Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Thirty-Nine:
An Elopement, Such As It Is
Julia Bertram had asked herself, no less than ten times, what she thought she was doing here – here, in this seedy little dining room adjoined to one of the least welcoming inns in London – sitting across from this miserable-looking man – who clearly had not slept for many days – to watch him drink and cry.
The crying – outright blubbering – should have repelled her. It ought to have struck her as remarkably unmanly and put her off liking what had, if she was being honest, never been desirable as far as prospective matches went. Instead, her feelings were quite the opposite. His strong emotion, which she never would have suspected him of before this, did him no disservice.
He had feeling – real, deep feeling.
Julia was, ironically, just a little – a very little, though the similarity existed all the same – like Henry Crawford in that way. Her passive curiosity could, in theory, quite easily give way to passion, and even love, should the object of it succeed in genuinely surprising her in regards to the capabilities of their heart. And in that way, Julia and Mr. Crawford, had the hoped-for match ensued between them as Mrs. Norris once wished, had Maria not been the preferred of the two sisters, should have been miserable together after a time – each waiting in vain for the other to surprise them with emotional qualities they were, privately, not entirely certain existed.
But Mr. Crawford is beside the point – after all, it was not Mr. Crawford Julia had seen, ragged and dishevelled, head bowed, walking through the streets of London like a ghost and – ignoring her sister's cries, all shrilly demanding what she thought she was doing and to stop it at once or she would send her back, posthaste, to Mansfield Park – had alighted from Mr. Rushworth's prettiest high-perch phaeton in a sensational rush, nearly twisting her ankle in the process, and followed.
"It is Mr. Yates!" she had cried, rather throatily, like one in a trance.
Maria Rushworth did not care two figs for Mr. Yates, but she wasn't about to abandon her husband's phaeton (so recently gifted to her in a rather sad, doltish effort to increase her wifely regard for him) and chase after her idiot sister to prevent her going after the Honourable if she was set on such folly.
She'd gone home to Wimpole Street.
Julia – no doubt very footsore and repentant by then – would have to make her own way back to the house.
It had taken longer than did him credit for Mr. Yates to realise Julia was following him, had trailed him all the way back to the inn, and he was not immediately delighted when he realised she was, either. Because he thought she must despise him for abandoning her brother. He would not have believed her less worthy if she did – why should she forgive him, this beautiful woman who might easily attract someone so much more noble, when he could not forgive himself?
Yet she had come and sat across from him. She had been bringing her chair nearer and nearer to his own. Her expression was full of pity rather than contempt.
"I just left him!" he exclaimed for the hundredth time, dashing the back of one wrist against his moist eyes and looking away in shame. "I saw he was dangerously ill – and I left him!"
"Poor, dear Mr. Yates." Julia reached out and placed a hand upon his arm. "You don't deserve to suffer like this – oh, truly, you don't!"
Lifting his gaze, he looked at her as if properly seeing her for the first time. "Please believe me when I say, Miss Bertram, I regret abandoning your brother with every fibre of my–"
She shook her head. "Nonsense. Tom has always been foolhardy – I feel certain you did the best you could for him. You couldn't know... You couldn't! Oh, indeed, how could you have known any such thing!"
But he was not yet consolable.
"And your grief, Mr. Yates" – she let her hand slide upwards and squeezed his shoulder – "that only shows how much you love my brother – to my mind, such sincere affection is worth more than a thousand silly boys playing at nursing. You could do no more for him than you did, of that I am assured."
"B-but," he stammered out between bouts of blubbering, "what am I to d-d-do?"
"I think you must go up to your room and rest," she told him, blinking a trifle pertly. "You've worn yourself to a shadow and are in hardly a fit state to be seen! Why, for a moment, I did not recognise you when I saw you from the phaeton. How wrong all over you looked! Oh, John, I nearly mistook you for a vagabond who had stolen a gentleman's clothes and gone for a stroll in them!"
The fact that she had used his Christian name affected him greatly. He had already been quite in love with her, and her cordiality to him now, speaking to him thus, made her entirely irresistible. Mr. Yates was certain he should never find another such woman, even should he search the world over. None were more perfect, more understanding than Julia Bertram. Her being the sister of the gentleman he had liked so well and then forsaken was unfortunate, but he realised now he could not give her up. She was not even his yet, to be sure, and he still felt – keenly, as he never had before – he should not feel anything like happiness again if she should ever go away from his sight.
Assuring Miss Bertram he intended to take her advice, to go upstairs at once and clean himself and rest, he held out his hand in a clear invitation. He wanted her with him – he could not bear to be alone.
"Oh, Julia," he whispered, leaning close so the other guests wouldn't hear, "do say you will accompany me! Do not leave me on my own tonight – where, even, would you go? It's nearly dark. Moreover, I've seen nobody since I split company with the friends I came here to London with – and nobody I like longer still. To talk to you, who I've always liked best of any acquaintance, makes me feel human again." He faltered. "Although – if, despite your kind words, never to be forgotten, I assure you – you think I deserve to feel inhuman after what I've done, I never would blame you. Sweetest, prettiest Julia!"
She was won – flattered by his regard, by his loving her best when every other handsome creature in the world worth paying attention to had always, always put her as the second choice – without even yet knowing it herself. "Oh, you don't deserve any such thing – you do not deserve it – never think it!"
"Edmund?" moaned Tom, lolling his head.
Edmund looked up from the passage in Romans he had been perusing – he'd tried reading it aloud, but Tom said his head hurt him too much tonight – and blinked the here and now back into place. "Yes?"
"What's that scratching at the door?"
Furrowing his brow – for he could hear it, too, now, though he hadn't noticed it before Tom pointed it out – he set his Bible down behind himself as he rose to find out.
Upon his opening the door, a small pug came running in and made in a great hurry for Tom's bed.
"Why, I do believe it's Fanny's puppy!" marvelled Edmund, surprised the elusive creature was making such a dramatic and unexpected appearance. "The one Mother insisted on giving her. What is it doing here, I wonder?"
The little dog's short legs hadn't managed to propel the pup onto the bed and the creature was now whining beside it. A bigger breed would have been howling.
Edmund attempted to pick the puppy up – while it flailed its legs in protest – and carry it back to the door, but Tom rasped, "Leave the dog – let the little beast sit with me on the bed – I could use a sweet face to look at."
Giving him a little half-smile, Edmund did as he asked and set the puppy onto the bed's coverlet with a plop. "You're bored with me," he teased. "My face isn't sweet enough for you."
Tom chuckled, and almost succeeded in the chuckle not turning into a cough – almost.
The tiny pug – once the noisy, racking cough of the patient subsided somewhat – trotted over to Tom's face, licked his nose twice, then – in rather a wobbly fashion – ran back down to nestle somewhere near his feet.
It was morning and the curtains had not been pulled shut the night before, causing a sudden burst of sunlight to fill the room.
Julia – wearing only her chemise, her other garments, including her corset, currently hanging over the back of a chair by the fireplace – bolted upright in the bed, clutching the blankets in her balled fists and gasping as her eyes shot open. Jackknifing forward, she released the blankets and thrust her face into her hands, sobbing as quietly as she was able.
Which, for all intents and purposes, was not really so very quiet.
"Mmm?" Beside her, Yates – entirely unclothed under the blankets – stirred, rolling over. He smacked his lips together, slowly waking to the noise of Miss Bertram's whimpering. "I say, Julia, whatever is it?" He blinked rapidly to clear the grit from his eyes. "Oh! Oh, dear. Don't cry, my love. Nothing is so bad as that! How can it be?"
She turned her head to glare at him reproachfully with red-rimmed eyes, but he only stared back in complete bewilderment. He couldn't fathom crying now – he'd had his fill of crying the night before, and Julia, sweetest Julia, had comforted him so thoroughly, was so very kind, the world had altogether changed in his view. A dark place in which he was the villain vanished, replaced by glittering hope. He had been plucked out of the depths of despair and deposited onto a vast shore of endless possibility. It wasn't only a new day from John Yates' viewpoint, nay, it was a new universe. And how could the very someone who had caused it to be made anew, the one he should never have done with thanking for saving him from himself, be weeping her heart out?
"What have I done?" Julia was distraught, as far removed from Yates' glittering brave new world as she was from the moon. "Everybody shall be so very angry with me!" She lifted the edge of the blanket, glanced down, gave an intake of ragged breath, and began sobbing harder with fresh abandon. "I've spoiled everything! Thrown myself away."
Some shred of understanding managed to worm its way into Yates' whirling head at last. "Oh," he said. Then, "Oh!" again. "But, Julia, I want to marry you."
Julia, having been quite convinced until this very second she had spoiled her chances of ever securing a husband – any husband – by thoughtlessly giving herself to a man she could not have even – in all propriety – written a letter to, as there was no understanding, no engagement between them, was shaken out of her hysterical shock by his pronouncement. She had been almost to the point of flinging herself from the bed, when she could bring herself to, and gathering her garments and bonnet in a hurry – she had been sure nothing but further humiliation would come from Mr. Yates. A proposal was something to grab onto – a thing she might even pull herself up out of a social hole with.
"T-truly?"
"Naturally!" he exclaimed, scooting closer and putting his arms around her, holding her to him. "I thought you understood my intentions last night!"
"You didn't say!" wailed Julia. "You just kept looking at me, and then touching me, and you were so miserable, so very unhappy, I couldn't–"
Yates having been so long in love with Julia, it honestly never struck him how anyone could be unaware of his feelings, let alone Miss Bertram herself. And even if he had loved her less than he did, he wouldn't have been able to bear treating the sister of the man he'd abandoned in illness like a common whore, taking her virtue before forsaking her.
What came forth from him, then, when his words could be found, was a declaration, a hurried confession, of complete and total adoration of her ever since their first meeting at the Rushworth's masque party, when he had not even known her as anything other than 'the lassie in the feathered mask'.
Under other circumstances this might not have been enough for Julia to take him seriously, but under the current ones... Well, she had sufficient intelligence to know she'd dodged a major bullet. She was saved from obscurity by his sense of honour, by his affection for her. Moreover, it was no bad prospect, being Mrs. Yates. She liked John Yates a great deal, maybe even loved him; she had certainly felt protective of him yesterday; she could envision no future in which she was unhappy with him. And as nobody else would have her now, since she was no longer a maid – it might as well be John Yates, if he was still keen.
There was even a flush of pride in her at having secured a husband – however unsavoury the means – without help from Maria.
Maria would have – if their father's blessing could be obtained – gladly matched her with someone twice as dull as Rushworth and probably not half as rich, then called it kindness and demanded to be thanked. Her elder sister was a dog in a manger when it came to martial happiness, unwilling for those nearest to her to be contented where she was not. Cousin Fanny having captured both their brother Tom's heart and Mr. Crawford's, and in turn being a complete bird-witted ninny about her conquests, was enough incentive for Maria not to wish anything better for her sister.
To have gotten Yates for her own, Julia realised, and to know she would never dread his coming to her at night, to know her chances for happiness were more than fair, to have thwarted any aim of Maria's to leg-shackle her to someone less tolerable, was a ripe piece of good fortune indeed.
"Your family will not object?" Julia checked, turning her head and looking at him – drawing so close the tips of their noses touched.
"They haven't any cause to," said Mr. Yates. "The Bertrams are perfectly respectable. And I would marry you even if they did object – we'll go to Scotland and have the whole thing done quickly, my love, just to be sure. There's to be no scandal."
"Very well, I accept," breathed Julia.
"Jolly good!" Mr. Yates exhaled heavily in relief. "I always knew you were a sporting, kindly girl – bang up to the mark, what!"
"But I will of course need to stop by my sister's house and fetch my belongings."
"Nonsense." He planted a kiss on her lips. "I'll buy you new things, Julia – whatever you like best."
But, here, she would not be convinced, and in the end he reluctantly agreed to make a detour to Wimpole street before heading to Scotland.
"Fanny?" Mary Crawford's eyes were wide; her mouth opened, then promptly closed again with a little pop. No other name uttered from Edmund's mouth, during this conversation, would have surprised her more. If anyone, she had suspected the sisters of his friend Mr. Owen to be trying to snake Edmund from her, now that he was to be in line for the baronetcy.
Edmund – who had been facing the fireplace, not quite able to look at her as he said the last – swallowed and turned. He forced himself to meet her beautiful dark eyes, more than a little unnerved by the wounded intensity he saw there.
"I'm afraid it's true, Miss Crawford," he said gently, "it is Tom's wish, and I've given him my word."
"No," she said, shaking her head. "No."
No, he was not going to marry Fanny upon the event of his brother's demise, she told him, making herself as calm and sweet as possible, because Fanny was as good as engaged to her brother, to dear Henry.
It was Edmund's turn to go wide-eyed.
"So there's no question of her being looked after, you see – you needn't feel obligated to provide for her yourself beyond what any good brother would."
More than merely wide-eyed now, Edmund was like a man utterly stunned. "What?" He could not even bring himself to say, I beg your pardon? Only the one word. "What?"
"Come, I can understand your surprise, but you really mustn't be cross with them." Mary's face was softer, pleading. "Fanny never behaved improperly – this, you'll have supposed already, I know – and Henry... Henry, I strenuously tried to dissuade from loving her when it seemed hopeless, but I was over-prudent. However, I fear if you are cross with Fanny – for your brother's sake – and she pulls back from their agreement, if she will not have him to oblige you, she will quickly lose her chief hold on him! My brother cannot long love without promise of reward, of a return of affection. It's not his way."
"But I spoke to Fanny," said Edmund, slowly, "on this subject, and she failed entirely to mention your brother. She did not speak of him at all, let alone as an impediment."
The lines about Mary's mouth tightened. "You spoke to Fanny first?" She was hurt – clearly, she was hurt. "Oh, you ought not to have done this thing – it will only complicate matters which would have been so simple if–"
Edmund held up a hand. "Miss Crawford, please, you have brought up a new subject – one I fear is more important, so much more important, than the one I had intended to speak on – you cannot slide it to the back now. Not until we have resolved it. Now. Are you saying, really saying, my sister-in-law (a woman whose husband still lives, who – poor, unwitting man – has been sleeping downstairs as we speak these five-and-twenty minutes), has a standing betrothal to your brother? If you are, this is a grave accusation, one I am amazed you can utter with such ease, such ready poise."
Her expression was in a struggle – though a short one – for a moment. She was carried on in her set course by habit. She would not back down for Edmund's sake – after all, she never had in the past, and it brought her here, so near to all ending as it ought.
Finally, she said, "Of course they are not legally engaged – pray don't speak foolishly, for you know they cannot be – but my brother has spoken of his heart to her."
"And she received such a speech from him favourably?" Edmund was incredulous. He sooner would believe his mother and aunt Norris were capable of growing a double-set of enormous feathery wings and flying off the roof than that Fanny – good, gentle Fanny – should welcome the flattering words of a would-be adulterer.
"You know the gentle kind of girl our dear Fanny is – she was sweet to him, if a little taken aback – I am certain her response was sweet. She must have given as much encouragement as her nature would permit." She allowed, "He did say she fled the room, ending their interview prematurely. I thought it a bit mad of her, when he told me – some lapse in manner left over from her Portsmouth upbringing, perhaps – but Henry didn't think so. He thinks she was unsettled by the idea of moving to Everingham." She wound her fingers together, interlocking them and wringing her hands before letting them drop to her sides and giving a little sigh. "I confess I felt very badly, after he said that, for even momentarily thinking ill of Fanny, for suspecting her of ill-breeding – for it seemed so likely Henry was right."
Edmund was too angry to speak.
She did not appear to notice, continuing with, "But he has made plans to correct the oversight – to soothe away her objections to having to leave Northamptonshire. He is to let Everingham and rent Stanwix Lodge. For seven years! Oh, have you seen Stanwix Lodge? It's in this very neighbourhood, and it's perfect for Fanny! I've never seen my brother go so out of his way for anyone before – she is already fixing him, forcing him to settle and rethink his ways. They are so good for one another it is providential."
Edmund still said nothing.
"So, you see, as soon as it is completely settled – as soon as he can be assured of having the tenant he wants – who he's sure of having at half a word – he will speak to Fanny again, and this time she'll surely not refuse him."
Arching an eyebrow, his expression below this single arched brow one Mary couldn't read, Edmund said, very quietly, "And pray what, Miss Crawford, do you propose I tell my brother when he recovers – resumes his regular routine about the house – and asks for his wife?" He curled his fingers, his hands balling into tight, tense fists on either side of him. "That she's at Stanwix Lodge, living with another man?"
Mary swallowed, recoiling as if he had hit her. Clearly this was not the reaction she'd anticipated. "B-b–" She swallowed again, determined to master herself. "But he is not expected to live."
"Not expected to live?" echoed Edmund, the blood draining from his face – lips gone white with rage. "By whom? Certainly not myself!"
"That is rich – you needn't preach to me, feeding me lines from your latest sermon – you're as bad as Henry – if indeed you will call him bad! Bad, when he's done nothing worse than fall in love! I should think him more wicked if the qualities in your cousin had not moved him so. You plan to marry Fanny yourself while your brother lives – that is why you're speaking to me today, is it not? To bid me farewell, to cast aside all that has been between us, and announce your intentions for her! How is it any different?"
"There is a great deal of difference, you must allow, despite your bias for your brother," said he, "between agreeing to a brother's sickbed request and lusting after another man's wife. You say he is in love with her – I ask, in return to this queer assertion of yours, when has Mr. Crawford had the time to fall so violently in love, the time to think of her? In the short period we feared for my brother's lungs? D'you take me for an imbecile? I thought better of you than that." He leaned forward and pressed the back of his still-clenched hand to his mouth, forcing back a cry of anguish. "A great deal better." He exhaled and lowered his hand, letting his sore fingers relax, uncurling as far as they would in their tensed state. "Indeed, before you showed me this morally wanting side of yourself – despite our disagreements on so many subjects – I have always taken you up for virtuous, for the very epitome of goodness. Not now, though." His eyes were mournful. "Not now."
"A pretty good lecture, upon my word," said Mary, affecting less carelessness than she intended. "Am I right in guessing it, too, was from your last sermon? At this rate you will soon reform everybody at Mansfield and Thornton Lacey; I expect, when next I hear of you, sometime after your marriage to Fanny" – here, unable to restrain herself as she desired, she practically spat – "it may be as a celebrated preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary into foreign parts."
Edmund regarded her with fresh, mournful eyes. He felt pity as strongly as disgust – more strongly, in truth. "That, Miss Crawford, is unfair."
Her expression was crumbling under the weight of forced haughtiness. "As was this," was all she could quite manage to say, lifting her arm and gesturing about the room. The whole conversation, from the start to this point, had been completely distressing to her, and Edmund Bertram cared so little for her feelings. Clearly, they meant next to nothing to him when weighed against Fanny's comfort.
"I suppose," said Edmund, at last, turning to go, "there is nothing further to be said – we feel too differently about our futures, as – I now see – we always have."
Mary watched him go only a few steps before crying out, "Mr. Bertram!"
He turned as she came nearer, taking his hand – her voice was soft, and she was smiling, drawing her mouth to his as if she meant to kiss him, but he was put off by the manner of the smile. It was saucy, playful, patronising. She felt the same now as she had a moment ago. It meant nothing. "Mr. Bertram."
Edmund jerked his head back so she couldn't kiss him. "Just tell me this, Mary," he whispered, "only this. If Tom does not die as you so readily anticipate, with such startling, such downright chilling adaptability, and – upon his recovery – I ask again for your hand, not as a future baronet, but as a humble parson, free from any promise to marry Fanny, will you accept me?"
She hesitated, and that was answer enough in itself.
"I thought not." He sighed. "Well, never mind, then. I forgive you, Miss Crawford, and I wish you well from my heart. You know not with what earnestness I pray you might soon learn to think more justly. You are as much a danger, my friend, in duping yourself as you are in duping others. As for your brother, may God have mercy on him for behaving so wickedly, so without feeling where he was offered only friendship and trust."
There were tears in Mary's eyes – tears she did not allow to fall within Edmund's sight – but her lower lip quivered with the violence of her feelings.
She quit the house in a flurry of unhappiness, and was in a poor humour, when returning to the parsonage, to deal with her brother's joy as he announced he'd been guaranteed Stanwix Lodge, as he had known he would be.
"Oh, Mary" – for he'd seen her face and, startled, changed his manner at once – "whatever's the matter? I thought you'd been with Edmund Bertram – I thought he meant to speak to you privately today."
"I was," she rasped out, her voice a weary croak. "I was. He did."
At this last, she allowed herself to burst into tears, permitted her rage to release itself in the form of a broken cry, flinging herself into her brother's open arms.
Fanny was washing her hair, pouring lukewarm water from a pitcher over the back of her head as she bent over a basin, when there came a knock upon Tom's sitting room door.
She murmured "Come in," trying to gather up her wet hair without it dripping down her back before she could get the towel in place.
Edmund entered, blushed, and turned away, muttering apologies while she assured him it really was all right; she was almost finished.
A glance down at her nightdress made her blush momentarily before she removed the towel and pulled a shawl around herself. "Forgive me, cousin, I was not expecting you."
"No," he said gently. "You thought I would be downstairs with Tom."
"Yes." Her eyes widened slightly. "He's–"
"The same," he assured her.
"Oh, good," she breathed. "Is... Is our aunt Norris with him?"
Edmund gave her another apologetic look – perhaps he suspected her thoughts. "Yes, I'm afraid."
"He's sleeping again?"
He nodded. "Your pug is with him, too – hasn't left his side all day." He was uncertain why he felt the need to add that, but he was gratified by the result – it made Fanny smile. "Perhaps the puppy should have been Mother's wedding present to him."
She giggled.
"Then, he always has been very fond of dogs – and they of him – he kept a spaniel, when we were boys still at home, before we began at Eton – though, generally, he's always displayed rather a strong preference for pointers over pugs. You've seen how he simply ignores Mother's Pug, usually."
Fanny continued to smile softly for the whole of this little speech. She was enjoying picturing her husband as a merry, mischievous little boy, playing with his pet spaniel and, doubtless, giving Sir Thomas no end of trouble chasing after them both.
Edmund's own smile faded. "Fanny, why didn't you tell me about Henry Crawford?"
"I–" She breathed slowly, pained, pulling the shawl more tightly over her arms as if for comfort. "I wanted to, indeed, I was going to – but I was so very ashamed, Edmund – I was afraid you'd blame me."
"Blame you?" marvelled Edmund. "Your conduct has been faultless."
Here was a longed-for relief – she had hoped so desperately Edmund would be her protector if Tom could not be, and that he would absolve her of wrong behaviour in this dreadful matter.
"But, Fanny, please be honest with me – is there – has there been – anything between yourself and Mr. Crawford? Are you in love with him?"
"No!" There was not a moment's hesitation. "No!"
"Thank God," said he. "I thought not – I know you would never be disloyal to Tom, it is not in your nature – but Mary seemed to believe you returned Henry's feelings. Indeed, it was from her – from what I suspect must be my last-ever conversion with her – I learned about her brother's pursuit of you."
"She was mistaken!" Fanny's face was hot. "She was most definitely mistaken." She took one trembling hand off her shawl and absently raked back her still-wet hair. "Oh, I don't know what I could have done to make either of them think–"
"How long?"
"I beg your pardon?" The question caught her off-guard.
"How long has he been bothering you?"
Her lowered fingertips played with the fringe of her shawl. "A while."
"This is abominable, Fanny."
She agreed, heartily, it was. To have Edmund on her side in this matter, she declared, was such a comfort.
"A comfort" – and in this he was stern, despite being all kindness toward her still – "you might have had sooner, had you sought it. Did you tell anyone else? Have you suffered in complete silence all this while? All this while we let the Crawfords have the run of the place, thinking them our dearest friends, hoping for more – as far as Mary went. I suspect my father was even imagining Mr. Crawford and Susan might–"
"Susie knows," admitted Fanny. "She's known all along. I've confided in her."
"My father will have to be told now," Edmund said; "I hope you realise this."
She went very pale, going from scarlet to chalky white in complexion in a manner of seconds.
"Don't be frightened – he'll be as much protector as myself. You shall be as blameless in his eyes as in mine."
Something further than Sir Thomas being brought in on this began to trouble her. She spluttered out, needing to know, "W-why did Mary tell you a-about...?"
Edmund closed his eyes and grimaced. Opening them again, he said, "I believe she thought bringing up what she adamantly claimed to be an attachment between yourself and her brother would prevent my promise to Tom."
"Cruel!" Fanny burst out in horror, indignant. "Quite cruel!" How little Mary must understand Edmund's heart to think such a speech would prevent him – would reassure him! For her to imagine he might see nothing but a little unavoidable folly... It was unforgivable. "Absolute cruelty."
Edmund's demeanour was soft. "Do you call it cruelty? We differ here, my dear sister, I don't believe she meant to wound. She spoke, cunningly as she did, only – unless I am mistaken – as she has been used to hearing others speak. The evil in her, I fear, is all of a corrupted mind. I see her now with such pity – the upbringing is everything with a mind like hers. She has been brought into principled company too late in life to see its value."
Fanny told him, then, though part of her would still have rather not, about the necklace – how she suspected it was, in truth, Henry's gift and not Mary's. She fervently hoped Edmund would not ask her where the offending necklace was now. "If I'm right, that cannot be anything but a planned agreement – she knew it was unfair, unkind. Yet she did it to oblige her brother." She sniffed. "I believe she assisted him during our walk at Sotherton Court, too, though I have no proof – I believe she led you and Tom away into the avenue, leaving me behind, to further her brother's cause with me."
"The business with the necklace makes me blush for my past self – that I should l have been ignorant enough to encourage you to accept, and to wear, it! Mary used us both ill in that matter, and all for Henry's sake. As for Sotherton, though, I cannot blame her more than myself," Edmund concluded, shaking his head wretchedly. "Before Sotherton, there was a short time I suspected something wrong, if small, in Henry Crawford's manner toward you, however, I let it go – and even when Mary contrived to leave you behind I told myself it was all nonsense. Nor did it enter my head to fetch you again, apart from missing you and feeling badly about your not seeing the avenue. Tom went back for you with no urging but that of his own heart – good man!"
Placing her hand on the velvet arm of a chair and leaning heavily, Fanny sighed. "I so wish Mary could have been kinder to you, if not to me – I know you cared so deeply for her." Miss Crawford was unworthy of it, of course, but the love on Edmund's side had been there, real as corn, a precious thing, nonetheless.
"Oh, I understand you mean well, but you can't know. The merciful appointment of Providence has spared you, my guileless sister – you will never know what it is to love someone who is, by nature or by nurture, wholly incapable of ever returning your affection." His eyes glittered, reflective of nothing but that unadulterated pain Fanny wished she could take upon herself to relief him of such suffering. "Should the worst have happened, I would have preferred, infinitely, to believe myself forever parted from her only because of my promise to Tom and her playful refusals, rather than be forced to acknowledge the Miss Crawford I dwelt upon long before Tom even met you in Portsmouth was purely a creature of my own imagination and hopes. Mary has broken my heart – she has proven, convincingly, she was not what I believed her to be – what I believe she could have been – and nothing hurts me more than that, save only the knowledge her brother persecuted you, pressured you to do wrong, under all our noses."
Fanny straightened herself, took a few steps forward, and held out her hand to Edmund.
He accepted it with a grateful little squeeze. "This is the end of our – the entire family's – acquaintance with the Crawfords. It must be."
We are safe from them now. She was too honest to feign sorrow, and she knew he wouldn't hold her inability against her.
"Ah. And what an acquaintance it has been! How I have been deceived! Equally in brother and sister deceived!"
And Fanny thought them done, only Edmund began – almost as if he'd forgotten who he was speaking to – on how delightful nature had made Mary Crawford, on what a shame it was she was so corrupted, by brother and London society together.
A whistle came from Fanny's nose, which might have been restrained annoyance. "But – forget your first impression of her nature a moment, Edmund – could you have been happy with a woman who held her brother in such a high regard over your own? A woman who could shed tears, I imagine – real tears – at a funeral for Tom, before writing to Everingham to tell your brother his widow... That his widow was free to..." Here she broke off, unable to continue. "More, I cannot say without crying and bringing on a headache."
"Oh, God, Fanny – forgive me." He realised who it was he spoke to with a jolting start, dropping her hand and gawking at her with widened, shame-brimming eyes. "I thank you for your patience. It means more to me than you shall ever know. This has been the greatest relief, that we might confide in one another, and now we will have done."
Mr. Rushworth sat down grimly across from Mr. Yates. The drawing-room in which they sat should have been too far removed from the room Julia occupied as her sister's guest for them to hear her and Maria quarrelling upstairs, but they could hear almost every word quite clearly.
"You're not marrying Mr. Yates!"
"Yes, I am so – you can't stop me! Why must you spoil everything? Why must you always win?"
"Don't put that in your trunk – that's mine!"
"It is not! You lie!"
"You're trying to leave my house with twice as many things as you brought into it!"
"That's not true, and you know it – give it here!"
"If you leave this house with that man, you shall never be welcome here again!"
"As if I'd want to come here after I married! Mr. Yates cares more for me than any of you do – he loves me!"
"You shameless trollop!"
"You're a shameless trollop! I know what you were doing with Henry Crawford not one week before you gave up hope and married Mr. Rushworth – letting him play with you like you were some London doxy!"
There followed a screech and a nasty ripping sound – and then a crack – and two maid-servants ran through the drawing-room on their way to the other side of the house to attend to whatever was happening upstairs.
Mr. Yates cleared his throat. "So. Hem. James. Jolly nice weather, what." (It was, in fact, raining outside.)
"A word of advice, Mr. Yates?" said Mr. Rushworth, lowering a half-eaten biscuit he'd just brought to his lips.
"Hmm?"
"Get away from the Bertrams while you still can – they're a smoky, dubious lot, every bloody one of them. I thought I'd like being married to Maria – but now I believe the dratted aunt's expressions of her niece's partiality toward me were just a load of flummery through and through. She's very beautiful, but I fancy she never took properly to me. Nothing I can give her improves her temper. I gave her a most handsome high-perch phaeton, you know. Most handsome." He sighed. "I'm leaving for Bath again, by the end of the week, taking my mother with me."
"I'm afraid, my good fellow, I've vowed never to abandon another Bertram so long as I live."
"Humph." He brought the biscuit to his lips again, nibbling rather graphically, a few sticky, buttery crumbs clinging to the corner of his mouth. "Best of luck t'you, mate" – here some spittle escaped and Mr. Yates pretended, as best he could, not to notice – "and I mean it."
Julia appeared in the doorway – her hair torn from its place, hanging loosely on one side – awkwardly clutching a flower-patterned hat box. Behind her, panting and looking as if he were silently plotting to murder the entire Rushworth household in their sleep at the first opportunity, a servant dragged her trunk, heedless of Mrs. Rushworth – who was dogging his every step relentlessly – screaming he was scratching her wooden floors beyond repair.
"Come, John," Julia snapped, tossing the hat box at him as soon as he rose to greet her with an uncertain grin; "we are leaving!"
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.
