Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Twelve:

Fanny's first night.

She believed, or tried to believe, she could bear it quite well, now Tom set her mind to such ease.

They'd had wine (Fanny just the one glass, and Tom rather a bit more than that, though it was she who looked the more affected and sleepy, for what little she had imbibed, since he – wholly unaware Edmund usually watered down and mixed it for her – had poured her glass as was, straight from the bottle, and it was a good deal stronger than she was used to) as well as the chocolate, and were both rather dozy and languid.

It was well into the night (or more accurately morning), long after she'd stopped counting how many piquet games they'd played (Tom won most of them, at first by a mixture of luck and superior skill and, then, when the dealt hands were not so favourable, and the wine made him less attentive, because Fanny much preferred, as usual, to let him), that "turning in for the evening" was finally suggested.

She started to neaten up after herself, stacking the empty cups and wineglasses onto the tray and taking down the linen and blanket hangings to fold neatly, despite her somewhat spinning head and eyes which she could hardly keep open.

Her husband rose and brushed biscuit crumbs from his lap. Noticing of a sudden what Fanny was about, fuzzily registering her actions as he slipped behind a screen to change into his night-things, he told her to leave everything as it was.

"For pity's sake," he said, fastening a dressing-gown around his middle as he popped back into view, "that's Smith's job – you needn't begin it for him."

She glanced over at him doubtfully, setting down the tray and stepping away from the tangled remains of their fort, nonetheless. "Do–" she started, then halted.

"Is something the matter?"

Fanny shook her head. "No, of course not, I was only wondering about..." She gestured shyly at his mask. "Forgive me, but I did not realise you were obliged to sleep in it as well."

"As a matter of fact, I'm not," Tom explained. "But as you aren't allowed to see my face – another odd condition of the curse – that much I'm positive I told you about – I don't intend to remove it until all the lights are out and the bed-hangings are drawn. Better safe than sorry, I daresay, eh?"

He was not mistaken, Fanny soon found out. With the canopy drawn shut, lying in Tom's bed was dark as pitch – she could see nothing at all, not even so much as a contour or a shadow.

She wouldn't have known even that Tom was directly beside her if she did not feel the give in the mattress and hear him muttering to himself.

As it turned out, Tom did not only talk in his sleep. He talked while falling asleep as well – apparently, he was entirely incapable of not conversing if there was another person in his vicinity and he was, at present, unoccupied. Although Fanny had sat by Tom many times before in a near-empty drawing-room and they had enjoyed silence together, she realised – as she had not had cause to before – this was because he usually had some newspaper or other object to keep his attention and she, in all fairness, had never been very important to him. He had not Edmund's natural appreciation for the luxury of silence. For Tom, silence was what fell inevitably when you were busy with something else. It never occurred to him to actively desire silence – unless, perhaps, his father was speaking of something he did not wish to hear.

The wine hadn't helped lessen his proclivity for talkativeness, either.

(If anything, it only made it more difficult to understand him, because he slurred his words quite a bit.)

Fanny thought he must have bid her goodnight at least four times before it stuck, and he interrupted her silent prayers twice in order to inquire as if she was asleep yet or if she was pondering anything in particular.

Did she, he wanted to know, ever think of anything especially profound when falling asleep then fail to remember what it was in the morning? He was certain it had happened to him before, but as he couldn't recollect what the profound thoughts were, he couldn't be altogether sure it had been so very profound as he liked to imagine.

"D'you know, I once came up with a right brilliant conundrum, but I ought to have written it down; for in the morning, I discovered I recalled only half and–"

"How did you know?" Fanny blurted, turning on her pillow to face his voice.

"Know what?"

"How," she yawned, "did know it was a brilliant conundrum, with only half of it in your memory? Surely, even if one half – the part you remember – was clever, the rest mightn't have lived up to it?"

"Oh, upon my word, what do you know – she even makes jokes!" She felt him reach over and pat an approximation of where he guessed her hand to be (it was actually her elbow) appreciatively. "I didn't know you had a sense of humour, Fanny, but I'm glad to discover it. I should be very sorry to have got myself a dour wife, no matter how pretty of a bride she made."

Fanny was grateful for the engulfing darkness, grateful it hid her colouring cheeks at this backhanded compliment.

Tom did sleep, finally, as she'd supposed he eventually must, though his ongoing speeches stopped only at short intervals, unhindered by the change in his state of consciousness, and she – between these intervals – began to feel uneasy again.

The bed was soft and warm, and she was surrounded, somewhere beyond these black drapes, by comfort and luxury; there could be no doubt this ought to be a vast improvement on what she was used to.

And Tom had been very kind; she would never forget his goodness, his gentle manner, as they'd played cards earlier.

All the same, how could she banish – much less draw any true comfort from – the thought of this being her life now?

She was safe from Mr. Crawford, safe from forced eviction from Mansfield, but her old life – such as it had been – was gone.

It was being ten and losing Portsmouth all over again. Her beloved East room might as well be miles and miles away, and who knew if they'd take it from her as they took the attic bedroom? Her aunt Norris had never particularly wanted her to have the use of it in the first place, and this change in status might give her the excuse she'd been waiting for to see it was put into disuse again.

Every night for the rest of her life, she'd have to be in this bed with Tom tossing and turning, and talking to his dreams, beside her.

No, not for the rest of her life – it was not so dire as that, after all – but for seven years, at least, and seven years felt like a very long time when you were in complete darkness, exhausted from a long night and wine which had been too strong yet couldn't fall asleep.

But what a small price to pay, if it meant Tom would be free from some vile curse and she would, someday, be free to go live with William – wasn't nearly anything worth such an outcome?

Seven years, though...

Tom rolled over, grunted, and – much to Fanny's dismay – had an audible release of flatulence.

Fanny wrinkled her nose and inched as far away from him as the mattress would allow.

A dreadful thought gripped her.

What was she meant to do if she had to relieve herself?

She realised, with a sinking feeling, she hadn't the foggiest idea where Tom kept his chamberpot.

Wait, she had to share a chamberpot with Tom?

She didn't relish the thought of sharing with anybody, let alone a man. She'd shared with her sisters in Portsmouth, of course – there hadn't been a 'separate bleedin' piss pot', as her father referred to it, for herself, Mary, and Susan – but that had been many years ago, she was only a child then...

And she'd never shared with her brothers...

Ought she to have brought hers down from the attic?

She wondered how this hadn't come into her mind at all the past two nights.

Well, she hadn't drunk water, chocolate, and wine so soon before bed on those nights, either, perhaps that was why it hadn't occurred to her...

Was she allowed to leave the bedroom if nature called? Or would the breaking of Tom's – evidentially wholly illogical, by all she could work out of its arbitrary and inexact rules – curse be hindered by such an action?

Tom had had more to drink than herself; she might be obliged to listen to him getting up and relieving himself at some point if she was to lie awake all night unable to sleep.

How difficult it was to remember how blessed you were when even the simplest matter imaginable seemed new, frightening, and hopelessly complicated!

Seven years.

Two thousand, five hundred, and fifty-seven nights.

But, she reminded herself, breathing slowly and blinking into the darkness like one blind, seven years with Tom was infinitely preferable to a full lifetime, perhaps endlessly stretching before her if she lived very long at all, spent with someone who would have rendered her miserable and who she, in turn, could never have made happy...

There had been no other choice.

Something had had to change, one way or the other.

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes – the simple, indisputable fact was this: Fanny loathed change.

How dreadful it was, she thought, people – even those already reasonably contented with their present situation – were forced to make changes so very often, to tear their hearts away from all things familiar and left to cling, helplessly, to the tender hope of – somehow – becoming used to life all over again.

Fanny was, she feared, the perpetual survivor of endless metaphorical shipwrecks.

Others around her adjusted without batting an eye, while she – ever the eternal Robinson Crusoe – floundered upon desert shores everybody else seemed to think were cultivated gardens and in possession of every creature comfort.

William really had been shipwrecked once, and he'd told her about it – in great detail – by means of a long letter after he was out of danger and could convey his story without fear of upsetting or worrying her.

While reading it, she had felt she understood her brother's every fear perfectly as if she had – in some other life – been there beside him, but his triumph in overcoming it – as dearly as she rejoiced for his feeling it – was a foreign emotion to herself.

What triumph, tangible or emotional, had she ever known?

Why, she had married a man who would be a baronet one day, and apart from the satisfaction of keeping a promise and saving them both from a worse fate, it meant nothing at all to her.

In the eyes of other people, such a match would have been described as nothing shy of a triumph.

But, was Fanny's last thought as sleep mercifully claimed her at last, I am unlike other people, I daresay. I am ever so much graver – the evenings do not appear long to me, I might enjoy Tom's company then, indeed I already have, but the dark hours that follow...

In the morning, Tom was gone – Roger Smith unceremoniously yanked back the curtains, flooding the entirety of the bed with mid-morning light, and Fanny woke – shielding her eyes – to find herself alone apart from the valet, who – rather archly, she thought – asked if she required help from Chapman or one of the maids to dress herself and get ready for breakfast.

"No, thank you," she told him, sitting up and looking about as one still half in a daze. "I'm sure I can manage."

He left her, then, and she saw nobody else at all until she entered the breakfast-room.

She ate in near-complete silence – after 'good mornings' had been wished without much obvious feeling and requests as to how all had slept were absently made – with Sir Thomas and her aunt Bertram, grateful her aunt Norris seemed not to be joining them.

Fanny thought she would miss having at least one of her cousins at the table, now Tom and Edmund were both absent, thought she might wish Maria or Julia back across from her, but she found, instead, rather the opposite. She did not particularly mind eating with her uncle and aunt only. Not when neither of them was going out of their way to suggest she'd done something displeasing.

Although, she wondered, a little perplexed, if she were still permitted to call them 'aunt' and 'uncle'. Did being married to Tom change this? Sir Thomas did not want her for a daughter, so she couldn't think of calling him 'father' unless he himself made the suggestion, which seemed highly unlikely, but what of Lady Bertram? Did her aunt expect her to call her 'mother' now? At least it was always safe enough to refer to them as 'sir' and 'ma'am' in a respectful tone, when it would have been rude to try to avoid calling them by anything in particular, as their own children often did anyway.

Pensively, Fanny put her hand to the front of her dress, touching the place where her amber cross (which she now wore regularly upon Edmund's chain, though not always in a manner for it to be seen by others) was snug between her breasts; knowing it was there gave her a sense of calm, of never being entirely alone or without guidance.

Her expression must have been sweet, as well as contemplative, for it made Lady Bertram smile across at her rather fondly, and this softened the general mood a great deal.

No sooner had hot rolls been consumed, eggs swallowed, and chocolate drank, however, than Baddeley, Dick Baddeley, and another manservant came into the room dragging an unfamiliar man – a scruffy one with a stained cravat and dirty tan coat – in by the armpits.

Lady Bertram's eyes widened. "Goodness," she cried, glancing to her husband and lowering her spoon onto a saucer delicately. "Whatever can this mean?"

"Forgive the interruption, Sir Thomas," said Dick, "but we discovered this vagabond poaching on your land."

"He had a friend with him, as well, who we were not successful in apprehending," the other manservant admitted, gone slightly green – either with fear of Sir Thomas' displeasure or with sickly shame.

The baronet's eyes darkened as he rose from his place, pushing out his chair. He stared hard at the man they'd brought in. "Where, precisely, on my land were you hunting, and with what weapons?"

At first the man would not answer, but Sir Thomas was so severe, despite never raising his voice, he finally cried, "It were only grouse, sir, that's all we was after – the red ones."

Fanny watched as the baronet's fingers tensed, curling into balled fists at his side. He sucked in his lips. "And you – with a gun in hand, I presume – were seeking these birds in Mansfield Wood? Your armed friend is in those very woods yet?"

The poacher nodded slowly.

Suddenly, Fanny had a dreadful thought. Before she could stop herself, she exclaimed, "Oh, my poor bear!"

Every head in the breakfast-room turned to look at her simultaneously, most with their brows lifted high, and she coloured vividly from hairline to under-chin, but she finally stammered out, almost inaudibly, it was not really her bear, she supposed, though it was a friend, and she no longer fancied it to be a lost pet of some peerage member, only if the poacher's friend were in the woods somebody needed to be sent to tell him not to try and shoot at it.

"Even Edmund, if he were here, would agree it's no ordinary beast, that the white bear has a soul," Fanny finished, trying not to recollect so readily as she did in spite of herself how Edmund had wanted her kept away from the bear – still, she had seen the tears in his eyes, had seen he knew the truth as well as she did.

Sir Thomas regarded her with the queerest expression. "Oddly enough, Fanny, he is your bear, in a manner of speaking." He swallowed. "Perhaps this ought to concern you, too. It is high time you understood more fully what you've gotten yourself into. How quickly can you dress for riding?"

"I can be ready in five minutes, sir – but, if we are going into the wood, will the horses not be frightened of the bear and throw us off?"

"That is, at present, the least of my anxieties." He sighed, then glanced from the limp poacher to his wife, whose blank expression betrayed no hidden knowledge of what was happening, and his weary eyes drifted – at last – to the frost-lined windowpane beyond the table. "Better make it four minutes – and meet me in the foyer."

And so, Sir Thomas and Fanny went out together on horseback in all haste, aiming for Mansfield Wood.

It had never occurred to her before Sir Thomas should care anything for the bear – even if he should know, in some general way, of him – and Fanny had honestly been more than a trifle afraid of his wishing the creature harm, thinking it a danger to his family, as likely as not.

Realising the depth of his concern, the true fear in his eyes, she could no longer be dumb to the possibility – that most dreadful possibility – nay, not possibility, rather the growing likelihood – of who her bear was, who he had been all along...

His almost human way of laughing, his sort of care towards her as though she were not an acquaintance of a mere chance encounter...

Oh, merciful God in his Heaven!

And yet, as they heard a gunshot fired, and then a great roar, and came upon, so suddenly Fanny could have forgotten this was the goal of their journey as she lapsed into near shock, the white bear with crimson blood spreading down on one forearm, dripping hot onto his great front paw on that side, the poacher gawping as if only just realising – as the bear was not particularly lessened in strength by the wound and could still end him quickly – he might have made a mistake, the identity of the beast scarcely mattered.

She was down from her horse before Sir Thomas could even think to help her or else to order her to remain aloft while he dealt with the disaster unfolding before them.

The bear lifted his other great paw to swing at the poacher (or perhaps simply to knock the weapon from his grasp) and the poacher in turn had lifted his gun again, no doubt aiming – though poorly – for the bear's heart.

"Stop!" cried Fanny, scrambling over twigs and brambles to get to them and slicing her riding crop frantically through the air. "Stop, that is my bear, you let him alone!"

There was something different about the bear this time – when she whirled – daring to turn her back to the poacher, confident enough, even if he wasn't a proper gentleman, he wouldn't want to shoot a woman, any woman, let alone one who had arrived in tow with Sir Thomas – she saw a sort of silvery aura around his being; if she squinted, hard, she could make out a sort of different outline from within, almost man-shaped.

Sir Thomas interceded, yanking the gun from the poacher's hands and – in a voice most eerily level – threatening everything from prosecution of the law to out-and-out hanging for him and his friend, and Fanny struggled to think what she was doing differently this time from the other times she had encountered the bear before.

Her heart thudded against her amber cross and she felt her mouth pucker into an O.

Perhaps William's cross truly was magical, charmed, blessed; perhaps, with it, she was seeing through a dreadful enchantment.

No, more than any mere enchantment – possibly she was viewing her own husband's curse clearly for the first time, all thanks to the amber jewel hanging about her neck.

Could William's cross do anything else?

Sir Thomas observed her considering the bear, then looked to the poacher distrustfully, unknotting his cravat. Shaking his head, he unravelled the fabric and used it to bind the man's hands together so he couldn't run away or attack them or lunge for his gun or do anything else stupid.

Fanny, gnawing upon her lower lip, was a bit dumbfounded by this, for she had thought – at least for a moment – Sir Thomas was going to try and bind the bear's wound, or at least examine it.

But, then, with how the bear was growling in pain from the corner of its mouth, Fanny wondered she was able to stand so close to it and not be threatened. Would it – even if it were Tom, as she so strongly suspected – allow Sir Thomas near enough to do any good?

She unfastened Edmund's chain from her neck – it was worth a try, seeing if the cross could heal the wound or magically staunch the blood.

"You must be calm," Fanny tried, approaching and holding out the glittering amber cross in her open palm, the two ends of the chain dangling from either side. She hoped she sounded kind and dear, as Edmund had sounded when he comforted her when she was new to Mansfield and so frightened of everything and everyone – surely the bear could not resist imploring such as that. "You are among friends, poor bear..." In a lower voice, "Tom? Tom, if you hear me in there, it's all right – it's me, it's Fanny."

The bear did not resist or impede her attempt to press the cross to his wound, but the effort, in the end, did nothing except stain the amber with droplets of ruby-red.

Under the blood, however, the cross seemed to shine pure and autumn golden from within and the chain grew, spreading long like an uncoiling snake on both ends, until she fancied it was long enough to fit around the bear's neck.

Yes! There was an answer! She must, she supposed, let him wear it! She must put the cross around the bear's neck rather than simply press it to the wound.

If the cross would not heal his wound, it should – it ought to – do something to make this easier, to help.

Once the chain was securely fastened around the bear's thick, snowy neck, the clasp fixed in place, the poor creature yowled, as if in terrible pain – and Fanny, gasping and pressing her hand to her heart, jumped back – then put the uninjured paw over his nose in a gesture which would have been comical and full of whimsy under different circumstances.

Before her eyes, the bear's great white bulk began to shrink and to shift into another form.

There sprawled on the cold ground was indeed Tom Bertram. Fanny should have known him anywhere, even with his face turned and arm flung over it – it was her cousin, her husband, and no mistake.

The bound poacher started screaming his head off hysterically at this transformation until Sir Thomas – quite fed up – knocked him upside the head with his own rifle to shut him up.

"Well, I sincerely hope he is not actually dead," was the baronet's only dry comment. Then Sir Thomas nudged Fanny aside gently and picked his son up in his arms. "There. I have you. You're safe now, Tom. Let's get you to the house."

Tom pressed his face into his father's riding jacket, not for a moment forgetting to keep it concealed, and Fanny thought she heard something very surprising murmured, though the fine woollen fabric muffled it.

She thought she heard Tom choke out, "Thank you, Papa."

This was a thing she'd never heard prior.

Tom had called Sir Thomas 'papa' before, but not since he was very young, long, long before Fanny had ever come to live with them, when he was only a mischievous boy and not a disappointment or a cursed wastrel always at odds with his least-favourite parent.

For the first time, it no longer seemed to matter, all that Tom had done wrong, all the anger his father had had over his recent marriage, all of it was melted away in a twinkling and Tom might have been a little boy again, perhaps fallen from a tree with the result of a hurt limb, carried home by loving, concerned arms.

For many long, seemingly unending hours, Fanny was made to wait in the sitting room she and Tom now shared and fiddle anxiously with her hands in her lap while Sir Thomas and a physician he had called to the house attended to Tom in his bedroom.

They would have placed him in a different room to set him on the mend, rather than his own, certainly it had been no small feat to get him up the stairs, but Sir Thomas was afraid of his wife – or worse, Mrs. Norris, should she come calling – getting wind of Tom's being hurt and not understanding the cause, perhaps becoming hysterical.

It was rather to Fanny's great credit as a sensible woman, after all, Sir Thomas later decided, thinking it over, that she sat so quiet and gravely and never cried out or made any sort of distracting noise, not much sound at all, until the doctor came into the sitting room at the onset of evening and told her her husband wanted to see her.

Sir Thomas had fervently hoped the poacher's bullet only grazed Tom, but it seemed to be rather stuck farther in his arm than was reassuring to either himself or the grimacing physician with sweat beading upon his brow. It was lodged in flesh, not bone, and there was no reason to fear the worst, no reason not to hope, but removing it and binding the wound was tricky and Tom – unlike stoic Fanny in the next room – did rather cry and scream and make a fuss.

This seemed, however, to be more than the result of the wound – something else had left him in agony all day and he was not able to quell his shrieks of pain until the onset of evening when he begged his father to remove Fanny's cross from around his neck and place it on the mattress beside him.

Once the chain and the amber cross were removed, his breathing eased greatly, and he stopped being such a difficult patient.

Alone – as the doctor had just packed up his Gladstone bag and Sir Thomas had seen him out via the sitting room doors – Fanny stepped haltingly into Tom's bedroom.

How different the bed looked with the dark canopy tied back – such an alteration here!

Tom sat propped up against a pile of pillows, bare-chested, arm bandaged, masked, and looking at her, it seemed, very intently as she entered.

Thinking he must have some need his father and the doctor had forgotten to see to, Fanny asked, standing timidly at the foot of the bed, "Can I do anything?"

His lips curled into a smile. "I could do with a pretty face to look at – come, mouse, sit nearer by me and make me feel better."

Fanny wiped the sheen of pooling sweat from her palms upon the front of her dress and did as he asked, though she could not think how her company was meant to make his wound hurt less.

"So, my own little wifey," he said, taking up her hand and folding his own over her knuckles. "Now you know all – or nearly."

She coloured and looked away.

"Are you very cross with me for not telling you I was the bear?"

She shook her head, glancing to him again. "No, of course not – but now you don't have to be a bear half the time." She blinked. "That is how it works, is it not? That is why you're away from the house either all day or all night."

"Clever girl," he sighed. "Yes." He squeezed her hand. "But whatever has led you to believe I don't have to be a bear any longer? I told you the curse lasts seven years."

"But the necklace! William's cross! It turned you into a human again. I shall give it to you to keep for seven years and it–"

"Sweet Fanny, you are the best girl alive – I am gladder every day I married you and not that Ravenshaw clunch – but it is not so simple – have you any notion the pain I was in the entire time I wore your brother's cross on my neck and fought against the curse's will? And I couldn't jolly well remove it with the doctor here, knowing little how he would react if his patient became a bear as he tended to his wound! I was in pure agony for hours; I don't know I could stand it again. The witch would not make evasion so easy. This curse of mine has many ugly tenacles, I'm afraid." Releasing her hand, he picked up the chain and cross from beside him and put them in her palm. "You had best keep it for yourself. The magic doesn't hurt you."

This was the moment Fanny noticed – despite the poor lighting which had previously prevented her doing so – a dark line about Tom's neck, roughly in the place the necklace would have been.

It made her think of a sort of burn or bruise, only deeper, uglier.

Overcome with sympathy and sans any thought of consciousness, she reached out to touch his branded, singed neck, but was suddenly overcome by her own audacity and, regaining the consciousness she had failed to feel when she began to lift her hand, let it drop and inadvertently placed her trailing fingertips upon his chest.

Gone scarlet, she made to withdraw her hand, only he reached up gingerly with his own and held hers there.

His heart thumped with a greatly increased speed, and she was certain her heart must be racing twice as madly.

"Please," she choked out, unsure what the queer feeling, the odd fluttering in her stomach signified, only knowing she was very awkward indeed. "I–"

Without a word, he let his hand fall languidly to his side so she could pull hers free and sit upon it and try to calm her breathing.

She did have, Tom thought, the strangest way of carrying herself around him, now and again – he could not puzzle it out.

Unless, of course, despite the fact he would never truly harm her, for all his teasing – not his own innocent little Fanny who was to break his curse – and despite his attempts to set her at ease, it was simply...

"Do I frighten you?" he asked, after a few minutes had gone by in this muted fashion.

It caused her no small degree of discomfort, but Fanny was invariably truthful. "Yes," she admitted. "Yes, indeed. Sometimes very much."

"But not as a bear," he noted.

She shook her head. "No, not as a bear."

He chuckled, leaning back wearily, head lolling. "I suppose I ought to take it as a honey-fall, my chancing to marry the one woman who fears man's displeasure over that of a beast, given who and what I am forced to be."

Fanny did not reply to this, but she couldn't help thinking – and perhaps this was a mercy, so she dared not attempt to correct him – he had not understood her meaning at all.

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