Those Prevailing Happy Stars
A Mansfield Park & Stardust fanfiction
Chapter Three:
Travelling Companions
The speckled falcon flew towards the stone balcony, perching – at last – atop the head of a ruby-eyed gargoyle. A set of double doors – made of a kind of faceted glass which, impossibly, shined like crystal in moonlight and sunlight alike – opened soundlessly, and a short, dark-haired man with intense eyes and a charismatic pair of full, pouty lips walked out, arm extended.
He was not a handsome man, his features were plain if you discounted the shape of the mouth and his overall fine colouring, but few enough people remembered this fact once they had been acquainted with him for longer than a week.
For most people, it took about a day or two – three, if they were stubbornly determined not to like him, not to look upon his features favourably, from the first.
"What news?" he asked the bird.
The bird opened its beak and let out a shrill, wordless cry of complaint.
"Oh," said he, lifting a hand and flicking two fingers. "Forgive me, Maddison, I'd forgotten."
Lengthening and shedding feathers, the bird became a man, and almost fell from the balcony's edge before Henry Crawford – for it was he, brother to Miss Crawford – caught him, righting him and patting his arm reassuringly.
Maddison gasped, waving a freshly re-formed hand in front of himself frantically.
"Well," said Henry, letting go of him and examining his fingernails, "it's your own fault – I wouldn't have cursed you to spend half your time as a bird if you hadn't been trying to double cross me and install your cousin as Lord of Everingham in the south, now would I?"
"No, sir," muttered Maddison, eyes averted.
"So, the news, if you please – what excitement? War? Fire?" He whirled, smirking brightly. Some charm or other about his neck – he wore at least six different talismans – clinked and tinkled musically. "A revolution, perhaps?"
"I have a message from your sister in Wall."
"Hmm, hardly a revolution, but you know I am always pleased to hear from Mary – what says she this time? Does she complain of the shortness of my replies still? She must be reconciled to my never yet turning the page, when I am – otherwise, in every other respect – exactly what a brother should be."
If it had been within Maddison's power – if he'd had a chance of it going unnoticed – he might have cut his eyes in impatience; for it was plain his master always liked to hear himself talk more than he liked to hear the news he claimed to so readily anticipate. Nothing seemed to please Henry Crawford more than his own melodious voice. To be sure, Henry might have some right to be vain in this respect – given everybody for miles out agreed he had the smoothest voice for reading aloud spells and slipping complex enchantments off the tip of his tongue they had ever heard – but still.
"Your sister has a friend – a young man – who has wandered onto Faerie on an impossible errand; she wishes you to protect him, if you are willing to assist her."
"So, Mary has a young man. Well, well. I wonder if it can be serious – if it is, I truly hope he has more income than seven hundred a year. She, after all, will have twenty thousand. No matter. It is easily done," agreed Henry. "Give me his name and description and I shall see what I can do for him once my magic has discerned the fellow's location." He looked out at the dark horizon thoughtfully. "But – and this interests me a good deal more, I confess – just what is this errand?"
"Fanny," croaked her sister star, "I'm sorry, I cannot find it anywhere."
The star with the broken leg lifted a hand to her breasts, tears filling her eyes. "How could I have lost it?" William had trusted her with it, and somehow – when she'd fallen – she had lost it.
"It's dark as pitch." The star shuffled some sparkling dust and scorched twigs back and forth with her hand, bending forward. "It might just be in the brambles to the left of our crater here, and I simply can't see it... Perhaps, once it is lighter out..."
"We shall be too tired to search when the sun is up – we never are awake so late." She tried to make herself shine brighter, thinking the extra light might assist in her sister's search, but she could barely manage a shimmer – she was weak, and hurt, and her heart was too heavy. The very thought she might have lost – perhaps permanently – their one means of returning home was enough to sink her spirits and fade her almost to nothing. "If only I hadn't worn it upon that old ribbon, Susie! William warned me – he was forever warning me – it would break off one day. If I had only found a proper chain..."
"How is your leg?"
"It is not so bad."
"Can you stand?"
She nodded, and tried, and fell back down with an anguished cry. "Perhaps it is bad. I'm sorry." Her head was still woozy from fainting earlier. The world – so dark, so big – seemed to spin on its axle. "It all looks so different down here – it goes on forever, doesn't it?"
"Log," said Tom aloud, dipping a battered-looking quill-pen into a cracked jar of ink and scratching out some words – in surprisingly neat copperplate – onto some loose papers he'd produced from his pack. "Night one. Food supplies low. Younger brother taciturn."
"Only because you threw half our supplies at a harmless little owl," groaned Edmund, turning over from where he lay on the ground.
"It sounded nothing like a little owl," said Tom, scornful. "A snowy owl, it might have been. Barn owl, perhaps. If I had traded the hearing from my left ear, instead of my hair's colour, I could now concede it was like to an eagle-owl. But it was assuredly – most assuredly – not a little owl!"
Edmund inhaled sharply. "This is Faerie, you know," he pointed out. "What if it was an enchanted person?"
"Then, I suppose they must be an enchanted person with a headache now, mustn't they?"
Perhaps he should just be glad Tom hadn't shot at it (he'd been much too trigger-easy this evening as it was). And that they were not at this moment attempting to roast owl – owl which might or which might not have started its life out as a bird – over an inexistent fire they'd been unable to make.
Although he would have liked to roll back over and try to sleep again, Edmund was beginning to think that extremely unlikely. He was, along with this, also beginning to recall exactly why he'd been so happy, as a child, when he and Tom had first been granted their own bedrooms at Mansfield Park and no longer had to share the nursery.
Nanny, he was a little sorry to lose, as she was more openly affectionate than their mother, but he never once after quitting that part of the house missed having Tom for a bed-fellow.
His brother was simply not an ideal night-time companion; he actually felt more than a little sorry for whoever ended up marrying him – poor future Lady Bertram – and had to listen to him rattle on, near endlessly, every evening before bed.
Reaching into his pack, Edmund withdrew his Bible, flipped a few pages in Philippians, previously marked, held the tome close to his face, and tried to read in the moonlight.
Faerie moonlight was stronger than the moon on the other side of the wall, at least.
Glancing up from his scattered papers, Tom asked if he was really reading the Bible while they were in a strange new land, declaring he really was predestined to become a parson if he could be doing – in earnest – a thing like that.
Edmund grunted softly and, absently licking his thumb, turned another page.
"Well, there's no need to strain your eyes – Thornton Lacey won't want a blind preacher – hang on, I've got a–" And he produced the lump of black candle from his pocket. "I think I have got a light, somewhere, as well." He produced a tinderbox Edmund was fairly certain he'd stolen from their father's mantelpiece back in Wall.
He never will succeed in lighting it, thought Edmund, and kept reading – with rather an obtuse expression on his tired, strained face – by moonlight.
One should, however, never underestimate the ability of a person like Tom Bertram to muck about with fire – even if this same person has been successful all night, so far, in even making the wet, unwilling wood smoke.
It was a messy business, but he had the little black stub lit in the end. He held it next to Edmund.
Without looking up, Edmund grasped his brother's wrist and twisted it away, thinking to prevent him from dripping gross black tallow all over his Bible. Some stains simply didn't come out, a fact of life Tom had never really been very clear on.
His thoughts drifted, suddenly, to the star – and how he would ever find it when he didn't even know where he was – and dear Mary Crawford waiting for his promised gift back in Wall.
If only he could go to the star now, if only he knew where–
There was a flash, near-blinding them, and then, sans everything but the clothes they wore and the Bible Edmund's other hand still held, they were somewhere else.
The new climate was clammy and it smelled oppressively boggy. The air was enough to make Tom cough. Then he noticed his hand – covered in tallow and an angry red burn rising from the centre – and moaned.
"What," began Edmund, in great astonishment. His face grew pensive. "How many miles to Babylon?"
Tom stared at him quizzically.
"Three score miles and ten," murmured Edmund, reciting. "Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, and back again..."
"What, d'you mean that silly children's rhyme Maria and Julia were singing and skipping about to eight years ago?"
"What if it's not just a silly rhyme?" he breathed, raising his shaking hands. "Tom, I think your candle stub was magical – some manner of Babylon candle, if you will, one might use to... To travel..."
"But why did it take us here?"
Edmund shuffled his feet eagerly, scampering about. "One of the stars must be here! I thought of my promise to Mary when I–"
Something of a soft amber hue glittered, catching in Tom's peripheral vision. It was a cross on a broken bit of badly frayed ribbon. "This couldn't be your star, could it?" And he held it out to Edmund.
Shaking his head, he reached to take the cross from Tom anyway. A whole cross, unbroken and unmarred, in Faerie – a place of such flagrant pagan superstitious and lawlessness – must be of some protection. Only a fool would cast it away. He would slip it into his waistcoat pocket for later (his greatcoat was gone, for he'd been using it as a pillow and not had it on him when Tom's candle transported them both from their former campsite).
"Did you hear that?" Tom's eyes darted both ways.
"Hear what?"
"Someone was speaking, just now."
"I do not believe I heard anything."
"I did – come on, this way." Tom grasped his shirtsleeve and pulled.
They came out on the other end of a thicket and found themselves at the rim – the lip – of a great crater. Below, two girls in white – their blonde hair glowing in the dark – sat with their knees to their chests.
Perhaps, Edmund mulled, one of them knew where he could find the stars. At any rate, even if they knew nothing of the stars, they might be in some sort of trouble and need their help...
But before he could begin climbing down, he realised.
He was much smarter than Mary Crawford gave him credit for.
The way they glowed, even though it was faint and lacking merriment; the lost look about them; the very crater itself being where it was in proximity to their huddled forms...
Those girls were the stars!
He told Tom this, quite despondent, aware now how Mary had mocked him – had tricked him – into coming here – simply to laugh at him.
Tom took this in with a pert twist of the mouth. Then he said, "Edmund, just tell me this – d'you still – d'you really – want to marry Miss Crawford?"
"More than anything," he admitted.
His brother gave a good-natured sigh. "Fine. Let me take care of it, then. Miss Crawford shall have her star."
He reached out to grasp his brother's shoulder and hold him back but was shrugged off. "What are you going to do?"
Without another word, Tom was fairly flying down the side of the crater. He was rather graceful, only skidding sideways the once and kept steady on his feet the rest of the time.
The younger star lifted her head, saw him coming, and darted out of the way – forgetting, for a moment, for a fatal moment, her sister's leg was broken and she could not, therefore, do the same – only to witness this strange white-haired man lift her sister over his shoulder like a sparkling sack of flour and begin running back up the side of the crater.
"Tom!"
"I've got one, Edmund, let's go!"
The star's younger sister screamed, "Put her down!" and began violently hurling mud-clods at Tom's back. "Put her down at once!"
Now returned to the crater's lip, Tom slung Fanny from his shoulder – wished he still had his pocket pistol, though he wouldn't have actually shot the other star, he wasn't a monster, he just wanted to sort of threaten her a bit until she stopped throwing mud at him; the last clump had had rather a large rock in it and she'd struck him on the opposite shoulder blade – and placed her down with her useless legs dangling as if she were merely an oversized porcelain doll he was procuring for the amusement of one of his sisters.
This pale star he'd snatched up was blotchy about the face now – and trembling – and she looked at him with petrification in her wide, light eyes.
But Tom hadn't much time for her just now. "I say, would you mind not slinging mud and rocks in my direction? You could kill a man that way, you know."
"What are men to mud and rocks?" demanded the star, flying another clod, which he dodged.
"Oi, carry on as you will, then, but you do realise – I trust – you could hit your friend here by mistake," Tom pointed out, cupping his hands over his mouth. "And very easily, too!"
"Y-you! Why, you shameless, bracket-faced clunch! Oh, Fanny!" screamed the star, frantic. "Fanny! Fanny, can you not crawl away from him now he's set you down?"
"I say, you insolent little chit, who are you calling a clunch?"
"You, grandfather!"
"G-grandfather?" spluttered Tom, quite indignant. "Come now, really, Miss Starshine! Is that not striking a trifle below the belt?"
"No, it isn't!" And she threw another clod of mud, aiming for a space between his legs. "But this is!"
Tom let out a rather unsavoury oath, his rising voice hitting a hit octave an opera singer would have envied.
Meanwhile, by this time, Edmund had crept over to the side of the star Tom had kidnapped and dragged to the lip of the crater. He saw her shoulders shaking, and the tears sliding down her face, how brokenly and with what frightened abandon she sobbed.
She covered her face with her hands and turned away from him.
Seating himself beside her while their siblings screamed insults back and forth and threatened to do any number of unpleasant things each to the other one, Edmund let his legs swing over the edge next to hers.
"My dear," he said in a voice so gentle she was startled into looking at him quite against her will. "Are you all right?"
She swallowed but did not speak, only continued to look at him through splayed fingers as she gradually lowered her hands.
He was at great pains to make her communicate with him beyond – admittedly soft – stares and sweet little shakes of her head. Tom had clearly frightened the poor girl out of her wits. He wondered how old she was – or if stars even aged the same way humans did.
"Are you ill?"
She hiccuped. "I'm hurt, but it does not matter."
"Where's amiss?"
"M-my leg."
"May I?"
She nodded.
Even in the dark, by the quickest of examinations, he could tell it was hopeless – no wonder Tom had caught her so quickly – and she wouldn't even be able to stand.
"You mustn't be afraid," he said next. "My brother and I wouldn't hurt you – you must consider yourself among friends. Friends who will look after and love you and wish to make you happy. This, I'm afraid, has all been a most dreadful misunderstanding."
Tom was still bellowing furious obscenities in the direction of Susan, who, in turn, was – with much tripping and spluttering, the whole front of her formerly white dress stained dark with mud now – making her way up the side of the crater and vowing she would knock him senseless about the head when she reached him.
Fanny tilted her head doubtfully.
"Er, yes. Well. Those two, may, I fear, have gotten off to an unpromising beginning."
"P-please," stammered Fanny, almost choking as she reached to clutch at his wrist urgently, "don't let him hurt my sister."
"Oh, I shouldn't worry my head over it if I were you; Tom wouldn't truly harm her – he's all wounded pride and bluster."
"What's your name?" she asked, gazing into his kind face with a growing expression of awe and relief.
"I'm Edmund – Edmund Bertram."
"My name is Fanny." She pointed up at the sky. "I come from that constellation, right there – The Price."
"Why did you fall?" Edmund couldn't help being curious over this. "Did you trip over something?"
She coloured and nodded sheepishly. "Susie tried to catch me – I took her down with me by mistake."
"And have you no way of getting back? No way at all?"
She began to cry afresh and it was several minutes before she was master of herself again. "I had a magic cross – a blessed amber cross my brother William" – and she pointed to the largest, brightest star in The Price constellation over their heads – "gave to me for my birthday – with the power to bring me back home from any other place in the universe I could ever end up, but I hadn't a chain to wear it on – I was obliged, you see, to put it on a ribbon – and it broke – and I have... I have l-l-lost it!"
Edmund's guilty fingertips felt at the cross-shaped bulge in his waistcoat. Fanny did not notice.
Susan, out of breath, was finally within range to drop herself beside Fanny. "We–" she wheezed out. "We shall run on three – you must lean on me." She was uncertain how she would bear her elder sister's weight, but something needed to be done if they were to escape these two bumpkins. "One... Two..."
But Fanny only looked at Edmund with an expression which made her sister's stomach sink. Her counting petered off. It was plain Fanny was not willing to leave this gentleman who proved so agreeable to her, who seemed – more than the other – to at least care for her comfort.
"Oh," hissed Susan, quite despairing. "Fanny, no!"
"We don't know where we are," she pointed out. "There's nobody else, and Mr. Edmund Bertram wants to help us."
"Are you certain?" She was fairly shaking.
"I can possess no talent for certainty in this place, Susie." Sighing, she placed her small hand atop Edmund's. "But I've made up my mind as best I can. I'll go wherever he goes."
Susan could have screamed.
Tom, on the other hand, upon reaching them and hearing this, brightened considerably. "I say, that's awfully convenient, considering you're meant to be a gift for Miss Crawford – that's Edmund's lady love. I thank you for taking it so well; it really makes matters a great deal easier for us."
Fanny could only gawk, but Susan's tongue was in no way stilled. "Right," she scoffed. "Because nothing says romance like the gift of a kidnapped, injured woman!" She put an arm around Fanny protectively. "She's not going anywhere with the likes of you."
Fanny's eyes went to Edmund again, imploringly, and he gave her a gentle nod as if to promise he wouldn't abandon her – that it would be all right.
"We," he laughed, not unkindly, "failed to realise you would be ladies... Tom and I – I, especially – thought you'd be something like a diamond or big pebble."
Fanny smiled understandingly, almost amused, but Susan gave him a look that could kill; she hadn't Fanny's instant admiration for him to soften her anger. "And having discovered, sir, we were indeed ladies, you decided it was wisest to sic your lackwit brother upon us like some sort of mad wolf? He scared my sister half to death!"
Tom would have interjected something terse here, but he was too busy craning his neck and scanning the sky nervously. "Where is it?" He seemed truly worried. "Edmund, d'you suppose the sky here is different? I can't find it."
"Find what?" asked Edmund, offhandedly, not as if he cared overmuch, before – to Susan – adding, in a sweeter voice, "Pray, do forgive us, it was nothing personal – I've only done this for the sake of the most beautiful, kind woman in all the world." His thoughts strayed back to the concealed cross in his pocket – he could (and with a very good will) return it to Fanny and her sister as soon as he'd presented one of them to Mary Crawford and secured her hand in marriage. "Once I've kept my word to Miss Crawford, perhaps... Perhaps something can be done for you."
Susan's hands planted themselves upon her hips as she rose. "And, are we to understand, this beautiful, kind woman of yours sent you here to vex us? What kind of horrible, spiteful creature is your Miss Craw–"
"The star – my lucky star – I cannot see it!" exclaimed Tom, frantic eyes continuing to scan the sky. "It was right there – always – and..."
Susan glanced – almost against her will – to where he pointed. "Oh, for pity's sake! That is not funny!"
Tom's eyes were ripped from the heavens and locked onto Susan's scowling face. "Oh. Oh, God." He put a hand to his quirked mouth. "Surely you jest."
"Let us have one thing very clear," snapped Susan, glaring daggers. "I am not your lucky anything! And I shall do everything and anything within my power to frustrate your plans, to spoil your devices, so far as it does not upset my sister who is set upon travelling with your brother until further notice."
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.