Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Thirty-Five:
Rainstorms & Fevers, Such As They Are
Sophie was in favour of having Mr. Bertram removed to Mansfield Park at once, now that they knew who he was. Her vague desire to keep him near out of tenderness of feeling, a want to nurse him back to health herself if it were only permitted, was entirely overruled by his pleading eyes and the way his delirious murmurs begged for home. He cried a great deal for an Edmund, who she quickly realised was his brother, mentioned (though with far less intensity of affection) once or twice back in Weymouth as well, and she was impelled to ease his suffering by granting the longing of his heart.
The physician, however, reprimanded her, chastised her until her small nostrils were flared and her cheeks were gone quite crimson. Was she given over to madness? Could even so very ignorant a serving-maid – who plainly could not attend to the invalid without some manner of near impossible-to-overlook blunder – truly suppose a man in such a condition as his patient was fit to be moved?
"Unless, miss, you wish to kill him," growled the physician, finally, "he shall stay precisely where he is!"
This failed, however, to keep Sophie from attempting some other means of getting Tom Bertram what he asked for – if she could not bring him home, she was determined that she would bring someone from his home to him.
His wife was impossible, for she imagined Mrs. Bertram too grand a lady for herself to get an audience with, and surely – even if she could direct an unsolicited letter to Mansfield Park addressed simply to the wife of Tom Bertram – the missive would be tossed aside by servants who did not put up with time-wasters before ever it reached her. If her current master's daughter or sister was given a letter with an unknown recipient, it would be burned – she imagined much the same was the general policy at Mansfield, too.
But if Edmund was only a parson, and likely – Mr. Bertram spoke in his sleep of the parsonage at Thornton Lacey – not even at Mansfield Park at the moment, that might be all right. Sophie knew something about younger brothers; they rarely were so grand as the heir. She might no sooner speak to the future Lady Bertram than to a goddess, but a parson? Surely a reformed sinner could speak to an ordinary clergyman. Nobody would object to such a regular manner of thing.
Besides, it was Edmund Mr. Bertram asked for by name. His wishes couldn't be more clear to her, nor what she must do more plain in her mind.
Of course, when paper was not to be had for a missive – there was a domestic disagreement, which turned into a scuffle below stairs and its end, while leaving the other serving-maid, the one who began the confrontation, with an unexpected and brilliant black eye, also deprived Sophie of her always limited supply of parchment and ink – stealing (borrowing, really, she told herself) the physician's barouche and driving to Thornton Lacey on her own – at the onset of evening – probably wasn't the wisest course of action she'd ever taken in her life.
And it would get dark frightfully early – black as pitch not one hour en route to Northamptonshire – and rain as if it would never end.
It became, by the third hour, a thunderstorm unlike any Sophie had ever experienced in her properly recalled life. She did have some dim, early-childhood memory of being small enough to still suck her thumb and having a tousled head of pale, sparse, rather wiry curls and crying as a tree branch struck a window – in her parents' home? – blown about by just such a storm, but nothing more recent to remind her all would be well. Indeed, she was soon convinced it would be nothing of the sort. Bending her torso at an awkward angle, she was uselessly attempting to bail water from the back of the barouche with her bare, failed hands. All the while, she kept ploughing on ahead, unwilling to stop and unable to find a good place to do so even if she wished to. It was a wonder she did not upset herself and end up lost in a ditch. The physician's horse was luckily not so easily spooked as Sophie herself – whoever had broken the creature had taught it to ignore, as much as could be reasonably expected in an animal, lightning and thunder. He was such a well-behaved horse, Sophie allowed herself, for a fleeting second, to feel very badly for the physician's driver, to whom she had given the slip – if he owned the horse, or at least had had some responsibility in training it, he might be worrying about his poor pet right now.
By the time Sophie was as near to the parsonage at Thornton Lacey as the horse and (honestly, now rather weather-beaten) barouche would take her, she went on foot through an inordinate quantity of mud the rest of the way. She might have described several inches of her own hem as being soiled, but could you really still say it was 'the hem' when the mud was up to your knees?
Reaching the parsonage door with the blinding rain stinging her face, her hair half out of its plait, ripped free from its pins (most of which were lost somewhere along the road), and plastered in a very matted fashion to the back of her neck, she beat her fists on the wood.
At first there was no answer. The occupant of the house seemed unable to hear the frantic knock over the roar of the ongoing thunderstorm.
So, nothing else for it, Sophie flung back her head and – promptly making herself forget all the demureness and softness of voice required of her as serving-maid – screamed with the timbre of a bird of paradise, no care whatever for propriety, "EDMUND! Edmund Bertram!"
The door was flung open, near taken up by the wind in the process, banging – with a great, faintly rhythmic boom, boom, boom – back against the parsonage wall. A young – rather handsome – man stood just behind the threshold in his nightshirt, squinting out into the darkness, trying, doubtless, to place the face of the woman who'd screamed for him and was now standing before his place of residence soaked to the bone.
"Are you," she panted, gasping to catch her breath. "Are you... Are you Edmund Bertram?"
"I-I am."
"Oh, thank God!" And she flung herself into his arms, giving way to hysterical sobs of relief.
"Eh..." Edmund cleared his throat and awkwardly patted the wet back of the young woman clinging to him. "I beg your pardon, miss – do I know you?"
"No, no," she sniffed, pulling away and wiping roughly at her streaming eyes with her mount of Venus. "Not a bit." Inhaling sharply, she blinked and noticed the smear of mud she'd left on his nightshirt. "Oh, sorry."
He arched an eyebrow.
"Mr. Bertram," she blurted out, before realising it wasn't enough information. "That is, I mean, Tom Bertram. Your brother. I... He's ill – too ill to be moved – he wanted to see you..."
Edmund blanched. "God have mercy." He grasped Sophie's shoulders. "Where is he? In Newmarket? Is that where you've come from?"
She nodded vigorously. "Yes. Yes. Newmarket." Her teeth began to chatter. "I've come from Newmarket – he's with the physician now. Or he was, sir, six hours or so ago."
He let her go and began to step over the threshold into the rain, reaching – groping, rather – to shut the blown-free door behind himself. "Take me to him – we'll go at once."
She stared. "You're..."
"My what?" Edmund's frantic expression paused itself into one of perplexity.
"...You're not dressed."
Edmund's head jerked downwards. "Ah." He seemed to be returning to his senses. Taking a step back, he motioned inwards with his arm. "Forgive me, I don't know what I was thinking. I'll dress and pack a bag. You can warm yourself by the fire in the little sitting room to your left. It won't do either of us any good if you take ill for your pains to help my brother."
Sophie shuffled inside, trying not to think of the work her muddy footprints would make for his housekeeper come morning. It was glorious, however, to spread her hands over the fire after the chill of the rain and the biting wind.
It was so cosy in the little parsonage. What she wouldn't have given to be able to have a bath and then to just sink into a chair and sleep here. She felt as if she might drop from exhaustion.
"I'll think nothing at all, of having to run a few streets over to the butcher on a foggy day, after this bleeding mess," she murmured to herself, shaking off excess water.
Edmund reappeared, dressed like a respectable gentleman (although, if his cravat was tied a little crookedly, she wasn't about to point it out), and was – to Sophie's immense surprise – carrying a gown over one arm. He held it out to her awkwardly. "Here. That is, if you..."
"Where'd you get a dress?"
"It belongs to my sister, Mrs. Rushworth." His brow creased. "For some reason" – he coughed – "when I asked for seasonal donations for the poor, she sent me this."
Sophie's fingertips made contact with the fabric. "It is real silk," she felt the need to state. "It's been a while, but I remember what silk felt like."
"Well, I suppose it's an improvement," said Edmund, "on the time she sent a hat with an ostrich feather for the Children's Christmas Auction. But, all the same, the poor can't eat silk."
"I'm kind of poor," teased Sophie. "Not exactly rolling in diamonds at the moment."
"Clearly, then, it was intended for you all along, though neither of us guessed it – I'll have to tell my sister one day, she'll be thrilled to have been so useful."
"Does your Mrs. Rushworth live near here?" blurted Sophie, her smile faltering slightly. "Will Mr. Bertram want to see his sister as well, d'you think?"
"Tom want to see Maria?" snorted Edmund, rolling his eyes. "No, I doubt it. They don't exactly get on. Not that he and I..." And his voice broke; he was evidently trying not to cry, clearing his throat almost violently. "Ah-hem."
Sophie was merciful; she had been, for all the vices of such a life, in a good school for reassuring uncertain men. "You have, I think, a touch of cold – it is the damp weather. I've been told moist air, even in the countryside, always spoils the best voices."
Edmund nodded gratefully and picked up an umbrella. "Yes, I imagine that's it exactly." To admit he was on the verge of weeping for his brother, his brother who had so rarely sought his company (unless there was something he wanted from him) before this, to a stranger (for such Sophie was, amiable and sweet though he found her temperament), would have been more than he could bear at the moment. And yet his twitching, quivering fingers which could scarcely keep hold of the umbrella's handle quite gave his true feelings of misery away. "Now, if you will take me to Tom, miss, you will know no end to my gratitude, which – I ardently assure you – is already indebted to you beyond what mere words said now between us might ever express."
Sir Thomas entered the drawing-room with a furrow deepening upon his brow as his narrowing eyes scanned for his daughter-in-law and failed to light upon her.
There was Susan, seated beside his sweetly snoring wife, arranging cards upon a tea-tray. Oh, and here, across from her – sewing a pillowcase – was Mrs. Norris, with no clear intention, it would appear, of returning to the White House tonight.
But no Fanny.
This would not have distressed Sir Thomas overmuch, if only he had not just come from the other side of the house and knocked upon his son's sitting room to find only a maid-servant within, sweeping the floor near the grate which held the long-cooled embers of a fire that must have been put out some time ago and had not been freshly stoked with expectation of a resident's imminent return.
If Mrs. Bertram was not in her own sitting room, Sir Thomas had taken it for granted she must be here with the others. To find it was not so puzzled and concerned him – he had never entirely forgotten the early, unfortunate incident when Mrs. Norris had shut Fanny out of doors on an especially cold morning. The fault had partially been with Tom, to be sure, foolish boy, but it had – albeit somewhat belatedly – instilled in Sir Thomas a far more nagging worry about the fragile girl's whereabouts than he would otherwise have felt.
"Fanny cannot be in the library at this hour, I think," he stated, after a considerably long pause. "She should be in here, where it's warm – not straining her eyes over a book. I daresay there is no book in this home so important it cannot wait until morning or be taken to bed with a candle." Turning to the butler, he added, "Baddeley, my good man, do fetch her at once and bring her in. She'll sit with the rest of us and have some mulled wine." His eyes darted to the window – he could hear the pane rattling, the rain drumming fiercely upon the glass. "The weather certainly calls for it, and I think it shall do her nerves a world of good."
"Mrs. Bertram is not in the house at present, sir," said Baddeley.
A vein in Sir Thomas' forehead was beginning to throb slightly. He wondered if all this repressed rage and anxiety wasn't going to send him straight to his maker one of these days. "What? Why on earth not? Susan, child, did you know of this?"
Susan, head upraised, opened her mouth to speak but was promptly cut off by Mrs. Norris' angry huff. "Oh, don't bother talking to her about it, Sir Thomas, I beg you! Susan is in a foul mood and has done nothing but vex me all day – you see how she fiddles idly with Lady Bertram's cards instead of making herself useful with work from the poor basket this evening out of pure, wilful stubbornness – and she's sure to say something thoughtless. Besides, I know where Fanny has gone – because I have sent her there. I assure you she is perfectly safe."
"Sent her where, ma'am?"
"The parsonage, sir, on an errand to the Grants," Susan cried in a hurried rush before Mrs. Norris could prevent her.
Mrs. Norris gave her niece a sharp look – Susan stared back icily.
"In such weather?" marvelled Sir Thomas, less than pleased. "Mrs. Norris, had you no thought whatever for Fanny's weak chest?"
"When I sent her – hours ago, I might add, for she seems to have dallied – it was not raining then; I'm sure it was not." Now she wanted Susan's input, though only in one particular manner. "Isn't that right, Susan?"
"No, but the clouds were black, ready to burst," said she. "My sister could not have reached the parsonage before the downpour began."
"It began lightly, not all at once," argued Mrs. Norris, with a furious little sniff. "I would not have sent anyone out in a torrent."
"But so late in the day, practically the onset of evening, with the threat of rain if nothing further" – and Sir Thomas was far from convinced on that front – "you ought to have let me know so I might arrange the carriage for her."
"Carriage!" Mrs. Norris was aghast. "To take Fanny to the parsonage? For so short a trip! And you in your study not to be disturbed! And, anyway, it was not originally Fanny I meant to send – I told Susan to go, but my poor dear sister couldn't spare her and Fanny was not otherwise occupied. I discovered her staring at nothing at all, with her hands in her lap, sighing, as if she were just in want of a little exercise to wake herself up. The timing seemed fortuitous, really."
She had, of course, disturbed him in his study for far less in the very recent past, but he was loath to bring it up, knowing what precious little good it would likely do. Instead, he simply said, "It looks mean, ma'am, for the daughter-in-law of a baronet to arrive at an unsuitable hour on foot!"
"Well, the thing is done, Sir Thomas, and no insult was intended – I suppose the Grants shall simply have her to stay for supper, or the night, and send her back to us in the morning. There is nothing amiss in that. Although, this is all a great fuss over a lot of nothing – they ought to have just loaned her an umbrella and sent her back to us hours ago."
How had it gone for Fanny?
Well, she had indeed been caught, soon set to sneezing and shivering, in the rain, and taken shelter under a tree which could be seen – even with the winking yellow glare of the rush-lights – from the parsonage.
She was spotted simultaneously by Doctor Grant and Miss Crawford, who both came out to her under the protection of a large umbrella big enough for all three of them if they stood very near one another, and – ashamed and spluttering out apologies and thanks – Fanny allowed herself to be led inside.
Mary let out an exclamation of joy, once they were out of the rain, securely dripping upon the floor of the vestibule, declaring Fanny was just the guest she wanted to brighten up the evening. Then, she added, in a stunned voice, as if just noticing, "Oh, Mrs. Bertram! You're soaked through! Poor, poor Fanny! Come." She took her hand and began to drag her towards the stairs. "Upstairs, you will borrow something of mine, and I'll play for you on my harp before supper – I shall play Edmund's favourite song, which I should think you'd be fond of, too, because your tastes are so very alike."
Fanny privately wondered how Miss Crawford could call him Edmund, speak of him using his Christian name as if it were nothing, a mere trifle, when their last interaction had been so strained and unhappy, largely because of Mary herself.
Hadn't her friend ever been taught better?
Fanny truly didn't know whether to be embarrassed for her, sad for her, or angry with her.
But, then, gratitude for the rescue from the rain, though unasked for, made true anger impossible.
Upstairs, in Mary Crawford's prettily wallpapered bedroom, Fanny allowed herself to be undressed, stripped down to the bare minimum – even her corset needed unlaced and taken away, for it too was wet through – and her things removed for cleaning and drying by a pert yet still mostly agreeable housekeeper.
Mary frowned at the door of her wardrobe. "That's quite strange. I don't recall leaving it ajar." She shrugged. "Well, never mind, dearest, I'll fetch you one of my nicest evening dresses."
"You don't need to loan me anything grand," began Fanny, who, despite her rank as Tom Bertram's wife and the parsonage guest, would have been contented to wear a house-maid's clothes if they were all which might be spared, only to be waved off by Mary, who – rolling her dark, merry eyes – insisted she most certainly did, that it was what was due to her as their guest.
For a moment, standing before the wardrobe, Mary's expression changed – she went white as a ghost and let out an oath which truly shocked Fanny, followed by the stomping of a foot and a cross, "Oh, for God's sake!"
Fanny blinked worriedly. "Miss Crawford?"
Mary affected a reassuring smile, producing a lovely muslin dress with velvet trimmings and holding it out to her. "It is nothing – only silliness – I was startled by my own shadow."
And yet Fanny – blushing as she tried to act as though she believed her – was not entirely convinced. Something had unsettled Miss Crawford, downright discomfited her, when she approached the wardrobe and peered within; she simply had not seen what.
It also struck her as remarkably queer that Mary should – after the incident – keep standing, whenever possible, at such an angle as to put herself between her and the wardrobe as she dressed.
Dressed not only to her own satisfaction but also Mary's stricter standards, Fanny was put out of Miss Crawford's room in what felt like a sudden hurry and told to tell something or other – a message she was sure of garbling but which Mary seemed not to care whether she did or not – to Mrs. Grant downstairs.
As soon as Fanny's steps faded, Mary flung the wardrobe door open. "Henry, I swear–!"
And Henry Crawford, only faintly shamefaced, stepped out of the wardrobe, giving his sister a sheepish smile. "There was no harm done, Mary!"
She placed her hands on her hips and cocked her head. "Oh, save that you gave me the fright of my life, you mean?"
"I am sorry about scaring you, sister."
"And I take it you were there the whole time?" Mary's brow lifted. "Watching Mrs. Bertram undress?"
"It sounds crass when you put it in such a way as that," protested Henry, mouth pursed upwards in a pitiful fashion. "I meant nothing perverse by my curiosity. She's so proper, you know, and as she's riveted to a loose fish like Mr. Bertram, it seemed unlikely I should ever see her in such a natural state... If I could have courted her, if she were not Mrs. Bertram, if she were here as a niece of Sir Thomas rather than a daughter-in-law, I would have waited until our wedding night for even the tiniest glimpse of her form, and gladly! Her honour deserves no less! But, as it is impossible to proceed in the normal manner, I must have something, Mary! Something to hold to. Even if it is only a moment's sighting. Surely you understand that. Besides which, you were about to choose a dress which would have flattered her a great deal less than the one I handed you. Not that Mrs. Bertram couldn't make a burlap sack look charming if it were given her, but still!"
"If you ever hide in my wardrobe again–" fumed Mary, snatching up a hairbrush from her vanity and brandishing it at him warningly. "Indeed, if you dare enter my room and move about my things without my expressed consent again–"
"I promise you, sister, I never will."
She exhaled and lowered her hand, nonchalantly tossing the hairbrush aside, behind herself, onto the bed. "And, being as I can't prevent you now, what's done being done, how did you find her? Nay, upon reflection, don't tell me – for I don't wish to know. This is not a topic for a brother and sister." Her voice was still cold, but it was bordering on forgiving as well. "But, alas, I take not everything into account at first consideration! Luckily, I am not given easily to blushing. I have changed my mind again. You may as well tell me, for if you don't, you'll keep it to yourself and be stewing and mooning all night, longing to speak to someone, even a disapproving sister, of your impressions, and you'll give yourself away with your lingering looks – I do know you.
"To think of our poor sister, Mrs. Grant, learning of your preoccupation, your longing for Fanny Bertram, over a slice of undressed venison – her having to keep your secret as I now do – it does not bear thinking of. I won't have her scandalised as well. One of us knowing what you're up to with poor little Mrs. Bertram in your mind to is quite enough. So" – she heaved a gracious sigh – "I give you leave to tell me all your impressions this once. Then we shall have done forever.
"What did you think of Mrs. Bertram's figure?"
Henry's smile spread, his eyes aglow. "Oh, she is lovely – a prime article." He took a few steps back and leaned his head against the side of the still-open wardrobe door. "A mite too thin, perhaps, she ought to eat more and fill out, but otherwise entirely flawless from hairline to toe."
"Such praise! Oh, Henry, you must stop torturing yourself and cease to behave as though you'd taken leave of your senses." Mary reached out and touched his cheek. "You know you cannot have Mrs. Bertram, so you must learn to be happy without her. It truly is that simple."
"D'you really not comprehend my feelings? I shan't pine, or strive to change what cannot be changed. If this was my portion for life, Mary," said Henry, turning his head so his temple pressed itself flatter against the door, "this one little stolen glimpse of her, it was more than most men have."
"Oh – tut, tut," tsked Mary, with a sad little shake of her head. "What nonsense."
"Tom! Tom, I'm here! I've come." Edmund burst into the room, spilling in with the morning light, whereupon he stumbled to the side of the bed on which his near-insensible brother was laid out, and took up his hand. "Your friend fetched me from Thornton Lacey."
"Aye! Regarding precisely that, who the devil are you and where the hell is my damned barouche?" demanded the physician (who had been stranded there all night and forced to sleep in an armchair at Tom's side), his irate head popping out from behind a screen.
Sophie lingered in the doorway with her hands behind her back like a guilty child, swaying on the balls of her feet – back and forth, back and forth.
Edmund said not a word in reply, neither to defend or further implicate Sophie, because Tom – with a soft, low groan – was squeezing his brother's hand as if it were all that tethered him to life.
"It's all right, Tom..." The feeling was going from his palm, yet he made no effort to loosen his brother's grasp on his hand, only to ease his obvious agitation. "It's all right. Just rest – without rest you'll never get better. Everything will be all right, I promise you."
His mouth moved, as if trying to speak without sound, then he managed, raspy and strained, "Have you been praying for me on the road, Parson Bertram?"
"Endlessly, Tom – endlessly." He blinked back tears. "But I'm here as your brother, not a clergyman."
"Oh, The Reverend Bertram, how fine it sounds," moaned Tom, voice fading fast, preparing to leave him as quickly as it came. "I must be the luckiest man alive. Put in a good word with God for me, won't you, brother? There's a good fellow. He'll listen to you over me, just like everyone else."
"It is the fever," said Sophie, daring to enter the room now the subject was so changed, her cheeks more heated over the brothers' almost sacrilegious exchange than the accusation of thievery. "I'm certain he cannot know what he's saying."
Edmund turned his head, a wry smile playing at his lips. "Then, I'm afraid, you don't know him like I do – no fever is so perceptive. This is my brother Tom speaking, through and through."
The Grants and Crawfords had Fanny breakfast with them, since she'd spent the night – uncomfortably, in a borrowed nightgown of Mary's which proved too short – and were surprised when, suddenly, she went slack at the wrist, dropped her knife to the floor, and let out a sharp cry.
Gasping, Fanny pressed a hand to her chest and leaned forward, folding her abdomen against the edge of the table.
"Mrs. Bertram!" Henry Crawford threw back his chair and raced to her side, thinking her taken ill or about to faint.
"Good heavens, Henry," exclaimed Mary, her hands fluttering emphatically, "don't crowd her – let her breathe! How can she catch her breath with you leaning over her like a mother hen?"
"Whatever is it, Mrs. Bertram?" burst from Doctor Grant, dropping his own silverware in a panicked clamour.
Her eyes were glassy. "I-I don't know," she stammered. "Something's happened. I feel it... I can feel something..."
"Good or bad?" asked Mary, gently. "Do you feel good or bad?"
Slowly, Fanny lowered her hand and her breathing began to return to normal, though her head remained light and spinning.
She could not explain what had just occurred – it was a sensation she had only experienced once before in her life, when she was very small. William had fallen on the street while playing with the other Portsmouth boys and skinned his knee; there had been no way for her to know about it at the time, but she felt it, felt – despite safely sitting in the house beside her father, eating a biscuit – as if her own knee were torn open, and, after turning ashy white from chin to hairline, began to sob inconsolably.
She flexed her numb hand and stared at her fingers – they tingled.
What she could not know, and was not to piece together for a long time yet, was the moment she was struck so and cried out, the moment she lost her breath, was the very same second, in Newmarket, when Edmund's hand folded protectively around Tom's.
Her debilitating pang came at the moment when the brothers – the two gentleman her heart was permanently divided between – were reunited.
Good or bad?
"Both," she murmured, at last, shakily rising from her place, unable to resume eating. "I think it was both, somehow."
A/N: Reviews Welcome, replies may be delayed.