Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Seven:

As there were no means of following Tom, given the start he would have had while she was shut up in the wardrobe, Fanny did the only thing which seemed to be left to her – as soon as the innkeeper departed from her, with an awkward bow and a polite reminder the room was only paid for until the onset of evening – she flung herself upon the bed and sobbed her heart out.

Whatever was she to do now?

She did not know when – if – he would come back to her, all she wanted in the world was to make things right again, even if she could never fully undo the evil of the night before, and she was so ashamed, so terribly ashamed, at the thought of returning to Mansfield Park without him.

How could she look Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram in the face and tell them she didn't know where their son was, only that he was in excruciating pain continually (from the cross, if not the burns), and she had absolutely betrayed him and quite possibly condemned him to half an existence until the end of his life?

She didn't dread the reaction of her aunt Norris; harsh though it would surely be, she should indeed welcome it, feeling it only her just punishment.

For if the woman's barbed words against her treatment of Tom hurt her, how much more was Tom himself hurting?

And, for once, no matter what Aunt Norris said, Fanny would have to consider her words true enough.

She did dread – a little – any real pain she would, in confessing, inflict upon her aunt – Aunt Norris might never have loved her much, but Tom had been a different story. She was there when he was born and, while he was not what Maria was to her, she had indeed loved him dearly. His marriage to Fanny, which had placed such a wedge between them, would be as nothing to Aunt Norris now; all her former love, in hearing he was suffering, must come flooding back, and she too must suffer.

And Edmund!

Why, the very thought of going to the parsonage, a place Fanny had never been comfortable visiting, for the purpose of confessing to Edmund what she had done!

Knowing he would be undeservedly kind, while not condoning her actions, made Fanny's stomach twist and turn very sour.

Her crying brought on a dreadful headache, and – as a result – when her mind and body alike could bear no more consciousness, she fell in and out of blank, dreamless sleep, only to awaken – what felt like mere moments later – to the wicked world she had entered in betraying Tom.

She considered – when she was awake enough to consider anything and the pain in her head did not entirely impede the process of rational thought – remaining in London, forsaking a solidarity return to Mansfield altogether, and searching for her husband until she discovered his whereabouts.

Only, she didn't know where to begin, where she should go when she was put out of this inn.

What money she had had when she'd gone to Portsmouth was mostly spent, and the little she'd left would scarcely provide her with lodging here or any other place she knew of.

She could sell something – some little bauble, perhaps – and quite literally buy herself some time, but she thought she would rather sleep on the streets than sell Lady Bertram's opal ring or the hair comb Tom had given her.

She thought this, of course, as would anybody who – despite living in poor conditions – has never actually spent a full night on the streets.

There was the gold necklace Tom – when a bear – had brought to her in his mouth once... If any gift of his must be parted with, hateful as the idea was, she would prefer to give up the gaudy necklace.

But she didn't know, couldn't recall, not for certain, if it was buried somewhere in her things or if she had left it behind at Mansfield...

Further, as a lady – all the more so as the wife of a gentleman, a future baronet – it would be considered wildly inappropriate for her to pay a visit to a pawnbroker.

She knew of no other way of selling jewels. She would not even be able to tell, without assistance, whether any establishment she came to was that of a respectable jeweler or if it was indeed that of a forbidden pawnbroker!

What if she had conceived a child last night?

If it took months for her to find Tom – and who was to say it would not, London being such an enormous place to search – she would begin to show; she might need the advice or assistance of a physician; people, seeing her, could make certain assumptions about a seemingly destitute woman, plainly with child, searching for a missing gentleman she claimed was her husband.

Even if she went to Julia and the Bertram's relatives in Bloomsbury, asking them for help, there was no guarantee, even if Julia should vouch for her, they would believe any child she proved to be with to be a real Bertram.

Without the explanation of the curse, how could she begin to tell them why Tom would abandon her?

It really would seem as if she were–

Supposing she let Wilcox take her home to Northamptonshire, just for a little while, in the hopes Tom would indeed forgive her and come back on his own?

Just time enough to wait and see if she was going to have another child.

If such time as that should go by, and Tom still did not come home, then she must gather up what resources she could – perhaps even, though she trembled at the thought, ask Sir Thomas for help – and come back to London seeking him.

When evening came – her stomach bitter and empty, her head still pounding, and her mouth tasting faintly of copper – Fanny rose up from the bed, aware she had cried away the day, and dressed as well as she could.

She suspected her corset stays were done incorrectly and that she had forgotten her chemise which was meant to go under it, for it was digging into her flesh with unusual vim, but she ignored the pain – it was as nothing to her now. She donned her plainest dress and the bonnet with the least trimming, locked up her trunk so it was ready to be brought down, and made her way from the room, downstairs, and outside to the waiting carriage.

And where was Tom at the moment Fanny was speeding away from London towards Northamptonshire?

He was dipping too deep in a seedy boozing-ken.

But it would do little good to explain his thoughts there; he himself was scarcely aware of them, which was the whole point. He wished to forget everything, to ease his pain, and conscious thought was the enemy to this end.

He knew very little of what he did or said, nothing of what he pondered – if he pondered anything at all.

He was dimly aware – sometime near the night's end – of trying to stand, to walk, and promptly falling down onto a hard surface and somebody picking him up and tossing him over their shoulder and settling him down, at the last, someplace else.

His first real awareness, though, was of being in a strange bed, undressed to his waist.

He breathed a great sigh of relief when he saw, or rather felt, under his anxiously groping fingertips – he still wore Fanny's amber cross about his neck (he most probably would have wound up as a bearskin someone was using for a hearthrug if he'd lost that, or if it had been stolen while he lay unconscious).

There came a lighter sigh than his own, and there was movement under his arm.

Somebody was in the bed with him, and he turned over to see who it was.

He perceived a head of darkish curls and furrowed his brow in confusion at it until it twisted at the neck and a vaguely familiar face was smiling up at him impishly.

"Oh, hello! You're awake? Good morning, Mr. Bertram; I trust you slept well!" chirped this merry face, beaming carelessly up at him.

"Mrs. Wickham?" he muttered, blinking, wondering if it could really be she.

Her ensuing giggle made this identification quite undeniable, even to one who did not know her particularly well.

Tom groaned and sat up. "The deuce did this come about? George will have my head." All he knew was, if he'd caught George Wickham in bed with Fanny, he would have probably shot him first and asked questions later. He expected no less in the reversed situation.

"Oh, he will not," laughed Lydia, reaching over Tom for something. "Look a moment – he's here, too. Wickham, darling, wake up. Isn't it such a good joke?"

On his other side, a sleepy figure – which indeed was none other than George Wickham – muttered a few colourful oaths (this only made Lydia titter even harder) before fully rousing and getting up, in a better humour than his grumblings of a few moments before would have suggested, and quickly dressing and straightening his regimentals before a shabby-looking sliver of mirror scarcely large enough to shave by.

Tom glanced between the couple with a look of bewilderment. "I'm sure I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I confess I find myself rather starved for context."

Lydia rolled over onto her side in a fit of giggles. "Oh!" she gasped out between bouts of uninhibited laughter. "D'you mean you do not remember meeting us last night? How funny! Wickham, isn't he so funny?"

"Hilarious," deadpanned Wickham. Then, addressing Tom, who had turned rather green about the face, "Relax, Bertram." He rolled his eyes in the mirror. "Nothing untoward occurred."

Lydia latched onto his arm; her cheerful brightness was undimmed even in the slightest measure. "I was so awfully afraid you were going to choke in your sleep – you were in quite a state when we discovered you. Wickham looked so very handsome when he rescued you. He lifted you right up – my husband is so strong. I was quite proud of him. I am sure everyone there saw him being so splendidly heroic. Anyway, I said – I said, Wickham, my dearest love, you had best put him into bed with us for the night – didn't I say exactly that, Wickham?"

"Yes, she did. And I agreed, most emphatically, because I was not about to pay for another bed – although, had this one been narrower, I would have suggested the floor or the chair as the best place for you."

Tom lifted his stiff arms above his head and stretched until he heard his joints pop. The pain – both from last night's overindulgence and from using the magic of the amber cross to keep from transforming – was so great he almost retched as he did so, and might have been sick on the bed, but he forced the reflex back and tried to act unaffected.

"What were you doing in such a place on your own?" asked Wickham, after a moment. "I enjoy a boozing-ken as much as the next gentleman – and so does Lydia, truth be told – but only a fool goes to them entirely unaccompanied if they mean to get foxed."

"Where was your man, is what I should like to know," said Lydia, her words rather dark and disapproving but her tone of voice remaining cheerful as ever. "What manner of backwards valet leaves his employer so unprotected? My mother says servants are becoming so dreadfully inept these days."

Tom mumbled some explanation about Roger Smith being back in Northamptonshire. He had meant, in coming to London, only to be in town for a single night and hadn't supposed he would have any need of him.

"Mr. Bertram," Lydia asked next, looking at him in the daylight a little more carefully, "wherever did you get those tiny burns on your chest?"

He didn't look at her. "Hot tallow, from a candle."

"How ghastly," she replied, meaning to be sympathetic, but she sounded rather as if the answer – in its simplicity – had bored her.

Wickham tied back his hair, which looked almost flaxen in the morning light. Then, turning back to his wife and to Tom, he informed him the articles of clothing they had removed from his person the night before were – at present – heaped on a little chair by the door for him to collect on his way out.

It was something of an odd set.

When leaving the inn, ignoring Fanny's banging and pleading from within the wardrobe where he'd shut her up, Tom had opted to – in his dazed hurry to be free of that place – merely throw a waistcoat over his nightshirt – still stained about the front and collar by the tallow – rather than dress properly; he hadn't even bothered with a cravat.

So, there was only this crumpled waistcoat – one button apparently lost during the hours his drink-addled memory had failed to retain – and the rather messy-looking nightshirt to collect.

"How I wish," cried Lydia suddenly, looking alarmingly as if she were about to fling her arms around neck of her husband's friend and cling to it, though she did not actually do so, "Mr. Bertram could come back North with us when we go! We three would be merry and snug as anything if we could keep him with us, I am sure."

"He's not a lost puppy, Lydia," Wickham told her. In a more gracious tone, he did invite Mr. Bertram to travel with them if he had no place else to be getting to, and if venturing North was his wish. "But there is always room for a friend in our carriage – my wife, you see, is disappointed we will not be having either Mrs. Owen or Denny to stay this year."

"I shall die of boredom!" she declared, slumping her shoulders miserably. "There's never anyone pleasant around for me to speak with! Do come and live with us for a bit, Mr. Bertram – oh, do!"

Sir Thomas proved so kind to Fanny, after her full confession of betrayal, most days – overwhelmed by equal parts guilt and gratitude – she found it nearly impossible to endure.

The baronet had never thought the terms required to break his son's curse fair for any woman, let alone a delicate sensible creature like Fanny, and he still largely blamed Tom for his misbehaviour in Antigua as the primary cause of the family's suffering; even so, when Fanny first came before him in his study, having arrived home without his son, and told him all, there had been a flashing moment when he felt quite cross towards her. He had come to believe her peculiarly free of the modern wilfulness he personally considered rather as being a rampaging disease in young women these days, and – to his mind – had twice been disappointed in her. First, when she had refused Mr. Crawford and married his son against his advice, quite condemning herself to an impossible task when she might have, instead, lived comfortably all her days. And again, now, when she had failed his son.

But upon noticing how she immediately caught his disapproving look, and – all set to trembling – braced herself as if for a storm at sea (she had something of the look her brother must have possessed whenever the waves got rough and sailors were forced to secure themselves to the deck if they wished to remain onboard rather than be washed over the side), he couldn't help softening towards her.

Scolding her would not bring his son home nor would it undo the fact she had made his curse permanent.

If anything, it might lower her already flagging spirits so much she might fall ill. The journey from London had already left her looking piqued.

Further, when Fanny recounted, with a pained effort, what Tom had said to her, about everything being at an end between them, he privately feared, though he sincerely hoped he was mistaken, his son might have meant something by it – he feared Tom would seek, in his hurt, to annul the marriage. Whether or not he was successful in so doing, if he did indeed attempt it, Fanny would doubtless suffer humiliation beyond anything a father-in-law's most condemning words could ever inflict.

And so, Sir Thomas resolved Mrs. Norris ought not be told anything beyond a vague explanation of Tom's having been detained on business in town; she didn't know about the curse, and he saw no reason for this unhappy occasion being her introduction to it.

Fanny would have felt relief at this, if only it were not the first time in her life she truly believed her aunt's talking at her, her aunt's relentless blaming, would be fully justified, rather than a thing to be respectfully endured in quiet martyrdom, and it was as if she were escaping an earned punishment – as if she were given dinner after being sent to bed without it for being naughty, or having her hands stretched out for a switching only to find the switch which had been plucked to dole out awaited retribution was as soft as an embroidered pillow.

Her only real consolation was, as she was so listless and guilty she could not look her aunt in the eye most days, she was in fact scolded for that 'ill-behaviour' as if it were as great a misdeed as betraying Tom.

Her other aunt was told, as gently as Sir Thomas could manage it, but Lady Bertram did not seem to comprehend the magnitude of what had happened.

All she retained from what her husband told her, with such unaccountable gravity, was Tom would continue to be away – all these curses and bears and candles and masks and crosses and witches and suchlike were quite beyond her, she said – and they did not know when he would come back again. Why, Fanny – poor, dejected girl! – herself seemed to think, and this greatly baffled Lady Bertram, because – whatever anyone might say to try and explain it to her – she couldn't see the reason for its being so, there was a great chance he wouldn't come home at all any more.

"Well," she said finally, patting Fanny's cheek and wondering that it was wet. "Well! I am astonished." She wiped her hand dry upon Pug's tawny back. "But I must say, Sir Thomas, if we must do without him, I am glad we took in Fanny as we did, and that Tom took a queer fancy in his head to marry her, so she can't ever be taken from us to some other house. Unless, I suppose, Maria should want her at Sotherton sometime. Barring that, we shall always have her at least; we can take our comfort in her, Sir Thomas. All the others have gone. Edmund can't keep the parsonage here as long as Dr. Grant is alive and might want it back" – she pursed her lips, her light eyes narrowing a trifle – "so one cannot truly count upon his and dear little Mary's staying at home. Oh, I wish they would stay at home!"

Although Fanny was touched by her aunt's affection, enough so she could not even imagine such need of her company to be rooted in anything like genuine selfishness, Lady Bertram's – all too hastily returned – inability to do without her stepdaughter posed an insurmountable dilemma insofar as Fanny's plans to leave home again and seek Tom went.

For a time, she was able to put off this niggling fact, telling herself it was no good setting out without – at least – the reassurance she was not carrying her fourth child.

But when she woke one morning, in the lonely, empty bed in the room she had previously shared with Tom, and found her courses had come – there was no baby to be expected – the dilemma was no nearer being solved than it had would have been if she'd planned to leave Mansfield sooner.

Too afraid to go to Sir Thomas for advice, she resolved to walk to the parsonage – with a basket of nice things for Mary – and to see if Edmund would tell her what she ought to do.

She'd picked a poor morning for the task, as it turned out, for Edmund was visiting an ill elderly couple in the village, and Mary – ironically already laden with a basket of provisions not unlike the one Fanny carried as a gift for her – had gone with him.

They had not a housekeeper employed at present, Mrs. Grant having taken her own with her when she'd gone, so the parsonage appeared to be quite dark and shut up even though it was the brightest hour of the morning.

Despite a quivering lip, Fanny screwed up her courage and dared to peer into a window, just in case there was some mistake, but she quickly leaped back and darted away, lest she be taken up for housebreaking.

Of course, anyone who had any right to be there would probably have known Fanny by sight; there wasn't a gardener for miles would haven't have recognised even her back or profile from a goodly distance and, if they approached at all, they would have doffed their caps and asked if she needed assistance; they would not have accused her of attempted thievery.

Only, she didn't think of that in time for the knowledge to be of any real use to her.

She had a rotten time of it when she returned to the big house and found Mrs. Norris had sat with Lady Bertram in her absence.

Because her aunt had been dozing with both pugs in her lap when Fanny left, she'd simply written a sweet little note and placed it beside her, but somehow the note had been mislaid and was not where she'd set it, nor had it been there waiting as it ought to have been when Lady Bertram woke, alone and anxious.

Mrs. Norris had been announced not five minutes after and was very eager to sit with her and supply the absent Fanny's place, but the damage – such as it was – was already done.

Hearing Fanny's explanation, Lady Bertram – after only a moment longer of mild agitation – placidly accepted there had been an honest mistake – she had not been forsaken, and while she didn't see why Fanny must go for a morning walk, she herself never having taken half so many walks in her youth, she thought there was no real harm in what she'd done – and quite forgot she was ever upset.

Her aunt Norris, however, found fault with every aspect of the story.

The note – if there had ever been one and Fanny was not simply telling Banbury stories – was insufficient means of letting others know of her plans.

"You ought to have waited until somebody was on hand – or left a message with Baddeley," sniffed Mrs. Norris, shaking her head. "You know better. I am sure I've told you not to do a thing like this before. And now you've gone your own way and caused no end of troubles for everybody. You can't imagine the difficulties in soothing my poor sister when–"

"Oh, yes," sighed Lady Bertram, blinking sagely over at her, stroking the back of one of the pugs, "I was very troublesome, I suppose. My nerves have never been so reliable as I'd like to fancy their being. You know, I sometimes wish they were hardier, something more like yours, sister."

"It is Fanny who is troublesome," snapped Mrs. Norris. "And as I was saying, Fanny, in your selfishness, your independent streak I've often advised you to get the better of, you didn't even think to wait long enough to find out if – in so walking – you might make yourself useful. I might have had an errand for you. But I daresay all you wanted to do was wander in the cool shrubbery and take up fanciful notions into your head."

Almost any other sort of woman would have balked, would have found some curt manner of reminding this most abrasive aunt – even if it must be done underhandedly, via a little play upon words, lest it show some disrespect – of her superior position in the household.

She was yet Tom's wife, after all, and had twice as much right to do as she liked in the house as this prying aunt did... But, even without being weighed down by guilt, such was not Fanny's way.

Her response was simply a demure, "I went to the parsonage, to see Edmund, aunt."

The wise man who penned the words A softe aswere putteth downe displeasure, had evidently never met Mrs. Norris.

It took not the breath of a second following a little "Oh, I see," for her to immediately accuse Fanny of some concealment and untruth by this, as she knew – for a fact, she said, without permitting Fanny a word to defend herself – Edmund was in the village today.

When Fanny – her voice weak and shaky – attested this was indeed true, only she had not known this when she set out, the lecture took a sharp turn into this being proof of her always putting herself most vulgarly forward.

"To invite yourself to a home – any home, but especially that of a respectable parson – where the occupants could have no notion of your coming – so much so they would be out at the hour you called – is very bad indeed! I think you must have no reverence for the place you should know is so dear to my heart. Why, I–"

"But Edmund wouldn't–"

"Pray do not interrupt me when I am speaking, Fanny – I am sorry to tell you it so frankly, but interrupting is yet another unfortunate habit of yours."

And so it went and was still going strong well over an hour later when Sir Thomas entered the drawing-room, kissed his wife, and then went to the fire to spread his chilled hands over the flames before he noticed how white and dejected Fanny was and listened a little more closely to what Mrs. Norris was saying to her.

Taking pity, he invented a need to speak to Fanny alone in his own room, if her aunts would be so obliging as to let him take her apart, and although Mrs. Norris certainly seemed to think she ought to be asked, not her niece, she only pressed her lips together and nodded.

"Come, my dear," he said, and put a hand on her back, guiding her hurriedly past the drawing-room door.

When he had her alone, rather than give counsel or reprimands, or ask her assistance with anything, he offered her some tea and asked, after she had taken a few fortifying sips, whether she was now feeling less faint than she looked.

She found it difficult to speak – the tears that shone in her eyes were more for his kindness than her aunt's harshness, which she still felt she deserved at any rate. Finally, she did manage a nod, and to thank him with all her heart for his gentle concern.

In such an intimate setting, Sir Thomas looking only to comfort and to please her, Fanny found she could – after all – make something like an attempt at asking him for advice regarding going after Tom in town.

Her heart sank when he replied, very sombrely, he did not think it a good idea by any means – a woman travelling alone, to who knew what parts of London, actively seeking a gentleman who had run away from her...

Well, it would seem worse than merely peculiar, to put it lightly.

The tears she had been holding back burst free and, running down her face and chin, dropped rapidly, like a little rain-shower, into her teacup.

Sir Thomas gave her his handkerchief and – in a weak attempt at a soft jest – advised her against this odd method of adding flavour to her tea. "It is far too much salt, child."

She sniffed, dabbed at her eyes, and tried to regain mastery of herself.

"Although I have my doubts," he continued, when she seemed a little steadier, "it is not outside the realm of possibilities Tom will come home on his own, making any planned excursion on your part moot enough."

Fanny's teeth clattered, clanking together hard from chattering as she struggled out, "But if he does not, sir? If your doubts should come to pass?"

"All I advise – indeed, all I ask, if my asking it means anything to you – is a little further long-suffering on your part." Oh, he could hardly have chosen better wording there! Long-suffering indeed! But there was no one who felt they had brought it upon themselves more keenly than Fanny, or who was more prepared to endure it on that account if not on any other. "Wait for me to make a few inquiries – I may be able to discover Tom's whereabouts myself, even if he does not see fit to come home of his own volition."

This was sense, even if waiting seemed a herculean task crushing down upon Fanny's heart.

"We must also think, a little, of your aunt's comfort."

"If you please, sir, my aunt Norris–" Fanny began, mistaken as to which aunt he meant and suspecting him – quite wrongly – of sarcasm, wishing to defend that lady in spite of everything.

Sir Thomas looked at her with wonderment for a second, then quickly interrupted with a shake of his head. "I meant my wife, of course. Maria does not show it – she is too naturally placid, and it gives her an air of perpetual contentment – but I do not think she did well without you while you were away in Portsmouth. I found her less altered after my time in Antigua, less distressed at not having seen me for a good while, than she was at not having you on hand for a mere four weeks."

The usage of her aunt's Christian name, a usage – when coming from Sir Thomas – Fanny typically associated with her cousin, with Mrs. Rushworth, rather than with the presently intended object, gave his voice a kindling sort of warmth.

If, when she was a small girl, she had known this man, he who said "Maria," in such dulcet tones, was the uncle she'd come to live with, she would have thought him the better character – when judging between him and his wife – and loved him rather more than the smiling, indolent aunt her childish mind had decided was kinder simply because the smile was there.

(The unfortunate Sir Thomas had made the grave mistake of frowning when they'd first met and Fanny's anxiety over that frown had never fully departed from her heart.)

A gentleman who could speak so was exactly the father she'd always longed for – even at the tender age of two or three, which was about as far back as her memory, albeit dimly and with patches sewn by imagination and supposition at many intervals, reached – when she used to hear Mr. Price's drunken footsteps on the stair and tremble involuntarily.

"If you must go after Tom in person, your aunt needs to be brought around to the idea of your absence – for who knows how long – in a more gentle, less abrupt manner."

Fanny agreed, but she said, "What can you advise me to do about that? I cannot think of a solution myself."

"One of your still-living sisters is a fully grown girl, is she not? She should be about nineteen, if my guess is correct?"

"Susan, do you mean? Why, yes, sir, she is."

"How would you feel about having her come and visit with your aunt for a time?"

"Why," she gasped, clasping her hand together, "I was thinking – before – well, I had been wondering how I might – I thought Mansfield would do Susie immeasurable good, sir – and I–"

He held up a hand. "If you can vouch for her having no incurable faults, and a temperament something like your own, I would then advise you to write to her and ask her here. But, and here is the rub, you must phrase it so she understands absolutely she would be the guest of myself and Lady Bertram, rather than your visitor, for I do not think she will see as much of you here as I imagine she would like."

Fanny did not understand his meaning.

"My wish," he explained, "if Edmund agrees to it, and I have little doubt he will, is – while your sister is here – for you to be staying at the parsonage a good deal. If anybody asks, we shall tell them it is to repay Mary – in her present need – the attention she showed you when you were in the same condition. You see, in this manner, Lady Bertram can become accustomed to having your sister supplying your place, while still knowing you are not far away. Then, when – if – you really must go to town, the separation will not weigh so on her. It will matter, I hope, little enough to her if you are in the parsonage within view from this house or in London, so long as she does not feel wholly abandoned."

This was a good plan – however much it pained her to think she might be held up at the parsonage in emotional stagnancy for many, many months if her reason for being there was to help Mary until the baby came – and she conceded to it with all her heart, but she did wonder – if she was not overstepping in so asking – if, should she have to go to town, she might have a servant accompany her?

"Servant?" echoed Sir Thomas. "Bless me, child! No. I wouldn't pack you off on such an uncertain journey with a servant – only a servant! – I shall of course accompany you myself."

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