Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Forty-Two:
Sunday, For All Its Worth
Sunday's obligations were proving more vexing, more hindrance to any possible state of tranquillity, than they were a reprieve for Edmund. The sermon had been composed while idling at the bedside of an irate brother who would not be comforted; he was therefore obliged to dismiss a great many – increasingly loud and despondent – dramatic sighs, different enough, fortunately, from the noises Tom made when in actual need or pain, to be instantly told apart and duly ignored.
Edmund might have felt sorrier for him, had a great deal more patience, if he would only speak when given the attention he was clearly so desperate for. If he would simply tell him what their aunt had said rather than fall into a brooding, sullen silence!
Instead, Tom made himself deliberately difficult.
He sneered and made snappish, unfavourable remarks to the servants who came in to adjust his pillows or change his bedding. He didn't want to eat, and he wouldn't drink anything unless Edmund brought the cup to his mouth and insisted, but he was openly bitter about feeling constantly weak and useless from his lack of strength; his mood was volatile, fine one moment, if a little subdued and distant, then liable to be harsh and biting – to be borderline cruel – the next.
And yet it was no easy thing to be really angry with him for behaving so, because Edmund had never – in his entire life – seen his brother so hopeless. Even when he'd been at his worst before, there had always been something in him – something unbreakable and dazzlingly bright – a little inner flame that sparkled behind his eyes whenever he talked, gave one the idea he was joking even when he was serious – and now it was gone.
As greatly as Edmund desired Fanny's recovery from her nausea and headaches, and from her food-induced sickness, so she might come downstairs and be with her husband, there was more than one moment when he thought she might be better off up in that sitting room until he could find some way of bringing Tom back to himself.
He was frightened for her to see him like this.
He didn't know what he'd do, whose side he would be forced to take, if Tom actually lashed out at Fanny – the way he was at everybody else – when he finally saw her again. Brotherly duty compelled him to protect Tom in his illness, but he wasn't certain he would be able to keep from cracking him smartly upside the head with the thick, worn leather spine of his Bible if he was stupid enough to make a wife who loved him so well cry.
Then there were the arrangements for who would be staying home from church for Tom's sake.
Lady Bertram was reluctant to spare – to think of parting with – Susan, for she was beginning, in her indolent, slow way, to nearly suspect her elder son's recovery of being not so smooth as she'd previously been assured. She was greatly puzzled as to why her sister had left the house in a fury the other day and refused to set foot in it since, and Edmund was in no humour to supply Sir Thomas' usual place in explaining it all to her. In truth, he wouldn't have known where to begin even if his preoccupations had not prevented him.
Undaunted, Edmund attempted to persuade her that, at church, she should be with her sister – Aunt Norris wasn't going to miss the sermon just because she wouldn't come into their house – and himself – right up there in the pulpit – and would have no need of Susan.
She disagreed; certainly she had need of Susan. Edmund was quite mistaken in thinking she didn't. Could not Baddeley sit with Tom for a few hours? Why, Fanny herself might be well enough to come downstairs before they returned and take Baddeley's place after a bit! Surely Tom would prefer that to having his sister-in-law, who could be of so much less use to him than she was to her aunts, worry at his side.
So Baddeley it was, in the end, and Edmund made a point of telling Tom to be polite to the butler before leaving.
Tom made a snobbish remark under his breath, loud enough to be overheard, to which Edmund glowered down at him testily.
"Oh, for pity's sake, Edmund, you needn't look at me like that – I'll be nice," he groaned, rolling his eyes and folding his hands against his stomach with exaggerated demureness. "Yes, I mean it." He pursed his lips. "Stop it already. Go. Go on, leave. I don't need you. I'm not a bloody infant."
Edmund grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair where he'd draped it and adjusted the cuffs before tossing it lightly over his arm. "You need to stop feeling so sorry for yourself."
"I don't see what the good of that advice is – I think I might just as well, seeing as nobody else is sorry for me."
"I'll be back after the sermon."
"Hmm, yes – your sermon – I'm sure I'm sorry to miss it." He sounded indolent now, a bit like their mother, rather than embittered. "I imagine it will be better than anything Dr. Grant could come up with, anyway."
"Dr. Grant," said Edmund, because he felt morally obligated to, "is a fine lecturer."
"Dr. Grant is a bracket-faced dullard." And, with this, he closed his eyes and refused to engage in further conversation, pretending his brother had already left and making rather a point of smacking his lips and faux-snoring at any feeble attempt to say goodbye or remind him what hour his tray would be brought in.
"Do try," concluded Edmund, giving up at last, "not to throw this one against the wall when it's brought, won't you?"
Tom didn't reply – still refusing to act as if he heard him, as if he were still in the room – though he did stick his tongue out, unseen, at his brother's back.
Perhaps, given who he'd been sitting beside while composing it, and where one's thoughts would naturally gravitate after what life had presented Edmund with as of late, the subject of his sermon was inevitable.
At first, however, it seemed to matter very little, as his mother was oblivious and Susan preoccupied. Aunt Norris was cross, but she would have been cross regardless.
No one else present would have cause to know why the subject had come up.
Or so Edmund supposed, when – just as he was beginning to believe himself quite safe from such an eventuality – Mrs. Grant and her Crawford siblings slipped in – fashionably late, of course – and gingerly made their way into a middle pew.
Nobody was seated in that row in front of them, so they were very much in Edmund's direct, immediate line of vision whenever he chanced to look up. And here he was faced with a choice – he could demure, could fail to meet either of their eyes from the pulpit, or he could double down.
All those years of peacemaking, of smoothing over every quarrel between everyone in his family – from his father and brother, to his aunt Norris and practically every other soul who had ever walked through their door, staff or guest – fell on heavily him. He wasn't sad or wearied – he was righteously angry. He was in the right, grievously wronged, and simply because he forgave did not mean he forgot, did not mean he turned a blind eye.
In spite of everything, he didn't have it within him to quite blame Mary Crawford any longer for her brother's folly – no further, anyway, than she had personally aided it, as her involvement, her meddling, was undeniable – but it was not for him to smooth away her embarrassment, to attempt to spare her, not now.
Not when she was nothing to him.
If she stood with her brother, so be it. Let her make of this sermon what she would.
"And in the fifth chapter of Deuteronomy, we find the passage which reads" – Edmund cleared his throat – "thou shalt not lust after ye neighbour's wife..." His eyes lifted from the page, meeting Henry Crawford's. The man had the decency to colour about the cheeks, albeit not with particular vividness. Mary, on the other hand, glared – her eyes darting from her brother to the man she had hoped to marry, doing the very thing which had made him, along with his lack of immediate wealth, unsuitable – wasn't ashamed; she was plainly angry. Well, angry or not, there was no avoiding the next bit – she must know it was coming. Their eyes locked. "Though shalt not lust after thy neighbour's house–"
Mary stood, exhaling sharply, extending her hand down to her brother. "Henry, come," she hissed, "we are leaving."
Edmund swallowed, pressing on. He didn't exactly feel sorry for her, but he did think she was making it harder on herself than need be – making it a bigger spectacle than otherwise. So few here would know anything about what she and Henry had tried to do, whether or not Edmund happened to be looking directly at her and her brother while speaking; she didn't need to pique their curiosity for no other cause than her own wounded pride.
"But my dear Mary," Mrs. Grant said in what she clearly believed, however mistakenly, to be a low voice, blinking at her sister. "We've only just arrived."
"I was right from my first thought this morning – we shouldn't have come." She motioned her fingers emphatically, pursing her lips into a faint snarl. "Henry. Now."
Averting his eyes from Edmund as he got up and followed his sister out, Henry doggedly obeyed, leaving with her.
Edmund's last stray thought before forcing himself to think only of the sermon itself, of the task at hand, was that they really did not have to slam the door with such an unmissable clatter on their way out.
"Goodness," whispered Lady Bertram to Susan, sounding sleepy and mystified. "Was that the Crawfords leaving in such a harried rush just now? I so seldom see them here, you know, even with Dr. Grant. What could have possessed them to come and go so quickly? The way they glanced over their shoulder at Edmund – his reading, I can only think they do not like it."
Baddeley, after checking in on Tom, had left the sickroom door open for Fanny's puppy. It hadn't escaped the butler's notice how the little pug liked to venture in and out at leisure.
The funny little thing had even figured out, at last, how to jump up onto the bed and visit with Tom unaided. And, this time, there was something in its mouth.
Tom – having been employed staring miserably at the ceiling and refusing to touch anything on the tray left for him – glimpsed this from the corner of his eye and, mildly intrigued, turned on the mattress.
"And where have you been?" he asked the puppy. "I'd started to think you'd left me, too. What's that you've got?"
The puppy's bottom waggled excitedly.
"Oi, come here." Tom propped himself up, scooped the puppy closer, and – with some difficulty and excessive whimpering (on both sides), as the little dog was loath to let it go and clearly believed they were playing – pulled a sealed letter from its mouth. "Well! Who's been letting you roll about in their stationary, I wonder. Merry, fat little thief." He gave the pug's head an affectionate scratch before pulling away and cracking the wax seal. "That's what you are, pudgeball."
It wasn't easy for Tom, his eyes still weak and the light of the room kept deliberately dim, but he managed to read the entirety of the letter. His chest clenched as soon as he made out Tomcat, his wife's pet-name for him, and realised he was in fact its intended recipient.
Tomcat–
Perhaps it is for lack of news of you, save one poor report I do not for a moment permit myself to believe, whatever anyone else may think, for I know it to be incompatible to your nature, but I cannot stop thinking of when we last saw one another – our coldness at breakfast before you departed with William, he eventually for Portsmouth and you away to Newmarket.
And constantly upon my conscience weighs my harshly spoken words to you the morning after our ball.
It was ill-judged of me to pick upon your faults while clinging so stubbornly to my own and giving you no further explanation of my unhappiness. I'll not trouble you with it now, Tom, though if I am so fortunate as to have another chance, I should dearly like to tell you in person.
But, in truth, I write only to say this: pray do not allow my cross temperament when you saw me last to deprive you of hope. Life without hope is intolerable.
Please, whatever has or has not happened, come home. Nothing else can matter any longer. Please come home again.
With love, then and now and forever, I remain,
your creepmouse
This changed things.
When had Fanny's pen dwelt upon these words?
Even supposing half of what Aunt Norris had told him was rooted in some version of truth, and Tom doubted it despite his despondence, this proved it didn't matter. Fanny still loved him. She'd never blamed him for what was printed about his having a mistress – she'd never believed it. No matter what, she'd wanted him back. She wanted him. She loved him. She spoke of unhappiness – that might be related to what Aunt Norris told him; there might be something there, something she'd kept from him before. But who cared? She loved him. There were supposed to be no secrets between them, and it seemed, after all, there had been. But she loved him. And she wanted to tell him.
His head and heart were full, near to bursting. Tom was as one paralysed, only able to gawp and clutch the letter in his hand until his thumbnail almost tore a hole through the bottom of it.
Then he realised, as somehow he had known all this time and, in his feverish condition, never truly comprehended before – she was upstairs. They weren't separated by anything but a few dozen doors and a damned staircase.
He could go to her.
Well, if he could find the strength to stand, presumably he could go to her.
He regretted making himself weaker by sulking. He regretted how he still had the ability, after all he'd been through and learned, to be so incredibly stupid.
Groaning, he pushed up from the mattress with all his limited strength and – reaching for the walking-stick Edmund had propped against the headboard, not for Tom's actual imminent use but for a sort of motivation, to remind him he would be up and using it soon enough – was on his feet for the first time in so many days.
He tried to take a step, as tentative and awkward as a newly-born fawn, and nearly fell backwards. "Whoa." He righted himself and clung unevenly to the walking-stick, panting. "Best take this slow, I suppose."
The puppy, rolling in the sheets behind him, regarding him upside down, barked.
"Mmmph," Tom grunted over his shoulder. "No objections, please."
"I cannot believe him!" cried Mary, reaching up and ripping out her hat pins as she ran into the front vestibule of the parsonage, Henry following.
"Edmund Bertram has never been one for a sense of humour," he commented, taking off his greatcoat. "Or irony."
She pulled her loosened hat free from her hair. "You're not the first man, Henry, to fall in love with a married woman – and I'm sure you shan't be the last."
"This is a change, sister, from how you tried to make me forget her – not so long ago you might have agreed with Edmund's condemnation of me."
"Not like this." She shook her head. "Things have changed since then. There was nothing to be done. I like you both so well, I wished only to protect you – you're my brother and she's very sweet. And, you'll allow, there was a time you were only playing – before you suddenly became very earnest indeed – that alarmed me as well. With good reason. But, now, any hour, Tom could still... It's not as if..." Her lower lip quivered. "God, Henry, did you see how he looked at us up there? Like we were sinners beyond reform! Does he suppose us to be without feeling?"
Henry appeared to be wearying in manner. "He despises me for loving Fanny – I'm sure he does not really think so little of you as he now imagines."
"Oh, Fanny!" Mary burst out, suddenly furious and kicking an umbrella-stand with the side of her beribboned shoe. "Simple girl! Why would she not have you? Why would she not go away to Stanwix Lodge with you? Why did she have to raise such a fuss? There was no need for her to react as if you meant her harm – you're not an acquaintance of today – we have been such intimate friends, she and myself, and you brought her brother to the ball for her and never ceased to think of her comfort – she knows you! If she'd accepted your generosity as she ought–"
"Mary–"
"She had no right – no right – to reject you and accept Edmund's proposal, even if he felt obliged to offer it for his brother's sake!" Her eyes shone. "It is all her fault – I shall never forgive her."
"Mary–"
"What's wrong with her?"
"Come, Mary, I'll lead you to the sofa." Henry put his arm around her and began to guide her forward. "You're upset and fatigued, you only need to rest."
"Resting is no cure," she sighed, rubbing roughly at her temples. "Resting exhausts my mind and all my stilled bones ache with desire to move."
"I have hopes," Henry said next, taking another step and gently dragging her along with him, "of remaining until we see the eventuality of Mr. Bertram – if he does die, as we've been expecting, we might still attend the funeral out of res–"
"I won't," cried Mary, turning her head and gritting her teeth. "I won't attend if the new Mr. Bertram is going to be preaching at me the whole time while his pretty future wife looks pale and penitent in black, crying beside her aunts."
"This business of her marrying the next Mr. Bertram – I can't see it as anything but an evil to us both – however, given she was so opposed to being with me before her husband's death, they won't marry right away."
Pulling away and shooting him a scornful glance, Mary snapped, "You can't still be imagining she'll have you! You can't! You said yourself... The look she gave you... Her cruel, cruel words – words I thought Fanny could never say – about you never engaging her affections even if they were free..."
"Not right away," said he, "but if I go away to London for a time, after Tom's death – and I think you ought to come with me, distance yourself from Edmund somewhat until he comprehends how he has injured you – there may yet be hope."
"You think she shall love you better after tasting life as a widow?" Mary busied herself removing her gloves, yanking them free from her fingers with an angry snap. "No. You are mistaken. I'm not altogether certain she and Edmund don't deserve each other if this is how they treat–"
Henry grew sombre. "They'd live here, after a while, probably let the big house for a few years" – after Dr. Grant and Lady Bertram died, perhaps just when they might be wed long enough to want an increased income, to desire a place larger than the parsonage at Thornton Lacey yet smaller than a baronet's residence – "wouldn't they? If they–"
This proved too much for Mary. Her hands, usually steady and easily controlled, fairly shook, from fingertips to elbows. "Perhaps you're right about London."
Baddeley discovered Tom on the stairs. He had only managed three steps by then. "Sir, you're not meant to be out of bed – you know what could happen if you have another fall."
Pivoting with difficulty, Tom gave the butler a look which was both cool – with traces of his old self, the self which had never been quite as kind to Baddeley as he knew he ought to have been – and pleading, asking for forgiveness as far as a future baronet could ask it of a servant. "Well, then," he said quietly, after a few silent seconds had ticked by, "you'd better not let me fall."
Baddeley obliged him, dutifully tucking the walking-stick under his arm and holding onto Tom's side while he took the railing with the other hand.
"You're...a...good man...Baddeley..." he panted, when they'd nearly reached the landing and the butler placed a hand protectively on his lower back as he swayed. "Thank you."
"I endeavour to please, sir."
Something soft – and somewhat hot – touched Fanny's cheek and her eyes fluttered open.
Although her puckered mouth formed an O of surprise at seeing the canopy pulled back and Tom bending over the side of their bed, she did not otherwise react at first. She had imagined seeing her husband upon waking so many times she was quite convinced she was only imagining him still.
Moreover, there was a steady pulse behind her eyebrows, the remains of a headache. The outlines of Tom's figure seemed to glow with a pale yellow aura.
"Creepmouse, you really do need to learn to speak up when you're cold – the fire in the sitting room has nearly died out. Why the deuce didn't you ring for anybody?"
"T-the blankets are still w-warm." She blinked again and gave a light, groggy yawn. "I had the bed-warmer under the c-c-coverlet not very long ago."
"I rather doubt that." Propping the walking-stick against the side of the mattress, he began to unfasten the front of his long shift, which he was lifting to pull over his head. "Your cheek was like ice when I kissed it."
Fanny furrowed her brow – she was puzzled. What was he doing?
"Move over" – leaning over again, he gave her shoulder a nudge – "you're cold and I'm giving you my body heat. Afterwards, Baddeley will have relit the blasted fire and you can sit in front of it for a while, get some warmth back into your pretty face. Do try not to let it get so dangerously low again."
It wasn't until he was in the bed and pressing his feverish body up against her, until he'd pulled her nightgown off her shoulders and down practically to her knees under the covers, insisting she'd warm faster that way, until she felt his hand rather vigorously rubbing at her back and arms, that Fanny seemed to really wake up.
Her eyes widened. Then, suddenly, alarmingly, she was sobbing into his neck. "You're really here." Her trembling, groping fingers blindly trailed his jawline. "This is real. I can't believe it. It's real."
"Did you doubt it?" he laughed, his amused expression nearly sly. "And you just allowed me to climb in and undress you?"
She blushed. I thought I was dreaming this. It seemed I was due for a nice one, after... "I t-thought you were downstairs – too ill to be moved."
"I was, and I am." The point being that hadn't stopped him. "Hello again, creepmouse."
She pressed her cheek to his, wrapping her arms about his neck, her bare breasts flattening against his warm chest. "Hello, tomcat."
"I've missed you," he murmured into her ear.
"And I you."
His breathing was increasingly laboured. "I probably can't stay long, Fanny – Baddeley will want to bring me back to the sickroom. He was jolly decent to me, no one else has helped me up the stairs. Any other servant would have taken me back to the sickroom. It wouldn't be sporting to allow the poor fellow to get lambasted by the rest for letting me roam about half delirious when they come back from church."
That was all right – this was miracle enough. They were together. And she'd be down, she hoped, to see him soon. To sit at his side and sing and talk and read and comfort. The rest – everything else which must be resolved between them – would hold over in the meantime.
"I read your letter," he murmured into her hair.
"Letter?"
"Yes, your puppy was trying to eat it."
"Tom," she choked out brokenly, "I'm so sorry–"
"Don't be. I should have just taken you to Newmarket with me."
She kissed the side of his ear – it felt fiery against her sore, chapped lips – and burrowed her head into his burning shoulder.
When Edmund returned from giving his sermon, trudging with sheepish exhaustion into the sickroom, he found his brother greatly altered from how he'd left him. He was Tom again – his eyes, though glazed and drained from illness, had an old spark of merriment behind them – his face wasn't hardened or blank – his expression wasn't bitter or cruel.
He also, however, looked like he'd been exerting himself to an alarmingly unhealthy degree in his absence.
Tom, was his inward lament, what have you been doing? You'll never get better! Not if you–
"Edmund," he croaked out, regarding him amiably from under his damp eyelashes, "sit, please. I mean, now, to tell you what happened with our aunt Norris. If you're willing to hear it. You ought to know, seeing as you did witness the result."
"I'm all ears."
"I know I was dreadful before, but that's all over now." He motioned his head, without lifting it off the pillow, towards the tray on the stand beside him. "You might notice I've stopped refusing everything. That I've resumed eating. I assure you, brother, I'm consoled and subdued – I'll henceforth be the most docile patient you've ever prayed over."
Edmund cracked a tired half-smile and waited for him to continue.
"When you left me with Aunt Norris, she told me that once I was well again – for the sake of the family – something would need to be done about Fanny."
Edmund bit down hard upon his own tongue, certain he would curse in a manner most unfitting a respectable parson if he did not.
"I asked her what was wrong with Fanny – I was afraid she meant she'd taken ill, too – I was afraid she was hurt – I was afraid of a thousand things..." Tom paused, his chest rising and falling, with great effort, twice before he finished, "She then informed me there was something – she couldn't quite explain what to my satisfaction – between Fanny and our so-called friend Henry Crawford."
"Tom–"
"Wait. I've hardly scratched the surface. She told me she'd seen them together – came upon them upstairs in my sitting room."
Edmund couldn't restrain himself. "Aunt Norris doesn't know what she saw!"
Tom drew in a deep, shaky breath. "But she did see something, didn't she, Edmund?"
"Not in the way you're thinking of, no."
"You don't know what I'm thinking of."
"Fanny loves you."
He snorted. "Well, obviously – I've already worked that bit out. I'll get around to that part in a moment."
"What else did our aunt say?"
"She told me what you should have." Tom grimaced – he would have looked hurt, if he weren't so drained. "About our father going after Yates and Julia. You said he was away on business when I asked where he was. You lied to me."
"I didn't lie to you, Tom, I simply–"
"Withheld the fact that one of my closest friends eloped with my sister, breaking our father's heart?"
"Your health is delicate, I didn't wish to make you worse."
"Aunt Norris seemed to think it her duty to tell me," he said hoarsely. "But I wish I'd heard it from you instead. It was something of a nasty shock, the way she told it."
"I am sorry."
"I forgive you, then." It was a little while longer before he gathered the strength to continue. "She told me, because we must now deal with protecting Julia from the world's derision, I had best send Fanny away – she said I should dispatch her back to her family in Portsmouth in disgrace. She just said it as if it were so damnably easy. As if I could simply give my beloved wife back to her father like an unsatisfactory good without a second thought!"
In all fairness, Edmund felt he could now understand why Tom had lost his temper and thrown his tray – he couldn't be sure he would not have done the same thing in his place.
"I thought it was all my fault, Edmund. I thought I'd destroyed everything I ever cared about."
This surprised him. "Why?"
He pushed his head higher up on the pillow. "You really don't understand, do you? Julia might never have seen John Yates again, after the one party at the Rushworths', if I hadn't put them back into each other's company. I did that. Poor Fanny would never have met Henry Crawford if he hadn't been staying at the parsonage with Dr. Grant because my gambling debts forced Father to give your living to another man!" The pain in his face was vivid, unguarded. "My friends betrayed me the moment I was out of the way – yes – but I gave them the means to do it. I deserved to be so robbed, for being such an imbecile. You can never know how that felt. What it did to me. I was all but prepared to give up on life."
"What changed your mind?"
A tiny, contented grin spread sweetly across Tom's face. "Over there, beside the tray, there's a letter – from Fanny – read it."
Obediently reading it and declaring it to be a very good letter, with all of Fanny's usual tender feeling and sweetness, Edmund then confessed he didn't see its significance in so altering him.
"Don't you, though?" He sounded rather surprised, and slightly annoyed. "Try to keep up! In that letter, Fanny assures me she loves me – assures me she always forgives me. I never knew if she believed what was printed in the paper about my having buried a mistress. I never knew she forgave me for going to Newmarket to begin with. Fanny wouldn't be unfaithful to me, of course, and our aunt Norris is more than capable of turning a held hand on a terrace into a six-month affair when she retells a story. But I couldn't be sure until I read that letter my wife wasn't at least a little in love with Henry Crawford – how was I to know he hadn't succeeded, as far as her heart was concerned, in my lengthy absence?"
"Their affair was entirely in Mr. Crawford's own head, Tom." Edmund's expression was tight, tensed. "I could have assured you of at least that much, if you'd asked."
He took in a long, dragging breath. "That must have been it, then – the circumstance of her unhappiness mentioned in the letter. I'm a damnable wet goose! She was begging me to protect her from him all along, wasn't she? It must have been her reason for wanting to come with me to Newmarket – and I refused her. How could I not see it?"
"None of us did – we all trusted the Crawfords." Taking his brother's hand and squeezing it lightly in reassurance, Edmund felt he needed to add, "Even Fanny herself, I think, grew rather fond of them – almost believed in them – for a short while there."
Tom sniffed. "I didn't hold it against Mary, you know, when she was waiting for me to die so she could have this house – I prevented her gaining it, but I didn't despise her."
"I know."
"I despise her brother."
"Forgiveness might, understandably, take a while in that regard," murmured Edmund, unable to unbiasedly defend either side, either the guilty or the wronged.
"Almost anything but his going after Fanny I might have pardoned in time. Dash it all! Whatever plans further than a mere moment's satisfaction he could have been making in his attempt to seduce my wife are quite beyond me. The world is full of pretty women. Why her? Why the wife of someone he claimed as a friend?"
If he failed to say it then, Edmund feared he would not have the courage, but his brother, he thought, ought to know the full truth, since their aunt had felt disposed to share inaccurate pieces of it. "Miss Crawford believes her brother hoped for more than the simple conquest of another pretty woman's heart – she believes he meant to marry her. He rented a house for her. Stanwix Lodge. That much I was able to find out really happened."
Tom gave a tsk, sucking his teeth. "Does he imagine I would quit this world and leave my wife to such a fate? Fanny would have been happy with you, after a while. You would have been able to take care of her, to pull her out of herself when her miseries became too great. You would have done it better than me. Mr. Crawford, however... No. They're so pointedly different in all their inclinations and ways – how could they ever be happy together? Being with him would wound her heart, changing her little by little, every day, until whatever was left of her wouldn't even be Fanny any longer."
"I do not think them unfitted as companions," Edmund confessed. "We do differ here." His ill-feeling towards Mary's brother, his belief that Henry might possibly be the wickedest bastard ever to walk the earth, was stemmed from protectiveness for Fanny's honour and outraged love for his own brother, from Mr. Crawford's relentless and amoral (at best) persistence, feelings he knew – as a man of the cloth – he must quell rather than dwell upon, not from thinking their personalities incompatible. "I allow they are very different, but the general dissimilarity between them is not so strong.
"However, I fear that, like his sister, Mr. Crawford is too used to having his own way – his good habits have been long ago spoiled. He would rely too much on Fanny to fix them. And Fanny... Well, having been so long in love with you, who, for all your dunderheaded moments" – here Tom smiled at him and, almost imperceptibly, quirked an eyebrow – "never required her active interference to keep you from your worst self, would hold no notion of how to bear up against such an unreasonable reasonability."
"My wife," growled Tom, as soon as Edmund finished speaking, his smile rapidly faded, "is not Henry Crawford's conscience personified. She isn't some magical tree of knowledge for him to pluck fruit from – she does not exist to simply explain right from wrong to him." Sliding his hand away from his brother's, he grabbed a fistful of blanket and wrung it. "For pity's sake, he's a grown man, not a dratted child, he ought to have known that."
"Yes," agreed Edmund, who, here, on this particular point, couldn't reasonably defend Henry Crawford even in the slightest degree, "he ought. He did not. He may never. But he ought to have."
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.
I actually, being something of a Bible translation enthusiast, had trouble deciding if I should base the snippet of Scripture we have Edmund reading during his sermon more on the King James version or the Coverdale. I went with Coverdale in the end (after writing a first draft which used direct quotes from King James) because I'm aware Jane Austen quoted that translation on some of her childhood samplers, supposedly.
