Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Twenty-Two:
With Love, To Wimpole Street
"D'you know, Bertram, old bean," said Mr. Yates, sounding gratified and slightly wistful as the flick of a whip was heard and the carriage began to move under them, the wheels clacking along the slightly uneven shoreline road and the horses' hooves rhythmically clip-clopping, "I don't think I've ever, in my life, had such an exceedingly pleasant send-off."
"Oh, yes," Tom replied, his tone vague, closing the curtain and sinking back into the seat beside John's valet with visible relief. "Most pleasant, most agreeable. Jolly good show all around."
Mr. Yates laughed good-naturedly. "You're a thousand miles away, my friend – and I don't think we can mean the same thing." He smiled at Tom cutting his eyes at him. "For myself, I've never been pinched and kissed farewell so heartily by anyone. Nor given so many sheaths of paper loaded with songs and plays." Aside, nearly rhapsodising, "Oh, such generosity! I can't wait to read and perform the lot of them. Your brother said you played a little on the piano, I think, did he not? I'm certain he did – when he was warning you off marriage in Portsmouth, I believe it was. You might accompany me on some of the songs whenever we stop off some place with a decent pianoforte. That will be when we reach Mansfield, I expect." Then, backtracking and continuing on his original thought as if he'd never veered off from it to begin with, "Much less offered so many good things by way of imploring me to consider extending my stay after all."
"No," agreed Tom, still distant, his chin resting on the knuckles of his closed hand, "you're right, John – we cannot mean the same thing."
"Whatever is depressing your spirits, though?" Mr. Yates wanted to know. "Don't tell me you've grown fond of Anne – she did seem something of a favourite with you, a preference was there, noticed even by one so thick as myself – and are sorry to leave her?"
Tom lifted his head and, sounding more like himself than he had all morning, snorted, "Good God, no – if I'm less than the picture of merriment, it's only fear of something yet preventing my leaving. Even if it is only my own foolishness."
"Your commissioner has given you full payment – what was left of it after your excessive card-playing, that is, though I don't say so to scold you, only as a fact – and sent you off with a good will," Yates pointed out. "I can imagine nothing preventing you. You're certain it's not Anne you're Friday-faced over?"
Indeed, he was – Tom was more certain of that than he'd ever been of anything in his life. His head and heart were full of Fanny, of his own Mrs. Bertram – only of Fanny Bertram. She was the uncontested preoccupation of his heart as far as any person on earth was concerned. If Sophie or even Anne, older and wiser though she was, had allowed themselves to grow very fond of him in any irreplaceable manner during his extended stay, they only doomed themselves to an unrequited passion until such a time as they might learn to forget a little.
Tom told Mr. Yates as much, though with rather fewer words to spare, for a heavy, pensive exhaustion seemed to hang over him, dampening his normally energetic spirit. His current, lazily slouched posture in the carriage-seat was just the smallest bit reminiscent of his mother, Lady Bertram, sitting in her same place as ever on the sofa in the drawing-room of Mansfield Park.
"I thought," said Mr. Yates, his tone somewhere between relieved and surprised, "you might have developed a fondness, if not for Anne, then probably for pretty little Sophie." He gave a small cough. "She was, in some manner, fond of you, at any rate. Though, I confess, I'm glad enough it's dear old Fanny you still like best, after all, given she's already your wife and waiting for you at home. Makes things a great deal less complicated, you know." Then, "D'you not think, Tom, that in some respects, in the correct lighting, if you squint a bit, poor Miss Sophie looks a little – a very little, mind you – like your own dear sister Julia?"
He did not.
"I suppose," said Mr. Yates, with a sigh, "you're correct – Sophie's nose is too small for her face. Julia hasn't that problem."
"No, not at all," Tom replied in a blank tone which might have been taken one of two ways, "she never has and I daresay never will."
Mr. Yates, blinded by good-natured affection on both sides – for the brother and the sister alike – took it the nicer of the two ways, as wholly complimentary, and agreed heartily.
Tom nearly wished his friend could have been offended, by way of picking up his real meaning rather than supplying him with the purest intentions in his own mind, and that he might have thusly been spared twenty-minutes rhapsodising on his youngest sister's shapely nostrils and the perceived perfection of her face in general.
Those who were offended, Tom was aware, as a rule, were usually prone to giving out silent glowers.
But there was no telling when one who felt positively encouraged might be inclined to stop talking.
Tom's next words, when he was finally able to get them in, were not so much to Mr. Yates, or to his half-asleep valet, as they were his own private pondering spoken aloud.
He'd become, in so short a time, all too used to hearing a voice saying every single thing it thought – even if it was only the very dull thoughts of Mr. Yates, which no one had asked or desired him to share – to realise his own deliberation was not, just then, audible solely within his own head.
He wondered if his appearance ought to be fixed up a bit before he arrived at home again. He was aware he smelled less than appealing from having been bathing in the sea, rather than in his commissioner's rusty baths, for so long, his current scent probably reminiscent more of a fishmonger than a gentleman, and that his hair had grown out somewhat more than he was strictly used to letting it. He was fairly sure it had not been so long as it was now since he'd been in Antigua without a proper barber.
Tom was not enough of a fop, generally, to care too much about this, his private vanity notwithstanding, and if it were only Edmund and his father – and even his mother – he was thinking of returning to, he might have given the state in which they'd first see him rather little consideration.
But he thought of Fanny – his pretty wife he pictured sitting in the drawing-room beside his mother, doing some crude needlework, perhaps sewing one of those decorative pillows that were all over the house for some reason – and vanity pricked at him relentlessly.
He desired greatly that her first impression of him after so long be a pleasant one, as he was sure would be the case in reverse.
Mr. Yates, for his part, responding though Tom had not meant to ask for an actual response, couldn't think up any way of fixing this, unless his friend were to sneak around to the back of the house when they arrived and clean up, as best as he could – with, of course, the most willing help of Yates' valet, who was always ready to perform a shave and a trim at a moment's notice – before sneaking down to the drawing-room and surprising Fanny.
Tom liked the idea, upon initial consideration, but he gradually came to suppose that someone – one or other of the staff, if not a member of the family, probably hawk-eyed Aunt Norris – would see the carriage and spoil the surprise before it could be enacted.
Fanny might even, given a warning, be the one to sneak up on him.
They rested on the side of the road that evening, not coming upon any suitable inn in time, the only posting-house in view very likely being lice-ridden, and Tom slept very little (Mr. Yates, his valet, the driver, and the horses were all prone to snoring loudly; and highwaymen might have been reasonably rare in those parts, but Tom still half expected them, as he dismally expected anything which might further impede his return to Fanny).
They had better luck the following night, Mr. Yates even being able to rent out a parlour where they could sit by a nice fire and have drinks while the driver saw to the horses outside, but Tom sipped his own glass of French brandy morosely, expressing himself – such as he did – to be very put-upon and ill-used indeed, because it had not been his own idea to stop there; he had wanted to go on further.
Sometime later, during the day following this, they were approaching London, and the driver was slowing, asking if they'd prefer to go through the city or around it by way of getting to Mansfield Park.
And what a change was there! Mr. Yates was prepared to tell his driver to go around, while it was Tom Bertram who advocated for going through the crowded city wherein he might not only be slowed but also tempted.
"What change of heart is this?" said Mr. Yates, in understandable surprise. "You, who acted so cross over an inn, wishing to go through London as if it were a mere bridge and could hold nothing to halt your way. Can this really be my friend Bertram asking this?"
"I have a mind," said Tom, shortly but not unkindly, "to make a visit – yes, John, we'd stay the night, and be delayed once more, but I think you would not object so readily if you guessed my errand."
"Hadn't you better keep some of the money from your commissioner," suggested Mr. Yates, "in case of tolls or the like? Not that I wouldn't assist, and it is my carriage–"
"I'm thinking of the one place in London where I'd be tempted to hold my savings like a miserable old miser – where I wouldn't want to share a farthing with anyone present, much less find myself nailed to a card-table with them," Tom explained by way of not really explaining at all; "if – and I admit I do doubt myself a little in this – I could count upon my own will-power not to become wearied of the company that awaits me and leave for some happy tavern in the middle of the night."
Mr. Yates was puzzled, downright mystified. "What would be the purpose of such a place, I wonder – sounds absolutely dismal, if you ask me."
"Oh, for myself, it's beyond dismal – a tedious stop, I assure you," laughed Tom; "but I could at least bathe and get the scent of the ocean off myself before going on to Mansfield Park in the morning."
"Very well, do as you like – if you'd really have it so," Mr. Yates agreed haltingly, for he could not venture a guess – this was all getting rather beyond him.
Tom reached to knock up against the carriage roof. "Driver," he called, banging thrice, "with my host's permission" – and he looked, then, at Yates, who shrugged – "we'll go through London. I wish to make a stop on Wimpole Street."
Fanny's new wardrobe had arrived and the fitting had gone well – or, that is, well enough that Mary Crawford did not proclaim it a complete disaster, which garnered Edmund's praise and Susan's begrudging acceptance of Mary's taste and suggestions not being entirely without merit – and Mrs. Norris had had her say about its needless extravagance, which everyone was so accustomed to prior to the clothes arriving that they paid her words being reiterated now very little mind.
Mary insisted upon fixing Fanny's hair before she could model some of her new finery for them all, and she'd agreed to it – since Mary would not, in her wheedling way, accept a refusal – half expecting it would be some more of what Miss Crawford had done previously, a simple pinning up of it, and was surprised when, instead, Mary – taking out a pair of silver scissors – trimmed the front of her hair more closely so that her ringlets might be coiled tighter and higher and spent a good deal of time plaiting the back intricately before pinning it in place.
"I don't know how I'll keep it all neat," Fanny remarked, and felt it most keenly despite having done her hair in plaits and ringlets many times for herself in the past and never having thought her own efforts the least bit shabby before.
Mary was gratified. She gave her a loving pat on the shoulder. "You'll do fine, I'm sure – now, see how lovely you look." She held a hand-mirror up in front of Fanny. "What do you think?"
She thought she didn't recognise herself, and did not know how to answer, in spite of an answer's being plainly expected. She murmured something about being very grateful and, taking the offered mirror from Mary, placed it face-down on the dressing-table with a shaky hand and an even shakier smile.
"I have something of an offer to make to you, Fanny." And Mary placed, beside the mirror Fanny had just set down, her opened jewellery box. "I thought you might like one of these, for your pretty amber cross."
Fanny glanced down at the near-blinding array of pretty gold necklaces and her hand rose automatically towards her own neck to touch Edmund's chain protectively. "I've already got a chain."
"But only the one, and it is so simple." Mary lifted up a necklace. "And I have a great deal more than I can ever use myself. Quite the collection, as you can see."
Stammering, Fanny managed to refuse, perhaps too bluntly, and Mary – suddenly cross and closing her box with a frustrated click – left her alone for a moment, and – to Fanny's surprise – it was Edmund who came back to her rather than Miss Crawford.
"Oh, Fanny," said he, with a chastising shake of his head, "I think you've hurt her feelings – she supposes her gift was not wanted."
"I only meant," she rasped out, leaning back in her chair and craning her neck to look at her cousin, "that I already had yours and she did not need to part with one of her possessions on my account."
"She was severely mortified," admitted Edmund, with sorrow, "but I told her as much as you've just conveyed to me now – that you did not mean it as she took it. I guessed your reasoning very easily."
"I–"
"Don't distress yourself, Fanny – I shall call her back in and tell her you will accept the necklace, if it means so very much to her." In a lower voice, he added, "Mine will be perfect for ordinary use, and if there is ever a fancy occasion, or if you know she is coming to dine with us, you might wear her necklace then – whichever one she means to give you. All of her jewellery, even the pieces she has no current use for, is better than anything I could think to buy you; you must be aware of that." And, in parting, as he strode towards the door and set his hand on the handle, "Your hair looks very nice, by the way – it was Miss Crawford's doing, was it?"
The door closed behind him, and Fanny put her face into her hands and groaned softly.
So, although she didn't wish it, Fanny was obliged to accept one of Mary's necklaces. She took the one she thought must be the least valuable, the one Mary seemed most to be nudging her towards choosing, though it was still entirely too fine, and allowed Mary to slide her beloved cross off Edmund's chain and string it onto this thicker, fancier and – in Fanny's opinion – much too short one.
For a moment, a single joyous moment, Fanny thought the cross would not fit on the necklace, that it would not go through, and the scheme would have to be given up, but Mary, pouting, gave a little tug on the thick chain and the cross slid into place as if it, too, could not refuse Mary Crawford no matter how much it might wish to do so.
"Here, let me fasten it for you," Mary said next, fixing the clasp behind Fanny's neck. "There. It is perfection, and it suits your new dress so well! I knew it would!"
Though it galled her a bit, Fanny's conscience pricked her into saying, with true enough feeling by the time she got the words out, "I will think of you – of how kind you were to give it – every time I wear it."
"That is very sweet, and over such a trifle," said Mary, grinning to herself. "The cross is a gift from your brother, is it not?"
"Oh" – and Fanny's smile was less hesitant, on safer ground now – "yes."
"Well, then this very necklace and your cross were meant to be together," she said merrily, "because the cross is from your brother and the necklace was from mine."
Fanny flushed scarlet and lifted her hands in a flutter to the clasp. "Oh, I cannot–"
Mary's mouth parted. "Goodness! Whatever's the matter?"
"I can't take your brother's gift – it is too precious a thing."
"Nonsense! He's given me hundreds of gifts," she insisted, trying to calm Fanny and urge her hands back down, "he can well afford it."
"He will think," was Fanny's final, desperate attempt, "I did not come by it honestly."
"He will think nothing of the sort!"
Tears pricked at her eyes, coming out so far as to dampen her eyelashes and turn them from dry pale gold to a moistened amber almost the same hue as her cross, and she blinked them back furiously.
Oh, if only the necklace had been originally purchased by anyone – anyone in the whole world – save for Henry Crawford, who already – she felt – gave her too much unasked-for attention as it was.
But she did not unclasp it, and she wore it with her new dress and pretty rose-coloured pelisse, and Henry – who was waiting at the bottom of the staircase with Susan and Edmund for her to make her appearance after Mary's efforts were completed – saw it and looked pleased, outright beaming when he noticed it shimmering at her throat, which to her was far, far worse than angry.
She'd almost hoped he would be angry, that he would not want her wearing it, distressing as a scene made over his anger at her perceived thievery might have been.
"Presenting," announced Mary Crawford, from the landing, "Mrs. Frances Bertram."
To complete her distress, Fanny tripped, on the final step, and – because he got there before Edmund could – it was Henry who grasped her arm and straightened her.
She murmured her thanks, before staggering over to Susan, quick as she could, on the pretence of showing her sister the embroidered details on the sleeves of the pelisse, including her scripted and entwined initials F.B., but all she could think was how she'd have greatly preferred to have been permitted to fall flat on her face instead of Mr. Crawford's touching her and seeming so unnaturally glad of the occasion for doing so.
"Oh, it's you," said Maria Rushworth, reaching up and pertly straightening the short sleeves of her evening gown.
When her husband's butler had informed her that her brother was at the street-door, come at dusk with a companion in an unfamiliar carriage, she'd vaguely anticipated Edmund and one of his fellow downy clergymen he was always bringing around with him – Mr. Owen, perhaps, or that annoying Mr. Tilney man who never stopped talking about his wife and telling the story of how they'd met in Bath and his father, who Maria judged from the story to be even stricter than her own, had mistaken her for an heiress.
Less than exciting company, to be sure, but dependable in their way.
She had not expected Tom.
"My dearest Maria" – and Tom, with greatly exaggerated fondness, held his arms open – "how the devil are you?"
"Tom." She leaned forward and kissed him on both cheeks as quickly as possible and wrinkled her nose. "So good to see you. Why didn't you send word you were coming?"
"Aw, would it have made any difference?" he simpered, his mouth pursed and his head cocked to the side.
She affected a forced laugh. "None."
Tom and Maria were not, and never would be, nor desire to be, Fanny and William.
If anything, they were something like what Mary and Henry Crawford might have been if they were rivals in childhood and did not – for all their teasing and scolding – really esteem one another rather too highly when all was said and done.
Some siblings, like Tom and Edmund, are born to misunderstand each other until the day – in the future, following some life-altering event – they can, if they are willing, on fate's fixed upon hour and not a minute sooner, learn to love one another.
Others, like Tom and Julia, are born to regard each other as not quite a friend but as a benign acquaintance who will never mean them any real, specific harm.
Then there are Tom and Maria.
It would not be true to say they hated one another – indeed, if Tom were to pick one of his siblings out as an accomplice for some scheme, Maria would – and many, many times had been – his first choice, and they – once joined together in a common cause – were bizarrely inclined to stand by one another far longer than it was strictly convenient for either of them to do so.
And, yet, somehow, they could not – in honesty and good faith – say they really loved one another, nor that they harboured good-will or desired the happiness of the other.
As Maria Bertram she'd barely tolerated Tom, when he was home, and cried to her Aunt Norris whenever she felt his persecution of her was too great to bear.
Later, though, as Maria Rushworth, she was never certain how to receive him, how to cope with him and all the trouble he always seemed to be in, and her uncertainty – which she felt to be childish and demeaning and beneath her station in life – made her feel short-tempered with him simply for existing, whether he'd actually done anything – that is, recently – or not.
Her eldest brother always had made her feel vaguely claustrophobic, even before her marriage, before her escape from the evils of home.
Still, as Tom had readily anticipated, she invited him – and his Mr. Yates – in and ordered their things unloaded from the carriage and brought inside the house.
"Please make yourselves at home," she said, with tense – somewhat put-on – grandeur, "supper will be served in an hour. And we do dress for mealtimes here, in case you've forgotten."
"Ahhhh," called Tom, in rather a sing-song voice, lifting an arm dramatically and gesturing outwards with his raised top hat, "good night, Wimpole Street!"
"You know" – Maria, colouring, spoke through gritted teeth – "how exceedingly I hate when you do that."
"And that is precisely, my dear girl," said Tom, lowering his arm and permitting himself to be dragged fully indoors by an irate little sister, "why I do it every time I visit."
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.
