Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Forty-Seven:
Still Further Persuasions, What Little Good They Do
For the life of him, Tom Bertram could not fix upon the hour – not the precise one, at any rate – during which he'd resolved, quite seriously, that his brother Edmund and his sister-in-law Susan were created for one another, had been made, as likely as not, by God's own hands to be attached one to the other – he was in the thick of it before he ever realised he'd begun.
How long after it became apparent Edmund would never, even should a pianoforte be dropped upon his head, change his mind and attempt to be on terms again with Sophie – bless her, poor little thing – did Tom's thoughts spin in a very different direction?
Even if one purposefully abstained from dates to do more credit to Tom's limited sensitivities displayed in the matter – and that is, to be sure, no easy thing, given how the size of Fanny's growing belly was too accurate a calendar for one to be very unsure – one couldn't correctly guess if it was too soon or too late when he at last began to hope of securing his brother's future happiness.
It is to Tom's credit, though, when one takes into account Susan's feelings – for though they were strangers to the tormented girl herself, he was long enough in love with her sister to see them for what they really were, whenever it was he cared to pay attention – and his keenly wishing for her happiness also.
"Dash it all," Tom muttered, once, to himself as an aside, after observing Susan's rapt face while his father concluded reading aloud an excerpt of a letter from Thornton Lacey. "Hang propriety! It would be no bad thing if they were to notice one another!"
True, Susan was not Edmund's ideal.
But then, in fairness, neither had Sophie been. Her eyes were not dark like Miss Crawford's, nor was her countenance at all similar.
Tom privately cursed the day their foolish aunt's wish for Maria's having the advantage of looks over any other woman in the room ever supplied jointly to them both – however subconsciously – the wicked notion that dark eyes were more desirable than light ones.
All for the sake of Maria's being the prettiest young woman in a given room of fair complexion, she had left them – particularly Edmund – with a conundrum of the chicken and the egg proportions.
Did Edmund purposefully look for sparkling dark eyes because they were truly, objectively beautiful to him – or were they beautiful to him simply because he was taught to purposefully look for them?
Tom believed the world might never know, not for certain.
But, all the same, Sophie was fair, her eyes were soft and light and – whether it was for her mind, poured into the letters they'd exchanged, or the memory of her face, the one he must have pictured as he read them – Edmund had nonetheless grown to care for her.
And, really, Sophie and Susan did look rather alike...
If Edmund could learn to like the one, he could fancy the other just as easily. What should prevent his developing the same manner of inclination towards Susan, with her being the more favourable choice?
Prior to this, Tom had never set himself to matchmaking – he considered it a woman's work, not to mention usually uncalled for, as an eldest son will always be on the wrong end of such an endeavour at least once in his lifetime – but as no one else was going to do it, and he presumed Fanny to be unequal to the meddling required, perhaps even a formidable obstacle if told about the scheme too soon, he resolved to give it the old Oxford try.
He began these efforts one day when Edmund was visiting for the afternoon (Sir Thomas had required help with something to do with the estate which Tom could not puzzle out, and there seemed no harm in Edmund's staying for tea afterwards) by expressing a wish to sketch a likeness of his brother and Susan sitting together on the sofa across from his own seat.
They obliged, making it almost too easy, but not having a woman's resilience in such a matter, Tom almost forgot what he was about while it was still taking place.
"Have you finished?" Edmund asked, considerately only moving his eyes.
"Mmm?" was Tom's eloquent response. "What's that?"
In actuality, he'd grown bored – nearly twenty minutes earlier – of the rather dull work required to sketch out so simple a picture – just a man and a woman, dressed plainly, looking vaguely in each other's direction and holding teacups – and had begun to – for lack of a better term – doodle, from memory, various small parts of Fanny in the margins; an ear, a single dangling curl, a hand, a finger, a knuckle, and in one somewhat more risqué example, a nipple.
Susan sighed, sounding frustrated, and Tom let them go with a wave, hastily closing the sketchbook.
As they cleared out of the drawing-room without another word exchanged and their teacups sitting cold and half empty on the tray awaiting the servants' clean up, he pondered, not greatly impressed with the result of his efforts regarding the pair, either on paper or in life, whether it would be too blunt for him to simply walk up to Edmund, shake him by the shoulder, and demand to know if he really wanted to die alone.
Because, if not, he'd better do something about it.
Realising himself to be utterly alone save for his sleeping mother and Pug, he shrugged, flipped the sketchbook back open again, and, with a look of blasé contentment, resumed sketching the likeness of Fanny's nipple.
Being with child, Fanny was required to take more walks than before simply because – in her condition – it was entirely unsafe for her to be anywhere near a horse, a closed carriage the only reasonable exception. Riding for exercise was declared off-limits. She lamented not seeing Shakespeare, and Tom – in her place – often went to the stables and gave the mare a carrot and (so long as nobody was looking) a kiss on the soft, grey muzzle, reassuring the forlorn creature her mistress wouldn't be separated from her forever.
Tom would gladly have had Fanny conveyed anywhere she liked by carriage – goodness knew he'd probably just as readily have carried her himself, in his arms, nine out of ten times – but both Edmund (usually by post script in a missive) and Sir Thomas reminded him frequently his wife still needed some form of exercise.
It was a rare thing for her to be unaccompanied on these walks, as Tom or Susan nearly always went with her. And, in their occasional absence, she was loaned an oddly protective hunting dog Tom had procured from one of their neighbours known for being a good guard for expecting females (the dog, of course, not the neighbour); somehow, even with Henry Crawford away in London, Tom Bertram never entirely felt his wife safe from that odious gentleman, especially not with his sister (sisters, plural, if one counted Mrs. Grant, which he certainly did as she seemed very much a spy and interloper after all that had transpired) still at the parsonage.
On this particular day, Fanny was spared the dog (and she was glad of it, for he frightened her a bit) despite not having Susan or Tom accompanying her, simply because Anne de Bourgh was visiting and had her by the arm, stumbling along the path and sneezing, and nobody suspected the pair of them of being able to walk very far on their own.
Overhead, the sky went from the darkened white of simply overcast to a more troublesome charcoal, and they – having gotten further than expected by anyone, themselves included, truly enjoying one another's company and losing themselves talking in the way only persons who are usually reserved and say very little ever can – were thinking of turning back, strictly as a precaution, when the clouds fairly burst.
The nearest place was, to Fanny's deepening dismay, the White House, and for her own sake – for once, and this was exceptionally rare, she wasn't thinking at all of the baby – she would have been soaked to the bone rather than visit Aunt Norris, but she was entirely unwilling to risk Miss de Bourgh's well-being; not for the world would she have her friend, already out of breath and wheezing, take ill on her account.
So they – with linked hands – made for the White House in all haste, still arriving drenched from hair to hem, their shoes hopelessly mud-caked and spoiled, despite their best efforts.
Swallowing hard, Fanny lifted her hand and banged on the door to be heard over the pounding, driving rain. She was terrified of the door swinging open and Aunt Norris standing there, glaring judgementally.
The baby came to her mind, then, at last. Her trembling hand dropped from the door she'd been knocking on down to her belly in a gesture both protective and painfully self-conscious.
She hadn't seen her aunt since before... Since well before... She was showing like this... Supposing Mrs. Norris did not, despite the timing, believe the baby was Tom's?
Oh, God, the very idea – and Fanny's face was already scarlet at the thought – of her repeating anything to do with Mr. Crawford, to do with her unreasonable suspicions, in front of Miss de Bourgh, the first true friend outside of the family Fanny really ever had!
It did not bear thinking of.
The house-maid answered in place of Mrs. Norris herself, however, which was some relief.
At least they were immediately allowed inside, suffering nothing more mortifying than a barked command from another room that no one was to be permitted into the parlour, indeed not one hair of an inch beyond the vestibule, with dirty shoes on – this, before Mrs. Norris even asked who it was – and they complied like pale, dripping zombies with unbecomingly red, running noses.
Tripping awkwardly down the hallway in their stocking-feet, the first voice to reach the girls upon coming within sight of Mrs. Norris was a younger, perter one than the old aunt's.
"Dear me," tittered none other than Maria Rushworth (for she it indeed was), gingerly swirling her tea, "I do believe they're multiplying."
Anne de Bourgh sneezed violently and moved closer to Fanny, clutching timidly at the beribboned elbow of her friend's unshed pelisse.
They did look, poor things, rather like a matched pair of drowned mice standing there so pathetically. One could almost mistake Miss de Bourgh for another sister of Fanny's – she certainly looked more like her than Betsey did, at any rate. Their fair hair hung raggedly, torn from their bonnets, in front of their pale faces and – if not for the protruding bump of Fanny's belly – even Tom, had he been present, momentarily might have struggled more than he'd ever own to in order to tell, at least immediately, which one of the pitiful lasses was his wife. He would not have been able to say with confidence the one which sneezed had not been his own beloved Fanny.
Mrs. Norris narrowed her eyes.
"Forgive me, aunt," said Fanny, her voice raspy and a little breathless but with an underlying dark warning to it, protective for herself and for Miss de Bourgh's sake, "we were caught in the rain. We shall not trespass long upon your hospitality."
It was almost eerie, how Mrs. Norris turned her head away with scarcely more than a nod – silence not being the woman's natural state – but perhaps the duel presence of Lady Catherine's daughter (though it was doubtful she knew who she was) and her beloved Maria stilled her biting words.
Or perhaps she was too angry at Fanny – who she viewed as the source of coldness between herself and her nephew – to spare her anything beyond a stern look.
"What do they remind you of, aunt?" said Maria, after an awkward pause keenly felt by all present. "I would say rongeurs mouillés."
"Now, now, my love," muttered Mrs. Norris, not really chiding, not meaning it at all – for she fought a cruel smile.
Looking to Fanny, Maria contorted her face into an overly sweet expression and snorted, "She doesn't know what that means."
Fanny blinked at her. It was a gesture Mrs. Rushworth would have been convinced was purely stupid, had it not been followed with, "Oui, Maria, je sais." Edmund had taught her a little French.
"Oh." Mrs. Rushworth had the decency to blush, albeit faintly. Her sole consolation must be that Fanny's accent was notably dreadful.
Miss de Bourgh did not venture to speak, though she understood some French herself – it was not her natural inclination, for one thing, and her own accent was even worse than Fanny's, for another. The endless laundry list of symptoms stemming from her various illnesses growing up had left her with less time than a mind like hers required to excel in any language that is not one's native tongue. Likely, too, she had met enough Mrs. Rushworths and Mrs. Norrises in her own life to know it's rarely worth the trouble. She had, as a point of interest, had her own Lucy Gregory, too, at home in Kent – there were some things, certain universal cruelties, wealth and the boundaries of Rosings Park could not entirely manage to keep out, not even for an heiress with a mother more attentive – for both the occasional good and the more frequent evil – than Mrs. Price had ever been towards Fanny.
Mrs. Norris did not invite them to sit – she feared for her upholstery, thinking it very uneconomical indeed to have them soiled once for the sake of propriety and then need to them cleaned at great expense afterwards.
Doubtless the rain would not last long enough to merit a dampened sofa, anyway.
She was certain it would not.
She was certain, too, it could not be so very bad outside, even now, to merit the intrusion Fanny was currently making, though the angriest raindrops pattering against the nearest windowpane most ferociously were begging to differ.
And so they were left standing, on weak, tired legs for nearly a quarter of an hour – and no more conversation was had beyond Maria, once, venturing to ask Anne de Bourgh – in a tone which scarcely required an actual answer – how she liked Northamptonshire.
Miss de Bourgh's reply was inaudible and possibly a sigh more than it was a syllable; still Maria – from her guesswork on the noise coming from Fanny's friend – seemed to think she had both responded and asked about her husband. So she told her no, indeed, Mr. Rushworth was not with her on this visit to see her favourite aunt – he was still in Bath with his mother.
Then Maria moved a dangling curl and connected plait in a manner drawing some considerable attention to her pretty throat – from where there glittered a familiar necklace – and Fanny, eyes widening as realisation dawned, was immediately sick directly into what her aunt Norris declared – as soon as the deed was done and could not be taken back – had been her favourite, her most decidedly cherished, potted heliotropes.
Miss de Bourgh patted Fanny's back with an unsteady hand.
Mrs. Norris continued berating her, shrieking about how her beautiful purple flowers were destroyed beyond recovery while still refusing to look at her.
Maria let the plait drop and waved a hand in front of her face to waft away the putrid smell of bile filling the stuffy room – but the gesture also hid her tiny smirk of satisfaction. She felt, foolishly, as if she had won something from Fanny – as if Henry's good opinion was ever desired by her.
The situation might have developed into a ladies' version of anarchy, which – to be sure – is worse than the gentleman's kind, because it would involve more back-stabbing and curl-pulling at the height of its full terror, had not Tom just then arrived to rescue his wife and her guest.
He'd gotten the carriage readied and gone to look for them when the weather took its nastiest turn, and he'd feared he'd discover them here, the worst possible place they might have been forced to shelter.
To Fanny, he was a fairy-tale prince, a shining hero, come to her rescue.
Albeit a fairy-tale prince brandishing a wet umbrella, spraying water about like a dog leaped out of its bath, and whose boots were trailing a great deal of mud and wet horse droppings through the entirety of the White House, smearing carpet and hard-floor alike, in the eager search for his princess.
His aunt was horrified, but that fact was quite lost on him; he barely gave her a nod of acknowledgement. He'd not forgiven her for her mistreatment of Fanny, and was not inclined to do so now he saw how she'd left her – and little Anne de Bourgh – standing up all this while. Why, poor Fanny was feeling so weak she felt the need to lean against the houseplants! Embittered by this slight, he made rather a point of leaning against the nearest sofa in his own wet things.
To see Maria was indeed a surprise – he'd not known she was visiting or he'd have warned Fanny and Susan – yet he would have hung as a criminal before he showed his astonishment.
"Maria," he said flatly.
"Tom." She blinked owlishly, fluttering her eyelashes with excessive tranquillity.
Fanny finally succeeded in righting herself; she wiped self-consciously at her chin although it was already cleaned off and free from any remaining traces of bile.
"Well, lovely seeing you both, but we'll be off." Tom offered one arm to Fanny and the other to Miss de Bourgh. "I don't suppose this little party has been fun for any involved, yet I'm sure it has been, well, something. Come, we are leaving. I say, Miss de Bourgh, wherever is your pelisse? Have you left it behind with the maid?"
"You see," hissed Mrs. Norris to Maria, as they made their way out, "how abominably he treats me. Me, who always loved him and cared for his best interests. But, then, I never complain. I am too easily abused by those I love. For you know I never speak up when I ought, even when I have the absolute right of it."
The fabric of Tom's greatcoat retained in its fibres far more water than it repelled and, thus, Fanny, already shaky, felt cold and shivery holding his arm. All the same, she clutched it, pressing close and holding on like a drowning woman.
A noise – not quite a squeak, more of a croak – came from her, vibrating brokenly through him.
Tom nodded, closing his eyes and inhaling sharply. His left temple slid nearer to her head in solidarity. His quiet voice was a breathy whisper. "Yes, Fanny. I know. I saw it."
Oh, how can he? How can he do this? Tears welled up in her eyes. Fanny didn't want to believe the only reason Henry Crawford would renew his attentions to Maria – the only reason he would take pains to be on terms with her again – would be because he supposed, somehow, it would hurt her, leave a bruising mark on her tender feelings, and still...
The ironic thing, however, was it did wound her. It felt like being punched or struck, simply not for the twisted reasons Henry might be hoping she would feel dismayed over his actions.
If his attentions were being bestowed upon anyone who could freely reciprocate them, it could only be a cause for Fanny to rejoice. Let them have a thousand gold necklaces and purple flowers and pretty promises from him, and she for her own part could only be thrilled! What a delightful source of unlooked-for felicity it would be if he could become some other woman's husband, if he could be induced to give up his unnatural obsession for her in favour of a lawful wife; in such a case, she would be truly free – beyond even the protection Tom and distance could provide her with – of him forever.
And therein was the trouble.
Maria was not such a woman – she was not free.
Maria was Mrs. Rushworth.
Maria was Tom's sister; her sister by law – as well as her cousin. And Henry Crawford would hurt her.
Despite everything, Fanny still had some longing, some deeper inner wish, to love Maria. And – as much as it was possible – she did love her, in truth, for Tom's sake – for Edmund's – for Sir Thomas' – for Lady Bertram's – even for Julia's, a little.
This couldn't be allowed to happen.
Although Fanny was loath to ask it of him, and indeed did not in so many words, for she couldn't be certain what such open acknowledgement of Henry Crawford and Maria's relationship would entail, what her husband might be expected to do to protect his honour, Tom assured her he would apply to Maria the following afternoon and attempt to warn her off the folly which remained unnamed, unspoken between them.
"My God," he'd murmured, running a hand over his face.
Fanny, in some alarm, a hand held out towards him, "What is it?"
"I feel as if I'm Edmund." Never had he been the one required to uphold the family honour, to attempt to govern another sibling beyond a petty matter of little importance. "I wish he was here to preach at her in my place – she'd taken him seriously over me."
Fanny – and Susan, too, when she heard of it later – rather doubted her spoiled cousin would be prevailed upon to take either of her brothers seriously – it was Henry she wanted, and Henry she now thought she had, for her own. What motive did she have to listen to either Edmund or Tom? It hardly mattered if the words came from the merry brother or the sombre one. She could only hope Tom being the eldest might count for something.
Whatever the outcome was to be, Tom nonetheless swallowed his pride as far as he was able and asked his sister to meet him privately at Stanwix Lodge (while Julia and Yates were picnicking several miles off), not wishing their father to overhear them discussing what they must speak of.
If he had to tell their father, and he rather hoped he didn't, he would rather tell him outright than have to explain something overheard, something chanced upon and taken out of context.
Moreover, he felt he couldn't trust Sir Thomas would not, in a fit of self-righteous temper on Fanny's behalf, rail at Maria – not that she didn't deserve it – for being fool enough to willingly associate with a gentleman, romantically or otherwise, who had so persecuted her brother's wife.
Maria did arrive, but late, giving Tom more time than he liked to lean against the mantelpiece and stare down into the crackling fire lit in the study – a room Mr. Yates would constantly refer to wrongly as the library, though in his own home he might as well have his own way, stupid as it was – he was meeting her in.
Without Mrs. Norris present, she was a little kinder. "I am glad you're improved in health, Tom."
"Of course." He lifted his head, turning to grin at her. "You can't suppose I could be popped off that easily?"
"No, naturally." Her tiny smile was, to her credit, a real one. What pitiful, paltry, undernourished love she felt for her brother in that moment was at least genuine. "Not one so stubborn as you."
"You're great friends with our aunt, I see."
"You used to be as well."
"Yes, before she insulted my wife." And not really then, either.
"Are you cross because of one ill-timed gibe, or because of the letter? If you ask me, she did not greatly overstep in sending it, and it can matter very little, either way, since there never was a reply."
Tom was baffled by this. "I beg your pardon, I suppose, but what letter are we talking about?"
"You do not know?" Here, Maria was plainly pleased to have caught him off-guard. "Our aunt wrote to Mrs. Price – something about Fanny's behaviour being indiscreet; I did not ask for any particulars, so I only know what our aunt told me about after it was sent."
Tom was rendered too angry by this to bother pointing out the irony, the near hypocrisy, of Maria referring to Mrs. Norris as our aunt and Mrs. Price only by her name, as if she were no one important to them – as if she were not, also, Tom's own mother-in-law. He was struggling visibly, though he meant to restrain himself so the conversation they needed to have might not be postponed, perhaps indefinitely, which – when he thought it over later on – might actually have been Maria's aim.
Still, the shocking cheek of it! For Aunt Norris to write to her estranged sister to speak ill of Fanny! And goodness only knew what manner of horrid things were said in that letter – things completely untrue.
Oh, God, if Mr. Price chanced upon that letter – if Mrs. Price did not immediately burn the trite missive of utter contemptible lies – and suspected Fanny of infidelity to her husband...
And Aunt Norris had desired Fanny be sent back to them – waiting for her after such a report?
Fanny was such a frail thing; if Aunt Norris had gotten her way, and Mr. Price greeted Fanny's return with 'the rope's end' as a sailor would call it, he'd probably have killed her – she was too delicate to withstand such a punishment.
Tom was so horrified, so wholly stricken, by this stray ugly thought – a lucky escape which did not bear thinking of – he swayed in place, quickly catching himself and forcibly contorting a haughty expression onto his face to mask his frightened disgust, for he judged the vulnerability involved there too great to allow his sister to see.
Maria tossed back her own head with exaggerated carelessness. "She means well – she always loved us best. It costs so little on our parts to love her back. When does Aunt Norris ever ask anything of us?"
"D'you want to know what she said to me about Fanny? What I banished her from the house for?"
"I don't particularly care." Maria's gaze shifted away from him. "Your wife has never been one of my favourite persons. There is nothing very endearing about her from where I stand. I think Fanny, when it comes to emotion, is the kind of two-faced little cheat who looks as if she will faint if a man touches her, yet – clearly – had no struggle in making an advantageous marriage. In making herself Mrs. Bertram and getting her claws into you. That is not someone I can ever understand. Though others have of course thought very differently. I daresay to some she might be appealing enough. If they like her sort of simpering. But truly, to be frank, I never understood why it was you plucked her out of Portsmouth. So I care very little if Aunt Norris wounded her pride. No offence meant."
With admirable further restraint, Tom ignored the blow herein directed against Fanny, another attempt at deflection on Maria's part; he imagined it glancing harmlessly off him. "Our dearest aunt, the one who means so well and loves us so dearly – best, I believe you just said" – his expression stretched, looking taunt – "expressed – in the middle of supper, no less – her delusional belief that Fanny – my Fanny – could be carrying Henry Crawford's child."
Maria's flashing eyes darted back to him in a hurry.
"But I suppose," said he, examining his nails and arching an eyebrow, "she left that little detail out when she told you what an ill-bred bastard I behaved as, barring her from the house."
"That's absurd" – she blew out an exasperated breath of disgust – "Fanny would never let Mr. Crawford touch her."
"Well," said Tom, "we agree on that much."
"She never would do more than tease him. That was her chief hold on him." She sucked her teeth. "She didn't know what to do with a man like Henry once she'd finally gotten him."
"Oi, Maria – be careful." One half-wild look urged her to recall who it was she spoke to. He was still only a mere man – he could hold back only so much. "Whatever brotherly affection and concern I muster on your behalf doesn't protect you if you speak ill of her. What d'you expect from her? She's sweet, she thought him her friend. I thought him her friend."
"It doesn't matter now. She's carrying Mansfield's heir, as likely as not, and he's in London."
"I think you know exactly why it still matters."
"Oh, I beg you – strongly implore you – to mind your own business, Tom – I never stopped you from gambling or interfered in your personal life, did I?"
"My dear girl, you can't believe Henry so easily roped."
Despite her best efforts, her light eyes shone with unshed tears. Her crooked little finger trailed tensely along the side of the gold chain at her neck. "D'you really suppose I was the one doing the chasing?"
He took a step nearer, hands outstretched – to his surprise, she actually took them, grazing her fingers against his. "Maria, the necklace you're wearing – he gave it to Fanny first. You're only a substitute for her. This cannot be what you imagine you want."
"He liked me before he ever liked your insipid little wife, and you know it."
"Is he really worth losing everything for? This is Henry Crawford we're talking about, after all, is it not? Mean little plain man with a mean little estate."
"I want to marry him." She let go of his fingers and turned her body partway. "I don't care about how big or small Everingham is."
"You're already married."
"James despises me – he's an idiot and I can't respect him and he doesn't even like me any more." She drew in a shaky breath. "But Crawford? Henry? Tom, if you could see how he looks at me – it's not Fanny he wants, really, I'm sure it's not. It's me. Fanny was a mistake – he thought he fancied her, he thought he wanted her if–"
"Say it, Maria, for pity's sake, don't dance about the subject. Say it! If I died," Tom snarled, his eyes glinting.
She had the decency to look ashamed. "He likes us all. We were all friends. Before it all went wrong. Before you brought her to Mansfield Park. He never wanted to be cruel to you."
"No," he practically spat, "of course not – he only wanted to steal my wife. Why I should let that bother me, one really couldn't say."
"I love him – I love him as much as you've ever loved Fanny!"
Tom thought Maria could never begin to conceive of how much he loved Fanny, of what real love was like, what it did to a person, how it made them want to be better, but he refrained from saying it – he supposed she really believed she meant it, after all. She wasn't intending to lie; she wasn't trying to cheapen his feelings by comparison to her own, which, if nothing else, were probably more genuine than Henry Crawford's.
Turning around on his heels, his shoes clacking against the floor, Tom began to pace the length of the study, his hands behind his back. He looked, though he didn't know it, a great deal like their father. When he spoke again, suddenly enough to make his sister start, he said, "He wanted this house for her – for my Fanny. This was going to be their home in his plans. If knowing he intended to bring her here as a stolen bride, before I was even in my grave, doesn't make you feel just a little wretched, Maria, I can't suppose there's much hope for you."
She went faintly green in the face. "He doesn't love her."
"He doesn't know how to love," Tom told her, shaking his head. "Not her, and very likely – dear sister – not you, either."
"That isn't true."
"Maria, if you do not give him up – give him up while you still can, before it's widely known – you will lose everything."
"Tom," she choked out, "I have nothing." I have nothing to lose.
There it was again, that trapped look of hers. I cannot get out! And he pitied her, and how, for it was then he really understood – she was made every inch as desperate, as trapped, by wanting to be with Mr. Crawford as Fanny had been by wanting to be safe from him.
Nothing he could say would make any difference. She would ruin herself. She would never be happy until she had, and even then only for a few moments, before the consequences she must suffer brought her back down from heaven with a sickening thud.
Theoretically, he could save her. He could end this before it went any farther. He could rip the gold necklace from her throat – or, if he was feeling less dramatic and was worried about injuring her, simply order her in a commanding voice to take it off and give it to him – stride over to Crawford's London dwellings, wherever they might be, and challenge him to a duel at dawn – perhaps in Hyde Park.
Yates would have to be his second; he'd be too ashamed to ask Edmund, who, despite being anxious for Maria's honour as well, would only quietly point out duelling wasn't actually legal.
And they'd both shoot.
At each other.
They wouldn't aim to wound, much less to miss entirely.
And one of them, or both of them, would be dead.
From that moment onward, Maria would be safe from Crawford; one way or the other Henry would never look at her again.
But he, Tom, could lose everything – a future with his wife and unborn baby – for a sister he didn't even like.
No.
It might be selfish – something his old self would have done, though for very different reasons – but she must be left quite on her own. The offence must be ignored. He'd always thought duels were stupid, anyway.
He chose his life, his happiness, his future, over hers.
It truly was that simple, when he came right down to it.
"Do what you will," he sighed at last, hopeless. "Break all our hearts – shame the Bertram family name – I have done with you."
"That is rich" – she was stung enough to attempt, however feebly, to strike back in verbal retaliation – "I only ever met Henry because of you."
Yes, because of his debts, because of the Grants moving in instead of a friend to hold the living for Edmund, yes, he was aware of that – he'd faced that demon; it was a bruise on his heart he lived with every day. But he was far sorrier about it for Fanny's sake – for all his wife had endured – than for hers. Maria was to be pitied, at least somewhat, but only as collateral damage.
"We aren't children any longer, sister. Isn't it about time we started acting like we were aware of it?" And he had no more to say, following this, merely brushing past her and quitting the room.
That night Tom lingered in his sitting room – he did not drink, too afraid of over-indulging from being so worried and melancholy, but he did help himself to a few pinches of snuff – until Fanny crept out of the bedroom and placed an anxiously little hand on his shoulder, asking if he wasn't tired.
He sniffed, then reached backwards and placed his hand over her fingers. "I shan't mention his name, Fanny, never again to you, but you know too well who Maria received that damnable necklace from. You know with what purpose I went to Stanwix Lodge today. You know why I'm vexed. With myself as much as with Maria."
"She has refused to give him up?" Her voice was small.
He blinked and stared wistfully towards the dying fire he hadn't been tending to. "The family will be disgraced, Fanny – she is determined to see this to its end." Tears were filling his eyes. He sniffed again. "Poor Father. My own poor father. As if I haven't brought his life enough misery – he will soon have Maria's actions to contend with. I'd tell him, warn him, if I thought it might do the slightest bit of good." He would, he thought, have gone so far as to tie Maria to a chair at Stanwix Lodge and prevent her return to Wimpole Street, if it would somehow help – alas, he couldn't imagine it might. "Father has never been a perfect parent, of course, but he doesn't deserve this. I can only be glad Edmund has no more designs on she whose brother shall remain nameless – his own broken heart would have figured into this, too. Now, however... Well. He may – being a harmless, inconsequential parson with no title – be the only one of us unscathed by the upcoming scandal."
Fanny's hand was still on his shoulder – she squeezed.
"Society will shame us all for her actions – for this deplorable event – even our child may have to content with rumours of his – or her – foolish aunt's imprudence. An aunt whose folly occurred before the poor babe was yet out of your belly." He turned, shifting in his velvet chair, and sighed, "Oh, wife, I've led you a merry dance. I neglected my family for too long on all sides, and now see what we're up against."
"Can I do anything?"
"If you could just..." He reached for her hand on his shoulder again, lifting it and holding it nearer to his cheek. "Just sit with me. I could do with a pretty face to look at."
She seemed to suppose he meant the seat, the other velvet chair, across from his own, but a gentle yet firm tug at her wrist when she attempted to pull away and oblige him informed her what he actually desired was for her to sit in his lap and put her arms about his neck – he wanted to feel her near him, feel something that wasn't about to be ripped away on the heels of the forthcoming disgrace.
It was one thing to know he had her heart always – to know, no matter what, they would still be together, would endure this scandal and anything else thrust upon them by clinging to each other and never, never letting go – but he needed, also, just then, to feel it.
A/N: Reviews welcome, replies may be delayed.
