Merriment & Wisdom

A Mansfield Park fanfiction

Part Two:

With Love, From Portsmouth

Tom was obliged to wait outside the door of the Prices' residence several minutes longer than he'd anticipated. He had some hope of introducing himself and Mr. Yates – who was, for his own part, growing rather uneasy and doubtless very much regretting having put this notion into his companion's head to begin with – when the door swung open at last and a servant girl of some sort in a crooked cap and dusty apron emerged dragging a pig by the scruff of his neck and swearing profusely while three little boys (whose faces all looked like they'd been rubbed over with soot from the fireplace) sobbed and begged her to let them keep the snorting, oinking animal.

But instead of being noticed and invited in, Tom was backed out into the narrow street and Yates – a step or two behind him – was then forced to decide if he preferred to have the toe of his boot run over by a cart's wheel or a by heavy hoof.

The door was left ajar, and a pert little girl's voice – with a superior nasality in its high-pitched tone – bleated, "Mum-mah! Rebecca has left the door open again."

"We've got the wrong house," Yates suggested.

"It's the right place, I tell you," insisted Tom, rolling his eyes. "Depend upon it."

The tattle-tale girl's face appeared in the gap between the open door and the dark home within – it was cleaner and whiter than the boys' had been, but not by much. She had light eyes like the two sisters Tom had met already, but her hair was darker and much longer. Her dress was shorter and shapeless, and her – very visible – feet were bare.

Tom cleared his throat and removed his top hat. "Good afternoon."

"What're you wanting, then?" sniffed the girl.

"I've come to call on..." He paused, reflecting. Would it be acceptable to simply say 'Fanny', since he recalled her name as her sister said it at the dance? Or must he say Miss Price? Surely it could not make too much difference to these sorts of persons. But the little girl herself was surely also a Miss Price, as was the one who'd snubbed him at the harbour, and if he wanted the elder, sickly one, he must surely find some way to make himself more clear in his meaning. As the eldest girl in the family (surely Fanny was the oldest of her sisters?), she couldn't reasonably be Miss Fanny Price, not without insult, but supposing he guessed wrongly? Besides, if they were all his relations, he was here to call on all of them, really – not just the creepmouse from the dance. "That is, child, I expect your mother – Mrs. Price – is within? I am her nephew, come to pay a visit."

Yates chimed in, "She shall be very glad to see him, I'm sure." Then he made an inward shooing motion. "So be off, then, and tell her, er, little one." He clapped his hands together when she did not move. "Haste, haste."

Tom inclined his head slightly. "Oh, steady on, John."

"That's Rebecca's job," snipped the child, her small lips pursed. "Letting people in is what she's paid for – and she's just gone out – I don't have to let you inside." And she closed the door in their astonished faces.

"Cheek!" cried Yates.

Tom reached out to knock again, but his curled knuckles barely made contact with the worn wood of the door before it opened again.

"Betsey," a familiar, slightly hoarse – yet very sweet – voice was saying as the knob turned and the (partially broken) knocker rocked precariously, "that isn't very nice."

And the creepmouse herself was there, as pale and shabby as she'd been at the dance, and in an even crummier dress (judging by Yates' reaction, anyway). "Pardon me, sirs; Betsey did not mean to–" She stopped, recognition widening her eyes and intensifying her gaze. "Oh, it's you, sir."

"Fanny!" crooned Tom cheerily, perhaps with too much familiarity after only the one meeting, waving his top hat. "So good to see you again! How do you do?"

She was too shocked and – indeed – frightened to say anything further. Whatever could the gentleman be after, coming here?

"Forgive me," he laughed, "I've quite forgotten to make proper introductions – I've learned, since we saw one another last, that our mothers were girls together – sisters, in fact, if you can believe it! Miss Wards. They and my Aunt Norris, who was also a Miss Ward, naturally. All Miss Wards together! And I thought, hang it all, I'll drop in for tea. Relations ought to be glad of seeing each other unexpectedly."

She still could not speak, not yet. But her eyes landed, for a moment, on Yates, silently asking – or so it seemed – if he was a cousin as well.

"Oh! No, no." Tom gestured at John with his hat. "This is only my friend, Mr. Yates – no relation to you lot, I'm afraid. Make yourself quite easy on that front."

"I..." She managed at last. "Forgive me – I'm very glad to meet you, cousin."

"Whoever is that at the door?" Mrs. Price came up behind Fanny. "If Rebecca would only–" She halted, breath caught up at once at the sight of the fancy gentlemen. She might have thought her sons were in some trouble – people had turned up with ill words regarding their view on her skills in minding them before, but never anyone of much consequence. "May we help you?"

"Mother," Fanny said, turning to her, eyes lowered demurely, "this gentleman here is your nephew, a Mr.–" She hesitated. "You'll have to forgive me once more, cousin – I did not get your name."

"Tom Bertram at your service." He extended a hand, in both their general directions, offering it to whichever was quick enough to grab it first.

Mrs. Price's mouth parted – the name was familiar to her. She took the hand in her own. "You are Maria's eldest son? Bless me, but this is unexpected. I have not heard from Maria in – oh – can it be twenty years so soon?" She nudged Fanny aside, not harshly, yet perhaps not with as much concern for the delicacy of that particular one of her children as she ought to have reasonably employed. "Come in, do come in at once" – she gave his wrist a tug – "we were just about to sit down to tea if the boys ever come home and Rebecca ever thinks to set the kettle to boiling. I'm trying to get something cooked for Mr. Price before he becomes cross, but..." She let go of his hand in order to toss both of hers in the air despairingly. "We shall see how I must get on with that task, yes?"

Upon stepping inside, Tom quickly ascertained that the house was pitifully small, painfully cramped, rather damp, undeniably smelly, and distressingly ugly – it was an ugliness of an almost unbearable degree to one who had always been (often at the expense of his father's good will as well as his pocket) shamelessly extravagant in his personal indulgences. Even Yates was looking about with an expression that asked what sort of relations were these that Tom had come to call on. Who could live comfortably in such a place?

"Well," continued Mrs. Price, rising up onto her toes (she was in her stocking feet, it turned out) to kiss Tom's cheek (which was more the sort of welcome he'd been expecting and was thus encouraged by), "I'm very glad to see you, of course, and behold what a handsome boy my sister has had – but I'm perplexed. Quite perplexed. Why should my dear Maria send you to us – without any warning, mind – when we had ended our past correspondence on such ugly terms as we did?"

Tom winced. He had not considered such might be the case.

To his surprise, it was Fanny who intervened on his behalf. Her hand went to her mother's arm in a slow, trembling gesture. "I do not think she sent him, Mother – this is the result of a chance meeting. He has learned of us because he saw me out of sorts on Assembly Night, and met Susan the once after when she was buying eggs, and had made some enquiries."

"Oh." Mrs. Price put her hand to her heart and exhaled heavily. "How extraordinary. You do both favour your aunt, you know. Imagine that. Such an odd thing to happen. But you're welcome here, of course." Now she noticed Yates. "Your brother?"

Yates shook his head. "Only a merry travelling companion, I'm afraid – his brother resides, usually, at Thornton Lacey these days."

"Shall we adjourn to the table now?" Tom asked next. "Or..." He discerned, as it was impossible to miss, that tea might be late in coming. "Or, that is, to the parlour to–" He stopped again. Supposing this house, among its other overt deficiencies, should not have a parlour? Supposing people such as these poor relations who may as well have sprung magically into existence had never heard of such a room? At last, he settled on, "May one sit someplace? We've been standing outside a good while."

"Of course," said Mrs. Price. "Fanny, see your cousin is seated comfortably – you can put him in my chair by the fire." She had – it seemed – already forgotten Yates.

Mrs. Price's chair was opposite to that of a scowling Mr. Price who – after loudly demanding whether there was going to be any tea or if he should simply go to the Crown early this evening and spare himself the fruitless waiting – snarled, "And who are you?" at Tom.

"Father," Fanny said meekly, "this is Tom Bertram – he is a relation of Mother's."

Tom stiffened but – to his credit – he did not recoil. What sort of a man was this? Red-nosed, gouty, sweaty, scabby, and odorous, he embodied every imaginable negative stereotype of a crude, low-class sailor.

"And I suppose a fine gentleman such as yourself" – and the words dripped with sarcasm – "has never got your sea-legs? Only life for a real man you know, at sea. Only pansies spend their whole life on land."

"Indeed, I have been at sea, sir," said Tom, back straighter in the chair. "I've gone with my father to Antigua." He did not mention that he'd loathed the voyage, because, both ways, he had gotten sick over the side and the sailors' diet and the cook's questionable choices had disagreed with his bowels, and had no desire ever to repeat the experience. "It was certainly..." – he coughed delicately – "...memorable. I shall never forget it so long as I live."

Mr. Price seemed considerably less repulsed by him after hearing this, and coughed out something to the effect of, "Good man," before grabbing an iron poker and jabbing madly at the coals.

Embers scattered, bouncing out of the grate like glowing jewels.

"Father, you'll burn the carpet again!" And suddenly Susan Price was in the room, too. Her brow lifted when she saw Tom sitting in her mother's chair, but instead of approaching him she busied herself trying to take the poker away from her father who slurred a less than flattering opinion of her and struggled against her herculean efforts.

"Susan, stop. You'll have to let him be this time – never mind the carpet!" Fanny tried to intervene for Susan's sake, before there could be a commotion, and was – with one accidental blow on her father's end – flung backwards into Tom's lap.

"Oh, Fanny!" Susan screamed and let go of their father, rushing to the side of the chair in a near panic just as Tom was giving Fanny a reassuring pat on the arm and setting her back onto her feet.

"You're all right, then." He gave her a pleasant half smile.

Fanny nodded shakily.

Susan looked askance at Tom, then glanced back at their father, who was panting heavily and appeared very cross, and burst into tears, fleeing the room.

Yates – who had not been paying attention until he heard screaming and crying – came over to ask what that ruckus had been all about.

Fanny was still trembling.

Tom had enough tact – just enough, perhaps – not to point out that Mr. Price was visibly drunk or to recap the nonsensical quarrel over the coals and the carpet which had just occurred.

Instead, he shrugged.

Tea was eventually served. It was a mean tea by Tom's usual standards, but that much he had anticipated, and none of the rest of the family seemed to notice there was anything amiss about it. Only Yates sniffed at whatever he was given and made claims of having eaten rather a large lunch despite a loudly rumbling stomach suggesting otherwise.

Mr. Price ate heartily for a man who was almost too sloshed to hold a knife. Though, to be sure, he used his fingers much more than he did any utensils.

Susan came back down, and was sitting across from Tom and Fanny, sandwiched between two of her little brothers, but she wouldn't meet anyone's eye. Her own eyes were bloodshot and her cheeks looked salt-burned.

Fanny, for her part, though she tried not to, looked wretched. Eating very little – nibbling a bit at some dry, crumby biscuits and taking no meat – she shrank back into herself unless asked a direct question, which wasn't too often, since most the family was focused either on quarrelling with each other or talking to Tom and Yates.

Mr. Price didn't acknowledge either Susan or Fanny at the table except to make a passing coarse joke at Fanny's expense that even Tom's jovial, teasing nature could not find much excuse for.

What call, he wondered, with vague disapproval, had there been for that?

Betsey cried inconsolably that the guests had more of the nicer parts of tea than she did, and Mrs. Price – drawing the child, whose face was dripping with snot, into her lap – coddled her and promised she should have something twice as nice next time, that the present company was simply unexpected and so what could be done?

Biting onto his lower lip pensively, Tom ran a finger along what was supposed to be a clean bowl for him to put some manner of pudding in once Rebecca had served it, and it was greasy with traces of grime.

He happened to catch Fanny glancing up at him sombrely as he was doing this and pulled a silly cross-eyed facial expression that made her smile and turn away again.

Yates deemed his portion of the pudding acceptable, which only made Betsey sob louder.

Fanny gave her pudding to Betsey, which quieted her for a minute or so, and reached across the table for a bun instead, only to prove too slow, her brother Charles snagging the last two buns before her fingers could make contact.

They were both promptly stuffed into the boy's mouth before his mother could half-heartedly protest his greediness.

Tom was not in expectation of Susan (or of anybody, really, at this point) seeing himself and Yates to the door once the dining was over and most of the boys had gone upstairs (if not to sleep, then at least to be out of their father's way) while Betsey took advantage of the extra square or two of space and proceeded to roll about on the carpet, belly-up, like an oversize cat. Especially not, as nobody save Mrs. Price and Fanny even acted as if they'd heard him say good evening and that they'd be off. His coming or going or being with them was all one and the same to the Price family at large. But see them out Susan did, seething with embarrassment. Snubbing him herself, when she did not know him for a relation, was one thing – what he had witnessed today... Oh, that was something else entirely.

"What you must think of us," she murmured, holding open the door and shaking her head. "What you must think of the whole sorry lot of us."

If Tom had been a different sort of man, he might have reassured her – might even have lied and said there was nothing for her to feel ashamed about. But he was not a different sort of man. Not at all. And though he left her with an amiable wink, showing no ill will, she was clearly very little comforted.


"We will not see our fancy cousin again, will we?" Susan said, looking out the window of their bedroom later that night.

Fanny was on the mattress, struggling to sew by weak candlelight, and with Betsey's head resting heavily in her lap. "I don't know – perhaps we shan't."

"How he looked when Father flung you back over that quarrel about the coals!"

Jabbing her needle into a small, home-made pincushion, Fanny sighed, "Susie, you were in no position to see how he looked in that moment – and I uniquely was – he was surprised, that is all. We did not repulse him any more than could be expected, considering what he is and what we are."

"Thinks he's so much better than us."

"If he thought that, he wouldn't have visited at all."

"I'm so sorry about the coals, Fanny – I hadn't imagined Father would strike out at you. He knows you're not well."

"It was nothing."

Susan swallowed. "But it was something – I imagine our cousin has never seen someone so drunk."

Fanny snorted. "Of that much, I'd wager you're very wrong. If you told me that the young man who took tea with us today has never touched drink, has never seen people drink while drinking himself, I'd say you must be a little mad."

"You always are right about people," conceded Susan, "while I never am."

"It's not so great a talent – it's just paying attention." Fanny smiled. "He smelled faintly of drink on Assembly Night, when he sat next to me."

Susan put her hand over her mouth to suppress a chortle.

And, having restored her sister's spirits on some level at least, Fanny could at last be satisfied and – glancing down at the snoring, carefree Betsey as she nudged her head from her thighs down onto a pillow – think of sleeping herself.


Tom was pacing the length of the room, jabbering on, while Yates, dangling upside down off the end of an upholstered chair, wished he were stricken – at least for an hour or so – deaf.

"D'you know, Yates, my father has some nerve."

He grunted.

Tom went on, "Here we have relatives, my good mother's own people, in such squalor as you saw yesterday, living in a deplorable state, clearly uneducated and unaccustomed to bathing at regular intervals, and he has done nothing for them – indeed I never heard of them before now – and he has the gall to scold me for my gambling debts."

"Did you not lose so much money that your younger brother's living had to be given up to pay it off?"

Tom made a dismissive noise. It was not so bad as all that! He'd not beggared his brother, not quite. "Hardly the point, John. The point is..." He trailed off, trying – in his state of indignation – to recall exactly what the point was. "The point is he's hardly perfect, his conduct is not above reproach, yet he sees fit to pick unceasingly at my small flaws."

"Does it really matter so much?"

"Of course it does – think of poor little Fanny Price! She is sickly. And what has been done for her? Nothing!

"Indeed, if word travelled home that the poor girl had died, the whole family would merely blink – say something about Mrs. Price needing to be much pitied, to be sure, never easy losing one's children, what – and then have breakfast without another thought."

Yates slipped out of the chair and onto the floor, nearly head first. "Ouch."

Tom did not notice.

"And did you see how little she ate? That cannot be good for her constitution. My father could well afford to pay for more food for that girl's table. My gambling alone has surely not prevented his ability to do that – he simply chose not to. And I think it very shabby of him."

"My good fellow," sighed Yates, "forgive me, but you've spoken of nothing but your concern for the eldest Miss Price since we took tea with them, and the subject is quite worn out."

Tom glared.

"Good God, man, one would think you were falling in love her."

His glare rapidly softening, Tom arched an eyebrow. "In love?" he repeated, pausing before the fireplace and resting a hand on the mantelpiece. "What a strange idea, Yates."

"I just meant–"

"You know, it would serve my father right if I did fall in love with her."

"Would give the poor old gentleman quite a shock, I imagine," said Yates.

Tom could not let the thought go. He turned to look at Mr. Yates again, who was now flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling. "It would be the first time in my life I'd have a claim to moral superiority over him."

"But you're not really in love with her." He paused, uncertain. "That is... Are you?"

"No, not yet, but who's to say I couldn't be?" Tom said animatedly. "There's no harm in looking to see if I can like her, is there? Calling upon one's relations in order to better know them?"

"As long as you do not make me return to that frightful house with you, I care little enough."

"I can just imagine my father's face if I meant to marry her, if I brought her home with me."

"Too bad she is such a stunted little thing," Yates remarked. "Her sister might be more likely to win your family over, once they saw what a pretty, lively creature she is. And she doesn't look as if she'll keel over before you get her to the altar, either. By comparison, your Fanny is not very hardy."

"Susan is far too young for my consideration" – he waved the idea off – "only a clever-tongued child. I've entirely given up younger sisters after the disaster with the Miss Sneyds – d'you remember that?"

"She is out, though, Bertram – she attends balls."

"That's true enough, but it would be badly done of me to pass over the one most put upon – the one most in need of extraction from this backwater – for the younger simply because she is healthier. She is also more coarse, more hardened by this place."

"So it is certainly Fanny you intend to like if the looking proves agreeable?"

Tom nodded. "Just so. But, mind you, not a word of this to anyone – it may come to nothing." He did not like to think of raising false expectations in the cousins only to learn too late he could not tolerate any of them after all, even poor Fanny, and have to grieve them by his parting ways from them forever. His nature was to be rash, but he was not stupid, nor heartless.

"Your father will be expecting you home, returned to Mansfield, before you have time to make up your mind, though, will he not?"

"Damn," muttered Tom, and thought very hard for a moment. "Well," he concluded at last, "I shall write to him that I have been detained. I need not say with what."

"Then what will you say?"

"I will say," Tom mulled, stroking his chin, "what will I say?" He smiled. "I know. I shall say nothing at all." It need be only a short letter, assuring the family he was not dead or lost. "It's enough to simply wish them well; and I will send them all my love from Portsmouth."

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