Snowbear
A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Mr. Crawford might well attest, and prettily enough to do him credit, he'd had no knowledge of Fanny's being in Portsmouth, that he had come solely for the sake of William, having heard from his uncle – who had it from William's captain, in his own turn – of their much-admired friend's illness; but Fanny, for her part, found it difficult to believe him.
From Dr. and Mrs. Grant, if from nobody else, he would have learned Fanny was not presently at Mansfield and, discovering from his uncle her brother was ill, must have known, surely, she would wish to go to him as readily as John Price, who loved William, of course, as he ought, but never so fervently as Fanny did – Susan was the favourite sibling of this particular brother.
In truth, for all their amiability, John and William had never even been as close – for the good or for the bad of it – as Tom and Edmund.
And the latter pair were not exactly bosom companions...
Even so, a part of Fanny's heart couldn't avoid being touched, quite moved, by how Mr. Crawford, despite how he had offended her, should care for William deeply enough to look up his brother John, discover him to be a clerk in London, fetch him, and bring him thither.
At the very least, supposing William had told Mr. Crawford about John at some point in the past, it was still good of him to remember.
But to recall, then, what he was doing with Maria! What he had wanted to do with her!
If ever William should hear of his friend's offer to her at Mr. Bingley's London residence, the friendship, regardless of all it had previously been, would be speedily at an end.
However much Fanny longed to acquaint William with Mr. Crawford's true character so far as it might protect him from being materially wounded, she was forced to admit to herself, in less time than it took Henry to hand Rebecca his hat and cloak, there was no reason to believe he should ever do her brother an ill-turn; he had done nothing for William but good, especially in introducing him to the Admiral. To expose Henry's behaviour to her brother would be too akin to spite. She could not like him as a man, but it couldn't be right to impose, through natural emotional ties, that same opinion onto her brother.
There was William's health to consider, as well. The shock of betrayal would be too great for him after being so ill.
She realised, feeling sick and miserable as she did so, she must catch Mr. Crawford alone and plead with him to say nothing of his offer to her or his current affair with Maria, which she knew William would disapprove as much as she did on principle, for the sake of not spoiling his recovery.
To be alone with Mr. Crawford, though, was one of her greatest fears.
He'd frightened her very badly – very badly indeed – at Mr. Bingley's – and the incident, later, with the wild cherries at the parsonage, where she had felt unaided and misused, had only increased her dread of him.
Further, to seem – as she must – to be trying to catch him for a private audience, to be pursuing him, even in so small a way!
Luck was on her side to some extent, though, because – through the bustle of his being moved into the house and put by the fire – there did come a moment, lasting about four minutes, where they were the only two in the parlour before William, supported by John's arm, joined them – utterly delighted to see Crawford – and was soon followed by everybody else.
No one could accuse Fanny of contriving it, for it came about so naturally the most tainted mind could not have invented a narrative in which she had forced her company onto this visitor.
"Mr. Crawford," she had whispered urgently, taking her chance – her only chance – while her heart beat so fast she thought it might burst forth from her chest. "I must ask you–" And her eyes had darted anxiously to the door. "Pray, do not tell my brother... Your improper offer to me... His health..."
Henry's expression had already been mild, but it softened further at her evident distress. He shook his head. "Mrs. Bertram, I give you my word – he'll hear no tales of that time from me. And I make you this promise with a very good will. Think of it as forgotten. I hope you really will forget – and forgive – my behaviour to you in past years." He added, "But you perspire and tremble dreadfully, and look at me so grave and pale! Are you ill yourself?"
"No," said she, twisting her fingers together and wringing her hands, "the fire is too hot for me, that is all. There is nothing else the matter with me."
And here their private interview mercifully, before it – like the fire – could become too warm and make either of them uncomfortable, concluded with Fanny's brothers – never more welcome – entering the parlour.
Of course, Crawford was not staying on with them at the house – even had there been room, the conditions would not have suited him. He had procured rooms for himself at the Crown and given over the use of one of these rooms to John, so even the returned brother should not be an added burden upon the family when they didn't have immediate need of him.
Obliged as she must be for this additional kindness, good sense telling her one pair of footsteps and one shouting voice less in the night was a boon to William's health, Fanny couldn't help – most ungratefully – wishing there hadn't been anything resembling a superfluity of available rooms in Portsmouth – wishing there had been an influx of displaced midshipmen who could have descended upon the Crown in a timely fashion and quite displaced Mr. Crawford and upset his plans – and that Henry had been forced to return to London; or, better still, to Norfolk, where he ought to spend more of his time tending to his responsibilities.
Her fear regarding his extended stay in Portsmouth, especially following their tête-à- tête, was increasingly more for Susan than for herself.
Mr. Crawford was so polite towards her, his manners so improved, Fanny could believe – almost – he really had given up any unkind, lecherous thoughts towards her; she found it impossible not to be civil to him for his own sake as much as for William's where that aspect of his disposition was concerned.
But she could not make herself easy regarding how he would occasionally look at her sister.
She was not unjust in this supposition. Susan was lovely – she had all the health and vivacity of Maria, all the vigour and forwardness, with none of Fanny's natural timidity, and yet there was a great deal of her elder sister's fine qualities in her manner and bearing; she was a more forceful reincarnation of the Miss Price who, from Henry Crawford's prospective, had been stolen from him by Tom Bertram. Betsey was safe from him, because she had not yet grown womanly enough to tempt him; for all his negative proclivities, he was not so far gone as to even think of exerting his power upon actual children. And so far as his tastes went, had Susan been a very little bit younger – had she been fourteen or fifteen instead of nineteen – he might have wished her away, thinking her an unwelcome third in company either with Fanny or with William.
But she was nineteen, and pretty, and her eyes were coloured like Fanny's but were closer in hue to what might be called fine, and – worst of all – she did not have the advantage of a pre-engaged heart. Fanny had always had affection for another – be it Edmund or Tom – keeping Crawford's advances in prospective, but who did Susan have to temper such feelings as a man like this might stir up?
One night, Fanny felt her heart sink, felt as if it were dropping hard into her stomach, when Susan asked – with a toothy smile – what this Crawford fellow was like in other company.
Cheeks darkened to pink, Fanny managed to whisper, "A rake." Then, thinking of William's affection for the man she would disparage to her sister despite his constant display of fine manners of late, added, "Oh, that is, I think – I think he must be a rake."
"Oh" – Susan blushed so charmingly she ached for her – "yes, please."
"No," croaked Fanny, desperate. "No."
"No?" Susan blinked at her.
"He is a good friend to William," she tried, doing her best, "but he is not–" Betsey, who was in the bed with them, stirred, and Fanny started, breaking off. "He has not been–" Their younger sister grunted softly and rolled over. "Oh, dear."
Susan couldn't understand her meaning, and Fanny was therefore obliged to explain Mr. Crawford had wished, once, to marry her and had not taken the rejection – her choosing Tom instead – as well as he ought; he had not accepted her choice, once made, as having finality, as any gentleman should.
"Of course," she added, feeling she must try to be fair, "it was rather a long time ago."
"But," asked Susan, plainly disappointed, as part of her had been wondering it would not be a fine, hopeful prospect to have caught the interest of a wealthy friend of William's, "have you cause to think he is yet as he was then?"
Closing her eyes, Fanny nodded – she was thinking of the Rushworths. "I have, Susie – and I would give a great deal to say I haven't, that I think him settled down, or at least capable of being settled – that I believed him trustworthy – only, I cannot – I'm so sorry." She wished, with all her heart, there was another man such as Tom Bertram for her sister – a version of Tom untouched by the curse, one who had not been tempted into coolness and cruelty from bad circumstances, would have suited Susan alarmingly well, for she would have had the ability of managing him as even Fanny herself never could hope to.
"There is nothing to forgive, never mind about Mr. Crawford, then; but" – Susan adjusted herself so her head was propped upon her hand and supported by her bent elbow – "you've told me next to nothing of your husband – what's he like? Aren't you going to tell me about my cousin Tom?"
Fanny coloured more strongly yet – if Susan had confessed to literally reading her mind, she could not have been more taken by surprise.
But then she thought, well, and why not?
It was only natural Susan would like to know something about him. And it was better she dwell on thoughts of the Bertrams and Mansfield, no doubt bound up in her lively mind with images of silver forks gleamed to an eye-aching polish and faceted finger-glasses casting rainbow prisms along the dining-room wall, than of anything further to do with Henry Crawford.
"What would you like to know?" Willing as she persuaded herself she was to tell Susan whatever she wished to hear of, she tensed involuntarily upon realising Betsey – between them – had changed her breathing and scrunched up pathetically the way people who are pretending to be deeply asleep can do when they've never paid attention to how another person sleeps, nor asked anybody how they themselves look when they are sleeping.
This, of course, meant a double audience.
"Well, I know he gives you many lovely things, and that you like him better than any of his presents, but what is his manner to you? Is his amiable? What is his countenance like? Does he take after his father? Is he as sombre as I imagine our uncle to be?"
"No, he isn't much like our uncle – he looks like our aunt Bertram." Recollecting Susan had never seen Lady Bertram, she added, "And she looks like Mother."
(Betsey, forgetting she was pretending to sleep, sighed – it was an impatient sort of sigh.)
"He never used to be sombre at all," Fanny told her, smiling softly. "One of his old habits used to be to sneak up behind me and make a great joke of it when I started."
"He sounds like an imp in gentleman's clothing," said Susan.
"Sometimes," conceded Fanny.
"Of course, I imagine even an impish grin can be charming if one has all their own teeth," Susan laughed.
Fanny would have laughed, too, if only she could have left off suspecting the allusion was – in some measure – still to Mr. Crawford, whose teeth were very good, a saving grace for his otherwise not being very comely.
"There's nothing whatever amiss with my husband's teeth," she assured her sister, perhaps too solemnly not to make the situation more humorous still, however little this was her intent.
"And good cheekbones?" Susan's question was innocent, she was ready only to admire, meaning only to leave room for Fanny to praise the physical merits of her lover, but the ensuing quiet, lasting three awkward minutes, made her think she had misspoken.
"I expect they are good," Fanny said at last, because she had to say something. "I don't remember them."
"What do you mean?"
"Tom wears... That is... He is obliged to wear... A mask..."
"Always?" asked Susan, pursing her lips in puzzlement. "Even in bed?"
"Oh, no, he removes it for bed, of course," she said hurriedly.
Betsey, having become fully invested in the conversation she'd been shamelessly eavesdropping on, sat bolt upright now and – even in the dark it was evident – looked at Fanny with scorn, as if she thought her sister must be the stupidest woman alive. "So, couldn't you ever look at him while he was sleeping?"
Stammering, Fanny tried – without giving a full explanation of Tom's curse – to tell them she daren't do anything of the kind, that it was forbidden, could bring only ill upon them both.
Susan squeezed her hand sympathetically, though she understood next to nothing of what seemed to her, then, her sister's almost tearful rantings; but Betsey only took this as further evidence Fanny was severely dull in the head.
"But you don't know what horrors he could be hiding!" she exclaimed.
Fanny managed to smile at the girl's childish outburst. "Like what? What manner of horrors are you imagining, my little love?"
"As if it needed telling! Why, any manner of things." She tossed her head and tried to make herself seem self-important, as if she were far older than Susan or Fanny. "He could be horridly deformed, you know."
"No, he couldn't; I saw him without his mask before, when I was a child," explained Fanny. "There was nothing the matter with his face."
"Faces change." Betsey was stubborn.
Susan was more logical in her perplexity. "But, Fanny, if you've seen him before, how can he object to your looking at him now?"
"It's – it is hard to explain, Susie."
Shoving them both back, Betsey huffed, blowing out her cheeks, and crawled down to the foot of the bed to climb off it. "I can solve the mystery for you, Fanny." And she went to a concealed drawer – and Susan, gone white with indignation, saw many of her own things supposed to be lost glittering within via a shaft of moonlight coming through a gap in the curtains – where she kept her favourite treasures, some valuable, some as inconsequential as scraps of gold paper which had once been used to wrap sweets. "I haven't used this one at all, and it's got the best wick of my collection." She produced a tall tallow candle.
"I knew you'd been hoarding candles!" cried Susan. "You little sneak! D'you know Rebecca accused me of stealing them? And Mama, too!"
Betsey ignored her – though she shrieked and shook the bed wildly in her fit of anger – and brought the tallow candle to Fanny. "Here – just peek at him real quick when he goes to sleep. I'm sure nobody shall ever know. And even if they did find out, you could tell them to be quiet and threaten to have them dismissed without references – I'm sure that's what I would do if I was married to a rich gentleman like Mr. Bertram." She twisted her mouth. "I only hope there's nothing very wrong with him, and he has not got a green face. That would be very ghastly for you, Fanny, to find out you'd been, all this time, in bed with a green-faced man."
"Oh, shut up, Betsey," snapped Susan.
But Fanny, her own face presently in more danger of turning green than was Tom's, crossing her legs and dangling them off the side of the bed, only turned the candle over in her shaking hands and looked miserable.
Among other tribulations, Fanny had to endure sharing William with both John – who she could not grudge, being family, and being as they had never really got to know each other before as they ought – and Mr. Crawford – who she knew she should not be jealous of but often envied despite her better self urging her against the emotion – on a near daily basis.
All the while, her mental calendar, ticking off days in her head, made her shake with a mixture of trepidation and joy – the weeks were flying by, soon she would be at Mansfield Park, where there was order and cleanliness – soon she should be with Tom again – and, but, oh, the weeks were flying by, and soon she should have to leave William, who'd been so dreadfully ill, whose leg was still dragged rather than properly walked upon, having had less time alone with him than she'd expected!
She had two consolations to keep her from drowning in her dithering dismay.
One was what she imagined to be an obvious lessening in Mr. Crawford's attentions to Susan.
She fancied it was because Susan had given him some small, polite sign she was not interested and was better at doing so than she herself was, or that he had learned, at last, to be gentlemanly enough to accept no for an answer when a lady made it.
The second was she had, at last, her awaited letter – indeed, letters, in plural – from Tom, just when she'd started to give up hope of his remembering her.
The first letter opened: Mon Petit Campagnol, and Fanny's heart fluttered – she fairly melted into her seat to finish reading.
This was indeed a very promising beginning, for he had not referred to her by any variation of mouse in over two years.
And what followed was equally encouraging.
He had been shy of writing her, though he recollected, she mustn't think he'd forgotten, she'd urged him to – when she met him last in the woods, when he was a bear – except he hadn't any news to impart, and – still rather embarrassed over the fool he'd made of himself the night before her departure – further, couldn't imagine she really wanted to be disturbed while with William.
At least, he wrote, in a quick, very loose hand, the kind of hurried penmanship which suggests the author is stumbling over his words as a speaker might stumble over their tongue in unprepared speech, that is what I told myself to excuse my neglect – all the while knowing well enough it was shameful neglect, and a neglect equal, in its way, to the neglect I've shown you over the last couple of years, when it came right to the point – so, when I finally had some news from our quarter, an excuse to write you, I was the more ashamed – a good deal more hesitant – than I should have been if I'd been a faithful correspondent from the start.
He hoped she might, being his own gracious wifey, forgive his long silence – she did, all of it.
He hoped she was not cross – she wasn't, not a bit of it.
It seemed absence had made both hearts grow fonder. Fanny could not forget his cruelty, but it was easier to forgive it with such beautiful words upon the page swimming before her streaming eyes, after she had suffered nearly as much being without him as with him, than when seated across from him nightly while he was in a fit of the blue devils and hadn't anything kind to say or any gentle gesture to bestow.
Now, here is my news, I trust you shall like it: Dr. Grant has succeeded to a stall in Westminster! And I say good riddance. Edmund thinks my jubilation ungenerous of me, but he benefits far more than I – of course – and – forgive me, Fanny, I do not know of a gentler way to impart this, so I shall simply write it here, with as little pomp as if it were a laundry list, and hope the result is felicity rather than the opening of any old wounds – he and Mary are newly in a position to want an increase of income.
By this, I mean precisely what you imagine I mean.
Naturally, the living will not really be Edmund's unless Dr. Grant fully relinquishes his claim to it, or – perchance – has too many large dinners and subsequently pops off, but it needs an occupant, one who will have the good of its income until then, and of course only Edmund will do.
Speaking of Edmund, he has come into the room while I am struggling to compose this letter, absolutely cutting up my peace, and – as he has stoutly endured some strong abuse from me and has not held too great a grudge over the ink-pot I threw at his head (I daresay our aunt Norris will be less forgiving about what my hasty action did to the carpet and will somehow find a way to place the blame on you in spite of your long absence) – I add, at his request, for he says you will wish to know, Thornton Lacey is not to be neglected. Mr. Owen and Kitty – you will remember the Owens from Bingley's ball, I trust – have recently found themselves without a proper parish of their own – I shan't waste paper writing down the account as Edmund told it to me, because it's a truly tedious tale – and they are to take care of it for us until since a time as Dr. Grant makes up his mind to return to the country and spoil everybody's pleasure.
Fanny thought there was something forced in Tom's merriment, it was an exaggerated buoyancy, but she was glad to see it returned, nonetheless.
Oh, and Edmund to be a father! Mary with child!
For this, surely, was what Tom implied; he could have meant nothing else, had assured her as much with his choice of words that no other implication was possible.
There was a pang – not from the sting of her first inclination, but rather from the loss of her babies – only it was swallowed up by happiness for one of her dearest objects on earth and by concern for her stepsister – she hoped Mary would have an easier time bringing Edmund's baby into the world than she had had birthing Tom's.
Goodness! She was to be an aunt!
If the joys of motherhood must be barred – taken cruelly from her – to be an aunt – and not such an aunt as their aunt Norris had been! – was the only parental pleasure left to her.
There would be a child – Edmund's child – and that alone was enough to lift her spirits so high they practically floated above her head and into the cramped rafters of the old Portsmouth house as she read on.
Tom's second letter (it ought to be noted, although she was certain about the intended chronological order of the missives, that was quite unmistakable, she could make nothing, neither heads nor tails, of the actual order in which they must have been physically written) was rather different in tone from the first.
It was not a bad letter – indeed, it was so well-composed if Fanny were of a more suspicious nature, she would have thought he'd either plagiarized it or had somebody help him with it.
But even if she could have suspected him, logic would have dispelled her suspicions very quickly; there was nobody, no mentioned visitor, presently at Mansfield to whom Tom could apply for help, and no gentleman in Tom's position will ever feel comfortable asking a relation – sleepy mother, cross father, offended aunt, least of all brother who was once secretly the beloved of his intended recipient – for advice in making love on the page.
It was, in fact, a love letter – or at least a very pointed attempt at one, and poor Tom sounded nothing like himself in it, the efforts quite overriding his natural narrative.
Fanny could not sigh over it longingly as she did the first, but she did smile – a very kind, real smile – at how he had tried.
What book of soppy verse had he smuggled, mortified at the thought of being caught with it in his hand, from the dustiest corner of the house's library and used as liberal salt upon his vocabulary?
She much preferred the insert to this eccentric composition – a tiny drawing he'd enclosed.
It was of a little mouse with spiral curls on either side of her pert face, wearing a bonnet and pelisse, and standing atop some ramparts looking out at the sea; she held a little reticule with a miniature fan and a tiny pair of gloves sticking out of it between her wee paws.
This sketch – unlike the letter it accompanied – was undeniably Tom's own creation, and Fanny made a treasure of it.
Jealousy struck Fanny afresh when she learned – less than a week before the carriage had been promised, by Tom in his last letter, to convey her home to Mansfield – Henry Crawford would stay on with William after she left Portsmouth.
She knew such a feeling to be uncharitable, and her heart was already condemning her for some imagined neglect of what was due to William – an irrational belief she had squandered their time together, wasted great portions of their visit by attending to idle cares unconnected with her poor brother – which did not make her any kinder to herself in this knowledge. She was wishing away a friend for William, one who must bring him pleasure, or he should have sent the gentleman away himself, solely because she – she who would not be here any longer, she who must desert all her fraternal ties and return to a cursed husband so far away – could not like him.
All the same, John had gone back to London – by the mail, no suggestion made of the return journey being undertaken in Crawford's barouche – and there was no sensible reason his travelling companion ought to have outstayed a brother with a real claim.
And Fanny's resentment did not stem from nothing – Mr. Crawford was a dog in the manger when it came to company. It would be untrue to say he was always taking William apart from her – he certainly was not always doing so, and it must be admitted William looked for him as often as he looked for William – but he did it, perhaps unconsciously, enough times to vex her.
It troubled her, too, to think she must – surely – find some way, without injuring any party involved, of convincing William to be watchful whenever Mr. Crawford was paying attentions to Susan, lest something unsavoury grow there after all...
She was still fretting and stewing and, in turns, quite despising herself for weaknesses both real and imagined, when the carriage did at last turn up on a grey afternoon with Wilcox and the horses at the ready.
She had the pleasure of kissing her brother Tom – who reminded her so of her own lost son – goodbye before she departed – he could not avoid her waiting affection at the eleventh hour – though he wiped his cheek off afterwards.
Her mother and Susan and Betsey all dutifully embraced her in farewell, but only Susan seemed really sorry she should go away again.
"If I can," whispered Fanny into her ear as they pulled apart, "I shall send for you to come to Mansfield and see me – at least for an extended visit."
Susan sniffed and nodded. "Thank you, Fanny – I shall never forget your goodness to me. But I understand if you cannot persuade our relations to have me anytime soon – I know how ill-bred they should find me if I were dragged before them now. You should be very ashamed of me."
In reply, Fanny only shook her head in vehement denial and locked her arms about her sister's neck and kissed her once more. Never should she be ashamed to ask for Susan!
Never, never.
Her mother charged her with bland greetings to Lady Bertram and her sister Norris, with an aside she might mention to the latter – if she thought it appropriate – Betsey had never yet received anything from her godmother.
"I believe my aunt meant to send Betsey a prayer-book," said Fanny, biting her lip, "but she fancied the print too small for her eyes."
Betsey – at their mother's side, still in the habit of clinging to her when she thought it might offer some advantage – snorted. "I don't want an old prayer-book anyway – I think you give better gifts than our aunt, Fanny." And she tilted her head to reveal a little comb Fanny had bought her in keeping her former promise. "Your present suits me far more than any book."
Susan sharply admonished her not to be ungrateful, and their mother turned her head to snap at Susan, urging her not be so cross and unamiable to darling Betsey.
Oh, thought Fanny, her eyes widening in dismay at the mutual coarseness of the warm exchange which then ensued, I simply must get her away from this place soon or dear Susie will have stayed on with them so long, waited so patiently, only to lose a great many good habits she should otherwise possess.
"Don't forget the candle I gave you," said Betsey, rather too loudly, fairly bawling these words at her sister to be heard over the noises of the busy street, entirely unmoved by the quarrel she'd just instigated. "Look when he's sleeping!"
Mrs. Price furrowed her brow. "What does she mean, Fanny? Look when who is sleeping?"
Cheeks red, Fanny offhandedly murmured it concerned a silly conversation they'd had some weeks ago.
The parting from William was almost too much to bear. They clung to one another as if they would never let go yet were – too quickly for either of their likings – obliged in the space of a fleeting moment to do exactly that.
He grasped her arms – even once they were no longer embracing – for as long as he could. "I can never thank you sufficiently, dear Fanny, for coming to me – I know nothing else helped me to recover so well and so quickly as I did."
"I will come again, very willingly, if ever you need me and Tom can–" she broke off, having been about to end with 'if Tom can spare me', feeling suddenly torn between husband and brother in her loyalties; she could see, at the aborted mention, William – his lips pressing together tight – was looking at her very sombre indeed, as if he were wondering, but could not say before the others, if it were truly right to send her back to Tom Bertram.
She tried to assure him with a clear steadiness of gaze it was right – it was the only thing right about their being parted – but she was unsure how well he understood her meaning.
Wilcox asked if she were ready and she, handed in by one of her younger brothers looking as if he would rather be elsewhere, nodded her assent.
It was not until they had been moving some little while – long enough to have got off the narrower streets and to be out of sight of a waving William, blowing kisses and lingering, entirely against a bit of previous advice from her a few nights ago, longer in the poor air to see the last of her, that she perceived a bunched-up shape – a sort of lumpy black thing – move in the seat across from her.
A yip of terror escaped from Fanny's parted lips, and she pressed against the carriage door as if she would open it and fling herself free. Her imagination had immediately supplied a superfluity of bandits or worse, despite her senses of logic and intellect urging her to recollect the civilised age in which she lived, and she was petrified with fear.
The figure wearing a cloak – she saw now her intruder was indeed wearing a cloak and was only lumpy and black because of the bunches of the dark, soft folds, the way he had been lying down – sat up and threw off his hood.
"My dear Mrs. Bertram, pray don't start! It is only me."
"Me?" she rasped, squinting – with the curtains drawn it was difficult to see. "Who is me?"
"What, have you forgotten me already?" came the ready laugh. "And I with you all these weeks?"
"Mr. Crawford!" she gasped, her hand pressed to her heart as she recognised him and felt no relief. She might have truly preferred an honest bandit to a questionable friend.
"I did not mean to–"
"Mr. Crawford, pardon me, but if I shout, Wilcox will hear me."
"I doubt it," he said coolly. "The man is going quite deaf, I'm afraid. How long has he served the Bertrams? Long enough to be retired by now, I shouldn't wonder! Poor stupid old fellow! But never mind that – that does not concern my present errand."
"He'll tell Sir Thomas you were in here," she insisted, raising a loosely clenched hand, either to knock for the coachman or to strike Mr. Crawford.
Henry drew something from his cloak and tossed it into her lap – a small silver object.
The surprise made Fanny lower her hand and study this strange present. "A tinderbox?"
"That is for you."
"I don't understand."
"We must speak, Mrs. Bertram," said Henry. "Please – if my friendship to you and William means anything at all – hear what I have to say for but five minutes and I shall then let myself out, without ceremony or fuss, at the first opportunity."
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.
