Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Six:

In her innocent way, Fanny supposed Mr. Crawford's attentions mere consequence of the absence of Julia and Maria, and these attentions were – though vexing – more like a gnat in the room, a gnat that would return unbidden and at the worst possible moments, a gnat capable of biting and needing to be on guard against, but only a gnat nonetheless, than they were a lasting evil she was particularly worried about.

Alas, she was only half right.

She hit the nail upon the head, more or less, concerning the loss of her cousins, and supposing Mr. Crawford must have somebody – if, that was, he could not have, which it seemed he would much rather, everybody – anyone could work out his motive there, it was no specular guess, though Fanny's filter through which the guess was made might have been via a worldview less dark than that of others; she, at least, could never justify it, in silently naming the vanity for exactly what it was.

But Fanny never realised how her own indifference might be the greatest allure, and then – coupled with her natural affable kindness – might easily be supposed to be, not indifference, but an extension of her apparent modesty.

She turned away; he chased; she gently rebuffed; and he was coming up upon the verge of being very much in love – or, to be sure, what passes for love in the mind of a man who was, previously, thinking only of loving and leaving and making small holes in hearts formerly closed off to him.

Could Fanny have known Henry was purposefully, determinedly playing at making her desire his company, and that Mary Crawford sanctioned such actions, she might actually have lost her battle not to despise them both – even for Edmund's sake, there were some things beyond what might be reasonably borne.

But she did not know, not in full.

No, Fanny was aware only of what her own intuition could tell her regarding the Crawfords' schemes, and that was rather an impressive amount, all things considered.

Moreover, at the present, she was very much preoccupied.

Not only with William's visit, but by a cold – thankfully a good degree milder than the sort she was usually prone to – she'd caught from being out in the rain with the poor basket.

To Fanny's astonishment, upon realising she'd taken ill, Sir Thomas had her moved from the attic bedroom and placed into a guest room downstairs, one which happened to adjoin – much to her delight – to William's. Her uncle wanted her recovered before the ball – desired very much that William should see her dance as he'd wished rather than merely see her sit by the card-tables and sneeze – and thought more rest was the best way to accomplish this goal.

Mrs. Norris was nonplussed.

She saw no reason Fanny ought to be moved, and initially put it down to good economic sense on Sir Thomas' part, thinking he intended for the servants to light one little fire in William's room, open up the adjoining doors, and have both siblings share the heat. Then, of course, she soon found the maid-servants had been instructed, as it was December after all, to light large luxurious fires in both rooms, and the doors were kept open, not for economy's sake, but because the pair liked being able to call back and forth to one another (as much as Fanny's sore throat would allow her to, at any rate).

However, when Mrs. Norris came forward to complain about this arrangement, she began to sense it might be misconstrued – Fanny's being ill – as her fault; questions, real enquiries, might, too, be made, if the issue were pressed, about the usual state of Fanny's fire in the East room and Sir Thomas, with his present overconcern for his relations and their comforts, might take it wrongly and fly up into the boughs, rather than realise, as he would on a normal occasion, she did for the best in preventing unneeded waste.

So, thinking discreetly for once, she backed down to be her cheeseparing self another day, though it was as burning gall in her heart to have to hold back at the sight of such indulgences.

The irony was Fanny had at last, upon her sickbed, gotten what she'd wanted from the first – Edmund and William were admitted in to see her daily, she could talk to them as long as they would stay by her side, while Henry Crawford, for propriety's sake, was barred.

Sir Thomas could not sanction an unrelated man, one who seemed very attentive to his niece, visiting Fanny while she was lain out abed in a nightdress! Edmund was one thing, quite another brother to her, but Henry! Most definitely he could not cross the threshold of the room. Not to mention, even if it would not have been morally unthinkable – indeed, to be fair, there were a few stories going about that Mr. Bingley had briefly visited Mrs. Bingley, before they were even engaged, in her sickroom, albeit in the company of her sister, when she stayed at Netherfield Park, as apparently they did things a little differently there – he was not certain he wanted what might turn into a love connection tainted by Mr. Crawford's vividly recollecting Fanny with a red nose and coughing into a handkerchief.

Miss Crawford, Fanny could not avoid being shackled to for the odd half hours, for she would always be admitted, as the intimate friend, but for all that Mary was bright and willing to make herself whatever she was required to be in merry social situations, nature had made no useful nurse of her and soon – after a great deal of cooing and 'oh, poor Miss Price!'s and many good wishes – she left her (much relieved) patient alone again.

There was one morning upon which Fanny really did feel guilty for wishing Mary away – when Miss Crawford, after getting Sir Thomas' permission – had her harp conveyed from the parsonage by borrowed cart and into Fanny's sickroom to play for her.

It took such planning and manoeuvring – and in the bitter cold, too – Fanny could only suppose it was done as a pure act of love.

"You rest, my dear Miss Price – lean back upon the pillows and close your eyes," said Mary, settling upon her seat and putting her fingers in place on the strings, "and I shall play Edmund's favourite song for you, since I know you like it as well."

Poor Fanny! She suffered so acutely she could scarcely enjoy the beautiful music; she suffered constant regret to think she had spurned this woman's company, counting off the minutes in her head until she would depart and dear William would take her place on the chair, had supposed her to be near indifferent to her illness, chattering away so gaily as she had, and was now being treated to a splendid concert by her!

Would it have made it better, one wonders, or worse, if she could have known – genuinely glad though she was to do it – the conveyance of the harp for Fanny's pleasure and recovery had never been Mary's idea at all?

It was Henry who'd thought of it and brought the notion up to his sister and Edmund, when he could get at them alone (save for the Grants, who'd been in the next room), and thus it was his work which had set the scheme into motion.

Still, the pangs of guilt concerning Miss Crawford and the nasty looks from a passing Aunt Norris aside, Fanny was indeed in a sort of hazy heaven for those days she spent getting her strength back. She thought of them often as a sort of paradise, in later days, and the only night she would not have gladly repeated over again from that time was the night Miss Crawford's harp was left in the room for the evening – to be conveyed back to the parsonage in the morning by the servants – and she was obliged to look at its accusing shape – as it accused her, she felt certain, of being heartless and ungrateful – whenever she turned upon her side to face it.

Because it was a novelty to Henry Crawford to do anything objectively good without being praised for it, without gaining immediate reward, he spent a great while mulling over the oddity that Miss Price might never know, until some future day when he could confess it and – he thought – make her smile fondly in so doing, his great part in having the little concert performed by Mary in her room.

He thought he liked the pleasure of having the secret he might retrieve later, like a miniature fortune saved in some obscure bank. The thought of having something sweet, a hidden story in himself, to spring upon Miss Price someday was like opium to his mind.

And, like the addict he was becoming, he desired more. Having got away with one scheme, he wanted another.

Having heard about Fanny's amber cross, and seeing she wore it only on a ribbon, he planned to obtain a wonderful necklace for her to wear it upon instead, in time for the Mansfield ball.

He could not give it to her himself, sadly, but he would hand it over to Mary and have her contrive some way of putting it into dearest, sweetest Fanny's deserving hands on his behalf.

Further, Miss Price could not refuse – as she would from him – a generous gift from his sister.

All was achieved with great slyness, only for it to fall apart in the end because Henry would – thinking nothing of it – cut through Mansfield Wood at night with his prize, the glittering golden necklace for Fanny, in his hands for the sake of sneaking it and himself into the parsonage without being seen, and encounter a strange noise in the dark – a noise which seemed to come from a beast too large for these parts – followed by a flash of white in the trees – and he would drop the necklace...

It was a gaudy enough piece of jewellery if the moon was not hidden by clouds and by the canopy of the trees, he soon would have seen its golden shimmer on the ground and had it back in his hands again...

But he had no such luck on his side that night.

Somewhere in the cold December earth in Mansfield Wood, Fanny's necklace was indeed lost.

The bear hadn't actually intended to startle Henry into dropping anything – he'd simply caught the scent of Mr. Crawford and, momentarily forgetting his present state, had lumbered forward as if to greet a friend, delighted at the thought of company in the cold dark woods. But he remembered in time where and what he was, and held back from approaching, growling his frustration with his own stupidity.

Nor was he aware Crawford had lost an object, a possession of any sort, on the ground when he was startled.

No, he'd thought all that scrambling and feeling about was probably just the anxious gentleman trying to get at a large stick to fight him off with if he came too near.

It was not until several days later, after a night he'd been obliged not to be a bear – a night which had been passed in a locked pantry, much too small for a bear's bulk, when a servant, not knowing the master's eldest son who was meant to be in London had hidden himself inside, happened to bolt the padlock – and so was stuck with being one during the following daylight hours, digging for truffles, though the ground was too hard and there weren't many left this far into the cold weather, he stumbled across a golden necklace.

Seeing the grounds were quiet, the bear risked – after finding precious little worth staying for in Mansfield Woods – going as near the big house as the shrubbery.

It happened, also, to be Fanny's first time outdoors since catching cold, and she was astonished to come across the great white bear with something glittering hanging from his large mouth.

Instinctively, she put her hand to her own neck, but there was nothing there. Because, realising she could not reveal her possession of the chain Edmund wanted her to have without spoiling Tom's secret, that he was returned to Mansfield Park early, she had not been wearing her brother's cross on it; she might still have worn it on the ribbon, but her aunt Norris' remarks about her surely losing it by mistake had finally gotten under her skin and made her paranoid enough to leave the pendant safely in a box in the East room when she went out.

"What can it be?" she murmured, though she could tell it was jewellery of some sort.

The bear lowered his head and let her take the necklace from his mouth.

She examined it, the shine of the chain bright against her dark gloves – the necklace was intricate in a wrought pattern which reminded her a bit of a funeral wreath (black would have been a far more appropriate colour than gold for such a pattern), the make was undeniably fine, but it was also very heavy, given its relatively small size, and very, very gaudy.

Still, the bear had brought it to her, and she put it over her head and around her neck as if it were meant for her – which, little did she know, it was.

"Bear," she said, looking both ways, "I hope you have been kind to my cousin who has been sleeping in the woods at night."

The beast's head jerked up and down, and Fanny – alarmed – thought for a terrible moment the bear was having a fit, then she realised he was laughing.

Really, deeply, laughing.

Laughing as she'd never known an animal could laugh.

Lord Byron might train a bear to carry a rider, might train him to dig for truffles or fetch things, or bring treasures to a person like a crow minus the flying, but no peerage member could have trained a bear to laugh.

To laugh as a human would laugh.

And under the timbre of an automatic growl, there was something familiar about it – she had heard this laugh before.

"Oh, poor bear" – and she touched his snowy flanks tenderly with her trailing fingertips – "what are you?"

Who are you?

"I cannot account for my losing the necklace," sighed Henry, lounging miserably on a sofa across from where his sister sat practising her harp. "But there was something – I daresay something wicked, of malicious intend – in those woods."

Mary's fingers stopped their careful, skilful playing and plucked impatiently, making twang, twang sounds. "You imagined it, Henry – Edmund says there is nothing in those woods this time of year." She paused, considering, brushing off the skirt of her dress and rising, lips pursed, growing more thoughtful. "Might it have been a fox?"

Henry imagined the biggest fox he'd ever seen – ever heard of, even – and weighed it against the thing in his memory which had come close to his place in Mansfield Woods and made him drop the necklace.

"I assure you, Mary, it was no fox."

The night after the bear had given her the golden necklace, Fanny – moved back into her attic bedroom, at Mrs. Norris' insistence, claiming her niece's former sickroom for her own usage as it was inconvenient just now for her to go back to the White House when so much preparation was going on here and her advice and attention to her sister was so desperately needed – was awakened by the noise of the door creaking open and footsteps heavy enough for men making the boards clack.

"William?" she rasped out, thinking perhaps he had got tired of having their aunt listen for his every move, with some intended criticism never far off, in the adjoining room and had retreated here in the night. "William, is that you?"

"Hullo, Fanny, there's no need to panic; it's only us." Tom's voice.

"Us?" she echoed.

"Myself and Smith." Her cousin's valet gave a little cough in the dark to indicate where he was standing.

"There's rather too much going on down in the servants' quarters at present – I'll be found out," he explained quickly, seating himself in a little chair he was rather heavy for, as well as too tall, and groaning. "I'd thought they put you with your brother, downstairs."

"Aunt Norris has that room now."

"Well, Smith and myself will just sort of camp out on your rug like good little soldiers until the morning – I'm sure you won't mind."

She didn't mind Tom, not too much, though she would have been gladder of his being elsewhere than being wedged into her already small and poky attic bedroom with her, but Smith – with his ability to make his eyes glow green – was another matter entirely.

"Phoo!" Tom exclaimed next, breaking into her muddled thoughts as he rubbed his hands together, his dry skin chafing audibly. "Is it always this cold up here? It's a bloody dungeon."

They were of course permitted to remain – Fanny couldn't have refused them, as it was far more Tom's house than hers – but she could not help wondering why, of a sudden, Tom was unable to spend the night in the woods – it was no colder tonight than it had been previously.

At least they were gone by the first light of morning and Fanny was alone to begin her morning routine, as if they'd never intruded in the night at all.

Unsure of what to wear to the ball, regarding an ornament, Fanny nearly consulted Mary, whose taste in such matters was impeccable, but then she thought – when she must bring up the issue of whether it was all right to wear William's cross on a ribbon for such an occasion – Miss Crawford would surely ask if she did not possess any chain, and as now she had two – the bear's and Edmund's – she could not honestly claim to own none; and she could not explain how she had gotten Edmund's chain before Edmund was able to give it to her.

The golden necklace from the bear she could – quite honestly – say she came upon in the shrubbery, leaving the bear out of it, and she tried to run the ring of her cross through it, though she thought it would not look half so nice as the other, simpler chain. But the necklace was so fancy and thick in its pattern, it would not fit through the ring.

She might wear the necklace alone, but she did not like it well enough to do so, more downcast over not having a means of wearing William's present.

In the end, it was Edmund she consulted, rather than Mary, and although at first he seemed bitterly preoccupied with the fact Miss Crawford had told him this ball would be the last time she'd ever dance with him, as he was to be ordained alongside a friend who lived near Peterborough, shortly thereafter, and she'd never stoop to dance with a clergyman any more than she would marry one, he did finally attend to his cousin's worries and – as he'd not heard back from Tom about the chain he'd wanted for her – offered to ask his mother for a loan of one for the night instead.

It was a flimsy copper chain, a little tarnished, which Lady Bertram had worn as a Ward girl before her marriage and it did not exactly suit an amber cross so well as gold, bringing out the most orange of hue in the amber and making Fanny's white throat look too pale by comparison, but it was more appropriate than a ribbon would have been, and its general meanness and lack of value prevented even Mrs. Norris from declaring it an absurd level of finery and bemoaning Fanny's using it even for only the one night.

Still, with Chapman sent by Lady Bertram to help her dress and fix her hair, she did look very well indeed as she entered the room and rather breathlessly, cheeks turned bright pink, took in the sight of the musicians and the gentlemen and ladies mulling about.

By no means had Fanny imagined she'd be expected to open the ball, to be at the head of the dancing, the idea never having occurred to her, and even after Mr. Crawford asked her to dance and she agreed to be engaged, she'd thought they'd be somewhere in the middle of the others, or at the end of the line, only to discover her uncle had other ideas entirely.

They were opening the ball together – she and Henry Crawford at the top of the room – while further down, elsewhere, Edmund and Mary danced as lovers condemned to separate (though you wouldn't know it from the lady's cheerful manner) – and she was trying not to be ungrateful and think how much she would have preferred, if she could not have either Edmund or William, to have shared this unlooked-for honour with her cousin Tom instead, if only he'd had the courage to show himself and attend.

She'd danced with Tom before and knew what to expect from him.

It was easier with him.

But, in the end, she did have to concede Henry Crawford was almost as good a dancer as he was an actor, everything a partner ought to be, his lightness of step and happy conversation all perfection, and she left off wishing him away, succeeding at last at making herself happy and grateful, knowing she would at least have a dance or two with Edmund when he was released from those he'd reserved for Mary.

It was a dream, all the better for being real – and William had been made happy, too, his felicity in the visit finally complete, for he had seen her dance, seen her flush with joy before she flushed from overexertion and was therefore walking rather than dancing down the shortening set and her uncle had to intervene and make her sit, and he had seen her wearing his Sicilian cross.

"How many Miss Owens are there?" Mary's face was pinched, lips pressed tightly together, after quickly blurting out the question; her cheeks were red with passion.

She is angry, Fanny thought, her own eyes darting downwards, pretending to look very hard at the foliage they were passing in their walk together. She is very, very angry at Edmund for staying longer with his friend Mr. Owen – she is angry at him for being ordained at all.

"Three," she replied, realising she could not avoid it. "Grown up."

Mary's voice was like one string of her harp, twanging, playing itself into a buzzing vibrato until it surely must snap. Fanny had never known before today vibratos could be bitter. "Are they musical?"

"I do not know. I never heard."

What followed was, in a tone so unaffectedly light Fanny thought she might have imagined her companion's former cold rage, a little monologue about how all families with sisters have at least one who is musical. And all must play, musical or not, at least on the pianoforte – and one is a beauty, who also can play the harp and sing.

"I have sisters," Fanny volunteered before thinking, before recollecting such a description could not be about the sort of people she'd come from, "and I do not think any of us sings or plays anything." Then, "But I know nothing of the Miss Owens."

"You know nothing and care less, as people say." Mary looped her arm through hers. "Well, when your cousin does come back from the Miss Owens, musical or otherwise, he will not find me here – he will find Mansfield very quiet indeed."

As deeply as Fanny herself missed Edmund, she understood Mary's must be a different sort of missing.

Edmund had parted with her on affable terms; he had kissed her brow and, as far as worrying about him falling in love with somebody else, Fanny was already accustomed to such an evil, as she was witnessing it near daily with Mary already.

But for Miss Crawford, this must all be so very novel.

It had clearly never occurred to Mary that Edmund might – might really – choose the church over her. And now she must live in dread of him falling in love with somebody else, somebody who wouldn't mind having a clergyman for a husband.

It was to Fanny's credit that rather than strictly think, oh, yes indeed, now she will know how it feels, loving him and letting her wild imagination supply horrible scenes her eye cannot not reach, she felt a little sorry for her.

She could not wish the match, so unequal in morals and understanding, could never desire it, but Mary was still in pain – pain of her own foolish making, the work of her own idiotic pride, for she might have had Edmund at a word, if she loved him as much as she professed to, yet pain it was nonetheless.

There were even tears in poor Miss Crawford's eyes as she added, "But only Mrs. Grant – my own dear sister – will truly miss me, when I am away in town with my friends. She does not like my going."

"You cannot doubt" – Fanny met her eyes – "your being missed by many. You will be very much missed."

Mary looked a bit like her brother, flushed with the pleasure of a rare unguarded statement, seemingly of love, from Fanny. But there she made her mistake – she fished, while insisting she did not fish, and Fanny – having said all she thought of saying – would say no more to reassure her. All the words Mary desired to hear, promises of undying friendship and of making Edmund see sense when he came home, assurances of her unbroken power over them all at Mansfield, were not to be said.

Mary's vanity was her undoing in what might have united them, and Fanny was cold as quickly as she had been warming.

The mouse had come out into the room, managed a squeak, and now it was returned to its hole.

Unable to bear the ensuing silence, save for the crunch of their shoes on the slippery dew and morning frost, Mary finally said, "Suppose you were to have one of these Miss Owenses you know nothing about as your new cousin." And, though neither of them knew it, this almost might have been – Tom had, after all, made a written offer to one of those girls. "How should you like it?"

Fanny was silent; Mary was fishing again, though not for compliments, exactly, so much as for double assurances she was not in any real danger of being supplanted by some other woman.

"You don't speak. Oh, God, Miss Price, you are not speaking – tell me, and honestly, do you rather expect it more than otherwise? Do you expect one of the Miss Owens at Thornton Lacey very soon?"

Her pity was waning somewhat. Mary's selfishness was taxing. She kept trying to make herself remember the private concert in her sickroom so her frustration would not come into her voice. "No, I do not expect it at all."

"Oh, Fanny! Dearest!" And Mary, unlinking their arms, pulled her into an embrace. "You are my benefactor, for you give me – even one who is so selfish as me – such hope."

No William, no Edmund, and no escape now from the Crawfords. And it was December, and everything was dead and bleak.

No escape, no escape...

Fanny chided herself for being foolish – no escape? When she knew Mary at least to be leaving so soon for London? And when she expected Henry to follow suit quickly enough? Was she not being a bit melodramatic?

But it felt as though no sooner had Fanny got hold of her emotions again, made herself quite reasonable, laughed at her own silly agitations and decided most of them were but a mix of sudden loneliness and the onset of her monthly courses, soon she should be all wellness once more, than another blow – a fresh attack – was aimed at her, this time in the form of an offer of marriage.

When it began, Fanny was brought back to her sickroom and Mary's harp because – the very moment she wished Mr. Crawford to go away – he revealed he had done something wonderful for William!

He had brought him to the Admiral, favours had been exchanged through a few different hands, and now William was made! He was a lieutenant!

Oh, how she had gravely misjudged Mr. Crawford! She had disliked him so thoroughly, for he had been very wicked to Maria and Julia, but what a friend he was to William – how could she ever cease being grateful to him?

Yet, within minutes, he went from making her the happiest creature in Northamptonshire, to making her the most miserable.

His vanity told him – assured him absolutely – he was only adding a second pleasure, not understanding her real mind, and he pressed his suit. And even when Fanny fled after saying no several times and hiding her face, Henry was not deterred. She only refused because she – poor, sweet, modest, perfect girl – believed him to be playing. And why not? He had jested with her, had meant to only play with her until he had fallen for her.

Well, he now would prove himself, he would make her love him, and all would end happily.

So it seemed to him no evil at all to assure Sir Thomas – as much as he had assured himself – that Fanny gave every positive encouragement.

Maria or Julia – assuming they'd ever have said no to him, and this was doubtful, to be sure – would have blushed and pouted and been tragically pale over his pursuit, but they would have yielded with the utmost felicity when push came to shove.

But Fanny?

No.

Not she.

Fanny had known too much opposition all her life to find any charm in it. Why wouldn't he just give up? Must he persevere? What about her could be that appealing to him? They had – in their natures – nothing in the one to do with the other!

She prayed for his quitting, for his finding a new target for these professed passions of his, every night.

God – oh, Lord in His heavens – if you will only make Henry Crawford leave me alone, I shall try harder not to love Edmund so much as anything but a dear cousin and brother, and I will apologise thoroughly to my Aunt Norris for the time I talked back to her under my breath when we were preparing for the ball, because I was so tired and she was so cross, though she did not hear it... I shall be good, just please, please make Mr. Crawford go far away and not come back until he is the husband of some other woman and can be sensible again.

But up until the last, there seemed to be no answer to her prayers.

Miss Crawford even sent a sly note, on the surface a congratulations for William's success, but also an undisguised missive urging her to accept Henry.

She almost sought out Tom, knowing he must be within the walls of the house somewhere, almost like a mouse himself – hiding away all day – to ask what he thought of this nonsense, but she feared – if he should want her to accept Crawford (Henry was his friend, after all) – he might persuade her out of what she knew to be right.

Think of the play, she reminded herself. He got you to agree to be Cottager's wife in the end, didn't he?

So she did not look for him.

A strange, stray thought of going into Mansfield Wood and telling the bear – if he could laugh very nearly like a man, maybe he could sympathise with her unhappiness as well – came into her head, but that seemed to be going rather too far; it was almost mawkish.

In a fit of tired pique, she almost wished the bear would eat the Crawfords and she would never have to deal with either the brother or the sister again. Then she immediately felt dreadful, marvelled at her own horrid spite, and concluded this was why God wasn't answering her – attacked or not, she in turn was also being mean, in her thoughts if not outwardly.

How could she wish a bear to eat William's loyal friend? Or Edmund's lady love – even if that love had gone so sadly wrong? Oh, how could she wish a bear to eat anyone?

The whole situation eventually culminated in one wretched conversation which would change the course of Fanny's life forever after.

Her uncle came to the East room, to congratulate her on what he believed to be her modest acceptance of Henry Crawford, to beg her pardon if they had ever been too hard on her here at Mansfield, to urge her to forgive them all when she was elevated to mistress of Everingham, to know she was loved, in spite of the unfortunate deprivations, only to find her staring agape at him and, when she caught her breath, telling him entirely the opposite of what Mr. Crawford had attested.

"Am I to understand," he said, after a few moments of stunned silence, "that you mean to refuse Mr. Crawford?"

Fanny exhaled, thinking at last he had the right of it and the truth would be circulated. Was this, finally, her answer? "Yes, sir."

"Refuse him?" But her uncle's tone was not so nice now.

"Yes, sir."

"Upon what plea? For what reason?"

"I–I cannot like him, sir, well enough to marry him."

This was very strange to him. As far as he was concerned, here was a young man with everything to recommend him – he recited Crawford's apparent virtues as if they were new to Fanny, as if she could have forgotten them, forgotten what she owed him concerning William if nothing else, forgotten he was the brother of her intimate friend Miss Crawford...

"Yes." Her voice was faint, ashamed.

But how could Crawford's attentions have taken her by surprise? They had been going on for some time now, and he – as her doting uncle – had been happily watching her modest reaction to them and been very pleased.

He did not think Fanny knew her own feelings.

Here she was emboldened. "Oh yes, sir! Indeed I do. His attentions were always" – Sir Thomas lifted an eyebrow – "what I did not like."

"This requires explanation, my child – young as you are, you've scarcely met anyone... It is hardly possible you should have your affections placed elsewhere."

She tried not to think of Edmund. Her face went scarlet with the effort; her lips formed an inaudible no.

"No, that is impossible," decided Sir Thomas. "It is mere modesty that makes you blush."

She thought she would rather die than own the truth. God, don't let me betray it, not here – not to my uncle, like this – not now.

"Mr. Crawford's wishing to marry early and with no incentive is admirable – I am an advocate for early marriages. You know what your cousin, Mr. Bertram, is being regarding marriage at present. The damnable boy won't settle, and he has more reason to than most. By God, if he would be more like Mr. Crawford, I should be very pleased!"

Fanny heard, then, an annoyed huff from underneath the table piled with her books and boxes, and – recoiling with faint horror – suddenly saw a foot pull itself in further.

Tom was in the room, listening as his father ranted about Mr. Crawford – reacting strongly to this remark about himself – and she had not known he was present!

Sir Thomas was ready to turn around. "What was that?"

Tom shifted under the table and mouthed upwards, to Fanny, pointing frantically, "Pug. Tell him it's Pug."

"Pug," she gasped out at last – and Tom, pleased, mouthed good girl and smiled brightly from his place – painfully aware she might faint. "It is my aunt's pug."

His interest deterred, Sir Thomas resumed tersely upon the subject of Fanny's refusing Mr. Crawford. Did she have any reason, he wanted to know, to think ill of Mr. Crawford's temper?

"Of his principles, I have," she said softly, but could not – or would not – elaborate further.

"You do not owe me the duty of a child," said Sir Thomas, sounding hurt at her reluctance to confide in him. "But if your heart can acquit you of ingratitude–"

This finally broke her – she was crying of a sudden so bitterly Sir Thomas would have been a monster if he pressed further in full anger.

Even Tom, under the table, hearing her sobs, feeling the table begin to shake as she rested her hand upon its edge, stopped smiling and felt the urge to clasp her to him as if she were still ten years old rather than eighteen and say, "Oh, there, there, don't cry so, nothing will hurt you, little creepmouse, shhhh..."

He was, after all, very sympathetic to an agitated little creature being pressed into marriage by his father, as he'd have been in no other time in his life, for he could selfishly relate to her pain.

Henry Crawford wasn't, he didn't believe, half as bad as Lady Ravenshaw's niece, so in that she might be getting off easily, but the wretched sound coming from Fanny now was the same sound his heart had made when his father ordered him to marry that horrible woman, to write a letter to her aunt asking for her hand...

An idea began forming in his mind as he heard Fanny weep, "I am very sorry, I am very sorry..."

He needed to be married, and at present she also was being pressured to marry... He did not want Lady Ravenshaw's niece, and she seemed determined against Crawford, who could easily find another wife anyway, and could scarcely need one as badly as himself...

Perhaps the simplest solution, cutting out the middle bride and bridegroom from the picture entirely, was the best one...

But marry Fanny?

He craned his neck and moved his head to study her from behind the silts of his mask. At this moment she was not so pretty, all red from weeping, but he knew her features were objectively good, enough to make Crawford want her, at any rate, and she would not make him miserable with nagging or with fits of temper – better still, she was already here at Mansfield...

A few readings of the banns could be skipped over, and a wedding could be had on Christmas day as planned...

Edmund would be furious.

Edmund would probably kill him just for thinking of Fanny as a potential bride, as a means to ending his curse. His brother had always made rather a pet of Fanny in the past and was very protective of her.

His smile returned.

Edmund wasn't here.

"Sorry!" Sir Thomas was booming. "Sorry, she says. Yes, I hope you are sorry."

"Beast," mouthed Tom, glaring at his father's legs, blissfully unaware of his own hypocrisy. She's crying, you tyrant, do leave off piling on!

"If it were possible for me to do otherwise," tried Fanny, "I would... I would do it to oblige you, sir. But I know I can never make him happy, and I should be miserable myself."

Her uncle then attempted to get her to come down to see Mr. Crawford and tell him all this for herself, as if she had not already, but she wept so endlessly he realised he could not show her to the gentleman in such a state, and he relented. She looked a good deal worse now than she had when she was taken ill with a cold!

No sooner had his father left her there to sob while he made his own apologies to Henry downstairs, than Tom crawled out from under the table. "Fanny."

"Please," she cried, face turned, "please don't tell me you think I ought to accept him. I could not bear it from you also."

"Well, frankly, I don't think you ought to – not if you really don't want him."

Her heart was lighter at once. She looked at him as if he were a shining angel materializing before her. "You... You don't? Oh, cousin!"

"Fanny," said he, again, biting back a grin, "I have" – and he reached over and wiped away a trail of tears from her blotchy face with his bunched-up sleeve – "an idea."

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