Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Fifteen:

Before Antigua, Tom had spent so little of his time at home that he could be only nominally missed when he and his father left.

As one cursed, forced to decline many an invitation from a great number of old acquaintances, who, if they were not willing to come to his wedding, certainly had no objection to asking him and his new wife to travel out of their way and visit them when there was nobody preferable to ask instead, he began to grow irritable at the confinement.

His good humour towards Fanny lessened as his impatience to have things restored again, to have them as they once would have been, increased.

He played cards or draughts only at her now habitual suggestion – with an air, almost, of something like resentment – and no longer offered up any games or self-made entertainments of his own volition.

He paced endlessly – sitting room, drawing-room, it made no difference, his feet all but wore out the floor with his going back and forth, back and forth, often muttering or grumbling, if his father were not in earshot and he thought he could get away with it.

Both Sir Thomas and Edmund became gradually aware of Tom's recent, seemingly entirely unprovoked, curtness towards his wife and cautioned him to continue in kindness and not to take out his sudden shifting moods on Fanny, who was – after all – doing exactly what was required of her to rid him of the curse he'd finally found reason, beyond the former inconveniences, to wish away.

Tom, feeling chided, made some remark – quite unluckily within Fanny's hearing – about her hardly suffering in marriage to him.

She was, he declared, more fortunate than otherwise and had only herself to blame if she could not bear a little despondency now and again in a husband who put up with her sulking very well indeed.

Mary, seeing he was being tyrannical and her sister-in-law was on the verge of tears, left Edmund's side and went over to Fanny's seat and asked her to take a turn about the room, airily adding – with a cold glance in Tom's direction – how she hoped a certain disobliging person in the room would not bump into them since he'd been doing nothing but taking turns of his own about the same length of carpet all evening.

"If I were you, I would say nothing about his behaviour when you're alone tonight," suggested Mary, as she took her arm, and they began to move away from the others. "He is just like Lydia whenever she was in a contrary humour – you ought to have seen how wickedly she acted when our father wouldn't take us all to Brighton to follow the regiment. Though, in fairness, our mother acted little better. My advice is to say nothing to Mr. Bertram, not a single word, until he is willing to be civil in soliciting your opinion; then, when he is apologizing for his tyranny, be all wifely Christian submission and meekness."

Fanny indeed planned to say nothing, not because Mary advised it, but because she did not wish to provoke him further, and – more than that – was feeling as if she must have done something to make herself unpleasant.

Something to vex him.

Otherwise, why should Tom mention her being sulky? Was he out of temper, of a sudden, over how she had acted after he kissed her? She'd really believed they had put that unpleasantness firmly behind them.

"I must have made myself very disagreeable to Tom, I think," murmured Fanny, scarcely realising who she was speaking to (for she was the last person who thought it right to disparage one's husband to someone who did not, at the best of times, have the finest personal opinion of him – loyalty must always prevail in such matters, even between good friends) or even that she was speaking aloud, "or he should never have said such things."

Edmund, hearing part of this speech in passing, was angry on behalf of his favourite sister and would have cornered Tom and not let up until he saw how very badly done it all was, if only he thought it would do any good – he was too angry to imagine he could be rational a second time this evening and bring his brother to his senses – he did not trust himself, in all frankness – and so he only clenched his hands, breathed slowly in and out, and then picked up a battered Bible and pretended to read.

It was Roger Smith, of all surprising persons, who finally brought Tom to his senses.

He had been in the drawing-room, waiting for Tom to tell him to do something, because his master had become so crotchety that, if his valet were to walk off without permission, he might very well break a bell in summoning him back again. If Smith had successfully made himself scarce from the first, Tom would not have thought of him, but once he was present, he was as much a victim as anyone else within his line of vision. At any rate, what was done was done, and – for all he usually had a cool disdain for his master – Smith was almost sorry for him this evening; he was sorry to see any man make things so much more difficult and disagreeable for himself unaided. Smith felt it was rather his task to make Tom irritated by many a reoccurring series of small inconveniences, and he did not look too kindly on being put out of an occupation by seemingly nothing which was even tangible. If he was prone to making Fanny uncomfortable, out of a fairly benign sense of spite, he at least had to admit she had done nothing to personally earn his ire. He decided, after a short moment of thinking it over, that seeing Tom – who, such a short while ago, had been by all accounts reasonably aware of his wife's superiority, at least in regard to what he conceivably might have been leg-shackled to – treating her as nearly disposable was not a thing he liked.

So, finding himself in the billiard-room with his master less than an hour later, holding his drink, he cleared his throat until he was acknowledged.

At first, Tom ignored him, rambling on quite irrationally about the shabbiness of the room. "Such a horridly vile billiard-table as ours is not to be met with in other houses! Nothing shall ever tempt me to it again." And he knocked over a mace with a noisy clatter. "Phoo."

Smith coughed.

"Dash it, Smith, what is the matter?" He grumbled, "You're worse than Mary. Drink some bloody water and leave off."

"Sir, what are you thinking of?"

He frowned. "I do not understand you."

"D'you imagine your wife is friendless enough she will remain at your side – all obliging, despite your temper – and end your curse no matter what? She may let elect to leave you, should she be invited to a better home. Or to violate the terms of your enchantment and have it done with, leave you cursed and herself free in one easy action. One lit candle in the dark, the smell of burning tallow, and one quick look when you're sleeping – that's all it would take." The valet rolled back his shoulders coolly. "I could choose to loan her my own tinderbox and have done with waiting."

"I declare you make very free – as if anything at all were permissible for you in this house and still you might retain your position! But you can't speak to me in this manner and get away with it," cried Tom, outraged. "And furthermore," he began to extol Fanny's many virtues and her steadfastness at length and to declare she should never be tempted to harm him, nothing would – nay, could – ever induce her.

Smith bowed, smirking, and asked if that would be all.

"It will not 'be all', by Jove!" But the seeds had already been planted in his mind to soften him again towards Fanny and – by extension of his real attention being directed elsewhere – forgive Smith's talking to him as one well above his station.

Or, perhaps, Smith did something to his master to make him forget the conversation itself ever occurred while his change in thoughts from it remained perfectly intact – the valet, a man of many unexplained abilities, was very capable of doing exactly that, indeed had done it at least half a dozen times prior without Tom's even once catching on.

Meek as a lamb, Tom rejoined the others, declared he would play something for them all on the pianoforte to cut up the monotony and, very nicely, asked Fanny to come and turn the pages for him.

Mary was put out, because she'd offered to do the same and been declined multiple times, while Tom – who, she held, played not much better than herself – was lauded as if he had this very night invented music as a personal gift to the family. Edmund calmed her by whispering how it was only done in such a fashion to keep Tom in good temper, that they all knew what was due to her and meant no insult. When the frown did not leave her face, and she seemed near ready to cry, he put his arm around his wife and promised her she should have her own instrument at Thornton Lacey and play whenever she liked.

Whatever the cost, he would find a way to have one brought in and tuned for her. (Privately, he thought this would, of course, mean he'd do a great deal of his sermon writing out of doors, perhaps in the garden.)

Two things occurred in the days which followed, and Tom's head and heart were equally turned by them both.

First, an invitation came from the Bingleys.

They were still at their London residence at present and, planning to remain there well into springtime, were expecting a visit from the new Mrs. Owen at the aforementioned change in season and were holding a ball for her sake.

Charles Bingley understood, of course, Tom would need certain accommodations in order to attend, but if he could arrange for these, and they had great hope of being able to, surely, he and his wife would come and stay a week and attend the ball?

They should be very glad to have them.

Tom all but whooped aloud and dashed down several hallways to find Fanny and inform her they would be going to London together in the spring.

"It is exactly the right time for it, mousy," he declared. "Summer in town is dreadful, hot and odorous, no one with sense would be there then if they could avoid it, but early spring in town is delightful – and you have never been!"

Fanny did not share her husband's enthusiasm. She loved springtime in the country, was loath to miss the first flowers and the slow increase in daylight and the return of many birds of which she was irrevocably fond. Never had she particularly wanted to go to London, even when Maria and Julia – and later Miss Crawford – had told her of its many pleasures, but she could concede, while living there full-time should make her miserable, it might be interesting for a single afternoon. A whole week, however, seemed long enough to inspire homesickness, especially when Tom could not be with her during the day, and she certainly couldn't go about the place unescorted.

Worse, she was anxious as anything when Tom hastily, as if it were of scant importance, explained Bingley would very likely keep him locked in a large room, sedated with doses of laudanum, during the day when he must be a bear.

Then, he'd explained, he could make merry with them all at night when he changed back.

This plan struck Fanny as unsafe, and a terrible risk to take merely to attend a ball and visit town.

Tom waved off this objection, insisting there was no danger of his being harmed, she must make herself easy about that, because he knew of many delicate women who took several drops of laudanum a day for medical complaints, and nothing worrisome befell them. How much less likely was it to affect a healthy gentleman whose only real affliction was a magical one?

She could not agree. "S-supposing," she'd stammered, "you grow to like it – to become dependant upon it? I have read it can happen."

"Not to me; not in a week's time – you worry for nothing."

Fanny longed to beg she be left behind – he could attend the ball on his own and she should be glad to stay with his mother and father, and with Edmund and Mary.

But then, the curse.

Tom needed her beside him every night for seven years – he wouldn't lose a full week willingly.

So, go she must, and she tried very hard to be cheerful about it so he could not complain she was sulking and oppressing his spirits.

However, if Fanny showed little real enthusiasm for a trip to London, Tom didn't notice – he was too busy planning what they would see, even if they must see it at night, and imagining how it all would be. He had never shown a green girl around town before and the idea – so long as it were Fanny – was far from being abhorrent to him as a diverting novelty.

The second thing to turn Tom completely around until he did not know his right from his left was the shocking realisation – after much meditation, as both a bear and a man, upon the virtues of Fanny he had first named to his valet in her defence – that he was a man in love.

He attempted, initially, to laugh it off and put it from his mind entirely – the idea of being in love with Fanny was too absurd, quite impossible, but the notion – once dwelt on a little – would insist upon being dwelt on considerably more until he must admit, at least to himself, its value and truth.

Rather than come straight home in the evening after his transformation one day, Tom lingered in Mansfield Wood, resting against the trunk of a knobby tree and letting himself adjust.

As there was nobody to hear him, he said it aloud. "I am in love with Fanny." There was no wrongness in the sound of the words.

It occurred to him, while still leaning there, that there could be no better object for the love of a man to fall upon, quite spontaneously, than his own wife.

None of the nasty bother of a setting up a mistress, something Tom knew he'd never have had time and inclination enough for even if his heart's chief object had been a woman outside of the marriage, and every single hope of remaining close to the lady who inspired his sudden rush of devotion. She could not marry another, breaking his heart and leaving him desolate, when she already wore his ring and bore his name. This was most convenient indeed!

His spirits were raised so high by this, he rather frightened Sally, who sought out Edmund to ask whether his brother had at last taken complete leave of his senses.

"What's he done?" Edmund asked her, furrowing his brow.

"He came into the kitchen, sir, sort of dancing – I thought he must have eaten Hull cheese, as it were – and announced how, if we pleased, any of us servants who were in love could stop whatever they were doing and take a half holiday. Then he kissed both Cook and Mrs. Baddeley afore swannin' off again."

When Tom was questioned about this strange behaviour by his brother, while neither confirming nor denying he'd done as Sally – or Sarah, as he still called her – had said he'd done, was deliberately obtuse and maintained there was nothing the matter with the estate's heir giving the servants a few hours' blind-eye to shirk their work, if indeed such an event had occurred below stairs.

Edmund could get nothing like a serious answer from him, could make no sense of it, and was obliged to give up his enquiry still unsatisfied.

Tom's bright hopes dimmed – albeit only a little – that night when he saw Fanny for the first time since realising how he felt and coming to terms with it.

She had retired early, fearing the beginnings of a headache, and was asleep in a chair in the sitting room by a fire about to go out.

Tom cheered up the fire a bit, stoking it until it resumed making the room warmer, then wandered to where Fanny dozed. She was in her dressing-gown and nightclothes and her hair was unbound, falling about her shoulders and over part of her face in very pretty curls.

The temptation to smooth these curls away from her face was too strong to be resisted, and, as it seemed a natural enough impulse, he was soon stroking her hair very affectionately.

She woke – opening one eye first, her breathing quickening in alarm – and realised, fairly quickly, it was Tom bent above her, playing with her hair and then pressing two fingers together and running them along her cheek; his facial expression was hidden by his mask, though what she could see of his eyes from behind the slits was oddly intense.

She did not repel him, did not cry out, "What are you doing?" but the bewilderment, the plain incomprehension, upon her face as she slowly sat up in her seat and stared at him was almost as bad as if she had.

Tom was torn between fears he might be a scoundrel, a bully, behaving no better than Henry Crawford, hoping to solicit love where there was none simply because he realised he was more than capable of it from his own self and that small glimmer of hope it was not so.

When he'd kissed her, while everybody was away for Edmund's wedding, she had begun to respond – he was certain she had – and, in considering the past, he was almost, almost hopeful a look or two of hers had been admiring towards his person.

And if he had never treated her as well as she deserved, he had done nothing so bad her morals would be unable to overlook it in time. If his change – so suddenly – in belief, going from declaring himself unromantic to being madly in love seemingly over the course of one absent day, was as out of the blue as Crawford's had once been, at least he had not transferred these affections from another woman to her. He hadn't slighted anybody or broken a heart and then demanded hers as if he had an automatic right to it. Before today, there had been nobody, he was not in love and did not expect to be, and now, tonight, there was Fanny, looking at him so severely, and he believed himself even more deeply in love than he'd been an hour prior.

Better, whatever he had done for Fanny herself, while sometimes tinged with a selfish motive, had had no base motive – Mr. Crawford had seemingly assisted in William's promotion with the view to having Fanny for himself, a natural exchange for her gratitude, and had – when you broke his actions down – behaved little better than if he were paying a whore in favours rather than with money.

The netting-boxes and other trifling presents, given to her since childhood, were never gifted with expectation of being repaid. If anything, it was a The Lion and The Mouse situation; Tom never imagined she would be in a position to give him anything, nor that he would want anything from her.

With all this in mind, Tom led himself to believe – and then to really hope – he could begin the courtship of his own wife – out of order, but none the worse for that – with a clear conscience.

And what did Fanny think?

When she first awoke to him stroking her hair, she'd thought he must have had too much wine at dinner – he had been enjoying the claret very liberally at the table as of late and it hadn't escaped her notice – and was not entirely in possession of himself. Drink made many men indulgent and sentimental. Her own father, while usually made belligerent from his drinking, occasionally happened to swallow something which caused him an increase in physical displays of affection for his family. She thought Tom must be much the same.

Only, what was she to make of his actions later, the next night, and the next?

One night, he brought her – most perplexingly – a handsome tulip in a clay pot. Obviously, he had stolen it from the hothouse, but as he was the future owner of the hothouse as much as everything else in Mansfield Park, he might be judged within his rights to do so. And he presented it to Fanny with such eager good will she had to smile and agree, yes, she should like to see the flower placed in the sitting room, yes, she might look at it when he was away during the day and think of the giver, certainly she would if he wished it.

There was nearly a riot in the drawing-room not two days after, however, when Mrs. Norris, hands at her throat and tears shining in her eyes, claimed the valuable all-white tulip Sir Thomas had promised would be hers when it blossomed at last was disappeared from the hothouse.

She feared it marked an uprise in burglaries. She'd heard of chickens being poached in the next county over.

What else was Fanny to do but solicit Mary – as soon as her aunt had gone back to the White House – to help her lift the clay pot and bring it back to the hothouse with as much stealth as two awkward young women tripping over their skirts and stumbling every step of the way could manage together?

There was a long crack in the pot (Mary had dropped her side twice) by the time they'd returned it to its rightful place, but otherwise nothing was amiss.

Tom knew nothing of this and was mildly hurt to discover Fanny had removed the tulip, his thoughtful gift to her, from their sitting room.

This was not, as his aunt would have said, a very promising beginning.

He made a very decided point of talking to her at length, holding her attention, in the evenings, but unfortunately, Fanny couldn't see any marked difference in his current conversation – still primarily about horses and punctuated with his reaching out to touch her arm or pat her hand in all the correct places – and all the nightly conversations they'd had prior.

It was very easy for her to recognise and identify flirting when it was Henry making love to Maria during the play, or Miss Crawford clinging to Edmund's hand when he helped her down from the mare, but not half so easy when it was Tom simply behaving as he nearly always did, save for tiny alterations which might have existed only within his own biased perception.

A new scheme was then dreamt up.

If Tom could not make Fanny notice him here, among all the others, he would doubtless have a greater chance of success in London, where as well as her husband he would be her guide and only serious acquaintance.

Many a young lady had fallen in love with her dancing partner at a ball, some of them already married (though, in fairness, rarely enough with their own husbands, but he judged this to be entirely beside the point), and Bingley's ball was as good as any other.

He did not care a whit if it was not the style, the agreed upon fashion, for a husband and wife to stand up together these days, and he had every intention of standing up with Fanny as often as she would wish it.

And he hoped, if her health would allow it, she would scarcely desire to sit out a single dance.

The journey to London would take nearly seven hours, and they must arrive before dawn and, upon said arrival, be brought inside by their hosts with all possible discretion, well before Tom's daily transformation began.

It seemed only natural to Fanny, when – seated beside her – Tom sighed – as soon as the carriage started moving in the dark – and, rolling onto his back, placed his head in her lap, gazing up at her from behind the slits of his mask.

How tired he was, she thought. And rightly so!

Certainly, she knew he must be fagged, poor man, having spent all day as a bear and then not being granted even a single hour's respite in his reassumed form as a man because he must help carrying out the boxes and trunks and valises (the servants would never have gotten it done in time, some of them openly resenting having to do so at the hour requested, and Mr. Smith was gone away somewhere in Northampton again) before kissing his mother and their aunt – who would detain him in order to complain about everything she could recollect having vexed her throughout the day in his absence, most of it the sole fault of Mary or Fanny or both, it would seem – and bidding them adieu.

"Come, come. You really must let me go now, Aunt Norris," he had said at last, yanking his arm free of her grasp. "Or I shall be late and make rather a good deal of trouble for Mr. Bingley."

That most of the luggage consisted of Tom's own belongings (Fanny herself brought along little, not yet acclimatised enough with her new station as Mrs. Bertram to think it a deprivation or an uneven arrangement) did not signify – she still felt sorry for him.

It truly never occurred to her even then – no, not in so much as a single passing, instinctual thought – he was being a shameless flirt.

After all, why should Tom flirt with her?

The very author of the scheme which brought about their marriage of convenience, not to mention utterly impervious to the encumbrance of romance now he was a married gentleman as well as a cursed one?

No, not he.

More than any other feeling, though she feared she might be ungrateful in such unhappy thoughts, all the while knowing Tom – despite the price he would pay to have his holiday – was desperately looking forward to it, Fanny wanted this visit to town to be over and done with; she longed to be returning to Mansfield rather than going away from it.

A/N: reviews welcomed; replies could be delayed.