Snowbear

A Mansfield Park and Pride & Prejudice fanfiction

Chapter Twenty-Nine:

Anyone who is not named Lydia Wickham (the perpetual mama's girl of the Bennet family) has, upon more than one occasion, found Mrs. Bennet to be, to put it mildly, a trifle overbearing – it has been mentioned already Edmund Bertram cringed when he saw her before him at the parsonage door, even as he honoured her greatly for her kind wishes towards her ill daughter, and her other sons gained by the marrying of her daughters had similar natural reflexes where she was concerned.

Mr. Bingley was not skilled at avoiding her, but he wished to do so even if he rarely succeeded and should never think of admitting it at the risk of wounding her and Jane's feelings. Although, there had been intense discussion – several, in fact – upon the subject – only a twelvemonth after Mr. and Mrs. Bingley were joined in wedded bliss – of permanently quitting Netherfield. Neither of them said, at least not in so many words (they were both too good-natured not to be ashamed and were thus driven to excessive euphemisms even between only themselves in their private rooms), it was in order to gain some distance from Mrs. Bennet, but some things really do go without saying. Of course, it came to nothing in the end; Mr. Bingley purchased a house near Derbyshire, in which they spent far less time than they would have liked, but another tenant for Netherfield was not forthcoming (certain wagging tongues blamed this on Mrs. Bennet, too) and most of their time was still divided between Hertfordshire and London. They might, more was the pity, expect a visit from Jane's mother at either home; she was liable to turn up on a whim – often for no better reason than that Mr. Bennet had hurt her feelings or one of her friends in Meryton had (allegedly) slighted her.

Mr. Darcy, in stark contrast to his friend, was wont to simply turn about on his heel and walk out of a room – regardless of if he had only just entered it – upon seeing Mrs. Bennet within, should he judge himself unequal to coping with her presence on a given day.

Mr. Wickham was more alike to Mr. Bennet in his preferred style of managing her – he drank; he drank, and he made dry jokes which all (or nearly all) went sailing directly over her head. He was more skilled than Mrs. Bennet's other sons, simply because he'd had more practice, living with Lydia. Charles Bingley, Fitzwilliam Darcy, and Edmund Bertram – in stark contrast to the veteran George Wickham – all had the great disadvantage of actually liking their respective wives.

More was the pity; their fondness kept them all quite green in the matter of managing their mother-in-law.

Mansfield Parsonage felt exceptionally small of a sudden, following Mrs. Bennet's acquisition of the spare room within it.

For the first time, Edmund began to dimly suspect Miss Crawford, regardless of whether she was as good as he once thought her or as wicked as he was forced to acknowledge she might be after that wretched letter to Fanny, was very possibly onto something – not about large incomes being a sure way to make one happy, no indeed, she was entirely wrong there, but if she'd found Dr. Grant a tenth part as trying as he found Mrs. Bennet during this difficult hour, he could at last understand (just a little) her longing to attach herself to a potential husband with a larger abode.

Although she was kinder than his aunt Norris, with an undeniably more tender countenance, and possessed no notable lean towards excessive frugality, the parsonage on the whole had not known such a storm of nerves and strong opinions as Mrs. Bennet brought with her since that aforementioned lady, newly widowed, had moved out of these walls and into the White House.

Despite his being her declared darling, Edmund was hit with the brunt of it, because – unlike Fanny – Mrs. Bennet couldn't understand her son's newly-adopted lethargy.

She was as sorry for Mary's being ill as anyone, she should not have come all this way if she weren't, but it seemed to her a very unmanly thing to do, to fall unresisting into such dull melancholy.

If he had been a plain gentleman, entirely unprepossessing, it might have been excusable, but she was of the mind a handsome person owed it to the world – on account of their face – to be a bright as their best features.

She certainly would never have won Mr. Bennet in her youth, however naturally pretty she'd been, if she had been dour and unsmiling. And his parents would never have allowed the match, surely, if she had been stupid instead of amiable in their presence, knowing their son might have done so much better.

Edmund Bertram really must learn, she declared, to think of others before subjecting them to his low spirits!

Mary's state of half consciousness most hours of the day spared her from the worst of her mother's impositions, that lady desiring nothing from her but leave to hold her hand, sniff becomingly while wiping at her eyes, and lament the unfairness of life on occasion. Fanny was almost spared herself, for no other reason than Mrs. Bennet had decided she liked her; it was true enough Fanny was no more spirited than Edmund was, her face generally not one whit merrier unless she was actively making the attempt, but the wife of a future baronet could get away – in her mind – with much more sombreness than a clergyman. Further, she was undeniably sweet, even when she was not outwardly felicitous, and it went a long way with a woman like Mrs. Bennet.

Her esteem for Fanny rather raised Edmund's opinion of her. He was quickly growing to be sorry he'd found her trying, even as she pushed him an inch closer to the abyss of utter madness every day she lived at the parsonage. He could not be tired of a lady who preferred his favourite sister's company. No one who loved Fanny well could truly vex him – excepting, perhaps, Tom.

But then there came a day when Mrs. Bennet's eye seemed to turn cold – when she could say nothing pleasant to Fanny and would humph if engaged by her.

It distressed Edmund as greatly as it perplexed him; Fanny herself (when he managed with difficulty to ask her about it) couldn't explain the change.

Even Mary noticed the growing coolness – she was made greatly unhappy when her mother took a bowl of broth Fanny had been spooning into her mouth from her sister's hands and actively shooed her away, as she might shoo an errant goose she expected to chase and bite her if not firmly dealt with, harshly insisting she would attend to her daughter, thank you, and she might see herself out of the room the same way she entered it.

"But Mama," she croaked with effort from her place in the bed.

"Now, now, Mary, don't be quarrelsome – have your soup like a good girl." She brought the spoon to her daughter's lip with less delicacy than Fanny had managed, spilling a little upon the bed's coverlet in the process. "We need to get you strong again."

"Fanny."

"We don't need her." And she would hear no further protestations, even so far as Mary was presently capable of making them.

Edmund realised – or rather he thought – he would have to break down and flatly ask Mrs. Bennet why she disliked Fanny so greatly of a sudden, why she had turned against her, and was actively dreading the seemingly inevitable conversation more than the delivery of any sermon he'd ever written, when he was spared the trouble by her bringing up the subject unpressed.

Sir Thomas had arrived to speak with Fanny, but as he remained in his carriage and they conversed outdoors (and Mrs. Bennet fancied the day to be unbearably windy, unable to understand why the baronet wouldn't display handsomer manners she was sure he must possess, one such as him, and come inside), this left Edmund and Mrs. Bennet seated quite alone by the fire.

She took this moment – letting her needlework fall to her lap – to lean in and hiss in harried alarm, "Mr. Bertram, I am very sorry to say it – very sorry indeed – but you have a most dreadful schemer in your household. My poor nerves were put to the test – I thought they should have been the death of me – when I discovered this! I have been waiting many days for an opportunity of making you aware and, by my soul, I never dreamed–"

"But" – he almost laughed, in spite of himself – "whoever can you mean, Mrs. Bennet? Discounting Baby James, there is only you and myself here at present. You must allow that the numbers alone are against such a betrayal as you would describe."

"It is that insipid Fanny Bertram, I mean – I daresay she is pretty enough for a baronet, and I don't judge your brother for picking her out, but I do declare I never knew such a double-dealer in all my days! The cheek of her! Such cheek, Mr. Bertram!"

"Madam!" Edmund was aghast. "You lie." His voice lowered itself into a more diplomatic tone. "Or, more likely, you are deceived."

She shook her head. "Do not, am not. It is you who is sadly deceived. I have discovered a letter, in which she schemes to replace my poor little Mary with her pretty heiress friend as soon as she is quit this world and entered the glory of the next."

Now Edmund did laugh – he laughed so heartily, head thrown back and shoulders set to violently shaking, Mrs. Bennet thought he was out of his wits and began to sob into her handkerchief. Was there ever one so unfortunate as herself? To be wretchedly cursed with a sick daughter being preyed upon by the friend of an heiress, and then to discover her poor stepson was driven mad into the bargain.

It would have taken Edmund – who would have been a good deal more cross with his mother-in-law for reading letters addressed to other persons if the situation did not strike him as so hilariously absurd he couldn't muster up true anger at it – far less time to explain all to Mrs. Bennet's satisfaction if she would have stopped crying so loudly.

In the end, however, he finally persuaded her all the scheming was on Miss Crawford's side – Fanny was not her cunning confidant, and she had showed him the offending letter herself, leaving no secrets between them.

"I ought to have permitted her to burn the wretched missive," he sighed, wiping tears of mirth – the first he'd shed in longer than he could properly recollect – from his eyes with the back of his wrist. "She wished to, asked for my consent to do just that, but I urged her to keep the letter intact a while longer. I fear I am responsible for this error, Mrs. Bennet. Ah, poor Fanny."

Poor Fanny indeed.

No sooner had she come back inside the parsonage after speaking to Sir Thomas than she was engulfed by Mrs. Bennet's thick arms as the older woman fairly smothered her against her heaving breasts and, crying out at the top of her voice, begged her forgiveness for thinking so badly of her when she had been nothing but loving-kindness and toiled so to make her darling Mary happy.

Fanny assured her, when she'd got breath enough into her lungs to do so, there was nothing to forgive, but the result was still Mrs. Bennet doubled down on doting upon her.

And as only Lydia Wickham ever could bear the strain of being Mrs. Bennet's favourite, this proved to be a cure almost as bad as the complaint, if not a little more trying.

It was easier, a good deal easier, to be ignored – to be snubbed – by Mrs. Bennet than it was to be petted and fussed over by her at every turn.

To Fanny's credit, she found the relief of her conscience, the security of knowing she was not despised any longer for some unknown reason, almost worth the added bother.

Further, having been sorely neglected by her own mother, there was a part of her which could not help but respond with true, unaffected pleasure to Mrs. Bennet's endless need to make much of her.

By the time they were to be parted – Mary was able then to sit up and even to go outside to walk for an hour a day if supported upon Edmund's arm – Fanny and Mrs. Bennet had become unexpected but firm friends with one another.

At their parting, Fanny presented her with a very prettily written-out recipe for an herb-laden concoction meant to ease rattled nerves and promote calmness, and Mrs. Bennet gave her a length of some exceedingly fine lace she promised would look fetching as added trimming upon any bonnet or ballgown. Mrs. Bennet swore, too, this lace would set off Fanny's light eyes to a striking advantage. She was certain Mr. Bertram (here she referred to Tom, of course, not Edmund) should admire it. A compliment to which Fanny's only reaction could be to bow her head a little, blaming the sun in her eyes, and try not to cry.

"Well, Fanny," sighed Edmund, as Mrs. Bennet rushed away from the parsonage, that lady's head still visible as a shape hanging from the carriage window long after it was out of earshot, "now you know what sort of mother it was I acquired by my marriage. I wish I could say I did not blush at being so found out."

"She's a good soul, Edmund," said Fanny loyally. "I have known far more disagreeable people." After biting her lower lip, considering her next words, she murmured, eyes downcast, "You once advised me it should be a good thing if I lived with one whose behaviour I find much more distressing than hers."

Edmund was uncertain whether Fanny referred to Aunt Norris or to Henry Crawford by this but did not ask which she meant – as far as he was concerned, it did not matter. In either case, he had advised her ill and he, by his silence on the matter, fervently thanked God she was so forgiving.

"Edmund," Fanny spoke again, after she discerned he would not question her last statement, "would you think me very ungrateful if I was to–" She broke off, faltering. He had turned at the neck to look at her and his gentle visage sunk her courage. "To..." She swallowed and tried again. "T-to go away for a time?"

He was pained to lose her, of course, but her desperation was too evident for him to deny her. He understood at once. "You mean to look for Tom."

"Yes."

"My father–"

"D'you remember the day Mrs. Bennet was set right about Miss Crawford's letter, when I was outside with your father?"

"Oh, yes – vividly." He managed a smile. "It is quite impressed upon my mind for all time right up until God's Day of Judgement."

Her cheeks coloured. "Well, he told me that day he may have cause for travelling to town soon." He had also told her not to tell Edmund what business he had there; her tongue was made heavy by the forced omission. "There may be no other convenient time for me to–"

"Has he discovered Tom's whereabouts?"

Fanny shook her head; her shoulders sagged.

"Well, never mind it, then – but if you must go, Fanny, you have my blessing – and Mary's, too, I daresay."

"You will not suffer without me?"

"Oh, depend upon it, we will – we shall miss you each moment you're away and so we must indeed suffer greatly – you have the knack, sister, for making people love you and miss you without end."

"I feel – I have felt, all this time – as if I have only the knack for spoiling everything."

"My brother loves you still – he must."

Fanny glanced down at opal ring on her finger. "I took everything from him, in one moment's foolishness."

"He never had anything worth taking before he gained you, Fanny – before he had your affections. The curse was an amusing lark to him before that – a trifling nuisance he never thought of beyond my father's expressed displeasure of it. Cannot that knowledge of your importance to him comfort you a little? Will you deny your own worth even when it might spare your heart?"

"You are kind" – taking his hand – "to think of me so."

"Would only that you were half so kind to yourself – but go, go if you must and make amends."

Fanny's greatest sorrow at quitting Mansfield Parsonage was not the loss of Mary, or even Edmund (and this surprised her, for there was little in this world which could touch, let alone outrank, the love she felt, in whatever form was appropriate to the moment, that burning longing faded years before into the sisterly affection he'd always supposed her to have, for him); nay, the baby James was the most regretted...

He, little unwitting tyrant in a cradle, trumped both his parents.

Fanny had been, in many ways, James' most reliable source of love. Edmund loved his son, but his fear for his wife's life coupled with natural reserve had made this love a much filtered and gently dripped thing; Mary loved in silence and distant good-will for so much of the baby's earliest days because she was too ill to do otherwise; Mrs. Bennet, when she had been present, loved in wild spurts, mad about the sweet, dark little grandchild and fiercely proud of him, but she could not be constant. Yet Fanny's arms had always been waiting, when the wet nurse from the village had done with him, and her affection for Edmund's child knew no bounds or restraint.

She would have, no doubt, adored any baby placed under her care (Fanny was, from her earliest childhood, quite naturally the embodiment of the heroic youth who unabashedly nurses dormice, feeds canaries, and waters rose-bushes without any hint of irony, self-awareness, or expectation of reward, so it was only par for the course she should love anything small enough to be named as baby – she should dote unceasingly upon Baby Anybody), especially after losing the care of her own three loves as she had, but that it was Edmund's child made it so much more.

To kiss the tiny forehead in farewell thinking God only knew when they would meet again was almost more than she could bear, and she cried bitterly as she did so.

Oh, but the world – and Tom, somewhere in it – awaited her and could be put off no longer!

Sir Thomas' reason for going to town – the reason deliberately kept from Edmund and from Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram, shared only in confidence with Fanny herself – was to do with Julia.

The day Fanny and Sir Thomas had spoken outside, he told her he'd had a distressing letter from his relations in Bloomsbury; Julia had been caught in a compromising position – the letter did not name specifics beyond this – with Mr. Yates, and Mr. Yates had subsequently been ordered to quit the house near Bedford Square, forbade ever to return there again. They'd asked Sir Thomas in their letter if he thought it cause for sending Julia back; they would keep her, gladly, she had evidently not shamed herself beyond their wanting her with them, the scandal was private enough to spare them such dramatics, yet if he thought it best she be with her own mother at such a time as this they should have her packed and sent home to Northamptonshire.

He did not ask them to send her home, something instinctively made him feel it was already too late for such measures, but as the letter intimated Julia was behaving queerly at the time of its being written, he began to suspect – with more and more anxious certainty – he should in very little time receive a second letter, one he dreaded, of further developments.

And so it had happened, by and by.

John Yates had been seen again after his banishment, skulking about the place in a most ungentlemanly fashion, was warned off several times, and finally – the last time – he had evidently gone away with his prize; Julia disappeared the same night.

It was to be hoped this was an elopement, not a seduction, but with Julia gone so quickly no one could really say.

Sir Thomas was at his ease, at least, it was not a kidnapping – Julia might be a very foolish girl to go willingly, but John Yates was much too stupid a person to successfully kidnap anyone.

It was far easier to believe Julia indiscreet and led astray than it was to believe Yates was cunning.

It crushed Fanny's heart, crushed it absolutely, to hear Sir Thomas – quite absently, without a thought to wounding, or to meaning anything in particular – say he was glad his eldest daughter had avoided such shame.

If only he knew!

She was both glad he did not, glad he should take peace of mind from some quarter, though she was greatly sorrowed it must be a false one, and achingly sorry he was being made of a fool of by the dreadful secret of Henry Crawford and Maria.

Nonetheless, he was off to London to discover the truth of Julia's disappearance, if he could, and it was advisable for Fanny to come along so they could look for Tom into the bargain as well.

Sir Thomas usually had an agreeable experience (within reason) travelling post; he had expected this time to be no different in that regard.

In this expectation, he was gravely disappointed.

A broken wheel and an injured horse on the way to London involved, by necessity, a change of carriage and resulted in cramped accommodations with other passengers – a real superfluity of other passengers, quite beyond the number of those they'd set out with initially – who had been within the second carriage already.

Bitterly did the baronet regret not simply taking his own carriage and having Wilcox drive himself and Fanny about privately; this should have been the easiest way, and it was his first notion – he could not recollect for the life of him why he had abandoned it.

The worst of it was one of the women in the carriage was frightfully unwell – she coughed and wheezed and dripped with perspiration and looked near-ready to faint dead away at any given moment. This woman was seated far too close to Fanny in particular, though none were safe from her in such a limited space, and by the time they were getting to be near town – around the onset of what was to be a very dark evening – Sir Thomas could not deny his daughter was looking very poorly herself.

A night's rest, he hoped, would cure her and prevent her getting any worse, and so he brought Fanny to a modest but respectable inn he himself had stayed at many nights on his way to London to deal with parliamentary matters, whenever he had not quite reached the heart of town in time for more elaborate accommodations.

Alas, the next morning, Sir Thomas was distressed she did not join him downstairs for breakfast with the other guests and realised she must not have recovered after all.

He wished he had thought to bring Sally Robins with them – he'd supposed Fanny, raised as she had been, with less luxuries than Maria and Julia enjoyed, could dress and undress herself without the help of a maid, and so did not bother to employ her; only he regretted his choice now he realised he should have to go to her, while she might still be abed and undressed, and it could be potentially embarrassing to them both.

Still, dire circumstances seemed to have come upon them – they must be dealt with – and he must buck up and resign himself to nursing her if she needed it.

Upon going upstairs to her room, he discovered her to be far worse even than he'd feared.

Fanny, pale and shivering, was scarcely able to rise from her bed; she opened her eyes and looked at him, yet her expression gave no real indication she saw him.

"By God – she could scarcely be warmer if she were set on fire!" cried Sir Thomas, placing a large cool hand upon her burning brow. "Shh, my child, shhh..." She had begun to moan and to toss her head side to side against the pillow. "There, now. Everything is well, but you mustn't think of moving or exerting yourself. You must rest. I shall be back in an hour with a physician to attend you."

He was some time in finding one – longer, it must be admitted, than the promised hour – but in the end he came with the physician by his side and was feeling sure everything was soon to be set to rights.

To his horror, upon bringing the doctor up the stairs, the room proved to be empty; the linens were rumpled and damp but presently unoccupied – there was no Fanny anywhere in sight.

A mad rush back down the stairs to find the innkeeper ensued, and Sir Thomas was never angrier in his life than at what he was then told.

"Why, sir," said the innkeeper, gawking at the livid baronet plaintively, "she was taken away after you'd gone – by a gentleman as said he was a friend of her brother's. Didn't leave his name, o' course, but I thought it must be all right – I thought you must have sent 'im for her yourself, to be sure, when you didn't find the doctor straightaway."

"I did nothing of the kind!" cried Sir Thomas, his terror making his voice higher than usual. "Why should I send someone when I had faithfully promised to return myself? All you tell me now is that you permitted a stranger – yes, indeed, a stranger – to kidnap my daughter in my absence. The incompetence we shan't touch upon, we should never leave off if we did – but the danger – the reckless danger – you put your guests in! I blush for–"

"But he weren't a stranger," protested the innkeeper, whose wide eyes suggested true fear of Sir Thomas possibly striking him. "He weren't. He knew her – anyone could see it in his face, his knowing her – the first moment he ever saw her. Said he was a friend to her brother, as I told you."

"And, how, pray, did this man come to see her?" Sir Thomas demanded, spinning round and whirling tempestuously upon the innkeeper, though he did not – yet – raise a hand to hit him. "Did you permit this stranger entry into her room? Into a lady's room?"

"No – no, to be sure, I did not – don't proper know what manner of establishment would do a thing like that – only the lady herself, dazed, came a-stumbling down the stairs, in her nightdress, muttering and mumbling and shaking all over, and I had my wife set her upon the sofa and gave her a blanket t'cover herself afore she could be hurt by some accident. That is when the gentleman came in, all right and proper, saw her sitting there, knew her at a glance, turned quite white, then – colouring over again – spoke as if she were his business here entirely."

"And then?"

"Why, then, sir, he simply picked her up in his arms and carried her on out – to his waiting carriage, I expect." He added, flinching self-consciously, "She never fought him, nor acted the slightest bit distressed. I should've taken her back from him and had the law after him quick as anythin' if she did."

"I daresay she did not know him any better than she knew herself this morning!" exclaimed Sir Thomas, a vein in his neck bulging. "She was too ill to dress or to take notice of where she was, yet you – you foolish, irresponsible man – judge her capable of going off consensually with a strange gentleman who claimed to know her brother?"

"When it's put to me in such a manner as that, well..." began the innkeeper, faltering. "I were right and proper convinced no harm was done at the time."

"And that makes it all right, does it?" demanded Sir Thomas, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, his grim expression a vain attempt to mask his despair, to conceal from the small crowd of eyes which had gathered to watch him berate the foolish innkeeper how he was fast descending into hopeless misery.

He was wondering, quite forlorn, where the deuce he must now start looking for Fanny.

What if he should have no better luck finding her – or Julia, for that matter – than he did Tom?

AN: Reviews welcome, my replies could be delayed.