Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Seventeen:
Degradation, Digging One's Self Out
How long before Tom realised he had made a grievous mistake?
Before it dawned on him how leaving Mansfield Park as he did, slipping carelessly away as he'd done a thousand times before, was not – this time – well done, a successful evasion which harmed no one and vexed only a few?
Not very.
Truly, not very long at all. Little credit though it may actually be to his character.
His error became apparent to him before he even reached his destination.
And yet, doggedly, he had pressed on; meaning, however, not to linger as he might have originally planned. No, indeed, he would stay no more than a day at the most; should spend, really, more hours on the journey – both ways, there and back once again – than on anything else.
He would not consent – he was yet stubborn on this point – to call it a waste.
Not even to himself.
For how could he, as he then was, face the truth?
That, in fleeing what he had perceived to be the evils of home, he had recklessly abandoned also his most meaningful pleasure?
If he had given heed to the first pangs of distress his heart made known to him, Tom Bertram would scarcely have finished his packing, let alone made it off the grounds of Mansfield Park. He might, upon realising the cause of his distress, only have gone, to cool his head, into Mansfield Wood and come back to the house again in an hour's time, his coat slung over his shoulder and his temper still not quite what it should have been yet his resolve to endure strengthened all the same.
But, unaware what he should attribute such unexpected and acute feeling to, he missed the most obvious – and only likely – explanation for having a sense of hesitance and pre-emptive regret eating away at his innards: he would miss Fanny dreadfully.
And so, the note to his brother had been written, callously, and without a thought to his wife's feeling deserted at not having so much as a letter of her own to clutch in his absence, and he'd slipped away into the foggy morning.
Travelling via public stage coach (and – wedged between two less than hygienic persons who would persist, despite his horror-struck expressions, in stuffing their little fingers up their noses and then wiping them on the lapels of their coats – privately resolving never to do so again if it could possibly be helped) Tom found himself beginning to wish, rather fervently, he was en route to his wife – whose near-angelic qualities seemed to shine in his mind all the more brightly in comparison with the present company – instead of Weymouth.
He glanced down, glumly, at his wedding band, and sighed.
Perhaps he might have done a great deal better to begin – straight away – his plans to turn around and go home, but the lure of a cosy sea-side tavern where there would be merry games and drink seemed no great evil to him, particularly as he did not intend to stay long, and it proved the beginning of his extended troubles.
One drink became three, and – following the completion of his third glass – he found himself at a card-table with a man who did a very poor job indeed of disguising what must have been the most dismal of hands. The other players, too, did not appear to know what they were about. A little more money for the trip back had seemed prudent – a sure thing, a comfort.
A fourth drink was had, and – before Tom quite realised it – he had no more money to wager.
How had he lost every single guinea he'd come in with? Surely, he thought in pure bafflement, he was not so drunk as that.
A dim suspicion that someone had seen him coming and slipped something into his drink floated briefly along the murky stream of his consciousness, but in the end it seemed most unlikely – no, it was mere fatigue and grogginess from travel which made him so unusually dull and slow and stupid. He ought to have gotten some sleep before attempting to gamble so seriously.
Would he have to write to his father and ask for the carriage to be sent from Mansfield?
No, certainly not.
Tom would rather have eaten dirt – rather have licked the filthy floor of the tavern with everyone watching him – rather have crawled about on all fours picking up any dropped coins – than have to ask his father – or, worse, perish the thought, Edmund – for help getting home. And the letter might not reach home in any time to make a difference, if it reached home at all. His letter telling his father about his marriage had gone astray, after all.
"Hmm, what d'you say to one more hand," murmured Tom.
"Sir, you have nothing to bet with" –hacking cough – "don't waste my time."
He slipped the wedding band from his left hand. "How'a..." His fingers shook; he forced them steady. "How about this, then?"
"Aye, that'll do nicely – long as your missus dun't find out en have your head for it."
Fanny wouldn't know – he'd win it back, along with his money, and be heading home to her very soon. Besides, if she knew it was for her own sake, for longing to return to her, he convinced himself, she surely would not mind.
"My wife..." said Tom, quietly, flicking his middle finger against a gaming fish, sending it flipping across the table with a faint, slightly irritable ping, "she... s'not like other men's wives. Her disposition is as sweet as sugar-cane from Antigua. She won't scold."
"Well, for your own sake, I hope you're right about that, m'boy." Because he held a winning hand, which he showed with glee.
Tom cursed under his breath, watching his ring disappear.
"Too bad that's the end of the line for you – better fortune to you next time, eh?"
Eyes narrowed, Tom reached under the table, moaned and tugged, and – after a moment's manoeuvring – slammed his boots down onto the table. "Deal me into the next hand, mate." He motioned at the pocket the man had tucked the wedding ring into. "Put my ring back on the table, if you please – I intend to reclaim it."
"As you like – it's your funeral."
"We'll see about that."
Two hours later, Tom was walking barefoot down the shore, nothing but the bag of clothes and odds and ends he'd packed before leaving Mansfield in his possession, looking out at the choppy water.
Given all she suffered, and the fact that Mrs. Norris made no secret of how she believed her solely responsible for Tom's hasty departure and Susan and Edmund could only offer a degree of protection from her spite as buffers, Fanny Bertram was in little enough mood to be pleased – or even amused by – a complete stranger mistaking her for a servant, but that was precisely what she had to endure less than two days after her husband's abandonment.
It came about like this.
Edmund was pacing, heatedly, coming down heavily on his heels with each agitated step, and had been tersely speaking while she and Susan stabbed their needles into their work, looking – poor souls – rather like bumpkins.
Susan screwed her face in concetration; Fanny's expression, blank and lost, changed very little from moment to moment.
"If I could only be sure he was in London, I would go myself and bring him back here for you, Fanny." Click, stomp, scuff, click. "Do not think for a moment my being the younger of the two of us would stop me – not knowing the rightness of my actions as I do."
"I do not doubt it, cousin," she mumbled.
"But Tom could be almost anywhere – perhaps not Newmarket, not yet, the season's not begun and there would be little to please him at the moment, but he might be any place else one could think of."
Susan pricked her little finger, having forgotten to employ the use of a thimble. "Ouch."
"Do be careful, Susan," sighed Edmund; "the last thing we need now is..." and he trailed off, having caught sight of something. "It's not...? I think surely...? By Jove, upon my word – it is!"
Fanny sat straighter and set her own sewing down; she naturally sensed something of interest, perhaps even to herself, was occurring, given Edmund – after a glance out the window of the former school-room which was now Fanny and Susan's private parlour – suddenly became a fluttering mess of nerves, straightening out his cravat so hurriedly she thought he'd strangle himself and attempting to smooth down his hair which she had never thought – before that moment – stuck up so very much it needed such urgent attending to.
"It is Miss Crawford," he said next, by way of explanation, breath quite caught in his throat. "And her brother." His cheeks coloured. "I had not realised they'd returned to the Grants at the parsonage. I had rather..." He sighed. "I had rather hoped to have returned to Thornton Lacey before... Before having to see Mary again. Our last conversation was not the most pleasurable I've ever had, to put it lightly. But there is no helping it now. We must be civil and make friends. Come, let us go down and greet them."
Curiosity overcame Fanny – especially in light of Susan's growing interest in these new visitors, who surely could not be any worse company than Mrs. Norris, mirroring her own – so she did not think of herself for once and did not realise she might appear rather shabby.
It was not until – when the sisters happened by pure chance to beat Edmund down the stairs and arrive first before the opening front doors – an admittedly short young man who was not very handsome on his own merits, let alone when compared to the Bertram brothers, yet was – for all that – very fashionable-looking and animated of face, thrust a top hat in her direction that Fanny's self-awareness kicked in.
"Pray be a good girl and tell Mr. Bertram we are here," he said airily, shoving the top hat more emphatically since she hadn't taken it. "We have something of his which has gone astray. Chop, chop, make haste, if you please. We wish to see Mr. Bertram."
"She's his wife," snapped Susan, indignant. "You are addressing Mrs. Bertram."
Henry Crawford started. "Goodness!" He had not noticed Susan properly, either, before that exact moment – wearing Julia's cast-off clothes had made her somewhat invisible to him. Much like Mrs. Norris, he had – in a moment of preoccupation – assumed the blonde girl he glimpsed from the corner of his eye must be Julia Bertram. He had private reason for not quite meeting Julia's gaze when it might be helped, though he'd quite convinced himself the coolness between them was more on her end than his own, and had given the matter no more thought.
"Henry, really!" exclaimed the pretty little brown-headed girl beside him.
Edmund came down the stairs then, as Mr. Crawford was taking back his hat and smiling, Fanny was bright crimson with mortification, and Susan was scowling defensively. And he had eyes mainly for Mary, who he fancied to be looking at him with unexpected warmth, thus seeing precious little of the situation with a clear view.
Fanny felt, on top of all else, a flashing pang of jealousy. She could not explain it, even to herself, but she felt keenly that these two – though she had resolved to like them before seeing them up close – particularly Mary – had come to steal away her only true friend apart from Susan.
Edmund would look less to her comforts when distracted by Miss Crawford.
She also had a vague warning sense tingling in her spine, which would not be pushed away even as she reminded herself it was severely uncharitable and must be weeded out, singing out how Mary was totally unworthy of him. To lose her dear friend – her only protector – to a worthy, suitable woman might have been endured, she felt, even in the absence of her own love, but to lose him to a woman who he was set on yet seemed his polar opposite in all ways upon even a first meeting...
Henry, well, Henry was – or so she believed instinctively – worse in his own way... Which had nothing to do with Edmund, really, if she were being honest. There was something off about him. Something which she could not rest her finger upon, nor did she feel she should ever want to.
Her mind turning back to Mary, however...
Oh, God, thought Fanny, in pure misery, almost forgetting about Henry and the humiliation he inflicted upon her in her growing horror for Edmund's sake, I know how he felt now – I know how Edmund must have felt when he came to Portsmouth and attempted to put an end to the engagement between myself and Tom! It is pure wretchedness through and through. How shall I bear it?
She bore it well enough, though, when she learned – shortly thereafter – any immediate understanding leaning towards a matrimonial direction between Edmund and Mary apart from exaggerated, lopsided pining (mostly on Edmund's part) was not so terribly likely.
"You must forgive me, Mrs. Bertram," said Henry Crawford, chuckling, giving her an expression he meant to be playful and apologetic but was too much at the expense of her appearance to be the ice-breaker he intended, "I'd wrongly mistaken you for a servant."
"My brother knew better than to..." Mary sighed and gave Fanny a smile that was decidedly kinder than her brother's. "You see, Henry has this dreadful habit of not looking to see who a missive happens to be addressed to before reading it in a grand hurry – I've scolded him on it a great many times, dear Mrs. Bertram, let me assure you – and we, by a mislaid letter which only this very morning has appeared at the parsonage, along with ourselves, odd as that may be, learned Tom Bertram had been recently married. So he knew perfectly well to expect a wife, a new Mrs. Bertram, in coming here, and he still treated you contemptuously. He does not think as he ought sometimes."
"Hold on a moment." Edmund blinked rapidly, stepping before Fanny. "Which letter is this?"
"I have it here," said Henry, and showed it with exaggerated sheepishness. "I believe it was meant for Sir Thomas – I wish so very much I could have replaced the broken seal and might feign innocence, spare us all a great deal of embarrassment, but I have no means of hiding my unwitting crime and thus have to confess it. If I'd known the letter was not for myself I'd never have sliced it open with my paperknife and broken the wax to begin with."
"He did write to our father," mumbled Edmund, examining the letter with some sorrowfulness. "You were not mistaken, Fanny."
She nodded – this she'd known already. She wondered only how Edmund could have still held any doubt.
"Henry, apologise, and properly this time," hissed Mary, elbowing her brother. "And I don't mean for the letter. You've scandalised poor little Mrs. Bertram trying to hand her your silly hat. Ridiculous fop! Why don't you ever think? I could knock your head off at the neck, I really could."
"Come now, Mary, I've already begged her forgiveness" – in a voice he clearly believed quiet enough not to be heard by Fanny but was not truly so – "and the girl barely looks as if she is out, let alone wed, and her clothes are... What cause had I to think she was Mrs. Bertram? To ask her pardon again will only embarrass us both further."
Sucking her teeth, Mary spoke up, louder, "And where, might I ask, is your delightful brother?" She beamed at Edmund. "I believe congratulations are in order."
"I really ought to give him the letter," added Henry, "as he was its writer – he can then give it to his father if he thinks it still relevant."
Susan balled her hands into fists at her sides. "He is not here."
"He's left us for a while," Edmund explained, unable to keep the coldness from his voice. "We do not know when to expect him back."
Fanny could not disguise her distress quickly enough – Mary latched onto it, taking her arm and walking – as if she knew the way already – towards the drawing-room. "Oh, my poor dear!" She shook her head. "So very selfish of our Tom – our flighty Mr. Bertram – to leave you alone with his family – doubtless near-strangers to you yet – and the pair of you newly-weds still! Well, take it as a lesson, dear one – selfishness must always be forgiven, regardless of it being right or wrong, or inflicted by a pigheaded gentleman, because there is no hope of a cure."
Our Tom? Our Mr. Bertram? Our? As in theirs? Fanny marvelled that she could speak so. As if she knew Fanny's husband just as well as she did – as if he somehow belonged equally to the both of them! To be familiar enough to call him pigheaded – near insulting him – in the present company! If this were coming one of Tom's sisters, from Maria or Julia, it might be understandable – girls teased their brothers beyond what was strictly kind and often meant no malice by it, she knew, it was considered normal enough, though nothing should ever have induced her to disrespect William in such a way – but that it should come from Mary Crawford! She hadn't any right. How could she turn Fanny's own private suffering into something about her? How could she dismiss the shame of the current situation so readily? And how could she defend Fanny to her brother first, as she unquestionably had, only to take the wind from her sails and dizzy her with the unsettling mix of impropriety and what was obviously meant to be unabashed kindness?
No wonder Edmund did not know what to do with himself in Mary's presence! Fanny was scarcely sure herself. She even found, little enough sense as it might make, she liked hearing Mary talk; she was undoubtedly entertaining, though Fanny might – deep down – disagree with each and every word she uttered in her lovely voice. And, in her consideration of all this, Fanny was not taking into account – on her own behalf, as Edmund certainly would – that Mary was extremely pretty with a countenance which gave any who looked at her great pleasure.
The Crawfords were like cruel lightning which had struck twice.
Fanny's father – being superstitious, as he was a sailor – held the belief that certain evils always came in threes.
Tom had left her, without a word – the first evil, or so she judged.
Henry had come, with the wrong words – the second.
Mary had come, with too many pretty words – the third.
Perhaps Mr. Price was cleverer than she'd ever given him credit for. She almost wished she could write her father and ask him what he thought, before she realised, even if this might not be indiscreet of her, he would not think anything of it at all – when she married Tom, Mr. Price stopped thinking of his eldest daughter at all. She had become, the moment Edmund joined their hands together, her husband's worry for ever after.
And her husband, her Tom – not their Tom, not someone she shared with the Crawfords – apparently never thought of her at all.
Soon enough, she believed, in light of everything now occurring, Edmund would surely cease to care as well.
The rising sun was casting a pinkish-grey streak across the sky over the beach, and Tom sat, eyes bloodshot, bare toes dug deep into the cold, gritty sand, and helped himself to the contents of his snuffbox. It was made of silver – he should have wagered with it at cards, he realised, instead of his wedding ring.
He only had a little tobacco left, but it was better than nothing.
Or so he thought, until a sudden breeze mixed some sand into it just as he was snorting it up his right nostril.
He sputtered wildly, trying to get the feel of burning grit from his nose, when a voice behind him said, "If you are in need of money, I can assist you."
"Hang it all – wait a dashed moment before requiring my answer, will you? – I've got dry sand going up into my skull." A bit of blood was dribbling from the opposite nostril now. He wiped it away with the back of his wrist, then looked at the speaker – a tall man who might not have been a gentleman, strictly, but was polished enough to be worth noticing. "Oh, yes? What is the rub? About the money, I mean."
"The rub, my friend, is you'd have to earn it – the rub is work."
"Damn," said he, but he smiled and rose to his feet, stumbling and falling face-forward to the pitching ground as he did so.
As they walked back to the parsonage, Henry Crawford appeared so lost in thought Mary finally grabbed her brother's arm and exclaimed he must tell her what had him so transfixed or she'd never have a moment's happiness for trying to guess.
"The stars are coming out," said he, walking again.
"Stars, nothing," Mary argued, clinging stubbornly to his arm and managing to look graceful while doing so. "You never think of stars. The day you become an astronomer, Henry, is the day I dance – in public, no less – with a clergyman."
"I think Edmund Bertram might tempt you yet, dearest minx," he teased. "He was fawning over you nearly the whole visit. What have you done to the poor man?"
"Tut, tut – pray, do not change the subject – you are not thinking of looking for Cassiopeia in the sky, and that is a fact; something else has you riveted and consumes your whole mind and being."
He smiled rakishly, slowing his steps just a little. "If you must know, Mary, I have been trying – with little enough success, I'll confess – to work out what to make of Mrs. Bertram."
A lesser woman would have stumbled; Mary's feet all but danced and she did not even trip. "Why should you think of Mrs. Bertram?" She arched an eyebrow. "She is, after all, exactly that – Mrs. Bertram. I might think of her – as someone to play with and be amused by – if only she talked a little more, as her sister does, but what interest could she hold for you?"
"Simply that she is such a mystery! I think she must be an unfeeling, prudish creature, and wish to dismiss her, yet..." He sighed to himself and rolled his eyes heavenward. "Yet it is proving very disagreeable to me to have a woman about who is so difficult to entertain! I never was so long in company with a girl who only sat and looked so grave on me!"
"You mistook her for a maid-servant, for pity's sake – I would have snubbed you, too."
"But I was civil and charming after the initial mistake, was I not?"
"Honestly! Not everyone in the world can be expected to love you – it may do you a little good, this small rejection."
Grimacing, he considered this. "Perhaps I could concede your point... Perhaps. If only it were from a less well-looking woman. If she were homely, if she were more crass than she is, if her bearing was not so pleasant and her skin not good and her graces – if rough around the edges – not apparent, I should accept it."
"Foolish fellow," she cried; "what nonsense!"
"It's not nonsense," protested Henry, and he nearly – just nearly – looked truly forlorn. "Her eyes say she shall not like me, that she is determined as much as anyone who cannot matter to her will ever be determined upon not to like me." He chuckled to himself. "Well, those light eyes of hers can say what they like – for I say I shall get her to like me."
"Could you not be satisfied with the fact that – recently enough – both her cousins liked you?" She lowered her voice. "And – also – despite being married, despite being Mrs. Rushworth, I would argue Maria likes you still even if Julia does not? And if you must have someone here and now, might you not do better to like Susan Price best, over Fanny Bertram?"
"I'm afraid not." He pouted prettily, his handsome brow creased in a manner he knew to be extremely becoming. "My mind is quite made up."
"She's married to Tom Bertram – the future master of Mansfield Park – don't go forgetting that in all your love games."
"Why, that only secures the harmlessness of what I'm doing!" His teeth showed in a broad smile, all white and pearly and perfectly glittering. "She shall have to like me without expecting anything to come of such liking."
"Well" – Mary blew out her cheeks in defeat – "I can attempt no further remonstrance, then, can I?"
And, as they were in sight of the parsonage and the conversation was growing stale, Mary – thinking little enough of it, believing herself exonerated by her earlier protest – left Fanny Bertram to her fate, little though she believed the innocent girl actually deserved it.
"Fanny, what are you doing – standing and staring at the window!"
She whirled to see Mrs. Norris standing behind her, looking cross but at the same time unusually subdued.
"I–" she managed, before Mrs. Norris, who'd started, in a tone which was not as nasty as it might have been, "You'll catch cold and then–" saw what Fanny was looking at. "Ah, I see now what you've been about – you're watching Miss Crawford leave us."
She nodded.
"Well, you might have said so at once," Mrs. Norris sighed, "rather than leave anyone seeing you gawking in suspense, you know – it's not a crime to watch good company departing."
Fanny almost suspected Mrs. Norris meant to be kind, genuinely kind to her, for the very first time since they'd met, and she found herself holding her breath in anticipation.
"Indeed, you might learn much from Miss Crawford – to a reasonable degree."
She exhaled sadly, her hope of charity from this aunt dimming already. The tone being employed was growing sharp again, and Fanny – for all her pretty wishful thinking – couldn't trust this woman not to jab with her words and twist in for added emphasis.
"You know, Fanny, there was a time – not so very long ago – when we all had hopes – that is very nearly all of us – Tom would ask Miss Crawford to marry him." She tsked and shook her head. "I suppose, since we were all hoping, also, that her brother would ask for Julia's hand – and it never quite happened, somehow – Tom avoided posing the question to save his sister the embarrassment of the brother-in-law she'd inherit."
Did Mrs. Norris, Fanny wondered, in silent amazement, really not know Edmund was in love with Mary Crawford? No one with the slightest discernment could have missed it – not for a moment. Edmund, not unlike herself, simply could not act – he played the part of disinterest horridly, wholly unconvincing. Had it truly never occurred to her aunt Tom might have been sparing Edmund more than he was Julia, if he ever had considered Mary?
Which, in itself, was doubtful enough.
Fanny never did believe herself half so beautiful as Tom had sometimes pronounced her to be in private moments of affection (he was not always the picture of sobriety when rhapsodising about how she was a 'diamond of the first water', for one thing), but she was aware that any personal charm she held was the opposite of Mary's. Tom clearly had a fondness for light features over dark ones, if he was drawn to her. It stood only to reason. Whereas Edmund's tastes seemed to run in the opposite direction – so much so that if Mary had been more reserved, more guileless and thoughtful, as complimentary to Edmund in mind as she was in body, Fanny would have thought them made for one another by God's own hands.
Thus she could only conclude Mrs. Norris set Tom's name alongside Mary's in this unlooked-for conversation purely as a manner of personal shaming, not from any real belief – even a delusional one – Tom would have married her.
"It would have been a very good match, all the same," lamented Mrs. Norris. "I'm sure if they had wed Tom would spend more time at home. We should see him much more often if he had a different sort of woman for a wife."
Fanny was stung – tears pricked her eyes.
"But do try to learn from her, my dear – that is, if you can, considering who and what you are."
And she left her there, a little farther from the window than she'd originally stood, broken and lonely, until Susan came along and put her arms around her sister.
"She's said something to you again, hasn't she – our Aunt Norris?" spat Susan, rubbing her back consolingly. "Think no more of it, please; she's a spiteful old cat. That's all she is."
"It's so ironic," whispered Fanny.
"What is?" Susan's forehead crinkled.
"Giving him up – Tom, I mean – would have hurt less than this."
"Oh, Fanny, I'm sorry."
"We need help, Susie," she rasped out, choking on sobs as she buried her face in Susan's warm shoulder, "we're in too far over our heads in this house – why does no one help us?"
"Perhaps," she said, softly, wanting to be truthful yet at the same time wishing – above all else – to inflict no further pain on her suffering sister, "it's only because you never ask."
A letter for a certain John Yates (stamped with Weymouth postmarks) arrived in London, and he paid for it and read its contents while enjoying rather a good breakfast.
Yates,
I find myself stranded – quite abominably stranded, with no way home – in Weymouth.
This follows some small folly on my part, but – I ardently assure you – nothing so evil it was ever deserving of my falling into this current state of degradation.
Without depressing your ever jovial spirit too deeply, allow me to tell you that I am, more or less, shackled by debt to a damnable, dirty little tavern – and I write this letter with a cramped hand by the light of a cracked windowpane – working myself to the bone. I'm loath to tell anyone I am of the gentry, for if my current situation should reach my father's ears, I should never hear the end of it, but it also means I can expect no special treatment.
My heart, meanwhile, is far away in Mansfield Park, and my chances of being reunited with it once again... Well, they're far from being in my favour.
I cannot bear to write anyone else. For friendship's sake, man, come and fetch me – I beg you to come as speedily as you can and rescue a fellow gentleman in need.
I hope this shall indeed reach you and, when it does, you have the good sense to pay for its delivery – as, admittedly, old bean, you have done for past concurrences – for, as you see, I could not frank it.
With urgency,
T. Bertram
Edmund sat at the writing desk in Julia's room, composing a letter of his own, which was to be directed to the congregation in Thornton Lacey.
A small intake of breath behind him made him set down his quill and push back the chair, looking to Fanny – appearing as a tiny little slip of a thing – in the doorway.
"Ah, Fanny – I've made some arrangements so that I might stay here at Mansfield a while longer, given the circumstances." He motioned over his shoulder, at the letter drying on the desk. "Mr. Elton from Highbury will be taking my place at Thornton Lacey for a short while." A small hint of worry flittered across his pensive face. "Now, to be sure, I'd have greatly preferred Mr. Tilney, who I think is more serious-minded and a better example in my stead – Elton can be a bit, well, silly – but Henry's wife is expecting another child and I fear this would not be the time to ask favours of him – not so very near poor Catherine's lying-in."
Fanny smiled, then she played with her fingers for a moment, gathering up her courage.
"What is it?" His tone was gentle, waiting. "You really are so pale today."
She motioned down at herself, at her old Portsmouth clothes, and then looked pointedly about the grand bedroom. "I don't know what I'm doing here." She swallowed hard and closed her eyes, bracing herself to accept that he might say no – that, especially with the Crawfords in residence – he might have more important things to consider than her lack of education. "Will you help me?"
Edmund's expression melted from one of tight concern into one of fond doting. Rising from the chair, he held out his hands to her. "Of course, Fanny – of course I'll help you."
A/N: reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.
