Those Prevailing Happy Stars

A Mansfield Park & Stardust fanfiction

Chapter Eleven:

A Very Different Kind of Woman

When dusk fell and the stars were coming out, Edmund and Fanny stood together outside the inn, peering up anxiously into the gradually darkening night sky.

Fanny nudged Edmund urgently when she spotted Susan, no longer a pretty maiden but a point of light in the old familiar place. "There." There she was, shining as brightly she used to.

But was she alone?

What of Tom?

Then, very slowly, another twinkling point of light beside the first appeared – just where it ought to be but had never been before.

"They both made it," Fanny breathed. "They're together."

Edmund slipped an arm around her shoulders, glanced from the sky to her beside him – beginning to smile softly – and sighed, "That's better. A frown doesn't suit you."

"I don't know who I feel more sorry for," she managed through her spreading smile and the lingering traces of her former tears, "Tom or my other brothers."

"You don't suppose they would give him a hard time up there? They cannot know what he and Susan... I mean, on the Perdita, well..." His cheeks burned. "They couldn't know. Could they?"

"Alas, I am certain they do," chuckled Fanny, colouring.

Edmund's eyes widened. Still, he couldn't resist the urge to chuckle along with her. "Goodness. So, now, my poor brother must pay the piper. Well, at least he is alive."

In a manner of speaking, yes, he was, and in another he was not, but Fanny didn't have in her to correct Edmund on this point. There were some things – some states of being and not being – mortals couldn't understand.

"Hold on. Stars don't have duels, do they?" he wanted to know, suddenly feeling anxious. "Your brother isn't going to demand satisfaction from mine? We're not about to see another star fall, are we?"

Fanny laughed. "Of course not – and Susan would render John senseless if he tried to put any sort of real end to Tom's new existence, after what she must have gone through to bring him up there."

"I'm going to miss him." Edmund swallowed hard. "For all we never understood each other, I counted him a friend as well as a brother – how I wish we'd made less work pushing each other away! In that respect we both were to blame. What a waste.

"Oh, what a waste indeed – if he could have overcome his vices..." He pulled his arm back from around her. "Oh, Fanny, only you will understand – I must confide in you – it's more than simply losing a brother; I have lost everything! I don't want Mansfield Park. All I ever wanted was the parsonage. Think of me, Fanny! That big house is nothing to do with me. And Tom had half a dozen horses I'm now meant to... I only wanted my own two or three; those were enough for me."

"You have not lost Mary Crawford," Fanny said very quietly.

Edmund went dramatically pale, feeling sick to his stomach as he realised this no longer brought him the rush of unadulterated joy he thought it would. He admired Mary still, to be sure, and very likely always would, but... But when he envisioned taking her pretty little hand in his own and earnestly telling her he was in a position to make her Lady Bertram, to care for her all her life, in the fashion she wanted and expected, he did not feel the felicity he knew he ought.

Instead, he felt strangely trapped.

"Y-yes," he managed, trying to sound cheerful. "Well recollected, Fanny – I'd altogether forgotten to think of her! What a neglectful lover you must suppose me. You are a better, more attentive and thoughtful friend to dear Miss Crawford than I am a suitor for her – and you haven't even made her acquaintance yet!"

She forced a smile – a smile which came nowhere near to reaching her eyes. "Our not yet meeting can signify nothing. Her fame proceeds her. She has your good will to testify to her perfection."

"Oh." He gave a chuckle and coloured slightly. "Yes. It is well put."

"Excuse me." Fanny ducked away, hoping he wouldn't see her gathering tears, or – if he did – he would think they were yet for their siblings in the sky.

"Oh, wait – do. Fanny, come back a moment."

She swallowed hard and wiped at her eyes. How could she dream of refusing him, even to spare herself the humiliation of his noticing?

He didn't, anyway.

No sooner was she beside him again than he murmured, more to himself than to her, "Hang me if I haven't forgotten why I've called you back. My head today is quite useless."

"If that will be all..."

"No, no, do stay beside me anyway – look! Our siblings do not come out unaccompanied." He pointed upwards. "Even in Faerie it seems we can glimpse Cassiopeia."

"I-I must go – I am needed, inside, I feel certain someone – perhaps dear Mrs. Wentworth, I do not know – has need of me."

Fanny's heart burned to remain, her face glowed from mere proximity to love, even if it were not for her, but stargazing with Edmund was too much temptation to bear up with. If she stayed but a few moments longer, watching his rapt face bathed in starlight, after all which had happened, all they had suffered and achieved together, she knew she would do something – something which would hurt him very badly. She would run away this very night, breaking her promise, and never meet Mary Crawford. Mary might well accept him now Tom was gone, star or no star, but if she stayed at his side in this moment – longing to love and to comfort him, longing to have him for herself – she knew she could not suffer being the instrument of bringing them together.

And how, paradoxically, could she live with herself if she broke her word to him, if she left him without explanation?

His brow furrowed at her evident distress. "I think you are not rushing to be useful, though such is in your nature; I think you have the headache."

She gave a grateful nod at this ready excuse.

"Oh, dear – poor creature, poor sister – how long have you had it?"

"Not long. A couple hours."

"Then you must go in and lie down, by all means, now you know Tom and Susan are–"

"Yes," she agreed. "Yes, I shall do just as you say."

"I'll have the innkeeper bring some Madeira up to you when he can spare an hour."

"How kind – I thank you."

And she fled.

Edmund remained, staring up.

He thought on Tom rather more than he did on Mary Crawford. At least, presumably, in the sky, not only was he with Susan for always, his brother was safe at last from the vices that had always plagued him on earth.

Heaven preserve him, what would he tell their mother? She would be desperate, desolate.

A chill gripped him; his chest clenched. Because, this was true enough, she would be greatly upset, but he also knew her desolation would last naught but a fleeting moment, only until she had cried a little upon Sir Thomas' shoulder and been patted and fussed over by Aunt Norris, and resituated herself with Pug on the sofa, when she would suddenly recollect how often she was without Tom on a daily basis – how his absence being permanent would affect her on the whole hardly at all – and she would practically forget him, pleased to let Edmund take his place at table and carving.

It would be as if Tom never was and Edmund was the eldest son always. He would be exactly the son his father wanted. Tom would be completely forgotten.

When he was remembered, very occasionally, the man the family described would not be a thing – not a single thing – like the real Tom, the brother Edmund alone would properly recollect, had been.

Shivering and making his way back inside, seating himself in the tavern, although he was not certain he wished to drink anything, he found himself with Frederick Wentworth again, and he confided in him regarding this.

"You are not mistaken, I think," sighed Capitan Wentworth. "This is generally what occurs with dead brothers. The Musgrove family – they are related to me now through Anne, as her sister is the wife of Charles Musgrove – lost a boy, Richard; you would not know the Richard they speak of to me, praise me lavishly for being so good to, for the same unpleasant Dick Musgrove I took some pains to distance myself from when he yet lived."

"My brother," murmured Edmund, quite brokenly, "was not a bad man, Captain Wentworth."

"Indeed not – he saved my wife, as well as Fanny and Susan. Even now, I cannot believe fully Crawford would have kept his word and returned her. Something might have gone wrong. His uncle might have turned up and intercepted the wedding instead of Tom. There might have been a magical duel with two magicians warring – Anne might have been in a crossfire. Your brother, Mr. Bertram, is a hero as far as I am concerned. Even if his loss was foolish, I will always declare – by my book – he left this world a true hero. Anne will think of him as a great benefactor, I have no doubt.

"But" – he leaned forward upon his elbows and looked very grave – "I'm certain we understand each other when I say I don't believe you want your brother recollected as a saint, either. He hasn't – hadn't – the face for stained glass, if you take my meaning."

Edmund's eyes closed and he inhaled sharply. "God forgive me, but you understand me perfectly, my friend – I should go mad at once if ever I heard someone call him 'poor Tommy' within my hearing. Let alone anything more saccharine."

"You must harden yourself to that, for it will happen."

"How will I get on without him? Without being crushed by guilt?"

"Take comfort in a wife, Mr. Bertram – I feel a hypocrite for saying it, as my own history is full of near-mistakes I blush at yet, but nothing will soothe you better."

"I will see Miss Crawford as soon as I am in Wall again, of course, and there may be joy there, as Fanny reminded me, but–"

Frederick's mouth quirked. "Have you considered, perhaps..." And he leaned in and whispered something into Edmund's ear which caused his eyes to widen and his face to redden with surprise. Pulling away, he added, with gentle severity, "All I ask is you think on it."

There was a knock on the door to Fanny's room; she glanced up, suspecting it was a chambermaid, only to see Edmund's head appear. "Are you recovered, Fanny?"

She smiled and began to slide a small length of cloth off her lap after delicately stabbing a needle into it.

"What," he laughed, gesturing with his chin, "is that a shirt? Has someone put you to work mending?"

"Anne had a great deal of mending – she takes in the mending of nearly all the sailors, as well as her husband's, and I could not see her so burdened without thinking to offer my help."

"Such lady-like stitches," remarked Edmund, coming in and closing the door behind himself; "how very feminine and right they are! But, oh, you ought to be resting your eyes if you've just recovered from headache, not strain them so. You are too good."

"It is nothing." She shook her head.

"It is nothing only to one who never thinks of herself, of her own comfort," was his gentle reply.

She blushed brilliantly, hoping the weak fire in the room kept the place dark enough he mightn't notice.

"If I might have some of your time – if you are well enough, and pray tell me if you are not – I should like to consult with you. To ask you something." He wrung his hands. "The captain and I were speaking downstairs, within the last few hours, and a matter of great delicacy was brought up – great delicacy. I found, thinking it over alone afterwards, I could not be easy until I had consulted you."

"I shall help in any way I might." Although she could not fathom how.

He sat beside her on the bed (despite this being a bit improper under most circumstances, there was nowhere else; the room contained only the bed and a chair obviously meant to hold a woman of light weight, for the legs would never hold his, and would have shattered if he had even half the bulk of, say, Mr. Rushworth; besides, they had been closer, sat upon the same bed and cushioning in their cabin in the Perdita, and there could be no call for excessive adherence to formality now) and took her hand in his own.

Fanny felt so unbearably weak – how could she give him up to another, as soon she must? How could she?

"Frederick thinks I make a mistake in saying I shall marry Mary Crawford – he feels Miss Crawford is not a good match for me. I know..." He sighed. "I know my brother felt similarly after some time here in Faerie, though he liked her well enough when he met her before..."

"I am sure he did," said Fanny, with forced diplomacy. "She must be very charming. She sounds wonderful when you speak of her."

"There is something – forgive me – but there is something in your face that, while you are being kind, makes me doubt your true feelings here. Please, tell me the truth, as a friend: d'you, actually, feel I give Miss Crawford merits she does not possess? D'you think me in love with a mere dream?"

Swallowing hard, she wet her lips. This felt like ground which must be carefully tread, like thin ice one misstep could send her falling through to her death. "I think you the last man alive to..." She shook, trembling from shoulder to torso. "To... The last man, the very last, who could love – really love – a woman who was not at least a real and proper gentlewoman. She must be as lovely as you say, if she is yours."

"But she has faults."

"As have we all."

"They are what they have always been."

"Yes."

"Anyhow, Frederick has asked me to consider whether a very different kind of woman would not make me just as content, if not a great deal more so. That is what he has whispered to me downstairs. Tom implied something similar in a conversation we had after he told me he and Susan were engaged. He was less forthright, but that was his meaning – of that, I am certain."

Fanny did not dare hope. To hope they had got through to him, saved him from Miss Crawford, was insanity. She would never presume to have such a hope rise within her.

And yet...

"And what do you think, Edmund? D'you still wish to marry her?"

"There is the rub, Fanny, the more I consider how I should feel if I never met her again – now it is in my power to have her for the asking, now I am to be my father's heir and I have her star with me" – he smiled at Fanny and his right eye twitched into a near wink – "I like her less than I did when she was not to be my own."

"Do you?"

"I wish her well, but her charm – for me – is broken." Here, he grew sombre. "And could I wake, every morning, beside the woman whose brother dealt mine the injury that killed him? Even if Tom's own self-neglect was what made it fatal, I still would always... It would be unthinkable for me to... Mary and I, we must be separated after that, I fear, even if I did still think her the only woman I could ever..."

"You need not marry anyone," offered Fanny, staring down at his hand still wrapped around hers. "Not straightaway. No one could expect it of you, after everything. There would be no cause, if you do not want Miss Crawford any longer," (and she did not yet dare believe this), "and if there was nobody who fit Frederick's idea of being very different from her..."

"But there is, Fanny!" he burst out, with unexpected warmth. "Oh, there is! But I fear she will not have me."

She blinked, marvelling. "I do not understand you."

"You will think me too rash, first, if I name her, if I name the woman I find myself, within the last few hours, as eager to marry as I have ever been to wed Miss Crawford, even in the same moment I ceased to think of her, and then you will think me forward and cruel."

"I could never think you cruel!"

He threaded his fingers through hers. "You will think me overtired, then. You will not accept me."

"Accept you?" she gasped. "What can you mean?"

"I can never persuade you to love me, you are not readily changeable, thank God – and I would not try to force you as Henry Crawford did, and risk your heart closing to me for ever – but if you will hear me, only but hear me, I will say this: I think your sisterly regard for me can be no bad fountain for our eventual wedded love."

She drew her hand away from his, but only out of shock. "Sisterly regard?" cried she. "Sisterly regard?" She was weeping with wild abandon as she cried out, tears streaming down her face. "You think I feel for you only sisterly regard?"

Edmund did not know which way to look – he was overcome. She was animated, but he could not tell if it was because she was angry or offended, and – moreover – he did not fully think it possible, within the capabilities of her heart, to direct real venom, if such it was, at him.

"I've distressed you," he said at last. "Forgive me."

She wiped at her eyes and attempted to choke out a reply. After several failed attempts she managed to say, sadly, she thought him to be in a mood which could bring no happy end; he would want, she was certain, even yet, to marry Miss Crawford. She so wished Frederick had never spoken to him at all. The captain's advice might seem good to him now, after what happened to his brother, but this was an epiphany that would not last; he would miss too much about the lady he so esteemed to wish for another.

"It is true I should miss some parts of Miss Crawford's company" – at least, he should miss everything he had projected upon her pleasing person, hoping was really was within – "her lively way of talking – her music upon the harp – her ready wit, for she has it in spades and I have none myself and could almost envy the ease with which she can speak amusingly on every topic and turn a dull phrase into something infinitely more clever than anyone else in a room might dream up."

All this talk was a dagger to Fanny's heart, but she nodded tranquilly, even encouragingly. It was as much as she supposed from the start. He loved Mary Crawford yet.

"But – oh, please sit down. You are breaking my heart. Do not make me look up at you when you are so grave peering down at me."

She did as he asked.

He cleared his throat. "But, you see, I have been pacing the length of my room since ever speaking to Captain Wentworth and there is one thing I shall not be able – ever – to put away from my mind. I miss parts of Miss Crawford's company, but in parting ways with you, I would miss all aspects of yours. I have been blind, and here – looking into your severe face – I pay for it.

"If I had seen what was there – what might have been – sooner, if I had courted, instead of mooning over another, your heart is tender enough I think in time you might have... I think I might have succeeded. And now... Now you are only a favourite sister who loves me as she loves her brother. It is all my own fault."

She burst again into tears and rose up once more. "How can you still not understand me?"

"You are grieved, and I've angered you."

"Angered?" cried she, beginning to shake and hiccup. "Angered? No! Can you not guess? I love you – I loved you from the start, from the very beginning of our acquaintance! When..." She gasped for breath, trying to speak clearly through wheezes and sobs. "When we parted, when Mr. Crawford took me from the Perdita, I meant when I said to you. I was not speaking with 'sisterly regard' as you describe it!"

"But you will not accept me," he said as if resigned.

"I never said this," sobbed Fanny, a-tremble like the last leaf on the end of a branch. "My answer is yes – a thousand times yes – if you are really not going to marry Miss Crawford – yes!"

Edmund stood and held out his arms to her, drawing her in, declaring himself to be the luckiest gentleman in existence. What a fool he had been, and how constant she had been, what she must have suffered! What he must have made her obliged to suffer unwitting!

He smoothed back her hair and kissed her brow and closing eyelids.

Here was exactly the wife he wanted, no other.

How indescribably fortunate he was, too, he now could marvel, Mary had never said yes to him properly; their engagement being conditional, dependant on his carrying out a particular task and putting the question to her afresh following its being accomplished, had saved him. He was sorry to wound an amiable and pretty woman in any way, regardless of the past and who her brother was, but there was no formal promise between them – if he gave her one of the stars he had seen fall, she implied she would then accept his proposal, and he had not done so, no longer had any intention of doing so, and there could be no claim on her part to him.

If he had had left Wall formally engaged, as he would have then preferred, honour would separate him from Fanny forever, prevented his marrying the woman he was truly anxious to wed, even as he ceased to care about Miss Crawford.

Was anyone as secure as they were to be in earthly happiness?

If there was such a man and woman, either in his world or in Faerie, Edmund knew them not in waking life, and he hadn't imagination enough to conjure them from the dreaming mind.

Fanny's tears slowed as he kissed her, repeatedly and with great fervency, and her smile spread under his eager mouth. His arms encircled her about the waist, and she became almost certain he meant to do more than simply embrace her (fistfuls of muslin from the back of her dress were clenched in one of his hands, quite bunched in his grasp, and he moaned softly between kisses) – lifting her own hands to his lapel, smoothing it a touch awkwardly, wondering if he was going to give her some hint as to what she ought to do while he, while he was... – when he suddenly pulled away.

There was alarm in his face, and she – mistaking him – said, "You didn't hurt me – it's all right."

Perhaps, she reasoned, he thought he had accidentally pinched her through the muslin?

The corners of his mouth turned up at her sweetness and innocence. "We're not married yet," was his explanation. He bowed his head and leaned it against her brow. "I have no desire to take improper liberties with you. Let us simply be engaged. There can be no hurrying, when such a time in our lives is only for the once. Let me bring you as..." He nearly said, he meant to say, as a maid, but grew decidedly hot about the cheeks and bailed by concluding with, "...as you are," instead. "Let me bring you as you are to my parents upon our return to Wall – we were going there anyway – and tell them we have an understanding between us. Let us be clean before God when we enter into the marriage state."

"Oh – oh yes – how foolish I was not to think of that." Fanny's own cheeks were like scarlet. She had been so pleased to have gotten him, so pleased he wished to touch her, she had failed – in the swelling emotion of the moment – to think properly. "It's only right, and you are going to be a clergyman – you must lead by example in such things!"

He brought one of her hands to his lips and kissed the knuckles. "Dearest! But you cannot think I am still to take orders?"

"Are you not?" She was astonished. "D'you no longer wish it? You spoke of wanting to be a parson just outside! Were you not still going to do so at Christmas?"

"Apart from becoming your husband, there is nothing I wish for more in the world than to be a good humble parson in some good humble parish. But how can I be, when I am expected to take over Tom's responsibilities?"

Fanny's face melted with concern. "Is it really impossible to do both?"

"Nay, far from impossible – but it will not be expected of me, not as it would be for a younger son whose brother was still..." He trailed off. "I could not dare presume even you – with all your goodness and patience – would want a husband so encumbered."

She squeezed the hand he still held. "But that is all I want – for you to do what will make you happiest! You mustn't dream of giving up your plans for taking orders, truly you mustn't, not when it will lead to the fulfilment of your hopes."

"But Fanny," said he, as if yet puzzled, "what can I do for you – in exchange for–"

"There is only one exchange I ask for," she assured him. "Your heart, in return for mine."

And truly, wholly, it was his, as it had – in reality – always been.

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