Snowbear
A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction
Chapter Twenty-Four:
Fanny's bandbox and valise were packed; tomorrow, she was to go to Portsmouth to be with William.
In spite of the cheerful fire, she felt cold and uncomfortable. Tom had been drinking rather a good deal; she had watched him put away several glasses of wine during dinner, and now he was sipping on a rather full, faceted tumbler of amber-hued brandy, which caught the firelight and looked like a miniature flame reflected in his unsteady hand.
Every few moments, he would lift his head and look at her with an expression she judged to be very queer indeed although she could not properly see it.
When she approached his chair to tell him she was going to bed, he twisted languidly in his seat, sloshing his drink as he did so, and – reaching up – pinched the end of one of her curls between his thumb and forefinger.
Releasing it, letting it spring back into place, he began to run his thumb along her jawline, trailing his fingers, slowly, down her neck and towards her collarbone.
Fanny stood as one rooted to the floor – this was the most attention, the most affection, he had shown her in over two years. She hated herself for her quickening pulse and the feeling of being rung out about the stomach; that he should inspire such feelings, so instantaneously, with scarcely any effort, after so long a time spent ignoring her...
Insufferable!
A small squeak came from her throat. She meant it as a protest, she meant, possibly, though she wasn't sure, her mind swimming so, how dare you? or how can you?
This little noise seemed to excite him, and he pulled her – in a dizzying flash – down into his lap.
"No," rasped Fanny, feeling his arms tightening around her and subsequently squirming to loosen his grasp. "No, indeed! Mr. Bertram, you are not yourself – you've taken too much wine tonight. Do not touch me so, I beg you. I cannot bear it."
He was slow – wilfully so, she suspected, despite his mind being undeniably addled from drink – to take her meaning. "You're so comely – d'you know that?"
"No, no no – not like this," she pleaded, almost in tears.
"I disgust you," he said flatly.
"No."
"Mmm, that's a clanker if ever I 'eard one. I do," he slurred; "it's plain's day I do. You find me repulsive. I can see it in your face. I'm not near so fuddled I can't bloody tell."
"Stop it!" She longed to slink down his legs and land mercifully onto the floor, to be free of him and to hide her face away from his mawkish scrutiny, but he still held her upright against him.
One of his hands grazed her thigh through the light fabric of her nightdress. "You used to like this once."
Sobbing and frantically pushing herself free, while still being careful not to hurt him by accident in her thrashing, Fanny finally found herself standing, unsteadily, by the chair again rather than in it with him. If she had loved him less, she might have been able to bear this more.
"Tears like a channel" – he turned away a moment and belched – "I daresay s'not for grief at being parted from me." He reeked overpoweringly of wine and sweet liquor.
Her teeth began to chatter. She couldn't manage an answer even once they ceased to shake and clatter, seized as she was by a fit of hiccups brought on by her sobs.
Reaching up, he took one of her hands – this gesture, in its relative chasteness, was almost nice, and it helped to stem her tears, at the very least to lessen then considerably.
"Ah, I am unkind, I know – still, will you not even give me one small kiss in farewell, my Fanny?"
Pity breaking through her indignation – and misery and wounded pride – impelled her to grant him at least that, if he insisted upon it, even if it was only drunkenness which brought on the parting wish.
It was very brief, her lips – as she bent rigidly forward – scarcely brushed his, which were trembling; he whispered, "Well, fair enough, I'pose; we'll call that a kiss, shall we?" as she broke away, her red eyes set to streaming all over again.
"Goodnight," she whispered, when she found voice enough.
"Goodnight," he murmured, his tone dismal. "Lord knows when we will meet again."
"We agreed upon four weeks – I shall come back then."
He gave a sniff and turned his head to look into the fire.
"One day, Mr. Bertram, this horrid curse will be over."
"Too late," he said darkly, and perhaps he had some cause to be petulant, considering they were barely halfway through. "Whenever the end comes, it'll be too late." He looked at her again. "S'already too late."
"It will never–" Fanny began but couldn't finish, barely able to work out – even to herself – what she meant to say. "That is, I believe we must have – we must keep – faith. If it is God's will–"
"Phoo," he grunted. "Don't preach at me – s'only thing good about being a bear all day; no blasted Sunday sermons."
She wondered if he recollected how he'd tried to convince his father to build her a chapel here at Mansfield, so long ago. He hadn't, by all appearances, regardless of his not being naturally religious, had any great aversion to preaching and Sunday sermons then. Of course, she dared not bring it up. Remembrances of those lost times when he'd – when she'd – oh, in these ensuing unhappy years, it had become far too painful to dwell upon!
"Four weeks," she said, as kindly as she was able. "Only that long. So I can sit with William and hold his hand and make him better again. No more. You have had my word."
Yes, he knew he had.
He could never doubt her honesty – her sense of honour was better than his own.
But he would rather – much rather – have had, though he knew he had lost any right to such an emotion – her true and ardent wish to return to him, to return to Mansfield Park as the treasured home it had once been to her, over any dry promise, however sacred she held it.
"Well, I am shocked – shocked!" said Mrs. Norris, as Fanny handed Mrs. Chapman a small, fat-legged tawny dog whose leather-and-brass collar jingle-jangled wildly, before stepping into the waiting carriage. "I think it dreadfully irresponsible of you, Fanny – you must learn to think of others. You never did, you know. Even as a little girl it was one of your worst failings. I cannot be faulted for not curing you of it – the good Lord knows I endeavoured, I strove, many a time, to do so. It was not want of striving that did the mischief."
She was not upbraiding Fanny simply for going to Portsmouth at all – she had already given her unfavourable opinion on that subject enough times to satisfy even herself – but was talking of the dog.
To explain this – to explain Fanny's dog who appears here, quite suddenly, without a previous mention – one must go back a short way.
Lady Bertram had not felt the loss of her grandchildren so keenly as her husband; she had always, even in the case of her own darlings, the habit – perhaps very patriotic in its indolent way – of showing true affection only to dogs and horses, and as she was never in the stables and did not keep pointers or spaniels (even Tom's boyhood spaniel had been gone by the time Fanny came to live with them), all of her wildest, purest, unrestrained love was reserved solely for her pug. She was sorry to see Fanny so downcast from the loss of three babies and the ensuing coldness of a husband ruled by guilt and bitterness, but she thought the solution simple enough and wondered nobody should have suggested it before she offered – Pug had just had a litter, a litter weaned and ready to be given away or sold only a year after Fanny's twins were sent away; Fanny must have a puppy.
The spare puppy – the one not to be sold or designated for another – had been intended for Mary, as Lady Bertram had, rather long ago, promised Edmund's wife should have one, and for whatever reason had been previously unable to fulfill that promise, but she felt under the circumstances, Fanny must come first.
Fanny did not want the puppy – she told Lady Bertram as much when she was informed of the plan – but she was not to be believed; Lady Bertram was fully convinced it was impossible anyone should not desire the ownership of a pug when offered it, and the puppy was put aside.
But the little dog showed such a disinclination for being upstairs – indeed, the one time Fanny tried to carry it in her arms to the sitting room to be cosy it had trembled and growled and then soiled itself and ruined her dress in the process – and such an odd aversion to Tom (perhaps some smell of bear yet lingered on his human form to the puppy's keen nose) the creature was usually left in the drawing-room with Lady Bertram and its mother.
It liked nobody's lap except that of Lady Bertram and enjoyed lolling by no hearth but the one in front of which she sat dozing.
So, of course, it was much more like Lady Bertram having two pugs now than it was anything like Fanny really having a dog of her own.
The arrangement suited everyone, but Mrs. Norris would stick her oar in; she took it for granted Fanny would be bringing the pug with her to Portsmouth, to rid them of the expense of caring for it in the coming weeks, and was very cross to learn – when she brought the dog out to the carriage and all but plopped it into her niece's lap, in order to be certain of this economically pleasing inevitably coming to pass – Fanny intended nothing of the kind.
She scolded her very thoroughly for this.
That the dog would pine for its mother and for Lady Bertram she would not accept as a reason for its being left behind.
Nonetheless, Chapman carried off the pug without a fuss and Lady Bertram herself was more dismayed at having to do without Fanny so long than she was at having an extra dog where there had already been, for well over a year by this point, an extra dog.
Fanny's cheeks were red, so she appeared very chastised indeed, mollifying her angry aunt somewhat by her appropriately being shamefaced, yet her thoughts – such as they were – remained lofty and far off.
Where they were not for William, fear for him, they were for Tom – she hated to think their last interaction for so many weeks must be what had occurred last night.
His maudlin words and inebriated attentions... So mortifying, so inducing of misery... Even a continuation of their former silence – even an icy bow farewell – would have been preferable.
Mrs. Norris finished her speech, without – by pure chance – accusing Fanny of inattentiveness, and bid Wilcox set off at once to be back as soon as possible.
Perhaps part of the reason she was so unpleasant about the pug and the expense was because she was displeased Sir Thomas hadn't simply arranged to send Fanny to Portsmouth by the mail. It seemed the easiest, least expensive way, instead of obliging Wilcox and the horses to do double-duty, going there and back – and then, although this was uncertain, for arrangements might yet be made for the mail to deliver Fanny to Northamptonshire again, to have to make the journey once more in a month's time.
Mrs. Norris convinced herself – and tried to convince anyone who she spoke on the subject to – she was thinking of the horses, and of the coachman's gout, but it cannot be denied if it were Maria being conveyed on a long journey, Wilcox's comfort would not have been foremost in her thoughts, if it featured therein at all.
As the carriage began to move, Fanny recollected a small comfit she had bound in a handkerchief in her reticule. She'd eaten very little breakfast and thought the small treat might calm her stomach, as it felt poorly this morning.
Digging about with her gloved hand, she struck upon something that made a small clink.
She drew out what proved to be the little gold hair comb Tom had given her the night of Bingley's ball.
That had been the night he'd won her to him as a lover. Already his wife in name, he'd secured her in deed through his attentions.
To have gone from the dismay of being Mr. Crawford's dancing partner, to the puzzlement of joining hands with Mr. Darcy, to the unlooked-for delight of waltzing with Tom, who'd become something more than only 'her cousin, Mr. Bertram' to her by his looks and manners and tender affections!
Truly, it was a dizzying remembrance.
And yet, when he'd given her the comb, early in the evening, she had had no idea of his loving her – it was, though very happily accepted, merely another pretty present from him, another work-box or trinket.
She could have in no way foreseen it becoming a love-token.
It felt so heavy in her hand now, a little golden weight.
She recalled his hands in her hair, helping her so it did not tangle.
So exceedingly different was the gentleman in her mind, the giver of this gift, to the morose, unreachable, sometimes quite slovenly, man she had been living with for over two years.
But somewhere inside, she realised, her preferred version of him must still exist. She couldn't leave Northamptonshire without saying farewell to him.
One last glance at the comb in her hand, and then she was knocking – timid at first, gradually getting louder in her urgency to be heard despite her ingrained desire not to disturb anyone's peace – for Wilcox to stop.
"Is there a problem, Mrs. Bertram?"
She stuck her head out the window. "No, Wilcox, forgive me, but I've forgotten something – it is a thing I must do! Pray, let me off here, we are – if I am right – not even a furlong from Mansfield Wood yet."
"But you mustn't go into the woods on your own, Madam – I couldn't let you."
"Oh, please, Wilcox – please!"
He was, when it was all said and done, only a servant, and – if he had been higher than her in importance if not exactly rank when she'd first come to Mansfield, he possessed authority over her no longer – had to consent to stopping in the end.
"I will return directly! Wait for me here, if it is not disagreeable." And she pressed a hand to her head to keep her bonnet in place, racing – as best she could, already feeling quite winded – towards Mansfield Wood.
"Tom! Mr. Bertram! Tom!"
The bear heard her calling; he lifted up his head and began sniffing. Catching her scent in the air, which chanced to be blowing the right way for it, he lumbered off towards her.
By the time Fanny saw the white bear coming towards her – at last, for she'd begun to fear he would not answer – she was out of breath, and nearly at the end of her strength; she was very glad to lean against his soft bulk until she regained control over her tired legs, and only wished her head would not pound so.
When she was herself again, the bear pulled back and looked at her, questioning, head tilted. What had she wanted?
An answer not immediately forthcoming, he began nosing about her, as if he was checking to be sure she was unhurt.
Bursting into tears, she threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. "Oh – I couldn't – oh – I could not leave you thus."
The bear gave a low grunt and leaned some of his weight against her, increasing her warmth. She was pleased he did not laugh, as she knew him capable of doing even in this form, or look reproachful.
Even a bear can look sarcastic and unfriendly if he wants to, and it should have broken her heart all over again if he did so just then.
"You don't – you don't disgust me. You never."
This was, at the particular moment, rather telling, given how he happened to have a little trail of red on his white muzzle, suggesting he'd been at something dead before she'd come running into the woods looking for him.
"Write to me, please." Fanny buried her face in his fur. "I shall wish for a letter from you every day I am in Portsmouth."
The bear blinked. He meant, you won't – you can hardly miss me – you will have William, and with a sister such as you for his nurse he'll soon be out of bed and sitting up, and then you will have nothing left to wish for except, perhaps, more time away from me to spend with him. You will regret your promise to return then.
This was far too much for any mere blink to communicate; Fanny could only sigh and hope it was a gesture of assent.
It was a journey of nearly twelve hours to reach Portsmouth.
While it ought, perhaps, to have felt longer than when she was a girl – there was, too, no stopping over in London during this venture, the horses not needing it then when they might have it just as well on the return, once she as the sole passenger had been safely conveyed, and she herself frantically eager to reach home and be with dear William – the length of the road, the sheer distance, seemed rather to have lessened in the intervening years.
This is likely because the world will always seem bigger (and therefore longer in the travelling) to a child of ten who believes the Isle of Wight more or less the only island in existence than to a grown-up, educated gentlewoman.
At last, the anxious wait was over, and they were before the house.
And if it was undeniably shabby and dirty-looking, if even the coachman – before flicking his whip and leaving her – blanched and glanced to Fanny with a concern for her delicacy of health in this place, she herself could not have been happier to arrive.
Her mother wanted her to herself not at all, and so she was brought to William, the present concern of them both, almost at once, much to her relief.
His fever had somewhat increased since the letter telling of his accident and illness had been sent to Northamptonshire. At first, he was unconscious even of Fanny's being with him; she studied, with wide, teary eyes, a wound – plainly infected – on his upper leg, the source of his troubles, urged her sister Susan, now quite a capable (if slightly coarse) woman of nearly nineteen, to bring clean materials so she could redress it and change the bandage, then tended to him dutifully by placing cold cloths upon his brow, not regarded – simply by default of not being recognised – by the patient himself.
Betsey was in and out of the sickroom, which had previously been the bedroom of her eldest brothers (including William himself) and was frequented often enough by this spoiled girl who was never taught anything like boundaries.
Although Fanny was sweet to her, called her, "My love," and would have very willingly spent the last coin in her reticule to please and win over even a sister such as this, Betsey wanted nothing in particular to do with her.
She varied, instead, between being openly hysterical – which was not good for William, as Susan frequently told her – and flouting about the narrow space, swishing her skirts and humming loudly, as if she were wishing it was a stage and more interesting persons than those present were in the audience to observe her.
At a late hour, Susan – looking very haggard, her rosiness gone pale and wilted from constant exertion and vexation – asked Fanny if she shouldn't like to go to bed and leave their brother until the morning. "I've moved my things aside," she told her. "I wouldn't come down and leave it undone yesterday, even though Rebecca complained about me to Mama, until I was sure there should be enough room for you to sleep and put all your pretty clothes away – oh, and they are pretty, Fanny, I knew they would be, just like what a princess would wear – your husband does give you such lovely things! – when you came."
This was a kindness indeed, as room – space – was a rare commodity in that house. Even with her belongings pressed very snugly against the wall, when Fanny's father had come home, he'd kicked her bandbox and both of her valises and accused them of being put deliberately into his way. Mr. Price had then also made a rather nasty remark about her niceness in bringing so many 'fancy things' with her.
It had been an unpleasant scene, to be sure. The aforementioned bandbox would always be dented on one side now.
Fanny, of course, despite feeling that level of natural disgust she could not help feeling, excused his manner, pardoned it almost entirely, as being brought on by worry over his son.
She was grateful to Susan, but she also perceived her sister asked the question about bed because she herself was longing for sleep, and she said, "No, I thank you, Susie, but you go on alone – I will stay up with William tonight."
"You're not tired?"
"Oh no – no, indeed," said she, not quite truthfully. "I had my refreshment reclining in the carriage so long. Sitting here, in this much wider seat, is no evil to me."
After Susan left her (she heard her sister go to bed and heard all the various steps and rustles which occur between being dressed for the day and changing for sleep, through the thin walls), she held William's hand for several hours more until she felt him – very suddenly – tighten his grip.
"This is not," he mused softly, his dry lips quivering, "the hand of my sister Susan." His eyes were beginning to open, and once they adjusted to the low candlelight they would be seeing. "It is not Betsey, either, and I am not gone to heaven to be with Mary yet. This is unmistakably my own home in Portsmouth." He tenderly stroked the hand in his own. "These are the fingers of Fanny."
"Yes, William – oh, yes – I've come – I am here with you!"
He turned his head upon the pillow, perceived her, and smiled. "I'd hoped you would. I hoped for you every day."
"Can I do anything?" Did he need any material comfort she might fetch for him? Were his bandages feeling fresh still? Should she bring him water to drink?
No, no, she mustn't trouble herself – he knew instinctively she would have been, during his hours of feverish slumber, doing all manner of things for him he should not find out about until later – all he wanted at present, with the house so uncharacteristically still, was her hand to remain in his for as long as possible.
The bear that was Tom had been oracular in his inward prediction Fanny's presence would soon have William out of bed and recovering.
William's recovery was coming along – in spite of a notable weakness when he must be made to walk from one room to another and a worrisome scarlet flush about the face if he exerted himself in speech or became too excited – so well, in fact, Fanny was persuaded by the family not to pay for a physician to come to the house and see to him.
"What physician could nurse me better than my own dearest sister?" exclaimed William himself, when the tentative offer reached his hearing. "Fan, even the surgeon onboard the Thrush – the most capable fellow I ever met – couldn't have bandaged my leg as smartly you did! Or worked so diligently to bring down my fever." Aside, turning at the torso to look the other way and get their mother's attention, "Mother, I hope you have been taking care of Fanny while she has been taking care of me. She is not used to rough it like the rest of us. Has she breakfasted this morning? I have not seen her eat a morsel, though she brought me a tray."
That moment, Betsey came swanning in, pirouetting with her lanky arms lifted above her head, one fist closed, some small object clutched within.
Susan came after her, trying to halt her dancing and to pry her fingers open, causing her to scream for their parents to make her stop, and Mrs. Price snapped that Susan hadn't a right to be so cross with dear Betsey.
"Mama!" she protested, still trying to open the girl's stubborn hand. "You don't understand!"
"If this is about that dratted knife again–"
"She's stolen something of Fanny's – I caught her rummaging through her things and saw her take it!"
This stolen item proved to be the gold hair comb Tom had given her, and Fanny – while she wouldn't have minded if it were almost anything else – was very eager to have it back in her possession, very eager Betsey should not spoil the comb as Susan had told her their younger sister was still very childishly prone to doing.
Mrs. Price was put out of humour by what she perceived to be Fanny's selfishness. "Oh, bless me, you're as prone to crossness as Susan! As alike as two peas, I daresay, though one of you is rich and the other is poor. I had hoped you wouldn't be stingy, but it seems you are. I don't see why you can't let her hold it a while – why, indeed, she can't keep it – cannot your husband buy you as many grand things as you like? What is one little hair comb to the future Lady Bertram? You must have a dozen others like it at Mansfield Park."
"Betsey, love," said Fanny, composure regained, holding out her arms to her as yet unresponsive young sister, "tell you what; I shall buy you a comb of your own – a pretty comb you can wear in your hair. Any sort you like. But I must have this one back."
"I can't say I understand why she couldn't simply keep this one," said Mrs. Price, but she gestured dutifully to Fanny anyway. "Give your sister her comb, Betsey."
Fanny felt she must try to explain, only the attempt came before she thought of what she was saying. "Tom wouldn't like me to give that comb away. He gave it to me as a present the first night we–" She broke off, cheeks heating. "The night we attended a ball at Mr. Bingley's."
"Was it a private ball?" asked Betsey, handing her the comb, which Fanny's fingers curled over protectively almost without meaning to. "Is Mr. Bingley a gentleman?"
"What?" She was distracted. "Oh! Oh yes, it was, and he is."
"I long to attend a private ball," said Betsey; she had just begun to be allowed to watch the public balls on assembly night when Susan would take her along. "And I want to do everything you did that night." She imagined Fanny must have danced every dance – it must have been a very good ball, if the comb were that precious as a memento of the evening.
Mr. Price, though drunk as a wheelbarrow, had formed a clearer idea of what Fanny almost said, of what she had really enjoyed that night; something more than mere dancing. Their father growled, "You do everything your sister did at this Mr. Wingley's house before you're good 'n married yourself, and I'll give you the rope's end as long as I can stand over you. And your dancing partner, too. I shan't spare him the floggin' he deserves, if I chance tah catch him w'you."
Mortified, Fanny was on the point of tears; Susan could not look at their father for shame; and Betsey was, as she always was, perfectly unmoved.
Luckily, William, in his amiable way, contrived to have everybody save Fanny herself sent from the room – each on some short errand or, in the case of their father, with a vague suggestion of his being a good deal more comfortable spending an hour before the larger hearth-fire at the Crown's common room – so she might have a few minutes to cool from the heat of embarrassment.
When she seemed nearer herself again, William couldn't help asking, in a low voice, so Rebecca in the next room should not overhear, "Tom Bertram is kind to you, isn't he, sister? He does treat you well?"
She glanced down at the comb in her hands as she let it fall into her lap, into the protective folds of her skirts. "Yes, he treats me well, and he is very kind."
William was concerned by her distant tone. "You sound unsure of this." There was such an inexplicable difference in her countenance, such a change, between the shy colouring at her verbal near-slip of the tongue and the forlorn way she spoke when asked about her husband directly. "Oh, Fanny" – taking her hand – "if I am ever to learn he has in any way been cruel to you and you never said–"
"William, please don't think it! Tom was never cruel to me in my whole life" – even when she was a child, he could have been a good deal worse, just as easily he might have been a good deal better – "except–"
This could not be mistaken, nor let go. "Except?"
Fanny bit her bottom lip, trembling slightly. She had been thinking, of course, of her children. She made certain her voice was lower still than it had been, and that – even during her more passionate exclamations – had been almost all in whispers, and said, "You don't know – the children."
His fair brow furrowed. "You don't have any children."
She burst, "I did – I did! – when my first little son was born – he looked so like our own brother Tom did as a baby – I had the letter to you ready for Sir Thomas to frank – I believe you might have been docked near Portugal then." She'd gone very white. "I was going to tell you all about him, because I knew you would wish us joy – but then–" Tears ran down her cheeks. "Oh, and after – after, William, there were the twins. My daughter in my arms was perfect – all pink and gold with light eyes like yours and mine. I didn't see the other long enough to tell one way or the other. Tom had them both taken away from me."
All this was unintelligible, and Fanny was obliged, in order to make him understand at all, to explain the story in full – Tom's curse, the true reason for their marrying (that is, the part about Tom's need for her, for any wife, to end his misery; she did not tell him, not then, too afraid he might misunderstand, as his friend and benefactor was involved, about how she had, for her own part, been equally desperate not to be urged into marriage with Henry Crawford), a shortened account (peppered with shamefaced blushes) of really falling in love with her husband after all, and lastly the horrible fate of their innocent children, her babies.
"And the amber cross I gave you really is magic?" he breathed, incredulous at this detail. "It kept him from transforming?"
"Was it not you, brother, who told me, a gift from someone who loves you is always magic?"
If that were true, she couldn't help thinking, the comb in her lap would have magical properties, too, for Tom had certainly loved her when he gave it to her, regardless of all the unpleasantness which transpired afterwards.
"Really, though! What a marvel!" he gasped in astonishment. "But why does Tom not wear it every day and keep his human shape?"
"I told you," said Fanny gently; "it hurts him too much."
Tears of sympathy filled his blue eyes. "Oh, sister, when I think how you have suffered – are yet suffering!"
"I thought once, so long ago" – her throat closed – "I should like, when the curse was lifted, to come away from Mansfield and live with you – and he promised me I should..."
"But now you cannot stand to be without your husband – whatever form he takes."
"I don't know," she murmured. "I feel as if I can never know anything – feel anything – with my former talent for certainty – again."
"I believe your certainty will return in time," William told her reassuringly, "and that certainty, once it comes upon you, will bind you to Tom Bertram, as surely as if there was a string tied around both your hearts, connecting you one to the other.
"It is not in your nature, even should you be dealt a blow, to love by halves.
"If I wasn't so fond of you as to be willing to purchase your felicity at any cost, even to myself, I should be quite jealous of him – as I was of his brother, when you wrote of him so often in your letters as a child, and I thought he had replaced me in your affections."
"Oh, William!"
"But I cannot like his recent behaviour to you, and to my nieces – I cannot like it at all – and I don't know how I can forgive him it, even once your tender heart will come to acquit him; it was badly done with your babies, badly done."
And they said – could say – no more on the subject then, because Rebecca – who had never yet, prior to that moment, cleaned the parlour voluntarily without first being threatened with losing her place – came in to dust.
William was obliged to change the subject, in a noble attempt to stem Fanny's tears before the prying servant could notice them. "This must seem such a small, small house to you after Mansfield Park. I know it would fit twice over even inside the parsonage."
"I was so ashamed when I realised my mistake, but at first, when I saw this room, I was convinced it was – that it must be, for I did not remember it as it really was when I was here last as a child – only a passage-room to something better," confessed Fanny, and here seemed to be a reason for a face so entirely scarlet when Rebecca glanced at her with one eyebrow raised.
Fanny and Susan – and Betsey also, since she, while still childish about most other things, was old enough to know it was never for her – would have rather avoided the knock of a visitor that came a week after William, though still unfit to return to his duties at sea, had recovered sufficiently to be off the sofa, even to venture from the house and limp on the ramparts for his daily exercise, as often as he was out of his bed.
But there was no preventing Rebecca. It was the one duty she never gave Mrs. Price cause to chide her about. She always answered the door promptly. Nothing in the world interested her half so much, or so well, as the answering of doors.
Fanny was still contemplating escape, as the odds were against anyone for herself or for Susan as much as they were against it being a longed-for friend of Betsey's.
Yet before she could make her way to the stairs, her sister just behind, she chanced to look over her shoulder and see – beside the unexpected figure she ought to have recognised but did not, who Susan was obliged to whisper was their brother John – a familiar dark head set upon decidedly low but well-held shoulders.
"Mama, are you within?" called John, his voice handsomely clipped and very fine for one of their origin who had not had the good luck of Fanny's in being sent to Mansfield. "Is my brother recovered? William's friend has brought me from London in his barouche."
"William's friend?" echoed Susan, as the friend in question doffed his hat and nodded, clearly having seen her and perhaps heard her as well.
Fanny's fingers closed around the bottom of the banister, splaying her knuckles wide and white, and she shut her eyes. "Mr. Crawford."
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