Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Three:

As far as Sir Thomas was concerned, Mr. Yates had overstayed his welcome less than, perhaps, five minutes – and this, even, was only by the generous, somewhat grudging allowance made for a gentleman's required hospitality – after arriving with Julia, and the long-suffering baronet had been eagerly, in his head, counting off the days, hours, and, finally, the very minutes until the unwanted guest would – at blessed last – take it into his head to quit the park.

He did what – indeed all – he could, of course, to encourage Tom to hurry his particular friend along in this, and – until the tragic and sobering incident of little Thomas Charles' disappearance – not fully realising how much else his son had weighing upon his mind, fancied him to be obtuse quite on purpose. But, after the baby was gone and Fanny and Julia were both seen to be grieving, there was a slowing down of suggestions Mr. Yates ought to leave. It seemed ungenerous to send a friend away when, to his credit, he did wish only to comfort. He even ceased to make remarks, as he had been doing incessantly prior, regarding his being a more fit godfather than Mr. Bingley. His continued kindness to Julia, in particular, chiefly consisting of soft looks and the occasional gentle word, could not be discounted, however much Sir Thomas might wish she did not show him affection, did not appear to allow his attentions, as a result of this – for, even faced with seeing the gentleman's better nature, he could not yet like him as a potential son.

It was true Mr. Yates was not the most feeling of fellows under usual circumstances – grandmothers of his allegedly held-dear acquaintances had passed on from the world with little more than an annoyed blink and a brief inquiry as to how it should affect his plans in the past – but he did feel, as well as he could, keenly for the Bertrams.

It was a baby, after all, and stolen or dead, or who knew what else.

Tom's baby, and dear, sweet Julia's own nephew and godson.

Even Mr. Yates himself was uncertain which gripped his sympathies the tightest, which claim was most pressing upon his awkward yet earnest heart. Perhaps in much the same way he never fully knew if he loved Tom as his friend because he reminded him of Julia, or if he loved Julia as a would-be lover because she reminded him, as only a sister can, of Tom, his friend. He was not an introspective sort of person – he was the farthest thing from it – but in his shallowness, owed strictly to stupidity rather than true unkindness, there was to be found an odd feeling of very real – simply because he believed to be so, and thus willed it so – depth.

Faced with their misery and without any inflated sense of himself as a hero, only a rash – too rash, admittedly – desire to do right by the Bertrams and cure their gloomy faces if perchance it should be in his power to do so, he found himself one morning in a remarkable position.

The gentleman came racing into the foyer, holding a squalling bundle (and not well enough he wasn't in some danger of dropping it, his position more readily comparable to Moses holding up the ten commandments than to a man cradling an infant in his arms) and crying out he had found Tom's child and recovered him.

Tom was in Mansfield Wood, but Fanny was within the house, and she appeared – quick as an arrow's shot – upon the landing above, leaning over the rail with bated breath.

Sir Thomas and Baddeley appeared, as well as Sally Robins and Roger Smith and the housekeeper.

(Julia was out riding, as the day was fine.)

Gone very white, Fanny stumbled her away down the stairs and – when she beheld the baby Yates held out to her at last – the light of hope went from her eyes and the colour flushed in her cheeks.

"That's not him," she said flatly, pulling away, and she would have sunk to the floor if Baddeley had not come dutifully forward to catch her and hold her upright until her legs regained their strength.

"It is, to be sure!" cried Mr. Yates, looking from her to the baby with a furrowed expression that seemed to say nobody could mistake the resemblance. "If this laddie is not wee Thomas, I daresay he has got himself a twin we never beheld before this hour!"

Sir Thomas regarded the baby (which proved upon the inspection of two seconds to be a lassie, rather than a laddie, for one thing), his colour raised now as well. "Where, Mr. Yates, did you obtain this child?"

"Oh, from some woman," he told them, still beaming merrily, his failure not having yet sunk in. "Came walking up from the village carrying him without shame! Can you believe it? She screamed like anything, when I took him back, wailing about how it was her baby, as if it really were! As if it could be, when I could see plain as day it was your own grandson, Sir Thomas. But I said – I said – ma'am, you ought to count yourself lucky we aren't dragging you before the law – kidnapping is a great offence."

"Indeed, it is, Mr. Yates – a very great offence," sighed Sir Thomas pointedly, and took the child into his own arms before Yates could manage – at the last – to successfully drop her upon her head. "And now you have obliged me to spend my day tracking down an understandably distraught mother so I might beg her pardon on your behalf for this 'great offence' as you've rightly named it. I daresay I will find the poor woman – whoever she is, unhappy creature – in the village if I set out at once."

Fanny said, "I should like to come with you, sir, and see the child safely home, if I shouldn't be in the way in so doing."

Mr. Yates insisted, for a few moments more, this was Thomas Charles, could be no other, but in the end had to concede a mistake had been made.

So, the baby was put into Fanny's waiting and willing arms while Baddeley located Sir Thomas' hat and greatcoat and – despite it not being her own son returned to her – she felt a pang, a very sharp pang, at the knowledge she should be parted from this one also very soon. There was a rightness, a feeling of the world being as it ought, simply in the holding of a baby in her arms again. And however much her heart was gladdened to see the mother – her tear-stained face lit up at the sight, beheld from her little cottage window, of her stolen infant being brought back by the baronet and his pretty daughter with her golden curls and sad, light eyes – reunited with her baby, the doubled emptiness she felt on the way back to the house with no baby of her own to hold was almost unbearable.

Seeing how miserable she was, her eyes downcast and her whole body slumping forward as if a sudden gale of wind might easily knock her to the ground, Sir Thomas – switching his walking-stick from one hand to the other and closing the short gap between them – placed his freed hand over hers and called her 'my little Fanny' with enough tenderness to make up for a thousand harsher mannerisms displayed to her in childhood.

This whole unpleasant episode was, by anybody's standards, but particularly those of Sir Thomas, which were biased out of the gentleman's favour, reason enough to ask Mr. Yates leave Mansfield – certainly he had disgraced himself, put more than one person out of their way to make amends for his blunder, and frightened a mother out of her wits into the bargain.

Yet, there was the irritating fact that John Yates had believed he was doing for right. His natural virtue, which in and of itself couldn't be entirely faulted, had simply not been in anything like equal measure to his God-granted intelligence – or, rather, lack thereof.

Moreover, Sir Thomas was fagged to death – as Tom would have described it – and was in no mood for further scenes, and so he – for the time being – allowed Mr. Yates to stay on – the baby was returned to her mother, after all, and no lasting harm had been done – and said no more about the matter.

The less he was required say to the gentleman so long as he would remain in the house, Sir Thomas thought, the better.

The baronet soon had cause to repent his leniency.

Not two nights after the incident with the village woman's snatched baby, Fanny – having fallen asleep in her chair in Tom's sitting room around the hour of the sun's setting, though she'd intended only to rest her eyes a moment before going down to the drawing-room to attend to Lady Bertram – awoke long after her husband should have been with her, only to find him still absent.

"Tom? Are you come?" she murmured, slowly standing and rubbing at her eyes. "Mr. Bertram?"

There was no reply – the fire in the grate had gone low, near to embers, suggesting even Roger Smith had not been in since she'd fallen asleep.

She had missed dinner, it seemed, and she wondered no one had looked for her.

During the old days, when she was only the indigent niece, the lowest and the last, it would not have in the least astonished her to be forgotten – she would have marvelled only that Lady Bertram, on an evening Mrs. Norris was not come to sit with her, should not have required an attendant, to unpick her mistaken stitches or fetch Pug back from some corner or other if nothing else. Now she realised, with a strange feeling of surreal bewilderment, how much more necessary she'd become since her change in station, since her marriage, as she could truly manage to be puzzled at not having been sought or wakened.

It was possible, she supposed, straightening her dress before stepping into the hallway, Julia had supplied her place tonight – nothing could have been more natural.

Although, she wondered how they got on; she knew Lady Bertram did not much like Julia to handle Pug. She had never quite forgotten how, just before they took in Fanny, she had been forced to go to some pains, considerable to one so indolent as herself, to make her younger daughter leave off antagonising her beloved pet.

Regardless of if Julia had sat with Lady Bertram and taken her place at dinner or not, Tom ought to have been up to see her – he was nearly always retired by this time.

Making her way down the staircase, Fanny heard a familiar voice – Edmund's.

Having not known Edmund was visiting from Thornton Lacey, she could hardly help colouring with a sudden flush of pleasure.

Her rosy expression faded somewhat, her colour quickly returning to normal, when she discerned his peevish tone.

He was speaking with Tom, by her guess, and had – judging from the sheer amount of weariness in his voice – apparently lost patience with him.

Fanny halted before the door to the billiard-room. Her intention was to announce herself at once to both brothers, not to eavesdrop, but the glimpse of action she caught (the door was halfway open, and she saw before she could think) was so shocking she forgot all about making herself known.

Edmund had – for some unknown reason – flung the clear liquid contents of a sparkling wineglass directly into Tom's face.

The splatter against the metal of his mask made a brief tinkling sound; it was like a smattering of light rain on the side-glass of a carriage window.

Tom shrieked, "It burns, by Jove!" and – Fanny could see now his hands were tied, albeit loosely, and his thrashing to get them free was something of a sham, with ropes, to the arms of the chair he was seated in – began to contort himself dramatically. "Mighty powerful stuff, that holy water, what."

Giving the glass still in his hand a bemused sniff, Edmund sighed, "It's gin, Tom."

"It jolly well isn't!" But he stopped thrashing and looked unsure, for all his professed vehemence.

"It isn't holy water from Italy – it's gin." He held out the wineglass – a tiny silver cross dangled from a thin coppery chain twisted between his fingers and pinged against it as he did so. "Smell it for yourself."

"Well, I daresay it is – someone has quite taken me in there – but perhaps it will still work if you read from the book of Revelation backwards, like I told you to." He bit his bottom lip, chewing pensively, then released it. "Or" – was his hopeful addition – "you could just light a candle, chant some Greek nonsense, strike me on the forehead with the flat palm of the opposite hand, and scream a bit about the power of Jesus Christ compelling demons to come forth out of me? It's bound to do some good, don't you think?"

"As I attempted to explain before you managed to talk me into performing this ridiculous farce of a ritual, I am not that manner of clergyman, and you are not possessed."

"I don't see," he insisted, a little petulantly, "why removing a curse is so very different from compelling a demonic presence to make itself scarce. Fanny's Sicilian cross can keep me from turning into bear, so I haven't the slightest notion why you – all ordained and such like – can't simply lift the curse if–"

Coming forward and yanking off his brother's barely substantial bonds, flinging the ropes across the room in annoyance, Edmund then demanded to know who'd put the notion of an exorcism as a way to hurry the curse along into his head and subsequently pointed him in the direction of whoever gave him the blasted gin instead of the promised holy water.

"Well, that is – hem – we were conversing yesterday eve, before I went upstairs to see Fanny, lamenting the run of bad luck as of late, and Yates thought–"

Yates, of course it was, the unfortunate man was a perpetual fountain of ill-boding advice and bad ideas, ever since his first introducing theatricals to Mansfield what felt like a lifetime ago; Fanny knew instinctively it would get back to her uncle by the morning, though not by her carrying the tale, and Sir Thomas would have the Honourable John Yates removed from Mansfield, gone by the mail, well before Tom was returned from Mansfield Wood.

"You used to be dead against trying to lift the curse by force," Edmund said after a long, indignant pause. "You thought rituals and holy icons were absolute fudge – that was a direct quote from you, if I am not mistaken. Absolute fudge." He shook his head sadly. "Even as one ordained, and as one knowing curses and witches to be undeniably real in your case, I'm not inclined myself to think they're much beyond local superstition." His hand was lain gently now over his brother's. "Tom, what feverish notions – what bag of moonshine – have you been entertaining?"

"I want him back, Edmund." And his voice cracked. "It's on his account I cannot bear to wait seven years." Tom's head turned; he gave a long, drawn sniff, sounding very much like a man trying his hardest not to cry. "Lord, what have I done to this family?"

Fanny understood he was speaking of their son, their lost baby, her dearest Thomas Charles, and could bear to watch and listen no longer – announcing herself, showing herself to them now was quite out of the question.

She turned away from the door, silent as a ghost, and fled.

Although it often feels as if it must, and certainly it felt so to Fanny and Tom, both ardently believing nothing could lessen their joint misery of losing a child, no anguish – at least in its fullest, undulated form – lasts forever.

Given their situation, together each night without alteration, it was the most natural occurrence imaginable they should take comfort in one another, a comfort extending well beyond the initial grief.

Tom said, in low murmurs as he rolled over on top of her beneath the darkness of the bed-hangings, he needed her, and – in her usual way – Fanny was not slow to respond to that need.

She was, as always, at his disposal simply for the asking.

And so, it was not particularly shocking to Fanny when, as a result, she found herself to be with child again.

This time, there was no need for Lady Bertram to enlighten her; she had rather more idea what to expect, going by the previous experience, and worked it out for herself fairly quickly. She judged the bouts of illness in the mornings, along with her other symptoms, to be exactly what they were, and – when she was almost certain – informed Tom, as they sat alone by the fire, he should expect the arrival of their second child in a manner of months.

His reaction, however, was a terrible shock to her.

At first, she was not sure he had heard her, was poised to repeat herself, when – after a single, unguarded shiver – he turned his head languidly, regarded her with pronounced distance from behind the slits of his mask, and – very quietly – said it mattered little to him, either way, since the anticipated child would not bear the name of Bertram.

Fanny simply looked at him, uncomprehending. "I do not understand you. Surely–"

"Surely nothing, Fanny." His posture became rigid. "I don't acknowledge this child, and I've no intention of naming it or having it baptized, either by Dr. Grant or my brother. No register, no name. As far as I am concerned, it isn't mine."

She reached out, attempting to touch him, but he flinched and moved away. "If you like, since I've little doubt the physician will order it soon enough, and there's no help for it now, I'll have Smith bring your things downstairs."

"Tom–"

"I won't make the same mistake twice – pray don't make a piece of work of it, I haven't the strength to quarrel with you."

"We scarcely ever quarrel." And – this she did not say – when they did, it was usually his doing rather than hers; Fanny wasn't naturally quarrelsome.

He acknowledged this to be fact, nonetheless insisting they should have a quarrel presently, one he very much wished to avoid, if she went on speaking of this any longer.

"Have I done something to vex you?" Her voice was small, her countenance pale and sorrowful.

For a moment, he let himself relax into tenderness. "No, Mousy – you jolly well haven't – I am vexed with myself."

Alas, this reassurance proved to be the final kind word he had to give her – if not the final word which might remotely be considered a full, coherent thought rather than a grunt or a sigh or a curt reply – for a very long while.

She was removed from their shared bedroom; though it must have been in both their thoughts, quite foremost in them, no mention was made aloud by either of how the many days of their separation would lengthen the seven years of his curse considerably.

Fanny would have been miserable and might have suffered a broken heart she could not mend – should Mrs. Norris have got the charge of her in her new rooms again, she must have shrunk into nothing, a shadow of her former self – if Edmund, upon hearing the news she was expecting again, had not decided it prudent to ask Mr. Collins to come from Hunsford and supply his place at Thornton Lacey for a month. He came himself to Mansfield and stayed on in his own old rooms on purpose to be with Fanny, to soothe her worries and give her all the verbal kindnesses Tom had cooled off in regularly bestowing, and to see she was not bullied by the staff or by their aunt. Mary was to be left with her, as before, for the remaining months during which Edmund would be obliged to return to his responsibilities at home, and of course – so long as she did not take a fancy in her head to leave, to perhaps seek a situation in town with their Bloomsbury cousins, or worse, seek an occasion to be reunited with the departed John Yates – she should have Julia as well.

It was not long before Fanny – giving way to weeping as she did so – told Edmund just how completely Tom had drawn away from her.

"I know how it must seem, and you know I would be the first to condemn my brother's folly." He put an arm about her shoulders and adjusted her shawl, bowing his head so it lightly touched hers. "But in his mad way, I do believe he thinks himself protecting you and the child. By drawing away, he hopes to lessen the curse's hold by some loophole he has – unfortunately – invented within his own mind. If the child is not named a Bertram, not named as his–"

"But what difference should it make?"

"To a sound, guiltless mind, none – no reasonable gentleman with all his senses could convince himself it should, nor could, make the slightest difference – but to one given to self-reproach, as Tom's is–"

"I have never known Tom to be self-reproaching," said Fanny.

"Have you not? I grant you he never was in his earlier youth, he was too flippant, but he has become so, by-and-by, since your marriage, and especially since Thomas Charles was taken."

"And ought I to submit, then?" Only Edmund, with all the power of his former guidance, could give her an answer she might accept. "Am I to give him his way in this without a word in my own defence? Is it right?"

"You are already the perfect model of wifely submission and must make yourself easy there," he assured her, planting a brotherly kiss upon her brow. "Tom is a fool if he imagines it to be otherwise. But I cannot like his refusal to baptize the coming infant and, one fears, considering he won't acknowledge this baby as a Bertram, it should look as if–"

"As if what?" Fanny's eyes widened.

He caught himself, wishing to avoid troubling her. "Nothing. I have given over to musing – this is not counsel; this, you mustn't pay mind to."

Yet, catching Tom alone that evening, he finished his thought – first entertained, and subsequently muted, when he was with Fanny – without reserve and with a great deal less gentleness.

"Have you considered the censure Fanny will face if people take your obvious repulsion towards the baby as a sign she's set to give birth to some other man's" – he lowered his voice – "by-blow?"

"Obvious repulsion? Damn." He gave him a simpering smile. "And, by Jove, I imagined I was doing such a great deal to conceal my indifference."

"I shall never sit back and allow you to ruin her in the eyes of the world," Edmund growled protectively. "Not for any reason. No cause is noble enough to warrant that."

"The eyes of the world, as you would have it," huffed Tom, impatient, "will hardly be on her long enough to ruin her. Don't try to govern me with your moral threats."

"Forgive me, brother, but I fail to see your meaning – the child here, as it must be in a manner of months, and you unwilling to let it be called by the name of Bertram–"

"Fanny's child isn't going to live here."

Blanching, Edmund recoiled. "Tom, that is monstrous. You cannot separate a mother from her child! Her legitimate child, no less! Your child!"

"Keep your voice down," Tom hissed through his teeth. "Would you have me parade the child around, name the infant and coddle it, as I did my son – my firstborn – he would have been my heir – and have somebody else take this one also? Some unseen agent of my curse?" He shook his head. "No, it's far better if I'm the one to remove the poor little soul from Mansfield by my own hand. I shall know, at least, that no supernatural harm has befallen another child of Fanny's."

"I don't believe Fanny could bear it."

Behind the slits of his mask, Tom closed his eyes. He inhaled, long and deep. "Why d'you imagine I haven't told her?"

"Because you aren't speaking to her," Edmund couldn't help saying peevishly. "It is too cruel; can you not see it? Think. She's already lost you, or as good as, and Thomas Charles. She can't live without loving someone."

"She can love you – and Mary – and William." Tom shrugged, giving off an air of indifference though his former set jaw was trembling quite a bit as he spoke. "I daresay she loves our mother as well."

"It isn't enough."

"If I could, I'd send Fanny away, too – some place warm and safe, where she could be happy again – she would be better off without me and the curse – without my foolishness. But what can I do? The terms of the curse ever being broken require her to all but tethered to my side."

"You are breaking her heart."

There was a sudden fierceness come into his posture. "D'you think I don't know that?" His own heart was just as broken, after all. "And, Edmund, I promise you, if you tell her my plan to send this child away and it affects her health – if she falls ill or loses this child she's carrying – I will never forgive you so long as I live. I'll give the Mansfield living to someone else after our father's gone and Dr. Grant's long forgotten – legalities and promises be damned – you will never have entry into the park again – I will make you pay for it if anything happens to her."

Utterly bewildered, it was all Edmund could do to give something like a promise, something akin to his solemn word, albeit most unwillingly, and to wonder, marvel, how the conversation had turned, quite unbelievably, from Tom doing Fanny irreparable harm to his doing so.

As the months passed, Fanny grew large enough the physician suspected her of carrying more than one child – twins was, in his professional opinion, a high probability.

When this news reached the drawing-room, the evening after the physician had made his visit, Lady Bertram, setting down her needle, only said, "Goodness."

Mrs. Norris had rather more to say. "Let us hope, sister, one of these twins – if the doctor is not mistaken, as I fear he probably is – shall be a boy and replace the last one."

Lady Bertram thought this rather harsh, though she didn't say so, but it was Tom – who happened, by a freak chance, to be in earshot, reclining upon the sofa behind them after a long day in Mansfield Wood, unbeknownst to either his mother or aunt – that was the most wounded by this remark.

Even if he were to keep these children – these twins that could never be his, these twins he wished he had never sired – the notion either of them could ever make up for the one which was taken was despicable. Thomas Charles had found the softest place in his heart from the moment he first saw the baby in its cradle while Fanny slept after the difficult birth; having him wrested from that place by force had left a kind of bruise upon his being he could not endure any prodding at.

Angrily, he rose from the sofa, gave them both – though his mother hadn't anything to do with it apart from not being very thorough in her condemnation – a single scathing look and – banging the door behind himself, stormed out of the drawing-room.

Mrs. Norris made some comment or other about his lack of respect, still blaming Fanny for using her influence to turn what had been a very sensible young man in her estimation into an overly-sensitive wet goose who could not be easily reasoned with, even by those who had his best interests at heart, and then returned – with a grim expression – to her work from the poor basket.

The birth of Fanny's twins did not prove any less difficult for her than the birth of her first little son – indeed, it felt rather worse for her, as she did not – this time – have the blessing of oblivion.

Despite the pain disabling her from doing anything – even from screaming – unconsciousness didn't fall on her, and she suffered through acute awareness of every moment.

She was extremely weak, afterwards, but she could see and hear well enough – peering anxiously from under her damp eyelashes – to understand she had given birth to two relatively healthy girls.

As soon as they were cleaned off, she was eager to have them in her arms, to take a good look at them, but she scarcely got to hold the one – to note the first infant nestled in her grasp was slighter and less plump than Thomas Charles had been, a condition everyone present who knew about babies promised her was a normal occurrence, especially where twins were involved – when, to her horror, Mrs. Norris entered with Baddeley, snapping her quick, sharp fingers for the old butler to snatch up the basket the other twin, the one not yet handed over to Fanny, was currently lying freshly-swaddled in.

Tom had arranged for this as soon as it seemed likely Fanny's giving birth would be imminent. He had waited so long to ask her for the favour simply because he didn't trust their aunt to keep the secret of the babies' removal from Mansfield; he didn't trust her with much, but after that wretched comment about his son, he had realised – once he'd got beyond the warmth from his raised spleen – Aunt Norris was the only one in the household cold-blooded enough to, if necessary, remove the pair of infants, once they'd been safely brought into the world, directly from Fanny's arms.

Edmund wouldn't be able to do it – nor his father – nor could he himself, when it came right down to it, even if he should be in the form of a man when the time came.

They were, all of them, too fond of Fanny to grieve her thus.

A servant might be ordered to do it – he might convince Sarah, he thought – but they had more heart than Mrs. Norris and might waver when faced with a gentle mother such as Fanny in the flesh.

Only Mrs. Norris could be absolutely counted upon to have no real pity, for she never had any before, for her niece's suffering.

Fanny – sensing something amiss in her aunt's hardened resolve – resisted having her daughter taken from her, but the baby was finally yanked – wailing, for she did not, it seemed, like to be held by Mrs. Norris – free from her grip.

Julia and Mary, in ignorance of what was really happening (even Mary had not heard the truth from Edmund, whose promise to Tom stilled his tongue even where his wife was concerned), held her back and kindly patted her hair; they assured her their aunt was simply carrying them off to the wet nurse or for some other necessary reason, and they should be back with her very soon – she must rest now.

She did rest, fitfully and in turns, but it was difficult to trust them – however earnest they seemed, however earnest and truthful they believed themselves to really be – when Baddeley was giving away some hint of what was to come by the tears shining bright in his eyes.

In the hours that came upon her in waiting for her babies to be returned, Fanny amused herself – as well as she could – by imagining what she should call them.

Tom – who had come in to see her so seldom during these months she had almost forgotten what it was like to have him with her in the flesh – might refuse to let them be Miss Bertrams, but she must call them something.

She had settled upon Mary and Wilhelmine, for her favourite siblings, decided the one she had held would be Wilhelmine.

She wondered, a little dreamily, if Mary were identical to her sister, who was very fair like herself and Tom, or if she looked more Bertram than Ward – she almost hoped so, as it might mean that daughter resembled Edmund and Sir Thomas – because she hadn't had the chance to look at her very long and see for herself.

Finally, Sally Robins came into the room to tend the fire, and Fanny asked her when she should expect to see her babies – if they were in the nursery and she might go to them if nobody would bring them to her.

Sally was very grave, unable to meet her eyes, as she informed her – to her knowledge – the babies had been removed from Mansfield; she'd seen, with her own eyes, Mrs. Norris and Baddeley – whose old, liver-spotted hands shook dreadfully as he lifted the basket – handing the babies over to a woman she did not know, a woman who came by carriage, and they were surely long gone by this time.

Fanny was beside herself with grief, but there was no help for it – they were gone and there was nobody to tell her where they'd been taken. Even Mrs. Norris by her own account hadn't been told.

Two days later, Fanny saw Smith – whose expression was rather miffed – taking her things from the drawers of the guest room and putting them into a valise.

"My master's orders, Mrs. Bertram," he told her, when he caught her inquiring gaze, "are that you be re-established upstairs by tonight."

Now Fanny was angry – bitterly so.

When she saw Tom enter their sitting room that evening, she rose, strode over to him, and lifted a hand to strike him across the face. She was aware, this time, it was not the curse taking her babies from her – this time the witch's power was not here, come for her children – but him. And to have done it so underhand – to have used Aunt Norris, of all persons – after leaving her alone so long! Such selfishness, such cruelty! She felt wonder she should have ever really loved someone capable of doing such a thing.

Despite not expecting her to strike him, thereby being caught somewhat off-guard, Tom's reflexes were good, and he – catching amid a tiny wall of sparkling silver, the consequence of his mask blocking much of the peripheral vision from one corner of his eye, her hand coming towards him, managed to grasp her wrist before the blow landed.

"Fanny," he said quietly. "That would have hurt your fingers a good deal more than my face. Pray, do not try it again."

"Oh, how could you?" she sobbed, sinking to the floor as he released her wrist.

He crouched beside her. "I'm sorry – it isn't as if I had a choice."

"Not have a choice?" cried she, reproachful, speaking to the carpet. "Mr. Bertram, you had every choice – you made this one."

"Fanny, please."

"You left me, alone, in that miserable room, for months – you almost never came to see me, you never spoke to me – then you had our aunt take our children away!"

"I know it seems dreadful – a jolly rotten thing for me to do." He reached to touch her arm. "But this was done to protect–"

She shifted herself out of his reach before he could make contact. "No! This was absolute cruelty!"

"Would you rather I have let the curse get them? That I make the same mistake twice?" he exclaimed, a furious catch in his voice, his tone gone high – almost shrill – with indignation. "I did it for us – and for them – d'you imagine it was easy for me?"

Her face streaked with tears, Fanny lifted her gaze. "If you really loved me, you could never have done this."

"Lord!" He sucked his teeth and cut his eyes, though the latter wasn't very visible from behind his mask. "You must know how unfair that is."

"I am incredulous" – she stared with a hardness in her expression she had never directed at him before – "you can speak to me about what is unfair."

"Have it your own way, then." He sighed, rose to his feet, then – more out of gentlemanly habit than anything else – offered a hand to help her up.

She waved it away, choosing to remain, head turned from him, where she was a while longer.

The last she saw of him before bed – where, to be sure, she could not see him, in the dark, only hear him – were his feet, crossly moving away from her in wide strides, towards the fireplace, and angrily kicking aside some light object which had been left out of its place.

Two springs went by, in coldness, both in terms of the weather and of the people inside the house; Tom and Fanny were dwelling within arm's length of each other every night but having nothing to say – the gap between them grown too wide even for Edmund's gentle advice to breach, let alone mend – and the lack of felicity in the home was so felt even Julia became unhappy and, for all their former efforts, took pains to return to town.

She did not go to Maria – no attempt at reconciliation was made there, and it was naturally to be assumed by the only parties which knew of it, she and Henry were carrying on their illicit affair under Rushworth's nose as ever they had before – but to her Bloomsbury cousins.

One evening, upon returning to his silent sitting room – Fanny as usual by the fire with her hands in her lap (this time twisting some folded paper between her fingers) – Tom heard a voice break through, a gentle voice, still laced with diffidence and softness, even gratitude, for all it had become embittered and disillusioned from what it had suffered since he last heard it utter more than a simple syllable, typically making some small, unavoidable request.

"I need to go home, Mr. Bertram."

He did not take her meaning. She was home, was she not?

"To Portsmouth," Fanny clarified.

Tom turned slightly green at the thought of more days as a bear – the added days were already seeming very grim to him indeed, stretched before him like an endless expanse. He was uncertain, at least in this regard, he could spare her for any extended length of time. "Forgive me for my frankness, Fanny, but you've had nothing to do with that place this long, there's been no suggestion of your going back there, you haven't gone amongst your old family, even for a visit, in the past, and–"

"William is very ill."

He saw now, as if the light from the fire had only just come enough upon her face to allow him to see it clearly, she'd been crying.

"And he is at home?" This was the first he'd heard of his brother-in-law's ship being in, or of him having leave. "Quite unable to be moved, I take it?"

She nodded. "Yes." She held up the letter. "My sister Susan has written me to confirm it. My mother adds a short note of urgency at the end as well. William has been asking for me, she says."

"Then" – he rested his head wearily upon his hand – "you must go to him."

A/N: reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.