A/N: Merry X-mas to everyone, and consider this as my present to you (a quick update, that is)!
Now onto chapter 3, in which Edmund experiences some angst – if you're reading this, please review and make my day!
Chapter Three – Worthy of the Name
Being Fanny's friend was more difficult than Edmund had anticipated. With the consciousness of his feelings for her figuring prominently in his mind whenever he saw her or talked to her, it was difficult to prevent what was foremost in his thoughts finding its way out of his mouth. All it would take for his hopes to run wild was one smile, one look, one kind word; at these times he would dare to dream that against all odds she did care for him, but then the unwelcome wake-up call would always arrive in the observation that while she was all sweetness and kindness to him, so she was to everyone. There was nothing particular in her behaviour to him, and indeed, nothing different about how she treated him now compared with how she had treated him all the time they had known each other. If there was any difference, it was simply that she had grown both in wisdom and in confidence, more traits to add to her list of virtues.
It was torture to remain silent, and in the past several weeks often he'd begun to speak his mind only to fall suddenly silent and abruptly excuse himself before hurrying out of the room, Fanny's puzzled eyes following him.
Sometimes he'd imagine proposing to her. He'd go up to the East Room where he'd find her alone, and then he'd tell her he had something important to discuss with her. Without preamble he'd tell her that he loved her, and would try to persuade her to marry him, would try to persuade her that the sisterly regard she held for him could be nurtured into something more in time, would try to persuade her that she would forget Crawford eventually.
Fanny's answer varied depending on his mood. If he was despondent, she would give an impassioned refusal, citing her enduring love for Crawford as her reason. If his mood was marginally improved from this state of depression, her refusal would become gentle, and her reason would be that she loved him only as a brother. In this situation, he would persist in his attempts to win her hand. If he was feeling hopeful, he would hear from her the delightful statement that she would marry him. She would have gotten over her feelings for Crawford, and his own proposal would have awakened some little regard for him.
This last scenario was ironically the most painful of all, because he knew just how far from the realm of possibility it was.
The thought sometimes occurred to him, that perhaps he should go away for a while, distance himself from Mansfield Park. The more time he spent in Fanny's company, the more he suffered, for with every passing day his love for her grew, matched only by the strengthening of his conviction from all he saw and heard, that she would never accept him. He stayed anyway, for the only thing more painful than being near Fanny was not being near Fanny; masochism seemed inevitable, so he might at least choose its degree.
His penchant for embracing pain was probably the best explanation for how he found himself outside the East Room now, his feet having taken him up there without his conscious awareness. Before he could stop himself, his hand had risen of its own accord and had knocked on the door.
'Come in,' she called softly, and he obeyed, mouth suddenly turning dry as he realised that this was exactly how every one of his imagined proposals began. Upon actually entering the room, he did not know whether he was more relieved or more disappointed to find that she was not alone, but was reading in the company of her sister Susan.
Perhaps it was for the best. 'What are you reading?' he asked her, congratulating himself on managing to get the words out coherently, or even at all, despite the lovely smile which had lit up her face at his entry, and had caused his insides to melt.
She held out the book to him, and he smiled to see that it was a collection of Shakespeare's sonnets. Out of all the times he had encountered her with a book in her hand, half of them it would be this one. He knew that she never tired of them, and could spend many happy hours half-reading, half-reciting the words which he knew she probably had entirely committed to memory long ago.
He cast his eye over the first few lines of the sonnet on the page she had been reading from, and his smile almost instantly faded. Sonnet 116. Although he knew it by heart simply by virtue of it being a favourite of Fanny's, he read the print anyway as if on purpose to torture himself.
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
He stopped reading, handing the book back to her abruptly, seating himself across from her with a sigh. This was dreadful – this was an idea which he had never considered. If she believed this, then his proposal was doomed in yet another way... if she believed it. At this thought he looked up at her, his eyes containing a tiny hint of hope. 'Do you agree with the sentiments of this sonnet?'
Fanny looked at him, seemingly surprised at the question. 'Of course I do,' she said. 'It describes the only kind of love worthy of the name.'
The next moment she looked almost alarmed at the anguish that passed across his features. 'Are you well, cousin?' She raised her hand to lay it against his forehead, feeling for a temperature.
He tried to dispel her fears as coherently as he could, which was difficult when he was so intensely aware of the feel of her cool hand against his flushed skin. Although insisting that he was perfectly alright, he was in fact the opposite.
He was too disturbed even to register the movement of Susan quietly and tactfully getting up and leaving the room with a murmured excuse about going to Lady Bertram, or to notice her knowing look. His thoughts were too much occupied with what he had just heard.
Would the woman who professed such a strong belief in a love which did not alter ever be prevailed upon to accept the man who had so blindly deluded himself into an idle infatuation with another? How could she ever reward such fickleness with her hand? Although Edmund had long since realised that he had never been at all in love with the real Miss Crawford; he had simply imagined himself attached to an image of her he had created himself. Even at the height of his blind folly, Fanny's good opinion and Fanny's thoughts had been infinitely the most important to him of the two. He could never have really loved someone for whose behaviour he'd constantly had to make excuses; with Fanny there was no need for justification, as her only perceivable fault was perhaps a tendency to let others underrate her worth.
Could she see into his heart, he was sure she would be able to see that there had never been anyone he had loved more than her, and that there never would be. But how on earth was he to show her this? He would have to express it in words, and his talent for those seemed to have deserted him of late.
He tried anyway. 'Do you not think that a person might love again?' He looked at her earnestly.
She looked thoughtful for a moment, but then she shook her head resolutely. 'I do not think so – a woman would not, at least. A man might, though.' She paused then, as if considering. 'But then perhaps the affection that can be transferred so easily does not deserve to be called love in the first place.' Her voice was not cold or angry; it merely sounded contemplative, and he might have passed over it had she not been meeting his eyes the whole time.
He felt as if he'd been slapped, and he felt positive bodily pain with the violent headache which he could feel beginning. There was no mistaking such a pointed remark; she must have discerned his feelings for her, and now she had made it abundantly clear to him where he stood. Fool that he was, he had dared to hope that she might reward his inconstancy with her hand. How he regretted it – he regretted not that his infatuation with Miss Crawford had ceased, but that it had ever happened at all. Had he been more penetrating, had he been able to see clearly, had he been able to avoid being fooled by appearances, he might now have had some chance with Fanny.
'I see,' he said quietly. 'Yes, I quite understand.' He bit his lip, and for a long moment there was silence.
He saw her brow crease slightly, and she opened her mouth to speak, but he rose hastily and cut her off. Bowing stiffly in the formal ritual he had never performed with her since they had been introduced as children, he hurriedly left the room, unable to bear hearing her rejection made more plain than it had been already.
