Merriment & Wisdom

A Mansfield Park fanfiction

Part Sixteen:

Family Matters, Not Entirely Unavoidable

Fanny woke, for the second time that day, uncertain of where in the house she was.

The bed was a four-poster, like Tom's, but it had no canopy and the coverlet was a different colour. The fireplace was across from the bed, similar to its position up in the attic-room, although this room (and its aforementioned fireplace) was a great deal larger and had many more furnishings.

Above the mantelpiece there was a gold-framed landscape watercolour of what might have been some sort of springtime meadow scene.

At first, she thought herself alone, but before her frazzled emotions could flitter from relief to the disappointment of possible neglect, she lolled her head to the opposite side and saw Edmund sitting in a wingback chair, silently reading the Bible.

He glanced up, shutting the Bible with a gentle thump when he saw her looking at him. "Ah. You're awake. At last. How are you feeling, Fanny?"

She could not say. Her head ached dreadfully; her throat was dry; her body was cold but her face was slick with perspiration; moreover, she couldn't quite remember what happened between Edmund finding her outside and waking up here. She vaguely recalled Susan saying something about how she ought to have shown Mrs. Norris her wedding ring, and feeling stupid she herself had not thought of it, and she knew Tom had been there, but her memory supplied little else.

She did not actually recall fainting, though it was evident she had.

Her mind kept trying to tell her something, urgently, but the message was fuzzy; she did not grasp the importance until – sitting up – she realised she was wearing an unfamiliar nightdress that was a little too tight around her chest and arms.

"W-who...?"

Edmund smiled reassuringly. "It's all right, Fanny – it was Susan and one of the older house-maids. They took care of that on their own behind a screen. Nobody saw anything."

"But whose...?" She lifted a lace-encased arm and shook the fabric.

"Oh," he chuckled. "I hadn't thought you'd ask. It was one of Julia's. Don't worry, it won't be missed. Anything she still wears was taken with her to London." He motioned behind himself. "There's a little door over there, leads directly into Julia's chambers. This was my room before I moved to Thornton Lacey; her rooms and my own are connected, you see.

"So were Tom's and Maria's for a while – believe it or not. Until angry little Maria complained to Aunt Norris about how Tom simply walked in whenever he pleased, and sometimes brought his Eton friends along with him; then the entrance to the antechamber between their rooms was sealed up to give them both more privacy.

"Personally, I think – oh, and do keep this between ourselves, Fanny – before yesterday, Tom was secretly hoping our father would give you Maria's old chambers and unseal the passageway, never considering how our Aunt Norris would probably have a heart attack at the mere suggestion of such a thing. To be fair, I concede it is not impractical – not if this were already Tom's house – as it would give you both a great deal more space and you'd still be together while being able to have each whatever decorations you like best, but he doesn't consider matters as they currently are."

Fanny's eyes darted – not to the door Edmund had said led into Julia's chambers, but to the door closer to the fireplace; the door leading out into the hallway, no doubt.

"Where," she asked, "is Tom?"

Edmund winced. Standing up, he set his Bible down on the chair behind himself, then – holding up his index finger – walked over to the door, opening it.

"Wait," he muttered, rolling his eyes. "You'll hear him in a moment – depend upon it."

"And you!" shouted the voice of her husband in a – rather nasty – tone Fanny had never heard before. "Why didn't you let my wife back inside? That's your blasted job, isn't it? Letting people in and out of this house?"

"Master Thomas, regrettably, I fear, none of the staff were aware–" Then, breaking off, following a thud, "Ouch!"

"Tom, my love," came Lady Bertram's quavering voice next, "pray do not throw blunt objects at the butler's head – he does not like it."

"For God's sake, Tom, is this any way to behave?" boomed Sir Thomas. "Baddeley, why don't you take the rest of the day off."

"Very good, sir."

Tom let out an indignant little cry, followed by a shrill, unbecoming whine. "Nobody in this house comprehends my suffering!"

"Your suffering?" – this sounded liked Susan, choked with righteous fury. "For shame, Mr. Bertram!"

"Oh, so I'm returned to being Mr. Bertram again, am I, sister? How lovely."

"Oooh" – a graceless stomp – "if you would stop pitying yourself for a dashed second and see reason! It's Fanny who nearly froze to death. You can't be–"

She was cut off by the carrying voice of Mrs. Norris – which made Fanny flinch involuntarily, even from the safety of the bed – saying, "Oh, I understand, Tom, of course you know I do comprehend all your suffering! You can trust me alone to empathise with young people when others fail to. We shall have a talk, you and I, once you've quite calmed down, and you will see that I... Where... Hang on, wherever are you going? Get back here this instant, young man!"

Clearing his throat apologetically, Edmund closed the door, shutting out the remainder of the shouting-match. "I expect you've heard enough now to satisfy yourself regarding your husband's whereabouts?"

Struggling not to cry, Fanny nodded.

"I'm not trying to say I told you so, Fanny," whispered Edmund, as he walked back to the chair and began to pace in front of it. "I simply don't know what else..."

"It's a shame," said Fanny, suddenly, desperate for a new subject, "that you and Julia and Tom and Maria were not so very close – with adjoining rooms, what fun you might have had as children!"

Edmund smiled. "I've often thought just the same." He closed his eyes. "In truth, with no offence intended towards my sisters – you know I do love them – I would have been glad, as a boy, of even Tom's friendship. That much alone would have satisfied me. There was a time I wanted very badly to be his friend. Nowadays, I often finding myself wondering why that ever was. How I could have felt that way, given our stark difference of character."

"When I was little, my favourite sister..." began Fanny, her voice still hoarse and made even more so by the subject matter.

"Susan?"

"No – Mary... Her name was Mary."

"A lovely name," said Edmund, though he was biased.

"There was a time I preferred little Mary's company to any other in the whole world save only dearest William's."

"I did not meet your Mary in Portsmouth."

"I fear that's because she is dead, Edmund – she died a long time ago. Susan's little silver knife – the one she carries about with her, now that she's got it away from Mother and Betsey and Portsmouth, you might have seen it – was hers, once."

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

"I never meant to hurt Susan, you know, loving Mary and William best," croaked Fanny, running her fingertips along the coverlet. "I was just a child."

"Of course not! No one could accuse someone as sweet as you of such a thing!" He was ready to defend her even against her own conscience, as speedy as William might have done in his place – for he thought only the more highly of his sister-in-law for considering the potential pains she might have inadvertently caused, believed it further proof of her infallible inner goodness.

"I don't think Tom meant to hurt you, either, Edmund – I truly do not."

"Do you think he means to hurt you?"

"No," she said softly, staring off into the middle distance. "No, I don't."


The next person Fanny was to see (Edmund would not permit her to rise from the bed) was not Tom, as she hoped, believing – perhaps with little enough cause – that by his deserting Mrs. Norris while she spoke, however rudely, he might have been coming to her, to see how she got on.

No, indeed, Tom did not make an appearance for several hours.

It was not only Fanny who missed him, and who was left to wonder if he was even still within the house; the entire family was denied his company for the remainder of the day.

"He'll be sulking, hunched petulantly in some corner or other, snorting snuff up his nostrils like it's going out of fashion," was all Edmund had to say about it. "He won't have removed himself from the grounds; I doubt he'd even spend long out of doors with how cold it is today. But every time one of us walks into a room, looking for him, mark my words, he'll walk out of it the opposite way, brisk as he can, so that we should never come upon him. It's a trick he's pulled often enough to guess at."

And so it was Susan who came to visit Fanny.

She did not arrive in the room empty-handed. A resourceful girl, she had first gone to the kitchen – which she found with more ease than her elder sister had managed – and taken bread from the cupboard, along with some apricot preserves and cream cheese which she cut carefully from a block she found under a cloth tucked in a cool corner.

Mrs. Norris – still looking for Tom when his parents had given up, convinced he'd need to show up for supper or tea, or at least make himself known to the servants and order something brought to him eventually if he did not wish to starve – had come upon Susan slicing into the cheese and was quite outraged.

"Why have you stolen the cream cheese?" she demanded, taking up more of the doorway than she had any right to, glaring mercilessly. "And those preserves are not yours, either, Susan Price!" Her nostrils flared. "Those apricots come from the parsonage – which, let me tell you, used to be my home before my good husband, Mr. Norris – God rest his soul – passed on from this world."

Susan looked her straight in the eye, unflinching. "It's not for me, Aunt Norris – they're for Fanny." She had then twisted her features into something that was not mocking – no, she would not risk her unsteady place in this household for a display such as that – and might have been called sweet by some, but it was exaggerated to such an extent no one could truly believe it sincere or without double-meaning. She even fluttered her pale eyelashes for an added demure effect. "You can't have forgotten Fanny, I trust, dear aunt? Not again?"

Mrs. Norris had seethed, and from that moment on believed Susan as much spy and intruder as she was an unwelcome, indigent niece. How Tom could have brought such an uncouth, ungrateful creature home! Fanny – that simpering little thing who looked like she'd faint at the sight of blood, and had fainted over only an unfortunate chill, yet had possessed, somehow, the wits about her to ensnare the son of a baronet – was bad enough, but the sister!

Dear God, Mrs. Norris lamented her own uncertainty on how she was deal with such a niece. For Susan was feral. Fanny, for all that was disagreeable about her, resembled Lady Bertram more closely than she ever did her namesake – Susan, meanwhile, had inherited her mother's mouth in both shape and speech.

What Mrs. Norris would have made of Betsey, if the much more reasonable Susan could rumble her spirits so totally and disturb what was left of her proud inner tranquillity, no one could say.

At any rate, Susan was left carrying the good things, unhindered, up to her sister exactly as she intended.

Edmund praised his cousin for her good sense, remarking that Fanny hadn't eaten all day and must be in need of exactly what Susan fetched unasked.

"How resourceful of you, Susie." He smiled warmly, giving up his chair to her. "Though, you might have used a tray. Regardless, it's well done. I'm truly glad Tom accepted my ultimatum. The immeasurable good you'll do here, for your sister and my mother, I can only imagine. You were wasted in Portsmouth."

"What ultimatum?" asked Susan, placing the napkin the food was bound up in gently onto Fanny's lap and readjusting one of the pillows behind her so she might sit up more comfortably.

"You didn't know?" Edmund's brow lifted in considerable surprise. "I told Tom I wouldn't perform the marriage ceremony if he didn't consent to bring you to Mansfield with us. That, and he must write to our parents – which he claims he did, but I would highly doubt it if not for Fanny's word."

Fanny went very stiff – she appeared, to the two concerned parties in the room, as if someone had just slapped her across the face. "You..." She looked to Edmund with moist eyes. "Please, I'm not sure I understand, Edmund. Are you telling us you were the one who said Susan was to come to live at Mansfield – not Tom?"

Edmund felt as if he were standing on thin ice, and wished his words unsaid, but he could not lie. "Eh, that is... Yes. Of course. Tom didn't–"

"Tom didn't wish me to come," Susan finished for him, her expression gone stony, her eyes bluer than usual.

"It was nothing personal," Edmund hurried to assure her. "Indeed, my brother is as fond of you as..." But his frantic stammering was doing no good. None whatever. He could not go on.

If Susan's anger caused Edmund pain and made him long all the more fervently to take his thoughtless words back, Fanny's sad, resigned countenance was far worse. It was plain to see now how Tom took credit for bringing Susan here, and Fanny had had no knowledge of the real conversation between the brothers regarding the matter, but it was known too late to make any difference.

They were interrupted by Mrs. Norris in the doorway (Fanny shrank into the pillows and tried not to look at her directly), asking if Tom was in there with the rest of them.

"No, Aunt Norris," sighed Edmund, rubbing his temples. "We've not see him anywhere near this part of the house, either."

"Well," she sniffed; "you did all seem to be having a party up here – making merry with jams and cream cheeses and discoursing with one another in so distinctively amplified a manner – and you know how fond Tom is of such goings on. The boy loves gatherings and being jolly. I thought he'd have made an appearance. There is lacking only music, and it would be very much a party rather than a sickroom. Though I dare say Fanny is not doing so very poorly as to warrant a proper sickroom, after all. Great deal of fuss over nothing at all."

"Well, as you can see he's not with us," said Susan, sweetly, through her teeth, gesturing with an open arm as she plopped backwards into the wingback chair. "And I'm afraid Mrs. Bertram does very poorly indeed just now."

"Susan Price, that chair," snapped Mrs. Norris, before departing with heavy footsteps, "is not built to take such flagrant abuse – I would have hoped your mother raised you better than to fall into your seat like that."

Edmund's eyes popped. His hands, still clutching the spine of his Bible, shook. "Susan, be careful," he whispered urgently. "If you make her despise you today, she could be cross with you forever after. She means no real harm, I believe" – though, this, of course, he was obliged to say and did not truly feel in his heart at the moment, not after how his aunt had put Fanny out of the house earlier, her lack of knowledge of the situation notwithstanding – "but she's prone to poor humours."

"I can't forgive her," hissed Susan, looking to Fanny. "Her resentment isn't fair – it's not as if she married so very well to look down on my mother and snub my sister. Mr. Norris was only a parson." Mrs. Norris was hardly Lady Norris, for all the airs she put on and how high she held her nose.

The corners of Edmund's mouth lifted. "Only a parson? I see how it must be, then. But, cousin, what is it with women and their distaste for the clergy these days, I wonder?"

"You know I couldn't mean it like that," sighed Susan.

"You shouldn't tease her so, Edmund," whispered Fanny, eyes half closed – yet she smiled also, if only partially.

At Fanny's urging, he had mercy on her. "I know, Susie – rest easy, I'm the furthest thing from cross with you."


When it was dark and the house had gone to sleep, Edmund retiring – for the time being – into Julia's room, and Susan returning to the attic-room, Fanny felt her hand being grasped, lifted, and tenderly kissed.

She opened her eyes and saw – by the firelight – Tom had come to see her at last.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask where he had been, why he would not come in to see her sooner, but she realised – of course – that she already knew. She simply didn't like it. Chastising him now would do neither of them any good. Still, it was hard to hold back. Not only had he spent the day hiding from her because he was hiding from the others, she'd learned he had lied to her – more or less – about his wanting Susan here. He had misrepresented his generosity. Yet, her disappointment over his selfishness made her chest constrict painfully. How could he say he loved her, and behave so carelessly?

Here he was, simply expecting her forgiveness, as if it were a given.

"It shan't happen again, Fanny," he said, after a pause, taking her hand once more and giving it a little squeeze. "You'll never find yourself turned out of this house again so long as you live, I promise." He let go of her hand, reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and sneezed. "Ah. Pardon me."

So, it would seem Edmund was right about the snuff, then, too.


The next couple of days were slow-passing ones for Fanny. She was well enough to get up and take breakfast with the rest of the family – and she demurely endured Aunt Norris glaring at her for most of the meal – then was subjected to what lengthened into a nearly three-hour discussion in the drawing-room regarding whether or not she ought to be moved back into the attic-room with Susan that night.

Edmund insisted nothing of the sort must be done – Fanny could keep his old room for as long as she needed, he was in no hurry to have it back. Certainly it was more convenient – less stairs and all that, given her weakened state.

Mrs. Norris held the exact opposite opinion, naturally, firm in her belief that Julia – should she return from London unexpectedly – would be very inconvenienced to discover Edmund sleeping in her bedroom.

"But to be sure, it does not seem very likely," Sir Thomas had to say, with a shake of his head, "Julia will return anytime soon – expectedly or otherwise – and Edmund may have gone back to Thornton Lacey before that ever occurs. The attic-room is well enough, but the fireplace in Edmund's chambers gives off a good deal more warmth, which may be preferable, given the shock Fanny's had. Not everyone is so hardy as yourself, Mrs. Norris."

Fanny was deeply moved by this unlooked-for kindness from her father-in-law, her eyes filling with tears of gratitude.

"The next few days will not be so very cold – the thaw in the weather began yesterday afternoon, you know," argued Mrs. Norris. "And Fanny would seem to be quite recovered. You mustn't dole out special favours on that account, Sir Thomas. You really mustn't. Think of propriety. Think of Julia."

Susan glowered.

"You all know," said Tom, barely looking up from the newspaper as he turned the page emphatically, "what I think."

"Susan," snapped Mrs. Norris, noticing her bitter expression, "why are you idle? It's a shocking trick for a young person to be sitting on the sofa with her betters and hold no work in her hands. If you have none of your own, there is always the poor basket. You might ask someone before you think to settle down with nothing at all."

"If Lady Bertram wishes me to sew, I will," said Susan, with an emphasis that could not be missed or masked by the sugary tone she employed. "I'm very obliged to my Aunt Bertram."

Her moment of thankful reverie quite ended, Fanny winced, wringing her own empty hands helplessly, and wished herself anywhere else but here at this tense moment.

Lady Bertram was very possibly the sole person in the room not to pick up on Susan's true meaning, the obvious slight against Mrs. Norris, and she smiled at her niece and murmured that 'darling Susie' was a very good, grateful girl indeed, with such very pretty manners, and she wondered how they ever got on without her.

In the end, the matter was settled – for a little longer, at least – that Fanny should keep using Edmund's room, provided Edmund himself maintained he had no objections, which he did with a good will.

Rolling his eyes, Tom got up and quit the room unceremoniously, ignoring Sir Thomas' accompanying bellows that he would need have need of him today and he had not been dismissed. "Tom, you get back here at once – this very instant! Tom!"

The tension so thick it might have been sliced and served – mixed with having had too rich a breakfast – got to Fanny's frazzled nerves at last and she retched, pressing her hand to her mouth and having to excuse herself from the room as well.

"Sir Thomas! If that girl should prove to be in a delicate state already, before this disastrously ill-advised marriage has been made public," fretted Mrs. Norris, far too loudly, "people will talk. Rumours regarding precisely what claim she had to entrap Tom into this union will abound." She looked to Sir Thomas with visible alarm. "How shall we endure the scandal?"

"She's taken ill, that's all – and small wonder why!" Susan declared, rising from the sofa and going after her sister.

"Such an outburst!" cried Mrs. Norris, her hands flying to her throat. "On my word, I've never seen such ill-bred girls in all my life!"

Later in the afternoon, when the presence of an employed second son was not required for anything else, Edmund decided to go through Julia's unwanted things and see what might do for Susan and Fanny's every day use, given they had so little of their own belongings by way of clothing, and found some dresses he thought might do well enough.

They fit Susan, and the effect was remarkable, even to the servants who seemed to respect her more dressed in Julia's clothes than they had her Portsmouth garments, but they fit Fanny very poorly indeed. They were too tight about the bust and arms whilst being too large everywhere else because of her diminutive size. There was no point in having them altered for her, when – as Mrs. Bertram – she ought to have an entirely new wardrobe soon, so she was obliged to continue wearing her Portsmouth clothing for a while longer.

"Maria's dresses would fit you, Fanny – I'm sure of it – but Aunt Norris would string me up by my thumbs if she found out," lamented Edmund, shaking his head as his sister-in-law changed out of the ill-fitting dress and reappeared at the other end of the screen in her own shabby attire again.

"That's all right," said Fanny, quietly, pleased enough for Susan's sake. "You look beautiful, Susie."

A door flew open and Tom rushed through Julia's room with a hasty, "I was never here – you haven't seen me!" before the opposite door slammed shut and he was gone.

A moment later, Sir Thomas appeared, remarked – with surprisingly gallantry – on Susan's altered appearance, apologised for interrupting them, and asked – not without some repressed furry in his strained voice – if they'd seen Tom.

Fanny gnawed on her lower lip; Susan slipped behind the screen, her face flushing; Edmund shrugged.

"Edmund," pressed Sir Thomas.

"I can say, truly, Father, I have no idea where he is at this moment."

"Edmund."

"He says, Father, that he was never here and we haven't seen him."

"Ah." The lines around his mouth tightened considerably. "I see." Then, "So I've only just missed him."

"Only just," Edmund confirmed.

The next day was more of the same – tense family debates, Tom in turn shirking from the family on the whole, dodging them wherever possible, and, in one instance, being dragged through the west-end of the big house by his ear, soaking wet and dripping discoloured water and chunks of algae onto the carpet, after Sir Thomas had discovered him vigorously paddling across the park's largest pond fully clothed save for his boots which he'd unwisely concealed behind a less than substantial tree, and Mrs. Norris always looking to Fanny with narrowed eyes as if she were a great big cuckoo in the nest and was personally and solely responsible for their collective misery – and Fanny was truly starting to believe this would be her lot in life for evermore.

Then Tom wasn't at breakfast the following morning.

Sir Thomas did not make any explanation for his son's absence; he spoke very little, and both Susan and Fanny might as well not have been present for all his acknowledgement towards them.

Aunt Norris was also not present for the meal, which was a relief and led both Fanny and Edmund to suspect that, in all likelihood, Tom was eating with her, at her own nearby house, enduring one of her simpering speeches. Speeches which were meant to be consoling to her nephew but were, in actuality, more of a thinly veiled excuse to openly bemoan his unfortunate choice of wife while absolving him of any personal blame in the matter, expressing her unshakable, if also irrational, belief that Fanny Price had done all the chasing in her eagerness to join herself to a future baronet. She'd managed at least four of these completed speeches in the span of only two days. One could not accuse Mrs. Norris of dithering, that much was certain.

However, as the hours ticked by, with surprisingly little to vex her, to the point where such fragile and unexpected peace was growing eerie, Fanny began to fear something must be amiss.

It was only herself and Edmund in the drawing-room (Susan busy helping Lady Bertram with some task upstairs and Sir Thomas having quitted the house hours before) if one did not count the house-maid who brought in the tea and refreshments.

Screwing up her courage, Fanny looked to the maid and asked, meekly, if she wouldn't mind taking a message to Mr. Bertram asking him to join them if he was not otherwise engaged. She'd never given orders to any of the servants prior to this, and her heart was pounding madly at the presumption, but she managed to keep her composure and was feeling pleased with her own progress until the house-maid blinked at her in visible confusion.

"I'm sorry," said Fanny, blushing, "is there something wrong?"

The house-maid motioned at Edmund. "He's already here, madam – sitting right next to you."

"Not Mr. Edmund Bertram," Fanny blurted with visible relief at what she judged to be an easy to resolve misunderstanding between herself and the staff, even if the house-maid was acting a bit as though she believed her future mistress a dull-witted child. "Mr. Bertram – my... my husband. Tom Bertram."

She looked at Edmund again. "Begging your pardon, madam, but he is Mr. Bertram when the master's eldest son is not in residence."

Edmund's eyes widened. "Hang on – what are you saying?"

"Mr. Bertram has quit Mansfield Park, of course." The maid's lips parted uncertainly. "Forgive me, sir, I thought you knew."

Fanny felt as if the floor under her feet were about to split open and swallow both her and the sofa upon which she sat. The world was tilting violently. She was going to be sick if she did not take control of herself very quickly. "I don't understand." Blanching, her eyes darted from the house-maid to Edmund. "He has... He has left a letter, or a note... This is some business, for his father. He will be back soon?"

"Fanny..." began Edmund, a catch in his voice.

"Aye, there was a note," confirmed the house-maid, giving a curt little nod. "Baddeley will have it – shall I fetch him for you, madam?" But it was Edmund she glanced to for an answer, even as she spoke so politely to Fanny.

"Please," said Fanny. "If it wouldn't be any trouble."

Edmund nodded grimly, then – as the house-maid walked away – said, once more, "Fanny."

"I'm sure it's nothing."

"Fanny, I thought he'd last longer than this."

"He left a note," was her only straw to clutch at. "He hasn't..."

The butler entered, before Edmund could reply, apologised for the delay in passing on the message – things below stairs had not been to their usual standards all day, preoccupying him – and held out the folded note.

With unsteady knees, Fanny pulled herself up from the sofa and reached to take it, but Baddeley smoothly drew the note back. "Begging your pardon, madam, but it's addressed to Mr. Bertram."

She sank back down, deflated. Why had she assumed any message left by Tom would be for her? Shouldn't she have known it was a vain, foolish hope? Didn't she know the sort of husband she had better than that by now?

Pained, Edmund opened the note and read it to himself. He then proceeded to blurt out a choice oath so shocking in coming from him, of all people, that Fanny nearly forgot her misery long enough to be scandalised.

"But you're..." He was a clergyman – he'd made a few slips before within her hearing, but not to this extent, not quite, and she hadn't been aware men of the cloth were allowed to say...well, that...

He shut his eyes and moaned. "I know, Fanny, I know – forgive me." He sighed. "I did not mean to. And, truly, I've always felt a parson ought to set the example in proper speech for all the rest of the congregation. Alas, I'm no saint, however much I might wish to be."

"What does Tom say?"

Edmund sucked in his lips. "Nothing. It doesn't matter."

"Please tell me."

"Nothing about you or where he's gone." He folded his hands and made a motion as if to crumple the note up and toss it in the direction of an unlit fireplace.

"I'll think the worst," Fanny whispered brokenly. "Please, Edmund, just tell me what the note says." She could bear anything except, she thought, for not knowing.

"Here, read it for yourself." Smoothing the slight wrinkle he'd left in the thick, unlined stationary paper, he handed it to her. "Much good may it do your peace of mind, poor dear Fanny."

Edmund,

Please do not forget to exercise my hunter while I'm away.

T.B.

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