Snowbear
A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction
Chapter Thirty-Three:
Half a night's rest, having – in lessening her exhaustion – restored to Fanny her natural senses of reason and a trickle of pride, made her heartily ashamed of her tears in the Longbourn drawing-room.
That had not at all been her rational self, to despair so.
Even Edmund, who would by no means have sided with his brother, should surely have thought badly of her for – at least by her manner – seeming to believe, at once and without question, the most wretched of rumours about her own dear husband, with so little real reason to do so.
Had she really come all this way, braved so much, in order to succumb to misery and hopelessness, because Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips believed Tom to be in a dalliance of some kind with Miss Bingley?
It mightn't even be true; it probably was not true.
Sitting up – at some wildly early hour when the moon had not yet set – in a bed that had once belonged to the present Mrs. Darcy of Pemberley, Fanny murmured, "It is a mistake – it must be somebody else, not Tom."
Or, if it was indeed Tom, the fancy might be all on Miss Bingley's side; he was the handsome friend of her brother, and she had been, as Fanny heard it, disappointed by unrequited love before – she might well be looking to an agreeable gentleman of her acquaintance whose marriage seemed to be in some trouble for a replacement to her spurned affections.
That scarcely meant her husband responded to her overtures...
Only, if this were the case, the rumours shouldn't exist. The talk over tea should be of his rejecting forward Caroline Bingley outright, not of a vague hope on Mrs. Bennet's part of Fanny winning him back to herself.
Oh, supposing he really loved Caroline now and would be unhappy to see her at Mr. Bingley's door!
But Fanny recollected her firm belief in Tom's faithfulness as a husband before she had fallen in love with him. When considering if she would marry him to avoid being pressed to accept Mr. Crawford, she had felt quite sure she was safe from Tom's ever humiliating her by having a mistress. She had known such behaviour was not like him.
How could falling in love since then have made her less certain of his character?
Edmund would say such thoughts – such musings – were not love at all but jealousy.
Love, she was sure he would remind her – would quote to her – if he were here, real love, beleueth all things, hopeth all things.
She couldn't help grimacing a little when she recollected the next line, however: suffreth all things.
This part, at least, felt painfully true; if to be in love was to suffer all things, her love for Tom Bertram must be genuine.
Unable to fall back asleep, convinced she must see her husband directly and comfort herself with the shame of having been mistaken about his conduct in her absence, as soon as there was light on the horizon, peeking in through the windowpane, she rose – washing her face and dressing and supplying her own breakfast very quietly in Elizabeth's old room via the magical table-runner – and resolved to walk the three miles left between them.
Poor Fanny, it had rained (too early to be of any use to Mrs. Bennet's scheme, even if her guest had waited upon the loan of a horse) an hour before and the paths were muddy.
She was not so hardy as Mrs. Darcy, who'd arrived at Netherfield years prior with her petticoat six inches deep in mud.
There, at least, if Lizzy – then Bennet – had been more conscious of hiding it under her gown, she would not have looked too much the worse for the wear – indeed, with her fine eyes bright from the exercise, she must have made a very pretty picture indeed.
Fanny, her weariness and light-headedness (even after quite a good breakfast) making her stumble, fell into the worst of the mud until it was up to her waist, absolutely splattered and smeared across her grey pelisse, and her bonnet, coming untied, fell off and rolled down a hill into some ditch from which it was irrecoverable; her hair loosed itself from its pins and plastered itself to her neck, though she'd had it done up very neat and proper when she started out, hoping to make a good impression.
So dishevelled and wild did she appear, in fact, when she arrived at Netherfield, the butler wouldn't let her in or disturb Mr. Bingley and his party, which had just sat down in the breakfast-room, by announcing her presence to them.
She tried, as far as her short breath permitted, to tell him she was Mrs. Bertram and wanted to see her husband, but he did not understand her.
He agreed, seeing she was ready to swoon from whatever extrusion had brought her to this house, to let her into the kitchen, round the back way, if she would pass through the servant's quarters; he no doubt imagined it was bread and rest and charity she must be after, despite her garbled protests to the contrary.
Finding a quiet corner by an unoccupied hearth – the servants all being engaged with their duties – Fanny resolved to use the scissors to make a new dress, change and clean herself up, and then find some means of creeping into the breakfast-room.
"Oh, I do hope," she whispered to herself, snip-snapping the scissors, "the Bingleys aren't cross at my not being announced, at my simply walking in – I shouldn't like to implicate the butler, who only thought he was doing his duty."
The dress the scissors created was plain, but this did not particularly disappoint Fanny, though she couldn't help noticing – biting her lip to hold back a wry smile – it was undeniably similar in hue to a certain brown dress Tom had once ripped up to the waist so she could ride astride on his horse.
It wouldn't suit her, to be sure, and Tom wouldn't care for it on it her.
She wondered if the scissors were somehow sentient enough to possess a sense of humour. Could an object, even a magical one, know your history and tease you about it?
Carefully stowing her pelisse and scissors and table-runner behind a large pot (the presence of an intricate cobweb running from its wide, black lip to the floor assuring her no one had moved it for a while), Fanny smoothed her skirts and slowly made her way through the unadorned passages until she reached the more lavish upper part of the house.
Holding her breath, she soundlessly opened the breakfast-room door and stepped inside.
No one at the table, nor the couple of servants standing erect on the opposite side of the room, seemed to notice her entering.
Her eyes eagerly searched the length of table for Tom, and she was puzzled when she could not find him there.
She chanced to take a step nearer to Mr. Bingley, whose bright red hair and merry face made him, at least, instantly recognisable, who was leaning in his chair and was on the point of saying something to Miss Bingley, seated at his left near the head of the table.
"Caroline, please tell me you've reconsidered."
"What is there to reconsider?" She stirred her tea and regarded her brother with a cool flicker of her eyes.
"I know you're of age, and may do what you like," he said, his voice lower and irrepressibly gentle, "but, dash it all, you must be aware all Hertfordshire is talking. Jane's mother especially disapproves, and she doesn't yet understand the half of it."
"Charles" – laying down her spoon beside her teacup – "come, you cannot expect me to make my life choices based on the wagging tongues of a bunch of silly rustics and vulgar mushrooms. As to your mother-in-law, you know my thoughts there to be unchanged, if you'll take my meaning and my pardon together."
Mr. Bingley's blue eyes darted from his sister's immovable face to Jane's blanched, discomfited one at his right (she was, apart from Fanny, just behind them and still unnoticed, the only one seated close enough to hear their conversation). "Do you, at the very least, love him?"
Here, at last, Miss Bingley's face changed, but not with an expression of tenderness; no, it was incredulity.
As if to supply her answer, she twisted her mouth and inclined her head down the table a few seats. Look at him, for God's sake, Charles, and pray do not ask me stupid questions, her turned expression seemed to say.
A gaunt gentleman in oversize clothing, seemingly ignoring the food on his plate, was attempting to bring a pinch of snuff to his nose and – thanks to bleary eyes and violently trembling hands – kept narrowly missing his nostril in the execution of this effort.
Fanny blinked, then, recognition dawning almost at the very same moment the gentleman groaned, "Damn," and snapped his snuffbox shut, started and nearly cried out.
Tom!
He was so altered, so sickly and wasted and frail-looking, she'd failed to recognise him until Miss Bingley's eyes directed her to his face – which, she realised with a second start – an even greater shock – was adorned, just above the nose he had such difficulty getting the snuff up, with a new mask, this one of velvet and vellum rather than metal.
A feeling of unwellness overcame Fanny so strongly she knew she must flee or faint, and she – with what must have been the last of her strength she had to spare that day – choose to flee.
Someone heard her at the door this time – it might have been Jane Bingley – but they were not quick enough to catch more in their peripheral vision than an indistinct flicker of her reflection in a mirror.
The brown dress, no doubt, made it easy to assume she was only a servant exiting the breakfast-room.
Fanny pressed her back against the wall in the first hallway she came to.
She numbly processed what Caroline and Mr. Bingley had been discussing, coupling their conversation with the fact that Tom – a poor, wretched altered version of Tom she had not at all expected – had been wearing a mask.
She must be wrong – she must be.
Certainly, she had fled before getting the whole story. Her exit had been premature and hasty. But what reason would Tom have to conceal his face from Mr. Bingley and his wife?
None at all.
However, if Caroline Bingley had never seen his face – at least, not since Antigua, since the curse – he would have every reason to conceal his face from her.
Every reason.
Every reason, that was, if he meant to divorce her and marry Caroline Bingley.
After only narrowly holding back from going into the kitchen in order to retrieve her belongings and stumbling back to Longbourn on a pair of legs so useless at the moment she rather doubted they would support her one mile, let alone three, Fanny resolved she mustn't simply give up.
To have made her presence known to Tom in the breakfast-room, before the woman who was – by all appearances – to be her replacement, would have been mortifying, yet she began to imagine things might be very different if only she could get him alone.
How he would explain away Miss Bingley, she hadn't the slightest notion – nor hope, really – but, heart hammering, she kept thinking, nonetheless, alone – alone he must recollect me.
Besides, his altered appearance had aroused her pity, in spite of everything. It would be impossible for her to leave without being certain he wasn't quite as poorly as he'd looked.
Never had she imagined she would be standing in a room with him for so long and not know him at once! For him to be so changed, so broken, such a shadow of the man he had been...
Indeed, she could not leave him thus.
Now it was her turn to hide in the servant's quarters as Tom had once done at Mansfield.
Except, of course, her task was a trifle more difficult than his had been, for she must keep out of the way of all Mr. Bingley's servants, particularly the butler, and Tom had at least had the collaboration of Roger Smith and two of the grooms in the stable.
Having rather a good deal of time to think as she waited, she began to feel guilty, now she had been disappointed, about disbelieving and abandoning the Bennets and Mrs. Phillips – they had been right, after all, and were – regardless – probably dismayed to have found her gone.
But, if nothing else, they at least knew where she had gone – they must know she would have come straight here, to Netherfield Park.
The Bingleys hosted a small Whist party in Netherfield's billiard-room that afternoon, and Fanny – when she thought it safe enough – dared to peer in and attempt to see what Tom was doing.
Not a great deal, as it turned out.
He lounged on a sofa with his eyes half closed, looking as indolent as his mother back at Mansfield, and spoke very little to anybody. Certainly he did not play Whist or billiards with the others, left to his own devices by all except Mr. Bingley (even Caroline quite abandoned him and was partnered with a very blank-looking Jane for a game), who sat at his friend's side for as much of the afternoon as he could without being neglectful of his other guests – primarily the Hursts and a couple of single gentlemen, neither of whom Fanny had met before – occasionally offering him a kindly smile or the newspaper.
Once, when Tom stood up from the sofa too quickly and nearly sank to the floor, Mr. Bingley jumped up and caught him.
This was when Fanny discovered her husband apparently could not move about well without the aid of a walking-stick, which Caroline – sighing and leaving her game with clear reluctance – brought over to him at her brother's urgent beckoning.
Fanny couldn't help watching Caroline as she led Tom in a turn about the room – ducking quickly out of the doorway whenever they chanced to circle near it – and observe her with a less than wholly unbiased eye.
Even diminished and weak as he'd become, she still thought her husband a very handsome gentleman, now she studied him with the knowledge it was he, and Miss Bingley, with her red coils piled atop her head like a queen's ruby crown and her fine, narrow-fitted dress, appeared statuesquely beautiful beside him.
Her figure looked very well, moving elegantly, even in the position of supporting a stooped man on her arm.
Oh, but of course Miss Bingley's figure was good, Fanny thought, colouring and biting down hard on her bottom lip as she continued to observe them; Miss Bingley hadn't given birth to three children for a man who'd forgotten her!
Alas, such sensations, such raw bitterness of thought, was too near resentment and she was soon obliged to let the feeling pass as though it had never gripped her, and sank its miserable claws into her unhappy soul, to begin with.
When he finished his turn with Miss Bingley, Tom returned to the sofa and proceed to guzzle such a quantity of brandy his friends threatened – more than once – to take the decanter from him.
At tea and at dinner, he also had at least two or three additional glasses of wine, the result of which being Mr. Bingley and the butler had to carry Mr. Bertram to his bed – a guest room upstairs – and Fanny began to worry he wouldn't even be coherent when she sneaked in to see him.
She could leave now, before breaking her heart further, and–
And what?
Where did she have, from here, left to go to?
Glancing down at the opal ring on her finger, she sighed.
It may interest any person who is interested in the history of the Bingleys to know Tom's room at Netherfield at this time was the very same room Jane, shivering from being caught in the rain, had recovered from a bad cold in years prior; he was deposited thither by Mr. Bingley and the butler, upon the very same bed Elizabeth, having arrived with her muddy petticoats, had once sat upon the foot of to nurse her sister.
To this room, when Tom was left alone, came Fanny.
There was a low fire burning with a merry crackle in the grate, but it was some distance from the bed, the chief part of its retained warmth being provided by the thick hangings. So, Fanny – with no candle – was obliged to grope her way to the bed, hands before her face, and to fumble as she pulled back the canopy and squinted down at the vague shape of Tom Bertram.
He wasn't wearing his velvet and vellum mask, for Mr. Bingley had gently removed it for him and placed it on a little table by the door before leaving, but it made little difference to Fanny who, as of the moment, could see nothing of his face in the darkness regardless.
She placed a hand on what she judged to be his arm; the feel and smell of him, quite apart from the lingering scent of the spirits he'd drank, nearly forgotten since they had last been together, almost overwhelmed her.
"Mr. Bertram?"
Tom murmured something unintelligible and did not wake.
Fanny tried shaking him gently – then a trifle more roughly – but he never stirred.
"Oh, Tom," she whispered, and – tucking her feet under her – curled up beside him on the bed. "Will you not even wake to bid me farewell? All those years, all those little pictures you drew for me, and three babies – surely a kind word in parting is not too great a thing to ask." Her voice cracked. "I came so far to find you!"
He gave a faint grunt, and she drew in her breath hopefully, but – as naught but uneven snoring followed – she was soon forced to admit to herself the noise did not seem to have been in acknowledgement of what she'd just said after all.
Morning light filtered through a small gap in the hangings and Fanny, starting and bolting upright, discovered she had fallen asleep beside Tom as she'd waited in vain for him to wake from his intoxicated stupor.
Turning and looking down, she could see him a little now, and her heart swelled with pity.
His neck, seen free of the cravat he was wearing downstairs, was turned black in colour all the way from his collar to his chin, yet he still wore her amber cross and chain – these glittered faintly at his throat.
Without his waistcoat to pad him out slightly, he looked even thinner than he'd seemed in the breakfast-room and during the Whist party.
Perhaps Tom had had no choice.
Fighting the curse was killing him.
If marrying Miss Bingley could break the curse...
Although, in truth, assuming – and she was unsure about this – Tom would have to begin all over, she rather doubted he would survive another seven years in this condition.
Then again, if he were safely wedded to Caroline, and living in the country where he could be concealed, he would stop wearing the amber cross, simply letting his daily transformation into a bear happen, and that should improve his health with rapidity.
With such an advantageous amendment to his present situation, he might well survive the second attempt at ending the curse.
Fanny hoped Miss Bingley wouldn't give into temptation and look at him, overcome with a desire to see the face of the man she slept beside every night, during the seven years, as she had – being warned against doing so was far from a guarantee, as she herself had unhappily proven.
Her entire journey here had been in vain. Tom was lost to her forever.
Sniffing and trying to hold back tears, Fanny removed the opal ring from her finger and gingerly placed it on Tom's rising and falling chest.
I love you, she thought, turning her face away and crawling towards the edge of the mattress to climb off.
Something knocked into her ankle; a raspy throat cleared itself. "And where the deuce, might I ask, are you creeping away to now, mousy?"
"Tom," she breathed, and tried to turn herself about so quickly she nearly rolled, at quite a perilous angle, off the side of the bed.
His arm caught her. "Whoa – now, you see, that could have been unfortunate." He added, groaning, "Lord, my head!"
"You did drink rather a good deal yesterday," Fanny murmured, gazing at him in the filtered morning light.
"Humph." And he put his arms all the way around her and gave her a quick, tight embrace, somewhere between that of a friend and that of a lover.
"Tom–"
"In spite of everything," he said, as they broke apart, "I've hoped – well, maybe not hoped, exactly, I actually lost all hope of it quite a while ago, truth be told – but I wished you would come find me. And you have." Brow furrowed, his hand suddenly touched her belly, patting her skirts in a clumsy, confused fashion, as if trying to gauge something. "Eh, Fanny, forgive me, but I must say you certainly seem well enough for a woman who, by my guess, ought to still be bedridden from childbirth."
"I don't understand."
Pursing his lips, Tom went very white – with exactly what emotion, Fanny could not be certain. "You were never with him, were you? Let alone carrying his bastard child! Lord, have you any notion–" He shook his head. "Fanny, I was about to make the greatest mistake of my life."
She took his hand, gaping at him, but could say nothing – she still did not understand much, apart from his obvious distress.
"I went to fetch you from Admiral Crawford's house," he rasped out, squeezing the hand in his. "I wanted to bring you here to Netherfield with me – I missed you – Mr. Crawford told me you were..." he trailed off. "He led me to believe you were..." He paused as if the words were physically painful for him to utter. "He said you were with child – with his bastard."
Fanny ripped her hand away, indignant. "Mr. Bertram! How could you believe such a pack of Banbury stories! You left me there!" She bowed her head and began to sob. "You simply left me there! Oh, Tom, you don't know how–"
"Oi, steady on, you didn't exactly come down to see me and set me right," he blurted, forgetting a moment Crawford hadn't agreed to send for her, to tell her he was there.
"I was locked in Mr. Crawford's room!" she cried. "How could I have come down to you?"
"Oh, Fanny..." He brought a hand to her face and began to stroke it, lifting her chin. "No, please, don't cry and don't look away. I'm dreadfully sorry."
Leaning into his touch, she breathed, "How could you leave me?"
"Well, that's all over now." Tom tilted his head, leaning in to kiss her. "You have my word I shall never leave you again."
Fanny pulled away before his lips could touch hers. "No, stop – you mustn't."
"Why not?"
"Because things are not as they were before – you must realise that."
"Must I?" His fingers trailed down her chin and towards her neck. "Because, to be frank, I am not certain I do."
"You're as good as engaged to Miss Bingley." Hurt flashed in her eyes, in spite of knowing why he must have done it. "Do you deny it?"
"Creepmousy, how exactly do you imagine I could be engaged to Miss Bingley when I'm married to you?"
Now she was angry – if he had been penitent for this also, she would have probably succumbed, she would have sunk into his arms despite her inner struggle to resist him, but faced with his cool flippancy she felt a rush of fury gripping her, squeezing like a band around her aching heart. "Don't – oh, don't you dare! – pretend you do not know exactly what I mean."
His shoulders slumped, defeated. "Forgive me that folly – I'll faithfully swear to you here and now nothing came of it – I was a fool, yes, but I believed I had lost you to Henry Crawford. I imagined I'd soon be free to marry again – quite against my inclination, I might add."
Fanny whimpered and pressed her face into his shoulder. How could he have believed such a thing of her? "I would never–" She broke off, then resumed. "But it's no good; you have to marry Miss Bingley now."
"Hang Miss Bingley! I cannot marry Miss Bingley! I've got you back again – d'you take me for a bigamist?"
"The curse," she wept; "I can't break it now – perhaps she can."
Flexing to nudge her off his shoulder, he then gripped her face with both of his hands and drew it to his own.
This time, she let him kiss her – she even returned the gesture with fervency.
His brow pressed to hers, he murmured, "I would rather stay cursed for the rest of my life than lose you again."
"But it's killing you," she gasped. "I saw you at breakfast, and at the Whist party – I know you can barely walk."
"Little spying creepmouse! How long have you been watching me through holes in the walls, I wonder? Never mind; I'll stop wearing the cross. I shall return it to you – it is your brother's gift, and I stole it, after all – and give up fighting the need to change – I'll recover quick as anything after that, you'll see." He kissed her again. "It's all right, really – I promise it is."
"I cannot be the reason you're never freed."
"Then I shall go to Antigua and apologise to the witch on my hands and knees, plead in person for its removal – will that induce you to forgive me? Oh, do say you shall! You were very willing to live with my cursed self after you looked at my face and my fate was sealed – what can have changed since then?"
"You told me I'd already forsaken you," Fanny reminded him; her voice was gentle, but her eyes were hard.
Tom made a small choking noise of protest. "I can never have said that!"
"You shut me in a wardrobe."
He winced. "I own to behaving rather badly there."
"Tom?"
"Yes?"
"Were you with Mr. Bingley the whole time?" She wondered that Sir Thomas, with all his enquiries, had never been able to discover his son's whereabouts if he truly had gone straight to the Bingleys' London residence.
"No, mousy, I was in the North with the Wickhams for a while."
"Oh." Yes, that would explain how the trail had gone cold. "What are we to do now?"
Tom pulled her into the middle of the bed and pressed her back against the pillows. "I can think of a few things – the first of which is removing you from that positively hideous dress you've got on; pray don't think I failed to notice it."
She turned her head to hide her smile. "That is not what I meant."
"But you will stay with me?" he checked.
"Yes."
"Fanny, you should know, I cannot get our daughters back for you while I'm still cursed – even though I know where they are, provided Mr. Crawford leaves them be and gives up his plan to adopt them – I don't know what that would mean for them." He gazed down at her sadly. "I can't claim them as my own. I may never be able to. I won't subject them to whatever happened to Thomas Charles."
"I'll visit them in Highbury on my own, once a year," Fanny decided. "And write them letters all the other days of it." Seeing Tom's expression, twisted as if he were about to cry, she added, "I grew up away from my mother – they shan't be the first nor the last."
"We will have to take some precautions, you and I, against having any further children – it is most likely we'll never be able to safely produce an heir for Mansfield."
"Edmund has a son now," Fanny reminded him. "They have named him James."
Feeling about the mattress, Tom recovered the opal ring with his free hand. "Here, give me your finger." Fanny obliged and, though his shaky hands prevented him from managing it on the very first try, he slipped the ring back into its rightful place. "It would never have fit Miss Bingley without being re-sized, you know."
Caressing his face, tsking softly, Fanny pointed out he must behave as a gentleman ought and apologise very prettily to Caroline as well.
"Apologise?" he scoffed. "For what? For offering to elevate her in the world?"
"For making her unhappy, Tom – for raising all her hopes and dashing them." She knew only too well what it was to be disappointed by Tom Bertram and wished such miserable feelings upon no other woman, not even upon one such as Miss Bingley, who'd admitted she did not really love him.
And for a moment her severe expression looked very much like one Edmund would have worn under the same circumstances.
"But..." Tom spluttered. "B-but... Caroline Bingley doesn't care about being happy – she cares about being Lady Bertram."
"Both of which you've put out of her reach by urging me to remain with you."
He sighed, "Very well, just as you like it – I shall be gracious and try to make amends for disappointing her." A pause, followed by a determined tug at the waistline under her bust. "Now, for the far more pressing matter – this dress of yours..."
A/N: reviews welcome, replies could be delayed.