Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Forty-Six:
Friendships, As They Have Become
When Susan spied Tom's chaise and four rolling in from the window of the East room (this was the same as the old school-room – the East room was its proper name), she sprinted into the hallway fairly glowing with delight.
As happy as she had been for her sister as she'd watched this same carriage depart, knowing this holiday would provide a much needed rest for Fanny as well as some uninterrupted time with her husband, things had proved more than a little dull without her.
One might never think of Fanny Bertram as the life of a place, her ingratiation being so quiet and nonintrusive, but her absence is the sort which is keenly felt once inflicted.
For the first time, Susan wondered if those back home in Portsmouth had – so unexpectedly – felt the same lonely pangs when Fanny left home as a bride.
It had not been so bad, so very lonesome, when Edmund was still at Mansfield Park, but he'd remained only a day or so after their departure for Derbyshire.
Sir Thomas was returned to run the place now, and he had been informed on all which had happened in his absence, including the incidents with Mr. Crawford and Aunt Norris respectively. So Edmund thought he could be of no further use, and remembered his congregation in Thornton Lacey with a blush of guilt at having left them for so long, and Susan had had no choice but to clench her hands at her sides until her fingernails etched deep crescents in her palms and bite her tongue to keep herself from saying he would, in staying, have been of great use to her.
Because of course she could not have said any such thing to him. Of course not.
All the same, she had come to rely on him as her chief ally in the many dealings of the house, from assistance when speaking to the staff to general moral guidance when Fanny was unavailable to advise her.
To be without him, alone with only her aunt and uncle, was a tremendous change.
One she'd told herself she would be prepared for yet decidedly was anything but.
She was more adaptable to the change in general, perhaps, than Fanny would have been in her place, but there was more than one moment where she was kept from outburst, from being very sorry for herself indeed, only by remembering none of this was really hers – she was blessed to be away from the noise of Portsmouth, to have been taken in here when her sister married.
She must never consciously allow herself to be curt and taciturn with Sir Thomas or become less cheerful towards Lady Bertram, she knew, simply because she missed her cousin's company.
Sometimes, though, before she caught herself, she would almost wish things were as they'd been when Tom was ill and her uncle was far away – for Edmund was always here, then, always within reach at every moment.
However, thinking of how awful it had been for Fanny at that time, how much they'd all feared for Tom, she could not wish those dreadful hours back into being with a clean conscience.
But now Fanny was returned from Derbyshire!
Susan had had a letter from her, while they were away, and it had been a long one, indicating only pleasure from the entirety of the trip (a post script from Tom remarked with amazement upon how he was most pleased he'd been 'wrongly informed about the cows', whatever that meant). As she tore through the house, flying out the front doors to greet her sister and brother-in-law, she couldn't wait to hear all about it in person, to learn more of what they'd seen and done, never having been to Derbyshire for herself.
The first thing Tom did, upon flinging the carriage door open and hopping out – merrily halloing – was hand Fanny's little pug (which had gone with them and seemed to have been on his lap for the majority of the journey) over to the first footman on hand as if the puppy were a priceless vase which mustn't be dropped.
Susan stared at him in some confusion. She was trying to work out what was different about him from when they'd seen each other last.
He realised what it was she'd noticed – a change indeed – before she herself did and gave his sister-in-law a teasing half smirk while he waited for her to catch on.
"Your walking-stick!" she exclaimed, her hands flying to her mouth as she drew in a sharp breath of surprise. "You're not using it!"
His smirk spread out into a full, joyous grin. "That's right, sister, you see before you a man almost completely recovered – I don't need it any longer!" With this, he turned and offered his hand to Fanny to help her out of the carriage. "Easy, creepmouse. Take it slow." He gave a light grunt. "Down we go."
Susan's eyes widened. Fanny was a marvel to behold. Like her husband, her health seemed a great deal improved after having gone away – they were both tanned, darkened about the face, obviously from having been out of doors a great deal – and she was beginning to show, her – obviously new, for Susan had never seen it before – dress straining nearly, but not quite, imperceptibly about the rounded belly despite the current empire-waisted style being rather more concealing and flattering to a woman with child than otherwise.
This new dress itself was something of a marvel, dusty rose and light purple with frills gathered at the top of the long sleeves and raised ribbons trimmed along the bottom of the skirt, though Susan wondered a little at her sister – usually practical minded and modest – wearing such a thing while travelling.
Then again, it was probably a lot easier to keep one's clothing neat in a private carriage belonging to one's husband than in a public stage coach, and perhaps she simply liked to look nice around Tom now that she had the more frequent opportunity.
Any possible concern for the state of the marvelous dress, however, did not in the least prevent Fanny from flinging her arms around Susan – careless of potential wrinkles – the moment she was out and had let go of Tom's hand.
"I missed you!" Susan pressed her cheek to her sister's.
"And I you, Susie, you can't imagine – but Derbyshire was wonderful. Tom's as good as promised to bring you with us next time we go."
Susan loosened her grip on Fanny and twisted her neck slightly to glance toward her brother-in-law. "Truly?"
He shrugged, but he was smiling.
"Well, I want to hear everything" – and she hooked her arm through Fanny's – "in your letter you mentioned making friends, but you didn't say who they were."
"Capital people," Tom put in, taking Fanny's puppy back from the footman and tucking it under his arm as he strode towards the doorway. "And not a bit stingy, either."
It was not until they were all seated in the drawing-room (and Sir Thomas was out of his study and joining them), however, that Susan would learn the generous 'capital people' Tom referred to were the residents of a large country estate called Pemberley.
"I had thought," Tom explained, helping himself to a biscuit and dunking it – in a slovenly manner which made Sir Thomas raise his eyebrows, though he said nothing about it aloud – into his tea, "Derbyshire was all cows and deadly dull doings of rustics. But that assumption couldn't have been further from the truth! Why, there are all sorts of activities and goings-ons and interesting persons."
There was a faint halting, here, in his speech, before going on, which he covered up by presenting it as a moment for him to catch his breath and take a sip of tea; yet Susan found herself thinking there was a change in her brother-in-law. He sounded more like he was trying (and failing, just a little) to act (although he was not being insincere in his praise) the part of himself as he had formerly been; there was someone graver, quieter, less driven by the need to be social than his former self had been, hiding behind the dancing playfulness in his eyes, in his merry expression.
The person behind the merriment, she couldn't help mulling, probably wouldn't have minded if there had been, indeed, nothing more to do on his holiday than hold hands with his wife and look at mooing animals of the bovine persuasion.
Had the illness he'd narrowly survived caused this in and of itself? Or was it something deeper? Had the desertion of his friends when the illness after his fall first set in scarred him in a way he might never truly recover from?
It was a question she realised, then and there, she probably could never bring herself to ask him – she did not know if she could ever bring herself even to ask Fanny. Edmund, perhaps, someday, simply to learn his thoughts on it, but even that was doubtful. Mr. Yates and Julia lived in the neighbourhood, now, at Stanwix Lodge, yet Susan was positive she'd never bring up the change in Tom with either of them, especially not Yates.
There are some hurts whose cuts go far too deep – on all ends – to ever be spoken of.
She distracted herself from these thoughts by focusing more intently on the conversation as Tom finally continued with it.
"Are you familiar, sir, with the Darcy family and Pemberley?"
Sir Thomas paused pensively. "Yes, I think I did see the deceased Mr. Darcy once, though I never met the current generation. I'd heard his godson, who he was supposedly very fond of, went into the army after he died instead of taking the cloth like your brother – it was a disappointment at the time to those who knew the family better than I."
Fanny and Tom exchanged a look at this.
Tom admitted he knew this godson, a Mr. Wickham, although not well. "We met in Portsmouth when his wife claimed me as an acquaintance quite against my will."
Fanny tittered, lips pressed too tightly together, struggling to keep a straight face.
"I still maintain I never saw her out a day in my life before that blasted breakfast when she imposed herself upon us," insisted Tom, though with considerable softness – he had, most unexpectedly, grown somewhat fond of Lydia in a brotherly fashion while visiting with their new friends.
Mr. Wickham was not welcome at Pemberley, there was some scandal there, but his wife was – as it turned out – the youngest sister of Mrs. Darcy, and it was not unheard of for her to visit the estate without her husband in tow.
At first Tom hadn't welcomed a renewal of their acquaintance and – despite his change in temper since being so ill – was prepared to like her as little as he had the last time they'd met, especially as she immediately latched onto him with glee the moment she recognised him, exclaiming, "Why, Mr. Bertram! How wonderful to meet again! I thought you quite done for! The gossip in London was all on how you'd succumbed to a dreadful fever in Newmarket, you know," and rarely let him out of her sight.
Strangely enough, his increased patience permitted him to see in her what he had failed to – or, to be fair to him, had really not had time to – before. Lydia Wickham was not unlike him at his silliest moments in youth; she adored cards and gambling, incurred more debts than she ought, and longed only to have fun. Moreover it became plain to him she – though to a lesser degree than himself, having been the favourite of a mother who knew how to show favouritism – understood what it was to be a second-choice, to be overlooked in favour of a more appealing sibling. She'd simply decided never to permit it so far as she was able, which accounted for her recklessness and boisterous manner.
If Maria and Julia had been a bit more like Lydia in nature, less cowed by their father and more open about their inclinations, Tom might have understood them better growing up.
Likely, the fact that Lydia thought Mrs. Bertram tremendously pretty and never said an ill word about her or her manners in Tom's hearing, endeared her to him as well – particularly as she was not so generous to other members of her sex, including her own sisters, so it must have been a real partiality.
And while Tom couldn't legally write to Lydia, to help her along in the future, he could write to Mr. Wickham and offer her – therein – a little advice now and again.
Advice she might, despite herself, even take, simply because she liked him so well.
Perhaps she had not been entirely mistaken in her guess that, in future meetings, she and Tom would have a great deal to say to each other, on a great number of subjects, while their spouses would sit at their sides and say next to nothing.
It was hard, after all, to imagine Fanny ever finding much to say to Mr. Wickham, or he to her.
"And what," asked Sir Thomas, "is her brother-in-law, the current Mr. Darcy like?"
Tom smacked his lips together and placed his teacup down on his saucer. "Oh, a most amiable fellow, to be sure! We were only at Pemberley for the tour of the house, you know – I could tell poor Fanny was becoming fagged; she had had all she could be asked to tolerate of standing under a relentless sun being fried alive, so, in having mercy on her, indoor exploration seemed just the thing – but the Darcys were at home, and once Mr. Darcy heard I was the son of a baronet and had my wife with me, he thought she might be company for his sister and had us all to stay for an evening's entertainment."
Lady Bertram, who thus far had found little to comment on and had looked more than half asleep, asked Fanny how she had liked the sister, the Miss Darcy.
Fanny confessed that while Georgiana had been a charming young lady and good company, they had not particularly taken one to the other. Their temperaments were not disagreeable, nor were their views strongly differed to the point of quarrelling, indeed they both had the highest possible opinion of each other, the trouble was simply they had nothing to offer in a friendship in way of mutual satisfaction.
Georgiana Darcy required constant drawing out, a task Fanny Bertram was unequal to, and Fanny herself was too accustomed to being near always the shiest woman in the room to know what to do with herself when Miss Darcy pointedly demurred or fell silent in an expectant way.
Miss Darcy was also very accomplished, particularly on the pianoforte, while Fanny knew so little about music, save how to take pleasure in hearing it. They could discuss art a little, but there Fanny was limited to what she had seen Tom do and tried to imitate on occasion herself. All else was beyond her comprehension.
Susan would have suited Miss Darcy nicely, notwithstanding her own limited accomplishments, but Fanny was the kind of woman to be left at a loss with her.
There was no consolation for Fanny in Mrs. Darcy, either, as Georgiana's sister-in-law, while a nice enough person, and less intimidating in her own accomplishments, which were more modest compared to the family she'd married into, had a playful manner and fine eyes that put her uncomfortably in mind of Mary Crawford. She was taller and less worldly than the lady in question, and yet once Fanny figured out who it was Mrs. Darcy reminded her so very much of, she could not be fully at ease around her. She felt sorry for the prejudice, knowing it to be a foolish one, but she could not entirely help it.
"She had better fortune in making friends with Mr. Darcy's cousin, Anne de Bourgh," Tom told his mother. "She was visiting Pemberley as well and suffers from the same manner of headaches Fanny is often plagued with. They found a great deal to discuss at the table, remedies and such, and they've even agreed to write to one another.
"To tell the truth, I rather preferred Miss de Bourgh to Miss Darcy myself; I never fancied Miss de Bourgh was waiting for me to speak all the time I was in her company, or expected anything of me in particular. She did behave a little like a child not yet out, and she looks a bit unsettlingly cross when she concentrates upon a matter, but it's not to her disadvantage.
"She is a tranquil, pretty girl. There's not a drop of harm or of true vulgarity in her. I fully approve of her as a suitable companion for my wife.
"I even thought, sir" – he shifted his glance to Sir Thomas – "we might have her here to visit sometime. She invited Fanny to Rosings Park for an undetermined date in the future, but her mother seems the sort to put one off such a visit – she might do better here with us."
Sir Thomas thought that would be perfectly acceptable.
"I wish Edmund could meet her," said Lady Bertram, very suddenly. "If she's so like Fanny, and so agreeable to yourself – I should very much like him to have a wife like yours, Tom."
Susan wondered why her mouth tasted sour and coppery, why her stomach flipped and clenched. Surely it was not the tea or biscuits – Tom was having more than anyone else present and he had not complained.
Throwing back his head, Tom laughed, "A parson wouldn't stand a chance trying for Miss de Bourgh – the girl is all sweetness herself, but the mother... Well, it's as I said. I wouldn't want Fanny visiting with her. Right dragon, you know. No, no. She's not for him. Lady Catherine de Bourgh would wear poor Edmund's guts for garters if he so much as looked at her daughter."
The sour, coppery taste was gone. Susan felt herself slump forward, as if in relief, and wondered why on earth she did so. Her tea sloshed, almost spilling over the rim of her teacup before she hastily straightened it on the saucer in a trembling clamour.
Fanny straightened the skirt of her dress, smoothing a crease near her lap. "Miss de Bourgh gave me this dress – there was an accident and my own was soiled." A servant at Pemberley had spilled tea upon it, all down one side near her upper leg; the liquid was not scalding, so Fanny was unharmed (luckily, or Tom might have throttled the unfortunate culprit and Mr. Darcy, who'd still been holding out hope for Fanny as a future friend and correspondent of his beloved sister, might have readily aided him rather than prevented him), but the dress was in a ghastly state. "It was intended to be a loan – Miss de Bourgh was the only one of a size with myself – but she said she thought it suited me and I should keep it."
"It looks beautiful, Fanny," Susan assured her, her unspoken yet previously burning curiosity regarding why the initials on the right sleeve of the dress appeared more like A&B than F&B finally sated. "I can't imagine Miss de Bourgh herself looked half as regal in it. That she let you keep it shows she has sense."
Fanny turned nearly as pink as the gown at the compliment, and hastily insisted it wasn't true – she had not seen the dress upon Miss de Bourgh, she admitted, but, as it had been made for her especially, certainly it must have looked twice as well on the heiress of Rosings Park.
Tom sided with Susan entirely. No one, he was positive, could look as fetching in a dress of dusty rose as his own wife. Lady Bertram was quite sure she had once owned a dress of the same colour as a girl – or perhaps it was Fanny's mother she was thinking of?
"Well," she said into her cup of tea, bringing her lips to the rim, "at least I know it wasn't my other sister." Her sister Norris had never worn pink a day in her life; not even a pink ribbon in her hair.
"Aye, vampires do generally avoid gay colours," said Tom, speaking quietly but clearly heard by everybody nonetheless. "Ask anybody you like. We ought to put strings of garlic hanging about you, Fanny, then you'd be forever protected."
"Tom," was the only warning Sir Thomas could muster, given how little fondness he currently possessed for the person being mocked, and his heart was clearly not in it.
"That is my sister you're talking about, dear," Lady Bertram reminded him, though even she fought against a smile.
The next morning Fanny rested, sprawled across the as yet unmade bed, the curtains of the canopy tied back, and watched Tom meander idly about the bedroom in his dressing-gown and nightcap. She loved the way the drooping tassel brushed against his lower neck, sometimes concealing itself within the collar of the dressing-gown, other times peeking out and dangling near the space between his shoulder-blades.
Blinking contentedly and stretching her legs, she asked if Tom meant to visit Thornton Lacey later that day.
"It was my intention," he told her. "I thought we'd drop in on Edmund for tea." He paused and wrinkled his nose. "My father wanted me to visit Yates at Stanwix Lodge. I told him we'd already written to Edmund and made plans to spend the afternoon with him."
"We didn't, though," Fanny reminded him.
"We might have done," he grumbled.
"I think, perhaps, I ought to visit Stanwix Lodge this afternoon while you go to Thornton Lacey."
Tom was taken aback. His eyes widened and he staggered a few steps closer to the bed, a hand outstretched as if he meant to touch her in order to check for signs of fever. "Good lord, creepmouse, are you feeling all right?" It wasn't a bit like her not to want to see Edmund, taking into account how much she adored his brother – it was plain she loved him nearly as much as she did William. She'd never choose an afternoon with Julia over an afternoon with Edmund willingly. "Whatever can you be thinking of?"
She sat up slowly, drawing her legs back and tucking them under herself. "I spoke with Susan before bed last night. She hasn't seen Edmund since a week or so ago when your parents decided to attend church with the Thornton Lacey congregation and surprise him – your mother brought Susan along, of course."
"Of course." Lady Bertram could scarcely go to the kitchen gardens these days without Susan, let alone an unfamiliar church.
"She said he seemed a bit...strange...to her... He wasn't ill, and he didn't ignore them, but something troubled him; he didn't seem as pleased to see them all in the pews as she thought he would be." Susan had told her he'd acted almost as if he felt guilty – he'd rarely smiled or met their eyes, even his sermon had seemed subdued and automatic – though it was impossible to imagine what should make him feel thusly. "I thought you might talk to him alone, offer him your confidence."
The fact that Susan had – in a roundabout, fidgety manner – confessed she feared she'd unknowingly done something to make Edmund dislike her, to suddenly act coldly towards her, and – almost tearfully – asked if she could fathom anything in her behaviour that might offend him, Fanny kept to herself. In her quiet way she'd discerned it was a thing her sister would prefer her not to share with Tom.
"I'll go," Tom told her, after a pause. "Have a little talk with him. Do my best, of course. Though, to be frank with you, Fanny, I wouldn't be surprised if he was disinclined to tell me what the matter is – we've grown a great deal closer since I fell ill, but that doesn't take away all the times I've shrugged off his confidence when he offered it to me in the past." He paused before a small end-table on the surface of which rested the Morning Post and was quiet for a long moment. "Did I ever apologise to you for that? Because if I didn't, I'm sorry – you deserved better."
Gathering he was no longer speaking of anything to do – at least directly – with Edmund, Fanny blinked in confusion. She did not, she admitted, understand him.
His chin gestured down at the Morning Post. "I did you a disservice, marrying you in an underhand fashion in Portsmouth. Your name should have been in the paper, this paper, alongside mine. I mean, I know it wasn't an elopement, it was less disgraceful than what our new neighbours at Stanwix Lodge have done, but I've since wondered if I was really kind in doing that to you."
"You did nothing to me, Tom," was Fanny's very serious reply. "Nothing I did not want." She held back her next thought, which was simply that, if Tom had brought her to Mansfield as his betrothed it might have been broken off, prevented by others. "I wouldn't trade a second of our wedding or courtship f-f-for..." She felt herself beginning to stammer. "Oh, for anything."
"Not one second?" he teased, his brow lifting. "What about when I was drunk and you were obliged to put me in with your brothers for the night?"
Fanny laughed. "Not even that."
"D'you remember your father's face the next morning?"
Her laughter increased. "You have Susan to thank for my father's not killing you and flogging me within an inch of my life."
Tom's own laughter petered off. "You know, if it hadn't been prevented, I certainly hope he planned on killing me before he raised a hand to you – because you would have been out a father if I ever saw him strike you on purpose."
"You still remember his accidentally flinging me into your lap during your first visit, then."
"How could I forget?" He was standing before the bed again now and reaching over to brush the back of his hand against her cheek. "No man is ever going to forget the most beautiful woman they've ever seen being literally hurled at them."
Fanny's cheeks heated; it was certainly something how this husband of hers could so easily reduce her to a melting, stammering mess with little more than a tender expression and slight touch.
She closed her eyes and sighed. "I love you," she breathed.
Tom noticed the change in Edmund almost immediately, despite the gentle, amiable attempts on his brother's side to hide it.
His smiles were just that tiniest fraction of a second too short, even for one so reserved as Edmund; his gaze dropped – quite naturally, as if Edmund were timing it in his head and had come close to feigning a normal exchange – only the slightest moment too soon.
He was disappointed not to see Fanny, but Tom – rather than admit he had come alone for the purpose of speaking with him – simply said she was detained at Stanwix Lodge, and better her than himself, and he was probably as convincing as Edmund.
Tom's affected laughter was just a little too high-pitched and lingering to be real.
They had a pleasant but silent walk together before tea; nothing happened save Edmund smiling – for real, this time – at his brother's amended gait and Tom casually skipping a couple of smooth stones across the surface of a pond they passed.
By the time they were seated by the fire alone together and Tom had declined a glass of port, he suspected Edmund was simply not going to tell him anything regarding his recent troubles.
"I didn't know you gave up drinking," Edmund said quietly, stirring his tea anticlockwise. "I'd thought after your health improved..."
Tom's smile grew sheepish. "I'm simply trying to cut back – I still tend to over imbibe if I don't watch myself, and I don't like making a fool of myself in front of poor Fanny. She has an angel's patience, but I don't like to test it overmuch." He was especially frightened of upsetting her while intoxicated and unwittingly doing something to make her current state more difficult. Not for the world would he have risked harm to their baby. "I water down my wine at mealtimes now."
"I'm proud of you." Edmund's eyes were soft, the expression in them one Tom wasn't certain he'd ever seen his brother look at him with before. He felt oddly humbled by this, as if he'd just received an unexpected gift from a superior gentleman. "You're a good man, Tom Bertram."
"But not good enough, I gather, for you to tell me what's wrong?"
"Tom, please, there's nothing–"
Tom simply stared.
Edmund bent forward, set his saucer and teacup down, and sighed before leaning back again. "I did something I shouldn't have, something inexcusable and lacking all discretion. It pains me and I find it difficult to forgive myself." His cheeks coloured. "It's to do with a woman."
"You?" Tom could not have been more surprised if Edmund had confessed to highway robbery. He nearly dropped his own teacup. "You jest with me."
Edmund shook his head. His shoulders were slumped downward miserably.
"Edmund, please tell me we aren't talking about Mary Crawford." He wasn't certain he could stand the notion of his brother infatuated with her again, with the sister of the man who'd behaved so badly towards Fanny, the woman who – for her own part – had wanted him dead.
"No, you may rest easy on that front, it was somebody else entirely – I've thought little, increasingly less, of Miss Crawford since discovering what she was really like. There are moments when I miss her liveliness, her company, especially when I'm sitting here alone after completing a sermon, but then I remember the look on her face when she spoke of your imminent death – the chilling manner in which she said you were not expected to live – and her keenness to engage Fanny to her brother. I cannot have really been in love with someone who could ever look like that, and I'm sorry for it. No, indeed, the last I thought of Mary was to wonder at her remaining at Mansfield Parsonage so long after her brother went away to London – she's still there with Mrs. Grant, though she isn't welcome at the house."
"Intriguing! Do I know this mystery woman of yours?"
"You've met her, yes."
Tom placed his own teacup down beside Edmund's and began to gesture with his hands while he spoke. "And you and this woman...you..."
Edmund said nothing, shifting uncomfortably in his seat.
Tom gave a cough. "That is, how far did you...?"
His brother, gone rigid with horror, looked repulsed. "Tom, what are you implying? I never–"
"Oh. Well, then it can't be so bad, can it? It's not as if you did anything you can't take back."
"I wrote her letters," Edmund murmured.
Tom did not at first hear. "What?"
"I wrote to her!" He sounded agitated and brought his hands to his face, groaning. "I wrote letters to this woman even though we're not engaged and, in all likelihood, never can become engaged. And she wrote me back. We corresponded illegally. Several times."
"What makes her so terribly unsuitable? Is she already married?"
"No."
"Ill?"
"I don't believe so."
"Ugly?"
"No!"
"Intolerably fat?"
"Tom!"
"I fear I'm running out of potential objections here, Edmund," Tom protested, holding out his splayed hands dramatically; "I mean, unless she's–" His mouth slackened. "Hang on. I've got it now!" He snapped his fingers and pointed. "She's poor."
Edmund gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
He tossed back his head and laughed so hard his body shook and his chair shook with it. "What a snob you are, Edmund – your income doesn't exceed seven hundred a year!" Likely, it never would until Dr. Grant died and Edmund could take up the living of Mansfield Park. And even then he would not be a particularly wealthy man. "Whatever are you on about? I say marry the blasted pauper girl if she'll make you happy!"
"It's not so simple," was the whispered reply, and it sounded as if his heart were breaking. "I'm not in love with her, though I came close – I have feelings I should not have allowed – and I believe..." Drawing in a deep breath, he said, "Tom, I need you to tell me something and to be concise and honest. It's very important. Promise you'll answer truthfully."
"I promise."
"The house-maid who came here in the rain to get me when you fell ill – Sophie – she was not always a house-maid, was she?"
Tom's brow creased. He couldn't understand what Edmund was getting at, what that had to do with anything they'd been discussing.
"How did you know her before that?" His voice cracked. "Where did she recognise you from?"
"Weymouth – she was a..." Tom realised, then, already too late, what an idiot he was. He might have, in one moment of thoughtless honesty, promises be damned, have just spoiled an otherwise potentially happy future for his brother. "For pity's sake, Edmund! You can't trap a fellow like that – it isn't sporting."
"She was a woman of ill-repute, wasn't she?" Edmund locked eyes with him. "One of the ones you–" He choked off. "There's a chance, I take it, Mr. Owen would recognise her if I–"
He nodded, unable to lie to his distressed brother, but added, emphatically, "It doesn't matter." Hang damn Mr. Owen! Interfering busybody.
"It matters to me." Edmund closed his eyes and turned his head away. "It matters a great deal to me."
"Allow me to reiterate," snapped Tom, rolling his eyes; "you, Edmund Bertram, are a snob." He lowered his voice, and it was suddenly devoid of even the slightest hint of playfulness. "And, forgive me for adding this, but a bit of a coward as well. I thought better of you."
"You misunderstand me – I'm not ashamed of what she is, or what she's been, but there is a standard – an expectation – to be upheld." He swallowed, visibly pained enough to make Tom wish he had not just spoken as he did. "A respectable clergyman cannot marry someone who is not a maid."
For a brief moment Tom was puzzled by this statement and could only blink, then he immediately felt like an imbecile. In this, Edmund was clearly not referring to a maid as Sophie was now, as a servant – a house-maid – he was referring to her not being a virgin.
Which, honestly, made a great deal more sense and, in retrospect, ought to have been obvious.
"You realise, of course," he had to say, when he got his bearings, "Fanny wouldn't have been a maid, either, and you were going to marry her to oblige me if I failed to recover."
"A widow is different, and you know it – marrying Fanny would have been perfectly respectable."
"Sophie could be a widow, as far as the world's concerned – girls' husbands die young all the time, as I jolly nearly did! – tell Mr. Owen to keep his mouth shut and nobody else can prove a damn thing if you don't want them to."
But Edmund refused to make a further hypocrite of himself than he feared he already had. He was steady in his conviction he could never marry someone of Sophie's position in life.
As it was settled there was no present cure for it, Tom was curious to know – if Edmund wished to tell him – how such an attachment, or near-attachment, had come about.
How had he come to write to a house-maid in Newmarket against his better judgement?
Edmund was sorrowful as he informed his brother it began innocently – he'd thought, after more or less saving Tom's life by coming to fetch him at Thornton Lacey, Sophie would like to know how he fared, that he was recovering. So he wrote to the physician who had treated Tom in Newmarket, and presumably still lived in the area, and directed the letter to Sophie under her care. The missive received a ready, cheerful reply – Sophie was delighted to know Tom was so improved, and improving more each passing day, and she hoped Edmund fared well, too, after all the strain this had doubtless placed upon him. Her letter was so good-natured, so tender in feeling Edmund felt, though he knew he ought to leave it there, for the sake of all propriety, he must reply again; this time, at Sophie's own suggestion, the letter was sent to the housekeeper who would see, with more haste than the physician, it reached her.
They both pretended, or perhaps even really believed, there was no danger.
Soon Edmund had found he could scarcely stand to leave off writing; he had developed deeper feelings for the person with whom he exchanged so many words. Yet his conscience troubled him; he had never before been the sort to do such a thing as this, and he could not – as his feelings grew – rectify his indiscreet actions with a proposal of marriage.
Tom might think he had destroyed Edmund's happiness by telling him of Sophie's past, but Edmund was glad he did – that he was honest about it. For he'd long suspected it and his greatest fear was Tom might lie, or attempt to soften the truth, and he would be tempted, in turn, to tell himself he believed him, simply because he wanted to.
While Tom had still yet to recover, had been bedridden and often unconscious, Edmund had happened to look into his sketchbook and he'd seen – quite to his shock – some of the sketches for the painting Tom had done in Weymouth. It struck him very quickly how similar one of the undressed girls in the sketched likenesses he'd – blushing like mad – flipped over to the next page, in such haste he'd nearly ripped it, appeared to Sophie.
He'd tried to tell himself, having not lingered over the page for obvious reasons, he could have been mistaken – it might have been another young woman entirely.
He wanted it to be.
More than he'd ever wanted anything – perhaps more, even, than he'd once wanted to marry Mary Crawford.
Only, common sense told him otherwise; his heart argued vehemently against this, but he knew it to be treacherous and would not pay it heed.
This had only served to increase his shame, adding to the reason he'd become so downcast after Tom left for Derbyshire and he returned to Thornton Lacey. For he failed to end the correspondence, despite knowing – almost for certain – what she was and what it meant for them.
If life were a fairy-tale, if it were even a touch more idealistic in nature, Edmund fancied things might have turned out differently – he might have married Sophie and lifted her to the respectability of a parson's wife.
He couldn't, though.
The guilt he felt now would be far worse if he went ahead and got married against his own conscience.
He would, also, always wonder if he really loved her or if he felt the need to rescue her, or at the very least to atone for his improper letter-writing to her, to make right and fulfil any expectations he might have raised in her in so doing.
To have such a marriage in the future was more unbearable than the pain he felt at avoiding marrying someone he admired so greatly at present.
As he rose and shakily went to stoke the fire, Edmund asked Tom not to tell anyone what they'd discussed. His feelings for Sophie, while they caused him pain presently, he hoped to eventually shake; he might never marry, to be sure, as for so long he'd thought Mary Crawford the only woman he could ever think of as a wife and the next to come along had been unsuitable, but he hoped to be reconciled to that without it being generally known.
One romantic blunder was enough humiliation for any man in Edmund's position.
"Depend upon it, I won't say a word to anyone except for Fanny."
Edmund turned green; he didn't particularly want Fanny to know, either.
Tom was stunned. "You don't mean to tell her yourself?"
He shook his head.
"But she's your dearest friend," said Tom, brow furrowing.
"Yes." He poked gingerly at the fire again.
"And you're not going to confide in her about this?"
"No."
A flood of warmth filled Tom's chest as he realised. "But you told me."
Edmund turned away from the fire and looked at his brother with a tender expression. "Yes, I did."
"Oh, that's right," he blurted, the warmth fading, "you needed me to tell you if she–"
"That's not why. My mind was already made up."
The warmth was returned. Of all the things Tom thought he might gain in his recovery, in his reconciliation to being responsible for Mansfield, in growing up, he'd never imagined this.
"Right." He cleared his throat to disguise his strong emotion. "Well. Then it ought, I suppose, to just be a confidence between two siblings."
"Two friends," corrected Edmund, the corners of his mouth softly upturned.
And the two friends concluded their interview with one another by leaving off the subject of Sophie altogether and discussing Tom's good fortune with fishing at Pemberley and how uncommonly generous Mr. Darcy had been regarding the trout therein.
Sometime, they ought, they decided, to go there together and see what they'd catch between the pair of them.
Meanwhile, at Stanwix Lodge, Fanny did her best to smile at Julia and – with more ease, since he was always the more amiable of the two – Mr. Yates, and to congratulate them on their recent marriage without showing distinct approval for their actions.
Julia was faintly standoffish with her, at first, but quickly discerning that – despite an awkwardness which had always been present in her sister-in-law anyway – Fanny was much the same with her as she ever was, more the same than Maria might have been in her place, soon eased and contented herself with such a neighbour who might eventually make a suitable ally.
In short, as far as casual company went, Fanny would do, and that was good enough for Julia at this stage when she'd expected so much less.
As for Mr. Yates, he was primarily relieved to see Fanny did not seem to hold his abandonment of her husband against him. He took her smiles for total and unhindered forgiveness and was nothing short of delighted at her goodness in so willingly bestowing them.
It was not long into the visit before they were laughing – though it was Yates who did most of it – like the old friends they still were.
He remarked upon her starting to show by stating he couldn't wait until Julia, too, was with child – for what fun, he exclaimed, what a merry amusement, it would be to have two babies passed about in the neighbourhood and see how they got on; why, they might even race them for small wagers among the local gentry, once they'd learned to crawl – to which Julia pertly replied he certainly could wait, and he amended himself with a sheepish but agreeable – and suitably apologetic – smile.
When Fanny told him – for Julia had lost interest and was going about the house fluffing pillows and opening windows to air out stuffy rooms in the current absence of a suitable housekeeper for hire – about herself and Tom touring Pemberley, as it seemed one of the few safe subjects which could not bring either party pain, Mr. Yates exclaimed with excessive and affected joviality, in a ringing tone of pure good humour, that they must – simply must – have the big house at Mansfield and even this lodge open for tours, just like Pemberley.
"It is an inspiration!" he declared, winking at her. "And your aunt Norris shall be in charge of leading guests about and sounding self-important! And we shall have a gift-shop with little plaster busts in the likeness of myself and Mrs. Yates here. What do you say, Mrs. Bertram?"
When she'd recovered, having wiped the tears of her mirth onto her left sleeve, she murmured into her teacup that she supposed Sir Thomas should find that most disagreeable.
All the more so since Mrs. Norris had been barred from the house for the foreseeable future.
Mr. Yates proved surprised at this, but he immediately professed he had never personally liked the woman, to be sure. And if Tom – or his father – had seen fit to banish her, it must be for the best. He felt quite certain Julia never cared much for 'that aunt' as he called her, either, as she was rather a sour woman, though he could not ask since she'd just swanned out of the room with the tray again.
Then, as if to fill the silence which ensued, he asked if she cared to see the house – a preview tour, perhaps, he teased.
Fanny's legs ached and she might have preferred to keep seated – standing too quickly also seemed to constantly make her feel as if she had to relieve herself these days – but he seemed to eager to get up (she suspected from his suddenly exceedingly fidgety manner he did not like to have Julia so long out of sight and was the sort of husband who got lonely and felt neglected very, very easily), she replied she would certainly be interested in seeing whatever he should like to show her.
All the while she could not help thinking – with a stomach which churned and threatened to be sick – if she were unfortunate and weaker in resolve, or even if Mr. Crawford had been more upright in his pursuit, come on less intensely in his perseverance, and Mary less eager to profess them all but engaged to secure Edmund for her own, and Tom less lucky in his recovery, this might now be hers.
Her own temporary home which she'd have gone to, in theory, willingly, only to be made with each day more unhappy while Henry Crawford's own felicity was – as he imagined – forever set.
At least until he tired of his desired conquest.
She had told Henry that, even had her affections been free, he could never have engaged them, and it was true enough, but only so far as his actions had made it true. She shuddered to imagine what, eventually, she could have been persuaded into, despite Tom's wishes, had Mary and Henry acted more underhand, been less certain of their immediate success.
Would she, after a time, have given up her claim on Edmund to oblige him and Mary, and thus have left herself open to a future in which she could only become Henry's voluntarily bestowed reward?
To know she was here, walking through the rooms Mr. Yates seemed as proud of as if he'd built them with his own two hands rather than simply moved into recently, solely as a guest, carrying Tom's child in her belly, safe from ever being called Mrs. Crawford, was a felicity beyond any other.
In mid-speech, Mr. Yates halted, breaking off in a hurry as he noted Fanny had her hand to her belly and was looking, somewhat dazedly, as if in some manner of trance, into the middle distance. "Are you well, Mrs. Bertram?"
"Yes indeed, Mr. Yates," she replied in full truthfulness, eyes alight with happiness. "I have never been better."
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.
