

"You think me too lowly for your brother to marry," she said, after a moment.

"I think the match ill-suited, yes, but not for the reason of your position in life – it is his that concerns me. In you, Fanny, whatever the world might think, it is becoming quite obvious to me Tom could not have picked a better woman – but you, poor creature, could hardly have chosen a less agreeable man for yourself."

They were coming within sight of the water now, and Edmund looked out with solemnity at the horizon.

"Do you think so little of your own brother?"

"I know he can be charming – I can only imagine the promises he has made to you," sighed Edmund, "and you mustn't think I myself do not have love for him – he is my brother. But you cannot be, in so short a while, familiar with his true nature. Here – happy and believing himself in love – he may be mannerly and amiable to you. At home he is different. Perhaps because he quarrels too much with our father and too little with Mother and our Aunt Norris. The fact of the matter is, Fanny, he is a tyrant."

"Well, I shan't let him tyrannise me," said she, with a warmer smile this time.

"You'll give way, in time," Edmund said, and he sounded very sorrowful in regards to it; "it's plain you're too kind to quarrel with anyone."

With a twinkle in her eye, Fanny chuckled, "Your brother should not rely on it, cousin."

"Do you imagine he will make you happy for always?"

"I'm not so silly as to imagine any such thing," she told him, a little out of breath. "But..." She paused, exhaling heavily and slowing down. "But I imagine I should be more unhappy without him than with him after all."

"Given time, he will disappoint you in all ways but one."

"In what do you count him steadfast?" She couldn't help being curious. What sole part of his brother did Edmund's dissatisfaction not extend to?

"He will never put another woman in your place, not if he's allowed to marry you – Tom will never take a mistress. I would like to think it piety or loyalty, but it may as easily be laziness."

"This much I suspected unaided," Fanny admitted. "If I thought him a philander, nothing should have induced me – however fond of him I may be – to accept him. This is nothing so horrid as a man who sports with a woman's affections and then discards them."

"I agree with you," Edmund said, nodding. "There are few punishments such men do not deserve. And I should be very sorry if my own brother was that sort of man."

"But?" pressed Fanny, perceiving he meant to say more, even at this.

"But he will neglect you – for a short time, you will have all his attention and love, and then, forever after, once that time is ended, you'll find him returned to his old habits." Edmund stopped walking, observing that Fanny was hobbling somewhat. "He will always put his gambling and horses and holidays and his desire to have distance from our father after a spat ahead of your needs. I say, Fanny, have you got a stone in your shoe? Do you need to sit?"

"I'm all right – I believe I have only walked another hole through my left shoe." She lifted her heel and hopped, struggling to readjust it.

"Another?" Edmund's brow lifted. "Had you holes in your shoes already?"

"Yes," said she, simply.

He grimaced in sympathy.

"He does not strike me as so tyrannical as you describe him," Fanny remarked, slowly beginning to walk again.

Edmund did not follow the line of conversation immediately. "I beg your pardon?"

"Tom."

"Oh, he is a benevolent dictator when he's in a good mood – on that much you can depend," Edmund explained. "He even fancies himself lowly from time to time, and will graciously give acquiescence in something trivial so long as it is not a real loss to himself. If there was some treat my sisters quarrelled over as children and for whatever reason it was given to him, it would eventually find its way into their hands – and he believes such behaviour to be the epitome of having a sacrificing spirit. Thinks himself long-suffering for doing something to quiet them."

She could not deny there was something in what Edmund said – she had seen his behaviour to Betsey, after all – excessive giving and vaguely coddling in manner. Only she had thought it more a virtue than otherwise until now.

"But," she concluded, slowly, "you do not see that as being real gallantry on his part?"

"No one, Fanny, who grew up in the same house with him and has ever seen him throw one of his ungodly tantrums could suppose it genuine," sighed Edmund, shaking his head dismally. "He's too used to having his own way. He was praised too much over small matters, and perhaps – regrettably – never enough over his more honest endeavours."

"That was not entirely his own fault, then," Fanny decided. "He might be of a different character if he'd been told he must be the lowest and the last rather than that he was already higher above the salt than his nearest peers."

"I hope, dearest cousin" – he spoke earnestly but not without a touch of sternness – "you don't hold to the belief that a woman will be able to change a man after she has married him? I do not say it doesn't occur sometimes, but in most cases – and I believe especially in Tom's – well..."

"Indeed not," she assured him. "No – I knew I should have to take him as he was – it was – that is – I couldn't have..." She was starting to stammer. She cleared her throat. "Hem. Excuse me." Then, "That is why I took a while in making up my mind to begin with."

"Will you remake it now? For your own good?"

To disappoint Edmund, to even slightly lessen his fine opinion of her, would break her heart, yet she couldn't help it – she shook her head. No. No, she would not – could not – give Tom Bertram up. Not even for Edmund. Not even for William, if he was here and should ask it of her.

"I know how I will suffer." She sucked in her lips and blinked back tears. "But I made up my mind – I'm never going to give him up."

Fanny closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The time might very well come when Tom would lose interest and neglect her – Edmund must know his brother's nature better than she could – but she would simply have to enjoy everything in the meantime; she'd quietly bask in what love he could give her until then.

"You cannot be unaware of his drinking?" Edmund asked next, his tone uncertain. "I don't believe he would have succeeded in keeping his most obvious vice from you – you see too much for that, Fanny."

"Indeed, cousin, I was aware of it," she confessed, wringing her hands. "I've been quiet about it, but I am not blind."

"And it does not distress you?"

"It did..." She had more tears to blink away at this. "And it has... But it does not frighten me unduly. Not any more."

Edmund could not bring himself to ask if her father's manner – which was not a sober one if he judged aright – had anything to do with her early apprehension. Along with not wishing to distress her further, he could not disrespect an uncle so. Not even such a one as Mr. Price. He might be dirty and gross – and, far worse in Edmund's eyes, he had not put a stop to an ill-conceived romance budding largely under his own roof, plainly more concerned with discarding his excess of children speedily so that he might keep drinking uninterrupted rather than protecting any of them – but he was nonetheless Fanny's father.

So, unable to breach the subject further, Edmund moved on to his next concern. "And apart from Tom himself, dear Fanny, have you any notion of the sort of persons who await you at Mansfield Park should you marry into the family?"

She was uncertain how to answer.

"My mother will give you no grief, so long as you do not bother her dog – she dotes on that blasted pug, you see. If you give the bad-tempered thing a wide berth, I do believe she would accept you quickly enough – that is, as long as no one advised her against it. She has never been strong of mind." Edmund put his hands behind his back and his face darkened slightly. "My father and Aunt Norris, I fear... Well, you should know my father and Tom tend to clash. At times it can get...uncivil... Tom has been kept from becoming too heated and showing his true face to our father only by a veneer of respect and a sort of general idea that, most of the time... You see, generally, despite how harsh he can sometimes be, Father has got the right of things and the quarrel is started by some thoughtless mistake of Tom's. In this matter – his courtship with you – Tom thinks himself faultless and may goad our father into an outburst. This will prevent Father from realising one very ironic fact – despite everything, regardless of the low, shady manner in which Tom has gone about sneaking you into the family circle – you seem to be exactly the sort of daughter he wants. You could so easily be dearer to him than Maria or Julia – for he could know your mind as he never knew theirs – but will he see that?"

Fanny's cheeks flushed a brilliant red.

"Nay, cousin, pray do not blush – I do not flatter," said Edmund, quite grave. "No, I don't flatter you – I warn you. You're a good girl, but he may well be blind to your goodness for a long time due to his anger at Tom. I would not wish you to endure such unjust fury directed at your presence."

"As long as he can forgive us in time," Fanny decided, her voice warbling a bit, "I imagine it will be all right – though I'm sorry if our marriage wounds him."

"Ah, but it does not end there – our Aunt Norris has long had it in her head she'd be the one to find Tom a wife. Especially after she succeeded with Maria. She has had Julia's unattached state to divert her and has doubtless convinced herself Tom is only fussy so far as is his right as the heir to Mansfield, but when she hears he's had an underhand marriage to someone she's never met?" He shuddered. "Let alone her own sister's child...?"

"I'm not going to be the most welcome thing in her life, then," concluded Fanny with a grim little nod.

"I do not know how to say what I must say next."

"Please" – Fanny unclasped her hands and touched his arm – "take your time. We needn't hurry."

"Tom won't protect you from her, Fanny," he said at last, the words bursting from him. "Aunt Norris may not be his favourite person – I have seen him running in and out of rooms to avoid her on several occasions, and I cannot blame him for it, even as I find his manners lacking – but she flatters him and she has lavished on him the affection our parents did not always feel ready to bestow unprompted."

"I–"

"She won't be intentionally cruel, I cannot think of it of her – but she will be harsher than our parents, her tongue less restrained, more barbed, and she will wound you in Tom's presence as readily as out of it, and there is a good chance he will not say a word in your defence."

"Yet still," was all Fanny could manage to get out.

"You are firmly resolved to accept him," he sighed. "Would that I could accuse you of being senseless, I might ease my own conscience, say it's on your own heads, but you have not even given me that much."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologise – I'm not cross with you, and I do not blame you for my brother's folly." He patted her hand and took her arm, tucking it under his own. "Yes, now, if we've said nearly all, let us start back. Goodness knows your shoes may not hold together long enough for us to reach your front door."

In sight of the house, Edmund stopped again and, releasing his hold on Fanny, took something from his pocket. "I had hoped this would merely be a gift between friends – between cousins – and now, I fear, if I can do nothing to stop it, though I have not yet given up all hope, it must be a wedding present. Hold out your hand."

Fanny held out her hand as he asked, and he dropped into it something that chinked with a merry tinkle as it fell onto her palm. A simple necklace chain.

"It's for your cross." He gently closed her fingers over it. "You're wont to lose it someday without a good chain; a ribbon is not very secure."

She was overcome by this gesture, her eyes overflowing with gratitude and tears which could no longer be held back. That someone she desired the good opinion of and cared for, inexplicably, almost so well as she did William, should give her such a gift, should understand her so...!

"Do not cry – it's a trifle."

"But it is..." She choked off. "How can I thank you? It was too good of you to think of me – given...oh...given everything... Such kindness is beyond–"

"For goodness sake, if that's all you have to say" – but he was smiling – "I do need to be getting back to the inn, you realise."

Fanny kissed his cheek. "Thank you."

"If you need me, Fanny, you know where to find me." He turned to go and, looking over his shoulder, he added, very sadly, "I regret how much I must have frightened you, with all I've said, but I wouldn't wish what you've chosen on my worst enemy." His eyes shone with pity. "If the situation had been different... If only you'd change your mind! Tom will never accept a no from me – or from anyone else in the family – but I think he would have coped if it had come from you."

"I thank you, cousin – truly." But she would say nothing further – she would give him no hope of her having been persuaded.

Edmund had almost left the narrow street behind him, about to turn in the general direction of the inn, when he heard a voice behind him.

"Don't!"

He stopped, turned, and saw Susan Price standing there. The sun was setting now and it made her look blurry about the edges. She had no bonnet on. Her fair hair was limp, half up and half down and straggly. She appeared, also, out of breath, as though she'd been running as quickly as she was able in order to catch up to him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"Don't split them up," said Susan, taking a bold step towards him. "I know you've been trying to. Fanny was crying just now, when you left her back at the house."

"Poor Fanny has reason to cry – she's made a fatal decision."

"She loves him," cried Susan, agitated. "And he'll take her away from this place! He'll look after her!"

"Tom can't even look after himself."

"D'you think I've suffered knowing we'll lose her, that she's to go away – away to Mansfield – and become Mrs. Bertram, only for you to...to..." Susan's chin trembled. "Who is going to marry her if you make Tom jilt her now? Your brother can find someone else, but what about her?"

"Fanny has the loveliest disposition, and I think any man who could manage to quarrel often with her would be beyond the reach of any sermon I could ever give," said Edmund, in a voice so sincere it probably was the only thing which prevented Susan from despising him wholly in that moment. "She should have no trouble finding an agreeable husband if she can be made to give Tom up."

"A disposition is not a dowry!" Susan snapped, kicking a loose stone in the road. "You don't live here, so you don't get it – she's ill and poor and I'm telling you no one in Portsmouth will have her."

"Does Fanny know you're here?" Edmund asked, peering over Susan's shoulder, glancing down the narrow (now rather shadowed) street.

"No." Her expression grew wretched. "She'd only think I was being rude to you – it'd make her even more cross than she is already."

"If she's cross with you, it cannot be without some right – you should go home."

"One of my sisters is already dead, sir," said Susan, gulping hard. "Mary is gone. She was so small when she died, taller than Betsey, but much thinner. She left me a silver knife. It's all I have of left of her.

"If I'm awful to you, it's only because I don't want to see Fanny gone as well. I would lose her willingly, a hundred times over, to a better life – watch her leave this place looking like a princess who's never known any of us – than see her suffer and weaken and fall sick over a broken heart."

Edmund was pale, stricken with pity and fear of his own, deeply pained by this cousin's obvious misery. "Do you think it very likely?"

"Why else would I run after you and scold you in the middle of the street?" She tossed her hands up in frustration. "You can't think I like it! That I want to make a hobby of chasing down parsons and making a spectacle of myself! I'd rather never speak to you, thinking of you as I do, than...than..." she began to sputter. "Than to..."

He took a step nearer to her, taking one of her violently shaking hands in his own. "Susan, I confess I don't know... I came here thinking... That is... I still feel the marriage can never be a happy one, and I can only imagine how my family will react. But I have no wish to cause your sister's suffering."

"Good," she said, pulling away and stepping back, though she kept her eyes on his face unrelentingly. "Don't, then. Just don't do it. Don't, and all can be well."

A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.