Merriment & Wisdom
A Mansfield Park fanfiction
Part Forty-Eight:
Refusals, Such As They Nearly Were
For a while nothing further was heard of Henry Crawford and Maria. This was not so great a consolation to Fanny as it would have been to another kind of woman in her place – the truth was, apart from the pain society's scorn might cause Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, the detection of their folly mattered very little to her. It was enough to know herself it was happening; it was enough to know the sin was being committed to begin with. She was not naive enough to think Henry Crawford wouldn't have found consolation from her vehement rebuff, from his disappointment over Tom's recovery and the spoiling of all his alarming plans, in the arms of some woman somewhere who was, in all likelihood, not lawfully his. It was wrong, to be sure, yet such things happened and there was no stopping these sorts of distasteful affairs in general, save to turn away from such unnatural, abhorrent behaviour oneself with the proper righteous disgust, to live by better standards as far as it was possible. But why did it have to be Maria? Had he not wounded Tom's pride enough, disrespected the Bertram family enough, to sate any resentment he might hold towards them?
However, there was nothing she could do. While she for her own part was mostly innocent in all this, guilty only of being a little too blind to Henry's real designs while her husband was away in Newmarket, she knew Tom blamed himself to a greater extent than he let show, and – to be sure – they never spoke of it. Henry Crawford was a topic long out of bounds – mercifully so. Still, to know what was coming, to wait for inevitable tragedy to strike, as it sooner or later must, lying in wait like a snake in the grass... Well, it could be endured only by thinking of it as little as possible.
At least there were other, more pleasant, concerns to think of.
The nursery must be decorated and filled up with pretty things; a fine cradle must be commissioned and brought to Northamptonshire as soon as the hot weather abated and the local farmers' carts were no longer all needed for bringing in the hay (no one took the more economic suggestion, from both Fanny and Susan, that Julia's old cradle might be adequate if made up with new linens and pillows seriously, particularly Tom, who laughed so hard tears came to his eyes and then proved positively astonished to discover they were not, either of them, jesting); Lady Bertram's sewing had taken a deliberate turn in style and changed from charity work and items for Pug to sweet little shirts just the right size for a baby grandchild, little loopy Bs embroidered on the tiny lapels and wide collars.
Fanny often sat by a window – in various rooms of the house – sewing a quilt for her forthcoming child with a blissfully tranquil expression on her face, which was turned towards the light. Her happiness, even when shadowed, could not be dimmed, much less extinguished. Sometimes she would hum, almost unconsciously, and more than once Tom – coming upon her in her reverie and stopping in a doorway to listen – could have sworn the tune was decidedly similar to Blow The Candles Out.
Tom consequently had the tune stuck in his head for the rest of the week, all the while he was seeing to the various cares of an heir trying to learn what needs to be done – Please name it after me... Treat it neat and kiss it sweet, and daff it on your knee...
Into this glossy veneer of outward joy spread across the underlying unease of Mansfield Park at present came Edmund's next visit from Thornton Lacey.
Thornton Lacey had had a visitor: a certain gentleman who had formerly been the residing parson there but – just a year or two before Edmund took his orders – moved, claiming to have been urged by 'God's almighty, unknowable will' (although it was more likely the raise in income coupled with Sir Thomas' encouragement in wishing the place free for his younger son that prompted the change), to a more lucrative living elsewhere. The gentleman was growing older now and retracing his steps in old haunts, and meant to preach from his old pulpit for a few Sundays until he moved on again, perhaps this time to his maker.
Edmund was only too delighted to oblige him and have an excuse for returning to Mansfield; he was eager to see how dear Fanny got on, if she was keeping her health and eating enough, given her current state. He was also glad enough of seeing Susan again; he had grown lonely, as of late, sitting up so many long nights alone at the parsonage writing his sermons, and would welcome a bit of their old, warm camaraderie.
He found ample time to spend with Susan during this particular visit, as it turned out, because Tom contrived, inexplicably, to keep always out of their way, and Fanny – who had more to say to him at the time than his brother apparently did – was, as a near constant, being urged to 'rest a while' and after being bundled up in thick shawls, even when it was perfectly warm already, was promptly led out of the drawing-room.
This culminated in one fine evening, with weather neither too hot nor too cold, when the sky was tinged with light purple about the edges and the moon was a handsome tawny colour, where both cousins happened to be out of doors alone.
They might have fancied star-gazing, astronomy being one of Edmund's favourite subjects as well as one Susan was pleased to listen to his discourses on, but the stars were shy that evening; the blotchy, smeared clouds were too dense and that tawny moon was too bright.
The fireflies, however, were anything but shy.
Susan had made a jerking, only half serious, gesture to snag one as it zipped past her nose, catching Edmund's attention, and he – thinking it a wonderful idea – vanished back into the house and returned moments later with a glass jar.
Together they endeavoured to catch as many fireflies as they could.
Edmund caught six.
Susan managed – after several failed attempts – to catch two, but one of them appeared to be dead or, at least, it was lolling at the bottom of the jar and wasn't lighting up like the others were.
"I believe, Susie," said Edmund, attempting to be gracious, "yours was bigger – my six are quite deficient in size."
"You're only saying that to make me feel better." She rolled her eyes and unfastened her bonnet's ribbons; the bonnet was hanging askew already from the effort of attempting to catch the fireflies and she meant to either remove or adjust it. "Your six look perfect – like fairy lights – while mine looks like an obese beetle trying to pass a candle through its arse."
Edmund stared at her for a second, reddened slightly, then erupted into riotous laughter, struggling to hold the jar and clutch his side at the same time.
Susan clamped a hand over her mouth – she'd been so completely comfortable with him she had failed to consider the sort of language she was using in front of a clergyman. "Oh, goodness, I'm so sorry."
"It's all right," Edmund managed, wheezing, holding out the jar to her with shaking hands. "But, please, for pity's sake, take this before I drop it."
She leaned in to do so, their fingers brushing as he made to pass the jar to her.
Their faces were very near now, and Susan felt her pulse suddenly racing, her breathing quickening. She did not expect anything further to happen, not by any means, so she was more than a little startled when – in less time than it took her to blink demurely, meaning to turn away and hide her heated face – his lips pressed softly against hers.
The jar crashed to the ground, no longer clutched in either of their grasps, shattering into a thousand glittering pieces at their feet and freeing the fireflies.
One of Edmund's arms slipped around her waist, holding her – albeit somewhat awkwardly – to him while the other lifted to stroke her cheek repeatedly; her raised hands flattened against the lapel of the coat he wore.
The confused fireflies – all eight miraculously lit up golden as anything now – circled around the bemused couple – who hardly seemed to know, poor things, what they were about – a few times before vanishing; and they did indeed look like a row of fairy-lights.
After, they walked wordlessly, side by side, until they reached the house – they were some miles out, perhaps further than they ought to have been at that hour – and did not glance at one another again before they were standing together with their feet on the marble of the foyer rather than the grass of the lawn. Susan's shoes were thick-soled, but somehow she felt the change; her face was hot and the bottom of her feet ached with the cold of the marble floor.
They were alone and the entranceway was unlit. Still she saw – or thought she saw – Edmund's reassuring, if painfully shy, smile in the dark before he wished her a good night's rest.
Susan was so inexplicably happy she could hardly understand it herself. Her mind did not say she loved him – loved Edmund Bertram as more than a cousin – that she hoped he – perhaps, just perhaps – loved her as well. It was nowhere near so coherent. Such things do not always need to be fully understood in order to be felt. Sometimes the feelings are only the stronger for it.
She lifted her skirts and fairly dashed up the stairs, rushing into her little attic-room. A sharply in-taken gasp, exhaled in the form of a giggle, came out of her and, half out of her mind with giddiness, she pressed two fingers, her index and her middle, to her lips.
It was a night of staring up at the ceiling, at the cracks and the fine finish on the edges near the walls, with starry eyes. There might as well have been no ceiling and no roof, for all she saw were the heavens – all she felt was wordless, soaring hope.
Hope for she was not entirely certain what. But hope nonetheless. The sort of wild, unnamed hope that can make one want to fly and sing and rest and scream and laugh and whoop all at once.
With a contented sigh, grinning at nothing, she twisted her arm under herself and let her head rest upon it.
Things might have progressed naturally from the night with the fireflies, if only it had gone unobserved, as it should have done.
However, by pure chance, because it was such a tawny, bright moon, such a comfortable evening for walking, Mrs. Grant and Mary had, completely on a whim, chosen to leave the parsonage – which was unusually stuffy, filled up with stagnant, stale air, because Dr. Grant complained of a draught and insisted the windows remained closed and there could be no arguing with him on the point seeing as he was already in a foul mood from an ill-prepared pheasant, which he swore upon everything he could think to cast an oath upon was tough and gave him violent indigestion, served earlier – and take a turn about the grounds.
The sisters had been confident enough they should meet no one out at all, imagining the Bertrams cool as anything up at the big house, either dining late or amusing themselves with something or other in the drawing-room, but discovered – halting in their conversation, chiefly about the current insufferableness of Dr. Grant's temper – a young couple kissing amid the light of fireflies.
It was a magical scene viewed out of context – the kind of scene Tom would have wanted to commit to canvas and both ladies who stumbled upon it would have liked to see in a storybook or stitched into a tapestry.
But the pang for Mary was quite real; she recognised Edmund at once, though not Susan, actually mistaking her – for a truly shocked moment – for Fanny before rapid blinking cleared her vision and corrected her first impression.
Mrs. Grant's sympathies were not to be understated. Even now, she did not understand why Edmund would throw her beautiful sister over – it hadn't been explained to her satisfaction, and perhaps she, like Mary, thought a little too highly of Henry, and of the ability for a scandal to be hushed up, despite her general sense of propriety, to ever fully comprehend what caused the fracas – to begin with, and now to find him thus with his much younger, and very penniless cousin... When dear Mary, with her beauty and 20,000, would have suited him so much better, if only he were not a clergyman, and such a devout one at that – Mrs. Grant was too keenly aware her sister had something of a silly prejudice against the profession – more was the pity.
Edmund would have far done better to have patience with Mary, in Mrs. Grant's opinion; to allow her to get used to the idea.
The couple never saw them, and they certainly did not make themselves known to the pair – they were quickly off in the other direction.
It was a night of acute bitterness for Mary. Alternately she despaired and then raged, despised Edmund Bertram through and through, cursed his name as strongly as she ever cursed that of the Admiral after her beloved aunt died, and was near genuine, ugly tears only a few minutes later.
She blamed Fanny. She blamed Susan. She blamed Tom. They had all had a part in destroying her happiness forever. Never would she meet with another like Edmund Bertram, and they should have been happy forever. Why could he not have been born first? Barring that, why could Tom not have – long ago, on his way back from Antigua – been blown off course by a blessed contrary wind, lost to them all in England and harmlessly eating bananas on some untraceable dessert island? Edmund would be in line for a baronetcy right now, and she and Henry should never have met Fanny Price – the demure girl who seemed to offer so much in friendship only to morally snub anyone less saintly than her golden self. As if obliging everyone and accepting Henry's proposal and Tom's inevitable demise truly would have made her unhappy. Oh, Fanny – condescending, self-satisfied, little insipid milksop! Henry would not have had to flee to London if not for her. Her brother would be here now. Oh, Henry! She even once – catching herself off-guard – blamed him, for his hand was involved in this spoiling of everything, too, and she was so tragically forlorn.
She was so worked up, she nearly – in front of Dr. Grant, no less – exclaimed, in a tone of agitation, "Why could Tom not have died?"
She got as far as, "Why could–" before she realised and, even if she was not properly ashamed, not ashamed as she ought to be, was still halted by some lingering sense of right and wrong lodged deep within her.
Yet as her passion cooled and there were, finally, more tearstains on her torn, feather-depleted pillow (she'd sliced it open herself with a pair of sewing-scissors, near the seams, but not along them, too jaggedly, in something of a fit) than on her reddened, puffy face, she began to think rationally again.
Could she have been so perfectly happy as she yet imagined with Edmund, even if he were the Sir Edmund of her dreams instead of just Mr. Bertram the parson, knowing he was capable of the manner of cruelty his biting sermon had delivered to her, a blow dealt when she'd already been feeling so downtrodden and disappointed?
And he had done more than merely blame Henry for his designs on Fanny – something she might have concluded by now was done out of anger and righteous defensiveness for his sister-in-law – that bit about thy neighbour's house had been directed at her.
As if it were wrong – sinful – for her to wish for the best outcome for everybody! Tom was hardly the ideal gentleman to inherent such a title and responsibilities. Why, Mary felt quite certain, if baronetcies were saleable, anybody should – long ago – have had Tom's for fifty pounds – arms, motto, name, and livery tossed into the bargain at no extra cost! If he did not first gamble it away. Yet, still, Edmund would wag his finger down from the pulpit and preach at her, insist she was the one who ought to change!
Let Susan Price be preached at, be held to an impossible standard for the rest of her life, if she wished to be leg-shackled to such a self-righteous man!
Mary might be a long time in finding his equal in manner and character, in settling on the promise of domestic bliss Mansfield had given her a taste for prior to everything going so drastically wrong, but this was – she promised herself – the last night she would ever cry over him.
And so it was with the clearest eyes and the sweetest smile Mary spoke to Mrs. Grant of sending Mr. Bertram a letter of congratulations on his engagement to Miss Price, and the latter briefly wondered if her sister had not gone a little mad to have changed her opinion overnight.
Nonetheless the missive was drafted and sent, penned by Dr. Grant at his wife's behest, though it would have been clear enough to any reader Mary had had the most control over the exact words used therein; she would have said, if ever anyone had occasion to ask her, she had seen the letter to Edmund, before it was sent, but a more honest soul might have named her as its author.
If the desired effect was to direct Edmund's attention to Mary's declared lack of bother over his impending attachment to another, it missed its mark entirely.
Instead, the only thing Edmund felt upon reading it was dread and guilt, not for the loss of Mary Crawford, but rather that he and Susan had been seen at all. This put into his mind very firmly how improper the liberties he'd taken with his young, innocent cousin were – this was no longer a budding romance which had taken him as much by surprise as Susan, very probably a great deal more so, but rather another slip in judgement so soon after the last. He had always thought himself respectable, yet twice now he had doubtless raised unrealistic expectations in women of his acquaintance simply because he allowed his emotions to get the better of him. And, this time, the matter would not remain between himself and Tom – he and Susan had been seen. He had kissed her, and the scene had been witnessed by at least two persons – that it was Mrs. Grant and Miss Crawford he bothered his head over very little, save for the fact he knew they'd talk at length. Any notorious gossips would have inspired the exact same dread, the very same misery.
The news would be in London by the next afternoon's post, in a letter to Henry or to Mary's snobbish friend Mrs. Fraser, if it was not somehow there already.
But Susan's involvement in his folly he determined he would make utterly respectable. No breath of a scandal would touch her. He would propose marriage, as soon as he spoke with Tom regarding whether or not Mr. Price ought to be applied to for permission afterwards (he thought surely not, that his own father had more the rights of a guardian over Susan than Mr. Price, but he wasn't certain; Tom might know).
Tom was delighted when Edmund informed him of his plan; an attachment between Susan and Edmund was still chief among his desires. However, his delight dimmed a great deal when, the following day, waiting outside a certain door, more or less ignoring Fanny's quiet insistence upon his giving them a bit more breathing space, he saw it swing open and Susan emerge, positively scarlet.
She made a frantic escape from that part of the house as quickly as her legs would carry her.
Fanny was applied to, though she was slow about it in her current state, and Tom was somewhat loath to let her climb quite so many stairs when she'd already had her daily walk, to find out from her sister what had gone amiss.
Before Fanny even made it halfway to the attic-room, Tom – having just spoken with Edmund, who'd emerged sheepishly a moment after Susan ran out – could be heard all but bellowing, "What, refused you? Has she taken leave of her senses? What reason–"
Fanny, leaning against the railing to catch her breath, grimaced; she did not take any of this as a particularly good omen or hopeful beginning.
Susan – sprawled diagonally across the top of her bed, her legs dangling limply off the side – was in tears, clearly speaking against her own dearest inclinations, but she was adamant she would not have him.
"Why not, dear?" Fanny spoke sweetly and rubbed her back. "Do you not love him?" It was a little incomprehensible to her any woman should not love Edmund. In the case of most gentlemen, she was perfectly aware of the possibility of a man's not being approved by every woman he might take a fancy to, however agreeable he might generally be; but for Edmund she was biased. In Susan's place, offered such a proposal, she would have said yes without a moment's hesitation.
"It matters so little," came her murmured rasp, lifting her head, "if I love him or not."
"I should think nothing would matter more," said Fanny. "If you cannot like him well enough to marry him, well, that's all right, but he's..." He's Edmund. "Was the proposal too sudden?"
"I'll never marry him," sobbed Susan, agitated afresh by her sister's gentle voice. "Nothing can or will induce me. Never, never."
Fanny, when she made it back down the stairs, meeting Tom halfway at the first landing, sombrely relayed this to him. For his part, he didn't take it as well – or as graciously – as she did, rather offended on his brother's behalf. There was quite a bit of shouting for Susan to see reason and return to her senses (and in so doing vacate the attic-room) at once – he insisted she come back downstairs and hear Edmund out, positively insisted.
"No fear," he said to Edmund – who was a few steps below them, looking most uncomfortable and desirous of leaving, and really might have done so already if only he could have managed it without slighting poor Fanny in not bidding her so much as fare-thee-well – over his shoulder. "Depend upon it, Susan shall be made to see reason."
"Please, Tom," said Fanny at last, in a low voice, "I beg of you – your father will be returning indoors soon and hear us all in an uproar." She pushed back her fringe anxiously. "How can we explain to Sir Thomas if he does?" It was a miracle Lady Bertram had not been awakened. "Susan won't have him. She's so determined. Hadn't we better leave it?"
"B-but she could live sixteen more years in the world," spluttered Tom, a little hoarsely from all the prior shouting, "without another proposal as happy as this one! I jolly well don't know who spit in her porridge this morning to make her so disagreeable, but–"
It was Edmund who silenced him at last – he did not want her persuaded this way, if indeed she would be persuaded, and that he rather doubted.
"You were a bit of a dunce yourself in this messy business, to be sure," Tom said before he'd have done with him or the subject. "What did you mean, letting her run out on you in that peculiar fashion? You might have grabbed her arm and grovelled a bit. Am I really expected to think of everything?"
But for the time it was settled Susan would not have him. And Tom feared Edmund might change his mind and would, in turn, not have Susan; he understood what a man's ego was better than Susan or Fanny could.
And so it might have ended, to their mutual unhappiness, had Fanny not one morning while they walked got out of Susan at last – in her quiet, unassuming way Tom could never have managed in her place – why she was so set against the marriage.
"He wants me only because" – and here Susan's voice cracked – "we were seen together – oh, Fanny! Edmund is lovely – the loveliest man I ever saw – but I cannot marry him just because he wishes to protect me from scandal!"
But what had been seen?
Susan – with burning cheeks – told her. "And apparently Mary and Mrs. Grant saw it all – or nearly." She didn't care if they were near now, spying again, as she burst out, "Oh, why does that rotten family always contrive to spoil everything?"
After assuring her she understood – for now she truly did – Fanny had one last thing to say on behalf of the proposal. "The trouble with your belief Edmund would only propose out of duty – from a sense of honour – rather than because he likes you well enough to marry is simply this: his honour is the very thing which would prevent this being his sole motive."
"Are you certain?"
"I can only say Edmund Bertram is the last man alive who would wilfully give any woman the idea of his feeling more for her than he felt – if he kissed you that evening with the fireflies, he meant it."
"If I changed my mind" – and she was not saying she did, though she was no longer saying never – "d'you really suppose he'd still have me, Fanny?"
Fanny admitted she supposed it very likely. In thinking of Edmund's downcast facial expression as he'd left the house after Susan's rejection, nothing could be more likely.
And, mercifully for them all, she was not mistaken; his ego was not so wounded as Tom imagined – the end result of this was such as to give everybody pure happiness.
Well, nearly everybody.
Tom at least was over the moon – Fanny couldn't help jesting he seemed more pleased with the arrangement even than Edmund, Susan being exactly the sister he wanted, exactly the bride he would have picked for a beloved younger brother, far more suited to him than Miss Crawford – and they had little enough fear of Sir Thomas being displeased. He might hesitate at first, at the thought of having two Price girls in the immediate family, two sets of cousins in love, but no doubt his disappointment in Julia's recent match with Yates would quickly quell any such hesitation. The Prices in Portsmouth would surely give their ready consent, if they really must ask it as more than a courtesy.
It was Lady Bertram they began – almost simultaneously, the four of them exchanging grave looks as the notion struck them – to fear would not be willing to let Susan go.
They contrived at last to speak as one to her – by this time their scheme included Sir Thomas – convincing themselves during their private conference on the matter five pleading faces – each equally desirous of the marriage taking place, of a formal engagement being settled on for the time being – could not all be waved off simply because Susan was so selfishly dear to Lady Bertram.
"But," said she, on the verge of tears, "I cannot do without her – Thornton Lacey is so very far, far away for her to go and live."
Everingham would have been much further, of course, but none of them felt comfortable dragging the disgraced likes of Henry Crawford into this, especially as at least two of the unfortunate party knew they'd be hearing more about him sooner or later.
"We had better," insisted Lady Bertram, sticking out her pursed lips, "have things kept as they are – do you not think so, Sir Thomas?"
He did not, but even he struggled against her increasingly stubborn desire to keep her stationary niece safely by her side at Mansfield. Why should Susan go away to be a parson's wife? Never mind it was Edmund – of course they loved him, naturally he was dearest and darling, but that was no matter.
"Edmund is the sweetest boy in the world, to be sure, the best of sons–" she began shakily.
"Oi!" interjected Tom, offended.
"But, nonetheless–" She could see no reason for the change, no call for it. Oh, she despised the very idea of such a change! So very unwelcome a change!
Always, and usually to her resulting contentment, Lady Bertram had been guided by Sir Thomas in everything, but now she was set against him as much someone like her was able to be set against anyone – because he was for taking Susan away from her.
Lady Bertram could not think how this could be right.
Tom, getting over the slight he'd felt was directed at him simply by reason of necessity, was promptly struck with a new notion – a way of calming the waters with his mother, at least temporarily.
He bent over the sofa and took his mother's hand in his, affectionately patting it. "You know, ma'am" – he raised his brow pointedly – "Fanny does have another sister..."
A/N: Reviews Welcome, replies may be delayed.
