Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Three:

"A-a-and, t-then, T-tom s-said I was too fat to be Amelia!" wailed Julia as Fanny put an arm around her sobbing cousin and rubbed her back consolingly. "As if I wanted to be Amelia! I detest her!" Sniff. "Unnatural, impudent girl! I ought to have been Agatha and acted with Mr. Crawford. I know I'd have done it so much better than Maria can. But Tom was going to make me Cottager's wife! He would have, too, if Mr. Yates hadn't stood up for me – to think my happiness was made dependant upon Mr. Yates! Yet even he did not want me for Agatha. How I wish there had never been a play – let alone Lover's Vows! I told Tom there weren't enough women parts – I told him!"

"You mustn't mind them," Fanny said when at last she could get a word in. "I'm sure, if they will be so out of temper with one another already, getting their spleens raised, it will end badly. Hadn't you do better to stay out of it, anyway?"

Sniff. "That is what Edmund says – you are just like him." Still, she leaned into Fanny's consoling touch. "But then, neither of you wished to act from the start – I did, and was promised I should, and now...now..."

Fanny ventured, very cautiously, to tell her, "It is their loss," though she knew, near as soon the words passed her tongue and teeth, she might have done better to be her usual quieter self and said nothing.

Julia would report it back to the others, with or without malice, and Aunt Norris would overhear, and they would all be very angry with her. They would accuse her of taking Julia's part, when, really, she thought they were all very much in the wrong.

Everything had been going badly since Tom returned from town. Edmund had let on that Tom was looking for a bride, something about it being the key to lifting his curse, but instead of his bringing back a gentlewoman, as they'd expected, only a new friend, one Honourable John Yates, had come with him.

Yates was obsessed with theatricals, sour and vocally downhearted that a play he had been a part of was called off before it could commence. Somebody's grandmother had died most inconveniently. Tom commiserated – rather heartlessly, to Fanny's ears – that it was a stupid thing for a set arrangement to be called off over a grandmother who died a hundred miles off and could not, thus, have meant much to anybody, then he stated his own valet was always inconveniencing him in a similar manner. Older women in that man's family apparently dropped like flies.

Lady Bertram, who had been sitting nearby with her eyes half closed, blinked at her son and said, "D'you know, the last time I corresponded with your aunt" – she was speaking of Fanny's mother, not Mrs. Norris, as correspondence was quite unnecessary when it involved someone who was practically always present – "she told me it was getting near impossible to find good help outside of the country. I hope you had some competent person to iron your shirts and tie your cravats in Weymouth and London and Newmarket, Tom. Sir Thomas would not like you to go about with wrinkled collars."

"Indeed, Mother," said Tom, offhandedly, then returned to his former conversation and paid her no more mind.

It was Mr. Crawford who pressed the idea of bringing the aborted play to Mansfield, much to Fanny's chagrin, for she still could not like him, and thus found him slightly harder to forgive than Tom, who – even when he was behaving abominably – she still felt a stubborn sisterly compassion for on the merits of his being her cousin and benefactor. Perhaps Mary Crawford felt much the same for Mr. Crawford, it was very probable, and Fanny could well imagine it, but her empathy – though sincere – was not boundless enough to breach her own strong feelings in this matter.

At any rate, nobody present would have thought of theatricals seriously, if Mr. Crawford hadn't – in an obvious attempt to keep Maria's interest from waning in the conversation which was being so dominated by her brother and Yates – made a grand speech about how, if he were asked to be in a play, he could be anybody, villain or singing hero, comedic or serious.

And Fanny thought, yes, I believe you – you could be anything, because you hold constant to nothing. Not even to my cousin Julia, who is smiling at you while you wink at Maria and snap your fingers at Tom. The same poor Julia you made such a fuss over when she rode with you to Sotherton. She didn't know your sneaking through the gate with Maria meant she was to be permanently displaced in your affections forever after. How could she, with your attentions and my aunt assuring her you loved her so? Now she feels you do not even like her any longer, as if she has done something to make you cross, and that is cruel!

"What," he had laughed, entirely oblivious to Fanny's silent judgement just a few short feet away, "should prevent us?"

That this isn't your house might, thought Fanny, and almost she'd given herself away by sighing.

She was prevented by Mrs. Norris leaning over and hissing she had missed a stitch in her mending which was meant for the poor basket, and she must learn to think of others besides herself, not slack off and eavesdrop upon the conversations of her cousins.

Lady Bertram was kinder; she pointed out, a touch groggily, on the verge of falling asleep again, how dear Fanny had never seen a real play before and so such talk, all about theatricals, must be interesting to her. "Do not be so very hard upon her, sister, her stitches look very well from here, to my eyes, apart from the little one she missed – I hardly would have seen the mistake myself, if you had not noticed it and spoken up, but your eyes are much sharper than mine."

Edmund had tried to dissuade them all, but Crawford's insistence even a half play or a scene was better than no play at all and getting Tom and Mr. Yates quite entranced with the idea had already done too much damage.

So, a play it was to be.

They were almost thwarted in terms of location, even though Mr. Crawford merrily declared any room in the house might do, as if the rooms were his to dispense with as he liked, and Tom – who had a little more right, though not quite yet – decided upon the raised study off the billiard-room.

Tom wanted a comedy, but the others hankered for tragedy, were very eager to do something with lots and lots of melodrama, and he conceded to Lover's Vows – despite Julia's loudly protesting there were not enough women – on the condition he could be the rhyming Butler and the part was not to be taken from him and given to another.

As they were leaving that day, Fanny heard Miss Crawford giggle to her brother, "Whoever heard of a butler in a silver mask? Mr. Bertram looks very funny indeed; he may get his comedy yet, however unintentionally."

"A mask is better than Mr. Yates's dreadful rantings, I daresay," was Henry's reply. "And how shall you like being Amelia, sister?"

"I will like it very much, if I can convince Edmund to be my Anhalt."

"You went the wrong way about it," Henry said, "telling him he should be Anhalt because Anhalt was a clergyman. There was a misstep on your part. You did not appeal to his better nature. You must, instead, tell him you fear saying such things – such warm lines – to a stranger will make you faint of heart upon the stage; then he will surely come to your rescue."

And this was very nearly what Fanny saw unfold; Edmund's resolution not to be in the play – on principle, regardless of it if was trash like Lover's Vows, or something as thought-provoking as Richard Ⅱ – was waning because Mary was desperate not to act with a stranger, though willing, if she must, for oh she so hated to disappoint poor Tom, even if he would suggest dragging Mr. Maddox, who she had never met, into all this.

Mary laid it on quite thick, but Edmund thought her most genuine and even Fanny couldn't deny some of Miss Crawford's words were real enough, no one ought to be pressured into acting with a stranger, and Tom really would be cross if she backed out now, although all the rest were grossly emphasised by her brother's crass, manipulative suggestion.

Meanwhile, word of Julia's complaining to Fanny reached Tom's ears, and he placed himself beside her on the sofa very decidedly to set the record straight, and, of course, to make several sharp complaints about being ill-used in this business himself.

"See how I am placed," he huffed; "Julia is going about telling anybody who will listen to her snivelling I called her fat to her face. I did not call her fat, I did not – the term I employed was robust. Oh, and, I don't mean to criticise, you know, I'm sure you're doing your best, but why-ever are you sewing capes instead of the rhyming butler's costume? You were to make mine first, were you not?" He inhaled a quick, impatient breath, giving her very little time to manage an actual answer. "And to think Julia wished to be Agatha before Yates and Crawford volunteered her for Amelia, quite against my wishes, when I'd almost promised Miss Crawford the part already!"

Fanny, who had only just been permitted to put aside Mr. Rushworth's pink satin cloak Mrs. Norris was making her sew and have herself a cup of tea, the first all day, bit her lip to keep from pointing out that Julia looked more like Agatha than Maria did, because she was taller and could pass for Mr. Crawford's mother in a play much more readily. Maria and Henry looked like lovers rather than mother and son. It was none of her business; it didn't matter what one such as her thought. Besides, even if she was enjoying seeing how it was all put together, and hearing Mr. Crawford recite (for his performance was beautiful), she sided with Edmund in thinking her uncle would not like it. She wished Sir Thomas would come home and put a stop to it all. Preferably before Edmund must yield and act scenes of love with Mary.

The roles were all switched about, however, with the arrival of three new, additional members to their party – Mr. and Mrs. Bingley and their little sister who was of an age with Fanny and Mary, a Miss Bennet.

It was the selfsame Mr. Bingley whose carriage Tom had borrowed when he arrived home from Antigua, and he had been – by all accounts – invited to this very good friend's wedding in Hertfordshire (the home of the bride, apparently) yet, with all the professed goings on of trying to find his own suitable wife, declined at the last moment and sent a gift; but he had sent a message, too, saying after their wedding tour the bride and groom must feel at complete liberty to visit him in Northamptonshire, to request the best guest room at the big house of Mansfield Park, to make up for his absence, which he was certain they must have felt.

And, of course, they must feel at liberty, he had told them, to bring along whoever they liked.

Mr. Bingley had meant to bring along his own unmarried sister, as well as his wife's, but Caroline was in no mood for visiting after a recent disappointment in love, the gentleman she had wanted married another at the same time as her brother wed a woman she had not particularly desired for a sister, a woman she thought beneath them.

So only the new Mrs. Bingley's sister – a little raven-haired thing who carried a book of sermons about her person, squinted a good deal, and looked very pouty about the mouth – had accompanied them.

(There had been a brief attempt made to also bring the other Bennet sister, the cheery, pretty one Mr. Bingley thought might suit Tom, but Mrs. Bennet had an attack of nerves and said she could not do without at least one of her younger daughters, when her eldest was to be so long gone from Netherfield and could not assist her if she took a poor turn, for Mrs. Hill was no good at all at understanding her when she was unwell. No, no, she simply must keep dearest Kitty with her, however hard the girl cried and begged to go away. Though, to be sure, had she properly understood Charles Bingley was thinking of Kitty as a prospective bride for a man in line for a baronetcy, her nerves might have not lasted until the hour of their departure and beyond; indeed, they might have righted themselves in plenty of time for Kitty to pack her nicest shoe roses.)

She, too, (this Bennet sister who'd been allowed to come), was called Mary, and Fanny – at first – did not know what to make of this Mary, though she thought she found her somewhat easier to converse with than Miss Crawford. She had more of a right frame of mind than the other, even if her professed ideas bordered on pompous or simply obvious.

Still, hers was a mind which might be nurtured, rather than a mind spoilt and set upon remaining thus.

Nonetheless, Mary Bennet won some great points into her favour with Fanny and Edmund – and even Mr. Rushworth, who was beginning to grow a little tired of the whole affair since Maria didn't seem to be paying him much mind, always wanting to go behind the green baize and have her rehearsal alone, quite privately, with Mr. Crawford – by declaring she thought detailed theatricals a very impractical way of amusing oneself during bad weather.

She also thought Tom's stage renovations upon the study off the billiard-room were shamefully ugly, and said so, and – had the little brat not been his valued friend Mr. Bingley's sister by law – he would have turned against her entirely (as it was, he suggested to Charles he press upon her she ought to apologise to Jackson, the carpenter, who had been within earshot).

Even Edmund, who agreed with her viewpoint, despite very nearly having acted himself at Miss Crawford's ceaseless wheedling, thought it prudent she make amends to spare Christopher's feelings, especially since there was a good chance the man would take it personally and cheat Tom, and by extension, their father, out of spite.

She did apologise.

But Christopher Jackson was confused because, somehow, she'd never seemed to actually utter the word sorry, in all her pretty talk, instead rapidly quoting a number of odd proverbs the befuddled carpenter wasn't certain were even in the Bible to begin with.

Probably they had been lifted straight from Milton, which was a bit above his personal level of schoolroom learning.

Mrs. Bingley was, in a word, lovely.

She was not little and dark, like either Mary, but willowy and blue-eyed and blonde, elegant and sweetly spoken. It was no wonder Mr. Bingley was so smitten with her, had been so eager to marry her. Maria might have felt the threat of her presence if she had not been so wrapped up in Mr. Crawford's attentions; indeed, Mrs. Norris couldn't help being a little jealous for her, saying more than once Tom had better not have invited these people, since the group was fine as it had been previously.

Julia was furious when she learned Mrs. Bingley was to be Amelia.

"And what of it?" snapped Tom, impatient with his younger sister's constant unhappiness when theatricals were meant to be such bright, merry things. "Bingley must be Anhalt, since Edmund is a prude and won't do it, and we cannot pair him with Miss Crawford, not with his wife sitting by in the audience – it would look rather strange. Think for a moment before you bemoan what is decided. What you can have no interest in, besides."

Mr. Rushworth, this moment looking rather smarter than they gave him credit for, glanced up at Mr. Bertram with a suspicious expression, eyes narrowed, mouth setting into a cross, grim line; Tom had had, it seemed, no dilemma, no crisis of conscience, in separating him and Maria, making him Count Cassel, and they were engaged; it seemed most unfair.

Though, to be sure, Frederick and Agatha were not lovers like Amelia and Anhalt, which might have something to do with Tom's casting choices...

"It's a point of principal," insisted Julia. "You said I was too tall for Amelia, as well as too plump, and Mrs. Bingley is of a height with myself."

"But, aside from the hair, which might be covered on stage easily enough," Tom argued stubbornly, "Jane looks very right for Amelia – tall or not – she is all lightness of being."

"Oh, I see how it is – I daresay Jane Bingley looks very right for everything!" bawled Julia, and reiterated she wouldn't be Amelia if they begged her to, before fleeing the room.

Fanny was a little in awe of the Bingleys, especially Jane.

Mr. Bingley seemed very amiable, even sweet, but he spoke to Tom more than to anybody else apart from his wife and sister; he did not seem to care very much for Mr. Crawford (which Fanny understood entirely) or Edmund (which Fanny could not understand for the life of her), who by all accounts was a little friendlier, despite a slight age difference, with Mr. Bingley's absent friend Mr. Darcy.

Bingley might have got on with Maria and Julia if he'd been unmarried, but a taken man of his sort could hold little interest for either girl, especially when one of them had her Mr. Crawford where she best liked him, gazing at her and reciting pretty words, and although he clearly liked Mary Crawford a good deal (perhaps her liveliness reminded him of somebody he knew from elsewhere), neither went out of their way to spend much time with the other.

If Miss Crawford resented the Bingleys for taking her part, and snatching away her chance to act with Edmund, she did not show her ire as Julia did. She took the part of Cottager's wife with great outward merriment indeed, and acted – she was almost as good an actor as her brother in this respect – as if she liked nothing better than to be pushed about, this way and that, on stage by Tom Bertram – doubling as Cottager – and to have all her lovely dark hair hidden under a mob cap.

Beautiful Jane Bingley, through all this, seemed a just little left out to Fanny's shy watchful eye.

Tom fussed over her immensely, always ready with praise (she was absolute perfection as Amelia Wildenhaim, nothing which might go wrong during any of her scenes was ever declared to be her fault), perhaps with no real aim save to annoy Julia whenever she chanced to peek in, and her husband doted endlessly, even whilst outright giggling as they bent their heads close together and rehearsed their lines, yet nobody else seemed to be extending anything like an offer of real friendship towards her.

Maria, when finally she disentangled herself long enough from Mr. Crawford's arms, even made a pert remark about how Jane wasn't nearly flirtatious enough in her Amelia and nobody – for all she recited of 'teaching the science of herself' – would have supposed she even liked Mr. Bingley, let alone was his love in waking life as surely as on the stage.

"We had better have kept Miss Crawford after all," she lamented. "She's wasted in her new part. Mr. Crawford thinks so, too, I am sure."

"Pshaw," blurted Mr. Bingley.

"No, no, not yet," cried Mr. Rushworth, flipping a few pages ahead. "I am sure – almost certain – you do not say your Pshaw yet."

Tom told Maria she was being absurd and had best stick to what she knew, namely Agatha, and stray no further, lest she spoil the entire production with her silly remarks.

"If you wish me to play Amelia differently, Mr. Bertram, I can try," Mrs. Bingley offered, all affability. "My sisters always say I am too cold when I read plays, especially Lizzy, who is often needed to correct my distant tone."

"Nonsense, you were glorious, Mrs. Bingley." He smirked brightly, all teeth. "I love all the...the... Well, the pausing and flushing and blushing you've added." Then, snorting, "My sister Maria knows nothing at all about acting and has been over-flattered by Mr. Crawford's gallant lies assuring her she does, please pay her no mind."

Fanny thought Jane's Amelia was rather nicer and humbler than either Inchbald or Kotzebue ever intended to the character to be, and truly preferred her so changed, even if Miss Crawford's Amelia should have been more accurate as well as better acted.

More than once, she longed to say so, or at least to venture over to Jane and to try and make friends, but her nerves – and Mrs. Norris constantly asking what she was about if she stood still, in waiting, for too long at a go – got the better of her.

Fanny Price could as soon have approached Queen Charlotte without encouragement as she might Mrs. Bingley. If the gentlewoman had even once waved her over as everyone else was doing, declared she needed her, she would have been at her side in a moment, and perhaps found they had a good deal in common, both inclined as they were to show so much less than they truly felt, but then Jane would have had to of changed her nature and made herself capable of being the first to approach a stranger she felt vaguely sorry for.

Which would have made introductions between the pair moot, anyway.

Mary Bennet spoke without much hesitation to Fanny, whenever they were seated within range of hearing one another's voices, but this was usually simply in order to remark upon the hour or weather before she returned to her book – she had finished the sermons she'd brought with her and, without having quite been given permission, obtained another from Sir Thomas's study behind all the riggings Tom was having Jackson complete setting up. She nearly picked the wrong book – one Jackson happened to be using to keep a prop from falling over, and caused a catastrophe, before the current volume in her lap caught her eye and averted disaster by pure chance.

"Do you prefer reading to theatricals, Miss Bennet?" inquired Edmund, taking Fanny's place beside Mary when Mrs. Norris called her away in a fit of pique because she'd found a stitch loose in Mr. Rushworth's cloak, sounding pleased with the girl's priorities. "Or was it simply that my brother did not offer you a part?"

"Oh, I prefer reading, to be sure." She put her thumb between the pages. "But one must allow for the indulgences of others now and again, or contention may bubble and brew."

"We differ there, Miss Bennet," said Edmund. "Tom's going against my father's wishes brews more contention in me than otherwise. I am not sure I understand your meaning about bubbles. An odd expression, that. At any rate, if I'd managed to stand against him, I feel certain he'd have found another occupation in under an hour – after a very brief sulk – and we'd have heard nothing of Lover's Vows, or of any other play."

"And you are against all plays on principal?" Mary asked him. "Miss Crawford said you are, and that it is because you are to be a clergyman, though she really believed you might have made an exception for Anhalt if my brother Bingley were not so keen on having the part. Do you not think acting a suitable profession, when contained within the right class?"

"Ah, but there is the key, the rub if you will, within the right class – I can never imagine my father wished his adult children to be acting, not half so seriously as all this. A recital, reading aloud, in the drawing-room, might have been acceptable upon a rainy day – I would have never said a word about it, especially if it kept everybody in a good humour – but surely you take my point?"

"Indeed, I do, sir, but would you mind terribly if I went back to my book now?" She blinked owlishly at him. "I wish to finish it before I must return it to your father's study."

"Oh, do not neglect to please yourself upon my account, my dear Miss Bennet. I am only sorry if I disturbed you, when you – poor soul, and a guest into the bargain – were making less trouble than anyone in the house at present save for Fanny." He sighed. "But I profess I shall be greatly relieved if there is enough of a study left when all this is concluded for you to have any place to return the book to."

On the evening Lover's Vows was at last to be performed, all the rehearsals prior having gone about as smoothly as they were ever going to, Tom Bertram was – at first – nowhere to be found.

He had been absent all day – out of necessity for his appearing as a man come nightfall, since he certainly could not play the part of the butler or the cottager while in the form of an enormous white bear, though the others did not all realise this, only Bingley and Edmund really aware what was going on with him – only to return, tired yet raring to go and give the greatest performance of his life, and find Mr. Crawford had come from the parsonage completely alone.

"And where is Miss Crawford?" He could not entirely keep the peevishness from his voice. "A fine time for her to play the ghost with us, upon my word!"

"I could not bring her with me, for my other sister detained her," was Henry's apology. "There was a quarrel about Dr. Grant's being taken ill and now Mrs. Grant is in a state and required Mary to remain with her until all was blown over."

"Ill," echoed Tom, tsking. "Nothing serious, I hope." He did not sound very sincere, but the tone, at least, was polite. "Not about to pop off tonight, I trust?" Was this the grandmother all over again?

"Well," sighed Henry, doffing his hat and shoving his shed coat backwards into Sally's arms for her to take out of the room with her, "if anything fatal does occur, against all odds, my brother-in-law will have made a great achievement in being the first man to ever die from not eating a pheasant when he set his heart upon wanting one at dinner."

"But I know your cook had a pheasant for him today!" put in Maria. "I saw her walking with it in a basket when I went out for my ride. My aunt Norris said–" Her cheeks coloured, and she stopped, for she recollected exactly what her aunt had said, about the shameful waste going on at the parsonage, and did not like to repeat it. "That is, I saw the pheasant."

"Oh, to be sure," agreed Henry, rolling his eyes in commiseration. "There was a pheasant, but Dr. Grant fancied it tough and sent away his plate."

"Never mind, never mind." Tom threw his hands in the air, backing from the room dramatically. "It appears I must do everything myself!"

"And where do you go?" demanded Maria, snaking her arm around Mr. Crawford's.

"Why, upstairs – to entreat Julia to be Cottager's wife, of course."

"She never will agree, not after you fawned so over Mrs. Bingley being the perfect Amelia, when you called her fat." Under her breath, Maria added, "To be sure, she is getting rather plump, and she always was built like a farmer's daughter, but he did not have to say it and spoil everybody's fun."

"I did not," roared Tom, already upon the staircase and yelling downwards and banging his fist upon the banister so loudly that a nearby chandelier shook, crystal drops clanking, "call her fat!"

Julia was hunched in a miserable huddled heap under her linens and embroidered coverlet, a tangle of blankets drawn over her head.

She had quarrelled with Maria earlier, quite viciously, and although both Mrs. Bingley and Mr. Yates attempted to intervene on her behalf, for it was clear enough Maria was the more aggressive party, that without Mr. Crawford there to distract her she did have a certain cruel streak laced within her otherwise airy demeanour, and Julia's greatest fault in the matter was wilful sullenness, it did no good.

When she felt Tom patting her arm through the coverlet, trying to buoy her spirits with kind-sounding murmurings, Julia got it into her head Maria had sent their brother – now he decided to grace them with his pretence after being gone all day – as a sort of ambassador, and wondered why she had not send Edmund, usually the more willing to perform such an errand, yet nearly was at the point of yielding, of agreeing to come downstairs and be in the audience for their wretched play, when a blunder was made.

"Oh, do come down and be Cottager's wife, do." And Tom rubbed the sharp contour of her elbow poking out from under the coverlet. "We will all be quite grateful to you, if you do, and I shall make the inconvenience up to you – I'll conspire to keep Maria outside some morning this week, upon the hour when you want most to practice the pianoforte, for you say so often she always gets to it first. And I will give you all the apricot tarts Mrs. Grant had Mr. Crawford bring over as a peace offering."

They only wanted her because Mary Crawford had failed to arrive! Naturally they cared nothing if she watched them, not when they had Mary Bennet and their mother, and Aunt Norris besides, for an audience, and were jolly nearly a full house in the billiard-room without her.

This was no olive branch at all!

"I won't," came her muffled, angry sob. "I won't do it. Indeed, nothing can induce me. As for your backhanded promise, nobody wants me to play because Maria is so much better because she has already had all the time in the world to practice – everybody will act as if I was simple like Fanny and never wanted to learn to begin with! I could have been twice as good as either you or Maria, and you both knew it, and spoiled my chances. I shan't do you a favour for that – not ever."

"For pity's sake, do not be so dramatic," sighed Tom, drawing his hand away.

"And, concerning the tarts from Mansfield Parsonage" – even muffled, one could not mistake her venom – "they are horrid, sour things nobody could possibly like to eat! I do not care what our aunt says, the apricots do not come from a Moor Park! Father never bought any such tree, and our aunt has got herself mixed up entirely."

"Julia." He sucked his teeth, spoke through them. "If you do not, if you will not, oblige–"

"Perhaps you only offer them for a so-called treat because you think it will put me off eating what is meant to be sweeties and I'll lose enough weight, given the benefit of a year, to be Amelia in your revival if your beloved Mrs. Bingley cannot make a show!"

He threw up his hands and told her, as far as it concerned him, she was entirely welcome to remain up here, as they didn't – not any of them – want her downstairs if she was set upon behaving so irrationally and only wished to spoil their evening, and he would find somebody else.

Slamming his sister's bedroom door behind himself – bang! – he growled, to anyone within hearing range (at this hour, only a couple of maid-servants, neither of which were Sally-Sarah), "Julia won't do it!" and imagined Maria's telling him I told you so.

This put him into an even worse humour.

Mere moments later, none other than poor unsuspecting Fanny happened to be down by the foot of the stairs.

She had accidentally stumbled upon a private rehearsal between the Bingleys and seen them exchanging displays of affections not outright dictated within the stage directions for Lover's Vows.

Embarrassed, she had placed herself where she at present was in order to let her cheeks cool, hopefully without her aunt Norris finding her and sending her to wait on Mr. Rushworth – who'd taken to being rather capricious tonight – or to fetch something for Maria's costume before she could regain proper composure, only to be startled out of her barely regained countenance by Tom's barrelling down the stairs, taking them two at a time, and crying, "Fanny, I need you!"

Expecting some errand, eyes wide and cheeks scarlet, wiping her moist hands on the front of her dress with as much servile compliance as any of the maids would have done in her place, she made herself known, stepping forward just in time for her hands to be jointly seized.

"This is your big moment." He dragged her through the doorway, towards the billiard-room. "You are to be my wife."

"Me?" choked Fanny, aghast, her eyes darting about the room in mouse-like terror, trying to peer over Tom's shoulders, as if hoping for relief – for some exemption, some rescue – from some quarter just beyond him. "No. Indeed you must excuse me."

Tom only laughed at her stricken expression. "Mercy, Fanny, I am merely asking you to play a nothing of a part – half a dozen speeches even a creepmouse might easily manage with direction – and you react, gone absolutely green, as if I've just made you a genuine offer!"

A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.