Merriment & Wisdom

A Mansfield Park fanfiction

Part Thirty-Six:

Illness, Continued

"In truth," railed the physician, rather heatedly, speaking out in a display of sharp temper, which neither Edmund nor Sophie, as they might jointly be the cause of his ire, could altogether blame him for, "I scarcely know what I do here! I wait with my patient, and my thanks for such diligence is to have my barouche taken for a joy ride."

"I did say I was sorry for it," murmured Sophie, staring down at her feet, willing herself not to mention how little 'joy' she took from riding in a rainstorm – one which, if the horse had been less well trained, or fate had conspired to spook the creature unduly, might well have been the end of her – while the man she admired above any other gentleman she could look to like was feverish and possibly dying, weeping inconsolably for his home, for his family.

But men did not like, she knew from experience, to be corrected, particularly when in the process of working themselves up to a disagreeable rant.

Tom turned his head on his pillow, and – peering up at Sophie from under his damp eyelashes – murmured, "Oh, well done, you."

"A funny kind of apology," the physician snapped, "coming from a mad little girl who goes away dressed like a servant and comes back the next morning clothed in silk!"

"That's my doing – I take responsibility for it," Edmund put in gallantly, stepping forward and positioning himself protectively at Sophie's side. "I'll pay for the inconvenience of her using your barouche."

The physician sighed. "I could be mollified, taking you at your word, if you would but accept my professional opinion in exchange – Mr. Bertram is still too ill to be moved."

"What utter nonsense this all is," croaked Tom, trying – and rather failing with his weak voice – to affect an indignant tone. "I've never felt better in my life."

"Tom," groaned Edmund with a little shake of the head directed at the bedside, "don't lie to the physician." To the physician, he added, "The truth is, however, I fear Tom's recovery will become stagnant at best if he is not taken home – he frets for Mansfield at all hours and does not sleep. He'll wear himself to nothing if he's not taken home as soon as possible."

"Surely, with his brother to watch over him," Sophie chimed in, "Tom can not be in real danger travelling. Not as he would have been under other circumstances."

"His fever has not broken," was the argument, "only slightly lessened. He is coherent, for the moment, and that's a small mercy, but there is no telling how long it will last. Indeed, from other cases I've seen, I give it an hour or so – at best – before he slips directly into not knowing himself again. Will you not write to your family, tell your father of Mr. Bertram's condition, and hope to move him another time?"

"Not," said Edmund, "when it would take less time to remove him to there presently and have him surrounded by loved ones again. To have a letter reach home before he does... When there are only a few hours' difference between here and there... No, I shall not subject Tom to that. To have him at home again will do him all the good he lacks here."

"I will never forget this, Edmund," wheezed Tom, bending forward and – just as Sophie lunged, arms outstretched, over the bed with a basin – was rather vividly sick.

The physician arched an eyebrow.

Tom glared while Sophie cleaned bile from his chin. "This proves nothing – I'm certainly well enough to go home."

She smoothed back his hair. "I know, Mr. Bertram, I know you are. Come, lean back again – I'll fix the pillows for you to be more comfortable."

Edmund closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "My mind is quite made up, I'm afraid – we leave this afternoon."

Sophie took up the – now rather foul-smelling – basin and began to walk to the door, before pausing and placing it down on a chair. Her hand hovered, trembling over her heart. She debated – she hesitated – for she could not bear what she was thinking of. Then she did what she knew to be the right thing and lifted the chain about her neck over her head. Unclasping it and slipping the gold ring – winking like a magical treasure in the low light of the closed off and drawn-shut sickroom – free, she walked back to Edmund.

"Here," she breathed, thrusting the ring at him hurriedly, as though afraid even then she might change her mind. "Pray, give this back to Mr. Bertram."

His brow crinkled with puzzlement. "How–"

"It's his, I've simply been holding it for him for a little while – please return it whenever you think best."

"He's right over there," whispered Edmund, head bowed and back turned conspiratorially, "hadn't you better go to the bedside and return it yourself?"

The tears springing up into her eyes gave away her distress. She had not even permitted herself to bring the ring to her lips and kiss it goodbye – how could she stand giving it to Tom directly, confessing to having had it?

No. It couldn't be endured.

"I cannot. Please don't ask me to do such a thing. I can give it to you, gladly, but don't ask me to...please..."

"Oh, yes, I see now" – and perhaps he did, a little – "you're quite right – it ought to be me. Of course it ought. I'll return it to him." Edmund turned, beginning to step away from her, a touch awkwardly, without further words exchanged, but then he thought the better of it. He could not leave it thusly. "Thank you again, for everything. I don't know what use a maid-servant has for a silk dress, but you're welcome to it however long you wish – or you may sell it, if you will. Neither I nor Mrs. Rushworth will require its return."

"I suppose," said she, pained and pale, her hands hanging listlessly by her sides as her fingers curled and uncurled, "this is goodbye."

He nodded and placed a hand on her shoulder. "May God bless you always, Sophie."

"Fanny, whose horse and carriage is that?" asked Susan, pushing back the curtain to peer with – formerly idle and now quite intense – curiosity out of the school-room window.

The sisters were reclining in the school-room, trying to disregard how small most of the chairs were, while Tom's sitting room had its weekly through cleaning – more scrupulously than usual, this time, for their aunt Norris had decided, quite at random, to inspect the servants' cleaning of the long-case clock she'd gifted their future master and mistress.

She had, it would seem, developed the lingering, nonsensical suspicion that, in Tom's absence, Fanny, out of spite, was allowing her generous gift to be, if not ill-treated, then certainly neglected.

And while Fanny and Susan had never before had cause to flee the sitting room for something as small as a servant tidying it, the options had been gravely limited – it was either come here, despite no fire being lit, for a couple of hours and find amusement for themselves such as they reasonably might, or else stay at Mrs. Norris' side while she berated the staff for using the wrong sort of polish or else too much of the right sort of polish on the precious clock.

Susan had begun to make, prior to their fleeing the room, a sharp remark under her breath about how Aunt Norris ought to have the clock in the White House, among her own things, if it was so bloody precious to her; but Fanny had quickly elbowed her into silence.

Had Mrs. Norris merely heard the word 'bloody' come from Susan's mouth – let alone all the rest – the vulgarity would have scandalised her and they both would have been in for it.

So they were wrapped in their shawls in the school-room when an unrecognised carriage pulled up to the front of the house.

Fanny rose from her place and stood behind Susan, squinting. "I–" Her breath caught. "Edmund."

Edmund it was indeed, hurriedly stepping out of the carriage as soon as it came to a complete stop. Then, with the assistance of some other men – strangers – he was lifting someone with a bowed head out behind himself.

This invalid's arm was promptly draped over Edmund's neck for support, and–

"But who has he got–?" began Susan, before Fanny – drawing in a sharp breath at her side – sagged as if all the strength had gone from her legs at once and fell – nearly in a crumple – towards the floor.

Susan – gone rather vividly pale in her own manner – caught and steadied her sister, who had, of course, recognised Tom immediately and been overtaken by shock and grief. "Oh, God, Fanny..."

Fanny was already using all of her remaining strength to propel herself towards the school-room door. She must see him! Tom was ill, or perhaps injured. It didn't really matter what was wrong with him, save that something clearly was. She must get downstairs to him, to her poor husband, at once – she would be wanted to comfort, to nurse, to reassure, to soothe. If her legs were yet all pins and needles, and her head was spinning like mad still, if she were not altogether well herself, she dismissed any thought of those facts.

She was well ahead of Susan, who was left to stumble helplessly after her, but – even so – by the time she reached the railing and was leaning over the landing, just able to glimpse Tom being led (or dragged) inside – now by Sir Thomas as well as Edmund, who must have seen the arrival from another window himself and rushed out – her presence was already rendered obsolete and inconsequential, regardless of whether or not it was desired.

Lady Bertram was following them, sobbing, "Please be careful with him – oh, heaven help us, the poor, poor child," with Pug whimpering at her heels; she was altogether heedless of Mrs. Chapman's gentle, vain attempts to calm her, ignoring the other serving-maids entirely.

Clearly uncertain of what they were meant to do, these were bringing around smelling-salts, small basins, and comfits respectively.

Mrs. Norris had heard the commotion and was fretting over Tom as well, snapping constantly at the nearest persons (excepting Lady Bertram, and those actually carrying Tom) to 'give her dearest nephew some air, what did they think they were about, crowding him so', despite being herself more in the way than any of the people – mainly the staff – she was scolding.

Tom's head lolled to one side as they approached the bottom of the stairs and Sir Thomas was obliged to shift his son's weight, allowing Fanny to catch a proper glimpse at last of his pale, drained face.

His appearance was frightful; it was downright ghastly; his eyes were unfocused, only partially opened, and his forehead glistened with perspiration.

Fanny's quivering mouth parted; her heart all but stopped. Her pulse slowed, then raced, thrum, thrum, thrumming in her ears. She gawped stupidly at him, fingers clinging tightly to the railing till they ached.

But at least, if nothing else, they were bringing him to her now – he was so near, there at the foot of the stairs. A reunion was imminent, thank God. They would be together soon and she would help him – Edmund would tell her what had happened, what was wrong, and she would do what she could to make it right again, and then everything surely–

"Sir Thomas, what folly is this? You cannot bring him upstairs! He'll fall and harm himself further – he's plainly much too weak, even with the two of you to support him!" As if to inadvertently prove Mrs. Norris' point, Tom slumped heavily, nearly falling from his brother's grasp. "Take him aside, to one of the downstairs guest rooms."

They began to turn aside at her bidding, and Fanny felt as if the breath were being drawn from her lungs, sucked out of her in a great, brutal hurry – her chest hurt and her eyes filled with large, hot tears, blurring her vision. Even so, she saw – was quite convinced she saw – a little, near-inconsequential flash of gold when Tom's left hand was lifted as his brother and father began to haul him away in the other direction.

He was wearing a wedding ring again.

This, finally, was too much for her to process right then. Fanny was stupefied. Trapped within herself, she was momentarily as immobile as a marble statue. The only movement about her was from the dual streams coursing down her cheeks in messy, blotchy streaks.

She was only brought back to herself by Aunt Norris calling up, "Whatever are you thinking of, standing there – with your nose dripping, no less – like a startled goose, Fanny? That's a shocking trick, indeed; to watch other people make themselves useful in a crisis while you stare off slovenly at nothing."

Her mouth moved, at first without the benefit of accompanying sound. Then she managed, "Forgive me, Aunt Norris, for standing around" – she released her grip on the banister, lifting her skirts and making for the stairs – "I'll go to my husband at once and do what I can for him."

"Foolish child. Don't suppose we want to be looking after two invalids for the sake of your carelessness. Making a great show of yourself over him won't do anybody good if you take on the fever yourself." She blocked the path from the bottom step, glowering. If she were more within reach of Fanny, she'd have grasped her arm and given her a little shake – hoping to knock some sense into her. "I'm sure you daren't go near him – with your weak chest it could prove fatal."

The words were understood, yet her frazzled, frightened mind could make no proper sense of them. Not go to Tom? She was being kept away from him? When he was... It didn't... Surely, her aunt Norris couldn't...

"But–"

Susan, overhearing, her voice rising in outrage, cried, "It isn't as if you've worried yourself about Fanny's health before – just let her go to him!"

"You, Susan Price, will mind your manners with me and hold your tongue! If you think yourself so remarkably indispensable to my sister as to offer me open insult without consequence, I assure you such is far from being the case. Remember who and what you are!" Mrs. Norris' nostrils flared as she reached up to adjust her lace cap. "Now, Fanny, be a good girl and return to your room where you'll be out of the way – we'll inform you when we know anything."

"M-my husband," she stammered, in a broken squeak of a voice that could have melted stone, but to no avail – Aunt Norris was wholly unyielding.

Susan gripped Fanny's elbows from behind and squeezed lightly. Her eyes, cutting away icily, were blue daggers, and her aunt surely saw the crossness and near-hate seething behind them – she wasn't stupid – but as she said nothing further, Mrs. Norris could – for the moment – prove nothing against the ungrateful interloper.

It was not her aunt Norris who came at last, several hours later, to find Fanny in Tom's sitting room and explain all; it was Edmund.

Fanny's legs still pained her – she could not quite yet trust her knees – but she stood up when he walked in anyway.

She had been left, all these hours, on her own, with nothing to do but fret about Tom.

Susan's comfort was not to be had, as Lady Bertram had need of her favourite niece when the worst of her uncharacteristic hysteria cooled, and nobody else would do to sit by her as a comfort; not Chapman, and certainly not her 'dear sister Norris'. She did not even want Sir Thomas especially, because – for once – he could not make everything better by declaring it so and announcing what he would do to remedy it.

Ruled by her husband in all things, Lady Bertram was used to him – or else Edmund, if Sir Thomas was away – being the solution to any pressing trouble. It was, perhaps, why she was free to be as indolent as nature made her.

Sir Thomas always corrected matters so that they were all right in the end.

But he couldn't wave his hand or sign something which would make Tom – Lady Bertram's first and, so far as she could have one, favourite son – well again. He could only speak, as gently as he was able, to his desperate wife, the truth – that, yes, there was no denying Tom's condition was very critical.

And so only with Susan Price – dear little Susie, who was always so very good – unceasingly by her side would she take comfort.

Had all of Fanny's wits been about her, or had she been disposed to feeling badly for her own sake, she might have been sorry – even a little wounded – not to have been asked as well, to not be invited to sit by Lady Bertram's side with Susan, but her thoughts and sorrows were all only for Tom, even more so than were those of her mother-in-law, and she reserved no pity for herself.

Her weak knees creaked, but she gave a little sinking bob. "How is he?"

Edmund didn't answer right away; he threw his arms around her and held her to him. "Dearest sister, forgive me for not coming to you sooner." Then, pulling away and leading her back to her seat, he murmured, "You must be brave, Fanny. I'm afraid Tom does very poorly. He was too soon moved – it was my doing – however, it could not be avoided. He would not rest where he was and, without rest, the fever would have worsened regardless. Here, at least, he is home and can be easy in himself."

"How–"

"The cause was a neglected fall both proceeded and followed by a great deal of drinking. It seems all his friends deserted him when it grew evident he'd taken ill."

"It is too bad Mr. Yates was not there – he, I'm certain, would never have–" She broke off, enraptured by a brief memory of John Yates laughing in the carriage on the way home from Sotherton Court, and was obliged to suck back a sob. "God." She dung her fingertips deeply into the velvet-covered arm of the chair until they felt near to bruising. Her voice came back hoarse, as well it might be, given her heart was breaking. "How long was Tom alone?"

Edmund shook his head. "Fanny, I beg you–"

She understood, and had mercy on her wearied brother-in-law. She gave him leave to depart without further assurance. He was, poor man, depleted.

Privately, as he was rising to leave her, she thought woefully of her unsent letter to Tom.

If she had written it sooner, and had had means of sending it, would her husband not have spared himself this disaster and simply come home?

Oh, it seemed to her his case was a plain one – a fear of returning home must have played a nasty part in all which led to this. How foolish! If she could have brought herself to be even remotely cross with the tragic figure she'd seen while stained about the stairs... Oh, how she might have inwardly railed at him for thinking – ever – he had anything to fear in returning to her – when she'd, apart from the one thoughtless comment spoken out of hurt, never given him cause for doubt! But, alas, she could not be cross; the mere thought of his beautiful, feverish face... Those rolled-back, listless eyes, previously so alive and ever-playful, lost to the world...

He was so dramatically altered in appearance from when she had seen him last, the morning after the ball!

Love and pity ruled her whole being in regard to him.

The following day, a physician of Sir Thomas' choosing came and examined Tom, and although he made the promising remark declaring how the fever had dramatically lessened – enough, with no further information, to bring Lady Bertram all the comfort her husband had been unable to the night before – but the diagnosis was not entirely good.

Far from it.

"We're gravely worried, Fanny," Edmund told her, when he stopped into Tom's sitting room, the place Mrs. Bertram was once again abandoned to by the rest of the frantic family, and bid, unbeknownst to the rest, to remain in by Mrs. Norris, "for his lungs – that is the primary danger now. Or so the physician seems to believe; he's very apprehensive. Father thinks it best if my mother believes Tom to be improving – all she really does, after all, is glide in without a word and look at him, and she might look at a sleeping young man she thinks to be on the mend as well as otherwise.

"My father wished me to say something similar to you, in hopes of sparing the worst news, but I cannot bring myself to conceal the truth. Not from you. He fails to see it, but you're a great deal stronger than my mother, Fanny. It's best if you know Tom's state of health exactly."

"But when may I see him?" blurted Fanny, point blank.

"What's this?" Edmund's brow furrowed. "Haven't you been in to see him yet?"

"How can I have been," she cried, unable to hold back her anguish, "when Aunt Norris will scarcely allow me to leave this room without accusing me of being in the way and risking both my health and his?"

"This won't do." And Edmund took her hand. "I'll take you to him."

But this was not to come about so easily.

They'd reached the stairs when a serving-maid rushed to Edmund and announced he was wanted, alone, to see to Tom and – though they both fought against it – knew her place and orders well enough to separate them and send Fanny back, in the end, precisely the way she came.

This serving-maid, fearful for her position, had some cause – though it was not just – to resent Fanny. Her future mistress (should Mr. Bertram survive, that was) had contrived from desperation – the few times she had gotten into the kitchen unimpeded, frustrating her aunt's best efforts – to forcibly take more than one tray from the girl's hands with the intention of bringing it to the invalid in the sickroom herself.

For such a timid, usually quite mouse-like woman, particularly when compared with her more forceful younger sister, Mrs. Bertram had been surprisingly insistent and had proven increasingly difficult to drive off.

Edmund promised, however, he would return in an hour for Fanny, bringing to her into see Tom then, convinced it would do husband and wife a world of good to see one another, but when nearly three hours had gone by, he still had not come, and it was Susan who came into the sitting room with a scarlet, tear-stained face to report what she could on the current crisis.

Tom was worse and everyone was occupied and hadn't time to think of Fanny up here – Susan had been permitted to slip away only for a few minutes from Lady Bertram while she sat with Aunt Norris.

Mrs. Grant came, later, and though she was not admitted in to see Tom, she was taken to Fanny for what was rather an awkward quarter of an hour and spoke a great deal longer to Mrs. Norris before departing the house, so that she had plenty of tales to take home to Doctor Grant and her Crawford siblings when she returned to the parsonage.

Around the onset of evening, unable to endure the ticking of the long-case clock and staring at the same walls any longer, Fanny slipped out of the house and – amid a sharp scolding about her going out for a pleasant walk while Tom was so desperately ill from Aunt Norris – made her way to the stables.

Once there, she threw her arms about Shakespeare, Tom's unspeakably beautiful present to her, burying her face in her horse's soft grey neck, and let loose, sobbing – and then bellowing, far louder than she dared inside the house – uncontrollably.

The memories in this place overwhelmed her and brought out the rawness of all her emotions – indeed, it was more than only Shakespeare being Tom's gift; they had been together here in the stables when there was no place else to be had. The feel and smell of him, the recollection of his voice and touch, were jointly pressing in on her.

"Oh," exclaimed a high voice behind her, "my dear."

Fanny started, lifting her head as she let go of her horse, and turned.

Mary Crawford stood there, directly on the other side of the stall, with her arms open. "I've just it all heard from my sister – oh, you poor creature!"

Emerging from the stall with puffy, bloodshot eyes, Fanny permitted herself to be pulled into an embrace and to have her back patted while any number of condolences and reassurances were murmured against her cheek.

As they broke apart, however, Miss Crawford still holding onto her arms, Fanny saw – while Mary's sympathy was quite genuine, nothing in itself to be faulted on – there was something else in her friend's face as well, a thing she could not like.

Mary had hope sparkling in her dark eyes.

But it was not hope for Tom's recovery – not hope for Fanny's happiness to be restored.

It was a selfish manner of hope.

She longed so desperately to believe she didn't see it, to think herself merely mistaken in her grief. Mary Crawford was so lovely and her voice so gently comforting, one did not like to imagine she–

"It surprises me that Tom's sisters – foolish girls – are happy to stay in London." She paused. "That is, I imagine they've been told – London is not so far away that such news would fail to..." She trailed off.

"I'm sure," mumbled Fanny, "Maria and Julia will do what they think best – I cannot say, yet, if they've heard." Or if they knew how serious Tom's condition really was. Although, really, she was not so convinced of Maria doing the right thing – she did not expect to see Mrs. Rushworth come to the family with open arms as Mary did now – and even Julia's reaction was dubious. Still, they were rather like her own sisters, in name if not in practice, and for Tom's sake she felt she must defend them against Mary's – perhaps premature – assumption, even if she was not wrong.

"Undoubtedly," she said, "but oh! Poor you! And our poor Tom! The poor young man... If he were to be cut off now, tragically, in the flower of his days–"

Fanny tensed. She couldn't help it. There it was again – that flash of hope, glittering in Mary's eyes. How could her friend wish Tom to die?

"Dearest, you reprimand me with barely a look!" cried Mary, taking her arm. "Justly, I shouldn't wonder. Oh, it does smell rather strongly in here, does it not? Let us leave this place. The stale air will do neither of us any good." Then, "Do not look so very sombre at me from the corner of your eye – I cannot bear derision from one so sweet – pray, don't misunderstand me, upon my honour I never bribed a physician in my life."

They were almost to the stable door. Fanny was repressing the urge to be sick. Such violent crying as she'd done, followed by Miss Crawford's manner now, was doing nothing for her nerves or stomach. She was beginning to wish Mary would let go of her arm. Despite herself, she was starting to feel even losing strength in her legs and having a fall would be preferred to being touched by a friend who, somehow without a drop of true malice, which only served to make it all the more horrid, wished her husband to die.

Who, what kind of monster, could jest so about bribing physicians while Tom was...

"We can take comfort, however," Mary spoke again, to fill the silence between them, "in knowing that – should the worst occur – wealth and consequence could fall into no hands more deserving of them. Edmund was foolish to be so young ordained – there is an heir and a spare in most families for good reason, life being unkind in many ways." She gave a little sigh. "Well, well, it isn't as though varnish and gilding do not hide many stains." Her eyes darted. "Fanny, I see you smile" – it was not a smile, but a wince, however Fanny did not correct her, she could not find the words – "you are thinking, I fancy, as I now am, how fine Sir Edmund sounds. It near sets one to trembling to imagine. And I do put it to your conscience if he would not–"

She had to stop, for Fanny was sobbing afresh. Oh, Tom.

"Oh, don't – pray, don't." And Mary truly was ignorant of the wound she inflicted. "It's all a great shock for you, to be sure – don't think I've forgotten it for a moment – but you are not without friends in your time of trial. There are thousands of widows in the world, I daresay, who haven't even half so many people who love them as you do."

But I'm not a widow, Fanny thought, longing to scream, how can you say such a thing to me and still claim the distinction of being my comforter? My husband is still alive!

Henry Crawford, waiting for them outside the stable, a few feet from the door, saw Fanny's face and ran across the short space between them.

"See?" said Mary, in an affected tone of sweetness. "Here is another one who loves you now."

"Mrs. Bertram!" exclaimed Henry, casting aside his walking-stick and holding out his arms to her. "You weep!"

The last thing Fanny desired at the moment was to be crushed in Mr. Crawford's enfolding embrace while he assured her of his undying friendship and esteem. Yet it happened with such alarming speed that she had no manner of turning and preventing it. No sooner had she thought she did not want him to embrace her, even as a brother might, than her face was near crushed against his chest. She set her teeth and endured it. If nothing else, the new emotion of frustration at being so held slowed her tears.

The Crawfords, no doubt, believed it to be their comfort which muffled her noise, lessening her sobs, and she let them.

What could it matter, after all?

Mary and Henry were received by Lady Bertram in the drawing-room, where she told them, over a plate of biscuits, of the ordeal, of the unspeakable shock suffered when Edmund brought Tom home.

"I cannot express how relieved I am Tom is on the mend at last," she concluded contentedly, rubbing Pug's ears.

Mary and Henry exchanged a look, nearly giving away the truth in their pity for Lady Bertram, who obviously did not know the situation to be what they knew – what Mrs. Grant had reported – it to be, and Susan, the quickest in the room on the uptake, felt a twinge of hatred towards them for it.

Miss Crawford next asked if Lady Bertram's younger son would be joining them.

"Oh, I don't think so – Edmund is with Tom, you know; he reads to him and holds his hand." She smiled indolently. "They like to be together, after the upset of all that happened, I think. It's very good of Edmund, is it not, to still attend to his brother when the danger is quite over, don't you think? But he always was the sweetest boy – as a baby he only cried twice as I recall. And he did not bite the wet nurse. She used to complain of Tom biting such a lot, the poor child. I was obliged to feed Tom myself in the end, though I did not like it."

Mary smiled back – as well she might, for she was on the cusp of her dreams all coming true and was all tolerance for any kind of speech from the woman she fancied as her future mother-in-law – but her brother appeared a touch uncomfortable. He remedied this discomfort by fixing his gaze upon Fanny and watching as she stirred her untouched tea and stared off into the middle distance.

Mrs. Bertram's solemnity, her tender feelings, he thought, did her great credit.

"Might I go in and see him?" asked Mary, after a moment's hesitation.

Lady Bertram blinked at their guest, appearing confused. "Tom?"

"Edmund."

"Oh, yes, indeed, I don't see why not, if you knock first to get Edmund's attention – Tom might be asleep, you see, and Sir Thomas wants him to get plenty of rest."

Fanny's heart thrummed. Her object, at once, was to follow Miss Crawford into the sickroom and at last see her husband. She rose as if in a daze and began to trail behind Mary in a timid manner, hoping to remain unnoticed, nearly making it to the drawing-room door before their path was blocked by Mrs. Norris.

She permitted Mary to pass, with a polite smile, but she grabbed Fanny's arm, preventing her. "Fanny, where are you sneaking off to?"

"W-with Miss Crawford."

"Mr. Crawford is still in the drawing-room," she hissed. "Have you no concern for our guests? Upon my word, Fanny, you think of nothing and no one but yourself! D'you expect my poor sister to do all the entertaining?"

"She has Susan – I'm not needed, aunt." She lifted her eyes to Mary for support, but Miss Crawford had already gone, fled as soon as she was able, too thrilled at seeing Edmund – for the first time since the disastrous Mansfield ball – under such precious circumstances as these to hold back a moment longer.

"You will go back in there and sit down this instant – and without making a scene, if you please."

Fanny was shaking. "But I don't want to."

Mrs. Norris lowered her voice. "If you do not do as you're bid at once, then it will be my sad duty to inform my sister of Tom's real state of health – how else could I explain your selfish hurry to rush off to his side, after all? And if Lady Bertram suffers in the knowledge of her son's worsened illness, you can rest tonight knowing it was because you did not want to do the simple duty of a hostess."

Biting her lower lip and struggling against bitter tears, the swelling lump in her throat feeling rather as if she had swallowed a boiled egg whole, Fanny nodded and began to turn herself around.

"And don't you dare cry in front of Mr. Crawford to try and make him feel sorry for you, either!" she hissed into her niece's ear before releasing her arm. "Your mother was one for showy tears as well when she was younger, and let me tell you plainly, I never put up with it from her."

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