Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Ten:

It was the unhappiest, most dour Christmas Eve Fanny could remember.

In spite of the beautiful decorations (even with half his children absent, and Tom rather in disgrace, Sir Thomas – at least for his wife's sake, little as she seemed to notice either way – did not order the servants withhold from bringing in the traditional greenery and making some very pretty displays) and lit candles all around her, looking bright and alive every way she might choose to turn her head, she could find precious little pleasure.

The festive surroundings failed entirely to lessen the overreaching feeling of doom and gloom that prevailed.

They did not have a tree, for this exact practice had not been part of Mansfield Park's usual traditions when Sir Thomas was yet a boy learning how things were done (it was, of course, not quite yet introduced by Queen Charlotte and her proudest imitators) and he never could get into the habit of it, such a messy unnecessary business it seemed as well as increasing the risk of accidental fire (all those blasted flammable baubles hanging too near candles and dry branches they might as well have nicknamed kindling in advance); one memorable year, Maria had begged for one, because it seemed so exceedingly fashionable that season, even the Elliots had one at Kellynch Hall, and Aunt Norris had seen she got it, for the once, but usually – and so this year as well – the Bertrams did perfectly all right without.

Even so, Mrs. Norris was making the predictable fuss about too many candles being lit simply for Fanny's enjoyment, when those ladies whose due it would have been were not present, and was being taken very little notice of by either her sister or her brother-in-law, one sleepy and the other gloomy.

Edmund did not look at Fanny, had scarcely looked at her at all (and had not sought her company or given her a single kind glance) since their last quarrel in the East Room, and she was mystified as to what had prevented him from asking – so far as she could discern – Miss Crawford the question which had caused so much tension between them before she and her brother were gone to town, making the whole nasty business almost moot anyway.

It was the first time in a while Fanny had not seen Tom at dinner, and she was a little puzzled by this.

His absences, as late, had been merely during the daylight hours, practically never extending until after sunset, even as the days grew shorter; by the time their evening meal was served, he ought to have been there at table with the rest of them...

When she was dismissed (Aunt Norris would not have her in the drawing-room once they'd eaten and therein retired, sniffing they could do without her perfectly well and she might as well sleep her last night as an unmarried woman in peace and without any thought to them at all, as she apparently was quite accustomed to doing) Fanny hesitated to return to her cold attic bedroom.

She thought of Tom, and wondered if it would be wrong to seek him out the night before their wedding; under other circumstances it would certainly be improper... But theirs not being a love match, he himself having said if something were amiss – if she had doubts – she might seek him out, his absence from dinner and her feeling obliged to discover if he was taken ill or was otherwise unwell, and their being cousins who'd known one another for so many years...

Finally, after much anxious lip-biting and hesitating upon the stairs so long her dripping candle was half gone, melted into waxy goo settling at the base of its tarnished holder, she was quite resolved to go to him.

She lifted her hand and knocked upon the doors to his sitting room, and one was opened almost at once, but Tom was nowhere inside – only Roger Smith stood there, eyes – although not presently glowing green as they had before – glinting at her, nonetheless.

She hoped she only imagined there was anything like malice in them.

"You are looking for your husband, I daresay." His tone was oddly causal, not much at all like the affected servile voice he typically used when in Tom's presence.

She opened her mouth to remind him they were not married yet, she was not quite Mrs. Bertram at present, but she then supposed the matter of a few hours made little difference and promptly closed it again without saying anything.

Roger opened the door a little wider, as if to give her access if she desired it. "You may look about if you like, milady, but Mr. Bertram isn't in here – it's only myself tonight. He would have me clean the mantle in his absence – his fancy highness can't abide, apparently, to look at his own smeary fingerprints."

Fanny's light eyes darted uncomfortably. Sure enough, the room was dark, lit only by a low fire in the grate, and everything had an unused, left-as-it-was-last appearance about it. Some book or other lay haphazardly on one of the upholstered velvet seats by the fireplace; she could just see its wide, rectangular contour if she squinted. "W-where has he gone?"

The valet shrugged, his posture languid and loose.

"In the future, if you please," and she hardly knew where she found the strength to say this, even as she shook and the words spilled out of her, "I would not have you insult Mr. Bertram with demeaning references in my presence – if he's not a baronet yet, he is still a gentleman, and you're in his employ after all, so you ought to respect him. You're a servant. It isn't p-proper, and if I am to marry him... Well."

"Well indeed. Well, well, well," he chuckled. "I suppose you mean it, since I doubt you'd be brave enough to say so if it were only a whim. Not you." He turned upon his heel hard, scuffing the floor. "If that will be all? I've opened the doors for you, nice and wide, but there is a draught... So, if you choose not to enter, well..."

Fanny sucked in her lips and gnawed upon them anxiously. She did choose not to enter; she didn't feel she should be safe alone in a room with this man, regardless of if Tom trusted him. What made it worse is she had rather the notion he was aware he frightened her and thought he would have an easy time of managing her once she was his employer's wife. This, she could not permit. Not if she wished to live peacefully – surely a difficult enough task already under the roof Sir Thomas, who (though she was almost convinced he had begun to approve of her as a niece before this whole sorry business) most emphatically did not want her for a daughter.

She released her breath and rasped out, as forcefully as she could manage (and this was not very), "Mr. Smith, I most humbly beg pardon if I overstep" – she was not altogether sure what authority a wife was supposed to have over her husband's personal valet, and thought it might turn out, humiliatingly, to be none at all save for light enforcement of propriety, more requests than orders – "but I do not believe I dismissed you."

Out and out laughing in her face now, no longer merely chuckling, Roger brought his hands together in rough, crude applause. "Oh, well done you. I can see this change will be far more amusing than I anticipated." His left eye twitched into a rather impertinent wink. "With your leave, madam?"

"Oh... That is, yes. Certainly, you are dismissed. Pray do not allow me to detain you from your duties further." Her tender, much over-stoked courage was ebbing down to an anxious sputtering trickle at last. "I thank you, Mr. Smith."

"Wait a moment." He pulled a small candle from his breast pocket and held it out to her. "Yours looks as if it would go out before you reach the attic stairs."

She took it from him and staggered back, bewildered by his change in manner from saucy and vaguely threatening to outright kind.

Under other circumstances, she might have thought him a little in the wrong for taking from Tom's stash of candles to provide this kindness, but surely it was different now she was to be Mrs. Bertram...

Surely.

Her own would-be husband would not grudge her a candle to light her way to bed; he would want her to accept it.

The door was shut, then, before she could decide if Roger Smith was being good or else impertinent, and she was alone.

At no point had Fanny imagined she would be given new clothes for the wedding – not once did such a thought enter into her head. She was resolved to wear her best dress, the one she'd had for Maria's wedding and for the ball, only this time she would have Edmund's chain and William's cross; she also intended to wear, with no pendant strung from it, as she had none to fit, the gold necklace the bear had brought her in his mouth. While she still thought it gaudy and not at all to her taste, having no other jewels save Lady Bertram's opal ring and wearing a dress the whole county had seen already twice upon her person, she did not wish to embarrass the family by appearing under-adorned when she was marrying the heir.

The inferiority of the match was already plain for anyone to see, she did not have to make it all the more obvious by appearing shabby.

To her astonishment, however, almost before she'd even made it to the basin and ewer to wash her face on Christmas morning, Chapman – after knocking – came in directly to the attic room carrying a long wooden box held shut with leather straps and metal buckles.

It was set upon her narrow bed, unfastened and opened before her while Chapman explained Lady Bertram had sent up her own wedding things for Fanny. "They are a little old-fashioned, to be sure, miss, and you'll have to do without the matching gloves and substitute some pair or other of your own, for there's a sizeable hole in one of them – alas – but I shall help you arrange it all prettily enough."

Underneath the sprigs of camphor (they gave off such a strong odour as to almost set off a fresh headache if she should have inhaled it too deeply), Fanny discovered the dress to be cream-coloured and handsomely embroidered; the sleeves were oddly shaped, and the waistline a good deal lower than was now common, but it was still excessively fine; the bodice had impossibly small – almost the same size as the tiny seeds she sometimes left on the East room windowsill for the birds – pearly white beads sewn into the embroidered pattern. The bonnet and the exquisite gauzy veil which fitted over it, wonderfully sewn, detailed to match the shiny taffeta train of the dress, were perfect and still looked new. Fanny didn't imagine anyone would be able to tell it hadn't been ordered for her from London or some other place outside of Northamptonshire, not if they weren't old enough to have seen her aunt married in it and happened to recollect it exactly despite the passing of so many long years.

Chapman helped her to dress and fix her hair. Fanny had made certain to wear the curling rags Lady Bertram suggested to bed the night before, so she had quite a pretty array of golden curls for the maid to work with this morning.

She didn't have a mirror large enough to really see herself in the attic, and it was not until she was making her way down the stairs in her wedding clothes, descending into the main house, and had passed the first hall mirror at the landing that she caught a glimpse of her reflection.

She stopped so suddenly Chapman was forced to halt quickly behind her and nearly toppled into her. "I beg your pardon, miss – I did not realise you intended to pause here. Tis good luck I did not tread upon the back of your dress by mistake!"

Fanny simply gawked.

The image in the mirror staring back at her, colouring scarlet about the face, was wholly a stranger to her, albeit a stranger with an unnervingly strong resemblance to her aunt. She was sure she had never before in her life seen this pretty girl – this bride – with all her brilliant curls spiralling on both sides of her face, splendidly dressed, who – though she scarcely dared let herself think it, let alone believe it – actually looked far more beautiful than Maria had when she married Rushworth.

She pressed a hand to William's cross above her breasts and prayed silently for strength; she would conquer this fear – she would.

How to describe the family's reaction to seeing her thus?

They were all as astonished as she was herself.

Lady Bertram looked very satisfied with her indeed, and kept murmuring, to anybody who would listen, how very handsome a family they were and how extremely glad she was she'd thought of giving her niece her own wedding clothes and sending Chapman upstairs to help her.

Mrs. Norris was pale with rage. She'd not been pleased with Fanny's being offered Lady Bertram's things and had made several strong remarks against it despite her sister's placid assurance she'd offered the dress to Maria first but she hadn't wanted it – did not Mrs. Norris recollect how she herself had been most strongly convinced dearest Maria must have all new things for her wedding or the Rushworths would not think her at all well turned out, wealthy and distinguished as they were? – and it only made her more angry that they should fit so well as this.

If her indigent niece had looked poorly in Lady Bertram's things, if they had not settled upon her person correctly, making a great fool of her, she should have been somewhat mollified, but to see Fanny Price appearing like a Christmas angel, all gold and cream and white lace, put the already cross woman into a very ill temper indeed.

"Humph," said she, cutting her eyes at her niece, "I hope, Fanny, you realise your extreme good fortune in getting your aunt's grand wedding things for your own use when she might have very reasonably saved them for Julia. I daresay your getting married before her has quite confused the order of everything else proper. You had best not treat them carelessly or I shall be very ashamed of you."

For the shortest of dazzled moments, Sir Thomas forgot he was angry with Fanny – forgot why all this was being done – and stared enraptured at his niece, convinced he had stepped backwards in time and was seeing his own wife on their wedding day. This striking sight reminded him that, despite it not being a strict love match, a marriage of practicality and family arrangement, he really had indeed loved Miss Maria Ward very dearly and had been utterly enchanted when he saw her at the church all those years ago. This recollection softened him and left a little kindness in his eyes for Fanny who – not expecting to find any there – nearly wept at the mere hint of it.

Edmund thought – and told her – she looked very well, and his admiration was sincere – Fanny indeed appeared to him exactly what he thought a respectable and beautiful bride ought to be before being conveyed to the church door – but the coldness between them was palpable and she would have, without hesitation, readily traded her uncle's hint of kindness for even the smallest suggestion of a real smile on her favourite cousin's face.

However much she had tried to rid herself of such feelings, Fanny still wished it was him she was marrying today, certain she could endure anything if only such were the case!

But she didn't allow herself to dare pretend she was dressed like this for him, because it would mean breaking her heart all over again and she could not bear it.

Tom was as dazzled – and doubly as bewitched – by the sight of Fanny in her wedding finery as his father was. He had not guessed she was capable of being so beautiful! And to think his father had wanted him to marry that wretched, ill-looking niece of Lady Ravenshaw when such a superior creature as this was living all the time in their attic and was very willing to be led to the altar!

He could almost – almost – feel the slightest bit sorry for Henry Crawford; the gentleman would indeed have been fortunate in marriage if this lovely woman had liked him as much as he had liked her.

And who would have thought this was Fanny – little creepmouse cousin Fanny who he had played many a merry trick upon when she was just an overanxious little child – of all persons, looking so indescribably handsome?

Smiling, he offered her his hand and professed himself to be speechless.

"For one who claims to be speechless, Tom, you certainly have speech enough to say you haven't any," huffed Mrs. Norris, unfurling an elegant befeathered fan which had been a gift from Sir Thomas a couple years back and waving it before her rage-flushed face to cool it as if it were the middle of summer and not a chill Christmas morn. "Well!" She fluttered the fan with more vim. "Far be it for me to correct you." Here, she darted a rather venomous glare at Fanny. "My feelings are never consulted, at any rate, in spite of my always thinking of the both of yours."

Fanny's tiny, gloved hand slipped into Tom's – wherever were you last night? she so longed to ask despite a dry throat but did not dare – and, trying very hard not to look at anybody else for fear they would see – somehow – how badly she wanted to keep on looking at one person in particular, was conveyed by him out of doors and to the waiting carriage.

Only Lady Bertram (Pug panting happily on her lap, tongue lolling), Edmund, Roger Smith, and Tom were permitted inside along with Fanny herself – Lady Bertram, Tom, and the valet in the seat opposite (Smith was leaning over and rather fussing over some small adjustment of the knot in his master's cravat until Tom slapped his hand away) and Edmund beside her.

Mrs. Norris was nonplussed when – after she'd snapped her extravagant fan shut and lifted her skirts, prepared to ascend into the carriage – Sir Thomas drew her back with a gentle tug, preventing her from following after her sister. "They cannot possibly fit another passenger – and certainly not one so hardy as yourself."

"I'm sure I never heard of such nonsense – I am sure I have not!" she cried, aghast. "Why, there is plenty of room for me yet beside Fanny and Edmund!"

"Mrs. Norris, a third on this side would crush Fanny's fine wedding dress."

"I cannot see it signifies," she snapped, "if Fanny arrives at church a little wrinkled – bride or not, I daresay no one will be looking at her. If it were darling Julia, to be sure I should–"

Sir Thomas cleared his throat. "You do not see," he said pointedly, arching a single eyebrow, "that it signifies if my eldest son's bride appears out of sorts on her wedding day before more than half the county?"

What choice had she but to demure? To recant? "I only... Well, the matter is... I simply..." Her eyes lowered, defeated. "I-I suppose you know best, Sir Thomas."

Sir Thomas reached out and shut the carriage door with a forceful click which sounded unnecessarily loud to Fanny's ears, and she could not be anything like certain whether his evident anger here was directed at herself or her aunt.

"If you wish," said he, a touch sardonically, "to travel by this carriage in particular, and not take another with myself, you might easily join the footmen at the back. Shall I hoist you up?"

Mrs. Norris shuddered. Ride on back, like a common maid? She would rather die! But she was mollified, too, for she speedily convinced herself Sir Thomas meant to do her great honour by not only letting her – but intending for her – to ride with him instead of the others.

This must mean, certainly, she was in the baronet's good graces again, where she deserved to be...

As soon as the carriage began rolling, Pug leaped from Lady Bertram's lap and tried to settle upon Fanny's.

Tom laughed, as if it were the most amusing joke (indeed, since seeing Fanny as she was today he seemed to be in continually merry spirits about this whole arrangement, if you did not count the unfriendly slap he'd directed at his valet's hand a few minutes prior), but his mother was openly horrified; uncharacteristically animated of a sudden, she squeaked and bleated and pleaded for one of her boys to 'pray do something', certain Pug would spoil the wedding clothes before the ceremony.

It was Edmund who finally – absently, though the action had an air of deliberateness difficult to express – lifted the dog from his cousin's lap – well before it could do any real damage – and settled it upon his own.

He did not look her in the face as he did so.

"Pug always remains longer in your lap without fuss if you give him a biscuit," stated Lady Bertram placidly, after several moments of silence had ensued save for the small dog's light whining and tossing.

"Ma'am," sighed Tom, turning his head to look at his mother and rolling his eyes, "where the deuce are we meant to get biscuits from?"

"I have a biscuit," said Mr. Smith, gingerly holding a small biscuit between his thumb and middle finger.

Edmund, brow furrowed, leaned forward and took it from him. "Thank you, Smith."

"Where were you keeping that?" demanded Tom.

Fanny leaned her head against the carriage window and, closing her eyes, began praying again.

The short notice and the fact this wedding was being held on both Christmas and a Sunday had made it so there were only a handful of actually invited guests who had arrived expecting to see a marriage performed; most folk were there for their regular services and for the purpose of its being a holiday.

Naturally the Crawfords had not been invited, and – wherever in London they happened to now be – Fanny seriously doubted they were celebrating the occasion on their own.

But at least them being so far off, safely away in town, provided Fanny an assurance Henry Crawford wasn't going to stand up in the pews and, with the air of a spoiled child denied a toy he'd wanted, declare some invented impediment.

She thought one could never be entirely sure about the likes of him, gentleman though he professedly was.

It may have been a far-fetched imagining, but perhaps not so very far if Mr. Crawford had been in Northamptonshire and had chanced to see Fanny dressed as she presently was – he just might have forgot himself for long enough to make a scene.

She reasoned there could be no chance of Edmund doing such a thing and giving her, at last, a temptation she couldn't withstand – if he ever asked her to marry him instead of his brother, to break her promise and leave this wedding behind and run away with him to Gretna Green, she was not certain she could deny him.

Mercifully, his apparent foolhardy and unending affection for Miss Crawford, regardless of how badly she'd treated him, would prevent that.

Anyway, neither were Julia or Maria or any of the Rushworths present; they sent their regrets, none of which sounded remotely regretful, but they had prior engagements for Christmas day and so could not come.

The Bingleys had been invited and told they might, if they came, bring along anyone they liked, but they had not been able to arrange matters so as to accept the invitation and attend, though they actually were a little sorry to miss it.

Of course, they had promised already to spend Christmas at Pemberley...

Indeed, of Tom's alleged hundred particular friends precious few had been willing to give up their Christmas plans in order to celebrate his wedding – Yates and a rather portly, dull young man Tom had gone to Eton with seemed to be the only ones.

(He was fairly certain George Wickham would have come; he would have enjoyed the novelty of the whole occasion; but Sir Thomas had utterly refused to permit his being invited at all.)

If it were not Christmas, the parish church would have been mostly empty, most noticeably on Tom's side.

Nonetheless, those who were present – whatever their reason – seemed ready enough to congratulate him. One older woman with a mob cap over her greying hair kissed him at the door and wished him joy and many, many happy years to come, and Tom spoke to her very sweetly indeed and patted her hand, and he more or less promised to send her family a goose or a ham for some fine dinner before the new year was to be rang in – although, when Lady Bertram, brow crinkled, gently asked him who she had been he'd shrugged and said, "D'you know, Mother, I haven't the slightest notion."

Although technically invited, none of the Prices came (her sister Susan wanted to, when she heard about it, and was bitterly put out when told there wasn't money to spare for her to travel to Northamptonshire to see an elder sister she no doubt scarcely even remembered married to a cousin she had never met), including Mr. Price, who was not there to give the general appearance of formally presenting her to Tom at the altar; and Sir Thomas made no pretence of doing so, since he put all her care as his son's sole charge now.

Perhaps they looked very strange, Tom and Fanny, entering and walking down the aisle already paired off together.

Mrs. Norris, once primly seated in her regular place, in her favourite pew from where she could see nearly everything and everyone all at once, was to be heard loudly sniffing, "Upon my word, it is a great pity nobody comes to church on Christmas day anymore."

Elbowing a confused farmer out of his way and reaching behind himself to make certain he had not lost Fanny in the dense crowd pressing in about them (it would be a sad thing to lose a wife before you had even got her to the altar), Tom laughed, "What can she mean?"

Mrs. Grant was among those in the pews watching the bride and groom make their way to the altar amidst the Christmas day crowd which was not parting for them as they ought to have done, in all the bustle and confusion, and, if her gaze upon Fanny in all her finery was not openly resentful, it was not lacking in obvious disapproval – despite knowing Mary had preferred Edmund, and Mr. Bertram had never gotten to the point of offering for her, a part of her had still vainly hoped her own sister would marry Tom and become Lady Bertram.

And more than that, she felt Fanny was Henry's by right.

Dr. Grant was seated with his wife, but he did not rise to stand before the gathered congregation – as it turned out, he was not the one set to give the day's sermon and to join the hands of soon-to-be Mr. and Mrs. Bertram.

A fellow had been brought over on some favour from Hunsford, one Mr. Collins.

Edmund knew him only as the husband of the Mrs. Collins acquainted with the Owens and Mary Bennet; and he knew, through faint rumour, it was possible Mary had held some tiny hope Collins would marry her when her elder sister turned him down, only he'd picked his present wife, one of their neighbours, instead.

The way the Owens told it was a bit muddled and fragmented and in whispers because they didn't want to mortify Miss Bennet if she should chance to overhear by mistake, so Edmund's idea of the whole matter was largely conjecture over any confirmed fact.

Therefore, he'd had very few solid expectations of this Mr. Collins, had hardly known what to think of him, and was still disappointed upon meeting him in the flesh – he seemed rather a silly man.

He was most heartily glad Parson Collins hadn't wanted Mary – she might have been good for him, no doubt, but Edmund thought he would surely have spoiled all the present seeds of good in her.

Oh, he still could not understand why Fanny was so vehemently, so cruelly, so childishly prejudiced against the match! He was more convinced than ever they should suit and that each would be a great benefit to the growing character of the other!

Fanny, who could never have guessed at her favourite cousin's real thoughts as he sat in the front pew and watched her standing there beside his brother as mournful as if he were at their funeral rather than their wedding, and so – without any prior information – viewed this Collins man as a complete stranger, did not think him so very bad – at least not at first.

He spoke clearly and read well (if not so polished as Mr. Crawford or so feelingly as Edmund), but she was greatly puzzled over how he kept inexplicably veering from the usual kind of speech about marriage and God, and how man ought not be alone, inserting any number of peculiar asides about some grand lady named Catherine and her view of marriage being a state both sacred and desirable as if it mattered almost as much as God's did.

Why could he not simply stick to the Book of Common Prayer?

This quite awkward sermon was rather bordering upon blasphemy, she feared.

A near-blasphemous wedding did not seem at all an auspicious way to embark upon married life...

It was almost a relief, a cause for finally releasing a scandalized breath held too long in, when it was time at last to give consent and allow Tom to slide a gold wedding band onto her finger beside the opal ring, because there seemed no ready way of bringing the subject of rings back to Catherine de Bourgh.

And then Fanny had to lift her veil so she could see as Mr. Collins thrust the parish register book at her along with pressing a quill against her clenched hand.

She wondered passingly if he was near-sighed or else just clumsy. She signed her name and wrote out the required lines before stepping out of the way and letting Tom sign it, too.

She flexed her cramped hand, curled and curled her tense fingers, and silently thanked God for not letting her nerves get the better of her so badly she couldn't finish signing or perchance pressed too hard and broke the nub off the end of the quill, or anything else dreadful like that.

Two witnesses were required to sign the register as well, and even though he looked pale as death and his mouth was a hard, grim line, Edmund was one of them (the other signature was Yates').

There was almost an incident when Mr. Collins in a quiet but rather impertinent tone insisted Tom remove his mask (evidently, he had hitherto supposed it decorative, like Fanny's veil) because good Christian people did not wear a mask in church after signing the registry, in his opinion, hiding away their face as if they had something to fear.

Tom, after declining to oblige him several times, with good cheer and amiable ease up until he realised Collins wasn't going to let the matter rest, was on the point where he was considering grabbing the pushy parson and ducking his head into the baptismal font, and might really have done it if Fanny did not intervene with a question about the placement of her own signature in the register – did Mr. Collins think she had done it all right, or was it veering upon the wrong line?

"Oh, bless you, my dear child, no." He too had noticed how pretty the bride was, had been fairly beaming his approval at her since she'd lifted her veil, and, seeing as she was obviously very sweet and pious, and liking her tone, he could not bear to distress her by persecuting her new husband further. And, of course, Mr. Bertram would be a baronet one day... Some small flattery might here be necessary... "No, indeed. You did it exactly right, Mrs. Bertram – exactly. Make yourself easy. And, I must say, such notably fine handwriting, too! Why, even my esteemed patroness, Catherine de Bourgh – I do not recollect if I have mentioned her?"

"You jolly well have, by Jove!" – from Tom.

"–would not be in the least ashamed of your penmanship, I think."

"I thank you, Parson Collins," said she, genuinely. "You are very kind indeed."

The crowd oppressed them less upon leaving the church than they had entering it; people in dense groups tend towards idiocy more than towards intellect, but one can say for them, readily enough, once a hint has been made clear enough, they are capable, to some extent, of picking up on it. Only the slowest churchgoers present that Christmas morning had not, by this time, now the sermon was over and the registry signed, finally lighted upon the fact they were attending a wedding and a bride and groom would need space to pass through.

Outside, the closed carriage which had brought them here to be wed was nowhere in sight and an open carriage – this one just for themselves – bedecked with holly leaves and berries and white, gold-centred Christmas Roses awaited to take them Fanny was not certain where – back to the house, presumably, for she'd been informed of no calls this afternoon and quite reasonably expected no further celebration than was necessary of a marriage which disappointed so many at once.

As soon as they alighted the church steps – Tom taking Fanny's hand as much to keep himself from slipping on the icy frost clinging to the slick stone as to assist her, if she should stumble – the sky above them seemed to open up like it was a great feather pillow which had been ripped and white flakes so large they were almost the same size as pence coins showered down upon them.

This must have been an exceedingly pretty sight – more than one person present began oohing and ahhing rather loudly, though Tom thought it sounded rather affected; it reminded him of a time, a few years earlier, one of his friends in London had paid a group of men to applaud for him whenever he entered a particular establishment on a certain night.

Still, he decided to take this as a very good omen.

If Edmund's God were angry at him, or if the witch had some sort of magical control over the weather and was cross he'd married so quickly and was on the path to ending her curse, surely there would be thunder and hail overhead, not fair blue-grey skies and lacy snowflakes falling so very softly.

So, dropping Fanny's hand and hauling himself up into the open carriage, Tom waved to everyone and kissed his hand and faithfully promised to write – though he did not specify to who, declaring he loved everybody present quite equally – as if he were going far away forever when, really, he was going no place at all.

Behind him, Edmund came forward and assisted Fanny up, and Tom might – despite his airy distractedness – just have noticed she was looking at his brother with the saddest expression, with the hollowed stare of a martyr being led to the gallows, if her bonnet – lurching to the side, pulled the wrong way by her veil being caught upon the holly decorations – had not fallen off, letting the heavy snow fall upon her now bare golden curls; the sight was so beguiling he didn't think to judge the expression, only to smile at her undeniable loveliness.

Almost anyone who noticed that smile would have been in danger of imagining Tom Bertram to be in love with his new young wife.

The carriage only took them a few feet off, out of direct sight of the church, before it stopped to let Tom off.

He kissed Fanny quickly upon her cheek, in a very brotherly fashion but with more overt affection than he usually bothered to display, brought on by his good mood, the handsome weather, and his generally liking her looks today, and bade her farewell.

"Thank you, Fanny" – he squeezed her hands which had been buried under her fallen bonnet in her lap, being used as a sort of insubstantial, makeshift muff to stave off the cold her old, thin silk gloves weren't doing anything to help – "you were first-rate today. I shan't forget all I owe you for this."

She tried to affect a grateful smile, tried to stammer out, "But where are you going? What's happening?"

But before the words made it past her lips with anything like coherency, he was already out of the carriage and running away, waving amiably to her – his top hat held up in the air – and calling back, "I'll see you at the Wedding Breakfast!"

And the driver flicked his whip – said "Yaaah!" – and the horses took off at an alarming pace which almost knocked Fanny out of the carriage – she had to grip the side to prevent being upset and accidentally crushed one of the poor Christmas Roses in the process – and took her back to the big house, where all was just as it had been before.

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