by Lona Manning
“Fanny has gone missing.”
Chapter Eight
All of the interest of the Smallridge household now centred on the new little visitors. The twins had been consigned to a wet-nurse and were kept in their own separate nursery. Mr. Smallridge, it was said, was extremely pleased to have fathered twins, for all that they were both girls, and he made an handsome present to his wife of a pearl necklace and earrings upon his return from Bath.
Although Caroline and Edward were vaguely aware that their parents did not bestow as much attention on them as heretofore, before the advent of their younger sisters, their growing affection and confidence in their governess helped remedy the loss. For Caroline, Miss Price was a friendly confederate who could sew the prettiest dresses for her dolls with the tiniest of doll-sized stitches, and she had Edward’s respect because she could name all the sails on a man of war.
Fanny was tolerably cheerful and busy every day and it was only when dusk settled over Keynsham Hill that she found herself fighting a tendency to lowness, to having to suppress a sigh, and preventing herself from idling away an half-an-hour gazing out the window as the shades of night closed around the house. Had she been at home, the family would be gathering in the parlour, with Fanny making and serving the tea, while Edmund read aloud to them. In her imagination it was always just their little family circle, with no unwelcome visitors from the parsonage!
Fanny might have passed all the gloomy afternoons of November in solitude in her little room, her mind miles away with thoughts of Northamptonshire, except for the fact that Mrs. Butter’s lady’s maid, Madame Orly, had more leisure to bestow upon Fanny. Her mistress was more than usually indifferent to perfecting her toilette, and was making and receiving no calls but to her niece’s bedside. The lady’s maid was at leisure to bring her sewing basket and sit together with Fanny as they stitched caps and baby linen for the new daughters of the household.
Madame Orly was a petite and voluble woman admitting to the age of five-and-thirty, whose cheerful demeanour, despite the hardships and reverses she had suffered as an émigré after the overthrow of the monarchy, served for Fanny, who was naturally of a melancholic temperament, as an object lesson in how to be happy. Even if half of what Madame Orly had told her was true—the riots in the streets, the cruelty of the Jacobins, the loss of her family, property, fiancé, and very nearly her own life—she had suffered enough for five lifetimes, and yet she appeared to enjoy serving her English mistress, and find an inexhaustible fund of interest and amusement in the doings of all the households in the neighbourhood and indeed, wherever her sparkling dark eyes glanced. Fanny had never met anyone from France and benefitted from practicing the language she had studied under Miss Lee. Madame Orly complimented her effusively on her accent and declared her to be comme une vrai Parisienne.
Although she had much to occupy her hands and head, Fanny naturally had some time to reflect upon those persons so dear to her heart. She was in daily hopes of a letter from her brother William. Soon after her arrival in Keynsham Hill, Fanny had penned a long letter to her brother, beseeching him to understand and support her, and expressing the hope that they could see each other someday.
As for that other most precious to her, and the well-being of all under the roof of Mansfield Park, she yearned for news, but had deliberately placed herself out of the power of receiving any.
* * * * * *
Sir Thomas’ return was of course known to their neighbours at the Parsonage—everyone had remarked on the hired chaise as it passed by—and Mary Crawford, strolling out for a short walk after tea, saw almost every window in the great house lit up, confirming that its master was safely returned. Mrs. Grant was prompt in dispatching a polite congratulatory note to Lady Bertram, and Mary did not spend the following morning looking out of upstairs windows in vain—she was rewarded by the sight of Edmund Bertram strolling down soon after breakfast to deliver his mother’s reply. But scarcely had Mary and Mrs. Grant begun to congratulate him on the safe return of Sir Thomas, when his newest intelligence that his cousin had disappeared stopped them in the full flow of their civilities.
Edmund perceived how Miss Crawford’s countenance gave every testimony of her alarm and distress. It was no slight consolation to him that the young woman whose principles and character he had sometimes doubted was so taken up with the fact that Fanny was not in Portsmouth. She looked, she spoke, in such a way as to recommend herself irresistibly to his anxious heart. He stayed with them above half an hour until finally, recollecting his true errand, asked if Mr. Crawford would soon be returning to Mansfield? Mary undertook to write to her brother that very morning, and modestly declined to return with him to the house, ‘as she supposed Sir Thomas would want to be only with his family at such a time,’ giving such further proofs of her sweet nature as materially lessened Edmund’s cares, and he returned to the great house in a much better frame of mind than when he left.
“What can this mean, sister?” cried Mary when their visitor left. “It is impossible to suppose that Fanny Price, of all people, has eloped. She had no admirers that I know of.”
“I don’t know what to make of it, Mary,” came the reply. “Did she not positively write that she was going to Portsmouth? Oh, I dread to think—but no, we must not look for the worst, but hope for the best.”
“We all believed she went to Portsmouth,” answered Mary thoughtfully. “And so I wrote to her there. Oh, do you suppose that her family—no one there would open a letter addressed to Miss Price, would they? They would return the letter to me, would they not?”
“Upon my word, I don’t know,” her sister remarked. “But depend upon it, Sir Thomas and his sons will do everything in their power to recover her. Let us not speak of this outside of our own little circle—it may be that the family does not wish the world to know of Miss Price’s disappearance.”
Mrs. Grant was correct—Sir Thomas had judged it best not to advertise the fact of his niece’s absence among his friends, or to place a notice in any newspaper. The consequences of giving such notoriety to a lady were undeniable and evident; the consequences of refraining from publishing the news, less certain, and only the event would prove whether he had been correct in maintaining an embargo on the subject outside the family circle.
Mary Crawford did apprise Henry Crawford of this astonishing turn of events when summoning him back from their uncle’s home in London—no one could expect such a degree of female taciturnity as to keep the interesting subject from her brother—and when he arrived at the Grants’ doorstep, two days later, he appeared to be more animated and interested in the mystery surrounding Miss Price, than in his own future with Miss Bertram.
“Mary, what’s the news? What has been done to recover Miss Price?”
“Edmund Bertram enquired at the post office, and he learned that she did receive and send some letters before she left, but the stupid old postmaster does not recall the directions. He also interviewed the driver of the mail coach. He is certain she left the coach in Oxford, not Newbury. Tom and Edmund Bertram are in Oxford now, I believe, making enquiries.”
“Have they stopped at all the coach houses along the route?”
“They intended to do so, and I am sure they have. They promised to write twice daily at least.”
“A missing young lady! Has she been abducted? Does she have a lover? Has she been deceiving the family or has she fallen and knocked her head and forgotten her very name?”
“The family assumed she had gone to Portsmouth but, upon re-reading the letters—the letter, that is, that she left behind—she does not say so in so many words. She spoke only of ‘returning to her own sphere.’ So, for my part, I think she has deliberately misled everyone—her secrecy about her correspondents would suggest so—although I would be the first to agree with you that it strains all credulity to think that Fanny Price had the guile to impose on everyone in this manner.”
“Ha! This is a mystery peculiarly suited to my energies and ta
lents.”
“Have a care, sir,” Dr. Grant cried. “You look positively cheerful. This is the gravest matter. Consider, Miss Price has been gone, no one knows where, for a fortnight! I hope you will compose yourself into a different frame of mind should you discuss this awful circumstance with any of the Bertrams.”
“But of course, my dear sir,” returned Henry. “In fact, you will acquit me of any charge of levity once you understand that I intend to offer my services in finding the young lady. There is not a moment to lose. My own happiness must wait until Miss Price is recovered. My Maria would not be a happy bride, I know, if the whereabouts of her cousin, the playfellow of her childhood days, the young lady who is almost a sister to her, remains unknown. So, I will pay my respects at the Park, enjoy a brief reunion with my Maria, then prepare for another journey, perhaps an extended one, until I can return Miss Price safely to her family.”
“Are we going to begin the search at Portsmouth? Will we visit her family there?” Mary asked.
“If the one thing we know for a certainty is that she is not in Portsmouth, I don’t see the necessity of going there. Perhaps we should—but Mary, what are you saying? Are you determined to accompany me? With the greatest pleasure, I am sure, but why?”
“Ought not you to reconsider, Miss Crawford?” Dr. Grant cautioned. “‘Tis almost mid-November—should you be travelling to who-knows-where at this time of year, my dear? Enduring bad roads, uncomfortable lodging and infamous dinners at roadside inns?”
“I thank you for your kind solicitude, Dr. Grant,” responded Mary, “but knowing of Miss Price’s reserved and formal nature, I do not believe that, once located, she could be prevailed upon to travel with Henry unaccompanied.”
“By heaven, that’s so,” Henry agreed. “Pack your trunk, Mary. We shall commence tomorrow at first light. First to Oxford to overtake the Bertrams, then we will act upon any intelligence they may have gathered. We will search the length and breadth of England if we must!”
“But first,” Mary replied, “you, Henry, shall meet the Sir Thomas himself. How I wish I could be present to watch as you exercise all your abilities on him! But my introduction to him shall await another day. My vanity requires no less—I will not have him divide his attentions between wayward nieces and the latest claimant for his daughter’s hand—and me. Go, go and make them all love you.”
* * * * * *
Sir Thomas judged that, from a pecuniary and worldly view, Maria’s union with Mr. Crawford was inferior in every respect to the now ruptured engagement with Mr. Rushworth; and having heard nothing but the highest praise of Mr. Rushworth in letters from home when he was in Antigua, he was perplexed that this paragon amongst men had failed to retain his daughter’s affections, until Edmund had privately given him a better understanding of Rushworth’s deficiencies in sense and education. But the substitution of Crawford for Rushworth did not placate him; he suspected that the young man lived beyond his means, and lived purely for pleasure. An old friend who lived in the City, upon being applied to by Sir Thomas on the very day of his return, sent no good report of his reputation, describing him as an idler and a man who raised the hope and expectation of marriage in many young ladies, conquering one heart after another for his own amusement, and hinted that Miss Bertram was not to depend upon being married to Henry Crawford unless they were actually at the altar, with the church doors locked securely behind them!
Sir Thomas greeted Henry Crawford, therefore, with even more than his usual dignity and formality, as his daughter Maria could not fail to perceive. However, when once seated at dinner, Sir Thomas could not but allow that Henry Crawford’s powers of address were superior to what is generally met with, not excepting his own two sons, for Crawford had more ease of manner than Edmund and more sense and information than Tom.
When Mr. Crawford petitioned to be permitted to go and search for Miss Price on the family’s behalf, in a manner so determined, with a countenance so truly manly and resolute, expressing himself so warmly and yet so properly, speaking of his ties of affection to the Bertrams, the need for discretion and dispatch, etc., Sir Thomas wondered if his old friend from the City had confused this Henry Crawford with some other gentleman!
Indeed, Crawford little suspected with what misgivings Sir Thomas first greeted him, or he would have congratulated himself still more on his ability to captivate. He hoped that any marriage to Maria would remain a distant event, but to know himself to be the centre of attention, to watch as the father’s hauteur slowly dissolved, and to see the mother wipe away a tear as he spoke of the lost niece, so young, so innocent; to observe the glow of Maria’s countenance, to feel her little stockinged foot beneath the tablecloth, rubbing against his leg, and best of all, to know that Julia, though feigning indifference, was as taut as a bowstring, and attending to his every word and gesture, was for Henry Crawford one of the chiefest pleasures that life has to offer.
As the meal concluded, Sir Thomas, with a significant look at their visitor, announced that he was going to retire to his study to prepare a letter to his sons, to advise them that Henry Crawford would join the search for Fanny.
Henry instantly understood this as an invitation to follow his host and make his formal declaration for Maria’s hand, but he pretended that he did not understand, and instead asked if Miss Bertram might be so kind as to write a little note to Miss Price, to assure her that she should not hesitate, on any point of modesty or decorum, to return to Mansfield Park in the company of Mr. Crawford.
“Come with me into the breakfast-room,” Maria murmured to him, “we shall find everything there, and be sure of having the room to ourselves.”
And indeed they did.
Not twenty minutes later, Mr. Crawford was at the front door, and with a respectful bow and hearty handshake for Sir Thomas he was gone, while the eldest daughter of the house, evidently much discomposed by the necessity of parting with her beloved, retired swiftly to her bedchamber.
Later that evening, Sir Thomas’ complaisance was a little clouded by the realization that Mr. Crawford had left the house without asking for a confidential interview with him. Yet, regarding himself to be a good judge of men, he was not displeased with his prospective new son-in-law, and the satisfied countenance of Maria as she re-joined the family circle that evening confirmed his favourable views.
* * * * * *
A fortnight after Mrs. Smallridge’s accouchement, the trip to Bristol was revived, to Fanny’s great relief. She and Mrs. Butters were to go on the morrow and spend the better part of the day there.
The carriage departed Keynsham Hill for Bristol directly after breakfast, with Fanny, Mrs. Butters and Madame Orly—for the widow was also indulging her lady’s maid with a change of scene—seated comfortably inside with blankets and mufflers. It was a mild day, and Fanny dared to lower the window a little to admire the passing view. The groves of newly-planted trees surrounding the estate, while yet to reach maturity, were picturesquely arranged over the park, and every turn in the lane brought a new view to admire, either screening or revealing the house behind them and the countryside before.
“The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen!” exclaimed Fanny. “When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. You will think me rhapsodising; but when one is out of doors, one cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.”
“Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Butters, turning her head to look at Fanny in amused disbelief. “Pray do not speak in such an affected manner, Miss Price. You are sometimes quite an odd creature, I vow. But there, there,” she added, reaching over and patting the governess’s little hand affectionately. “I perceive that you are one of those who have not conversed with a wide variety
of persons, but have acquired your knowledge of the world from books. Life in Bristol will cure you of talking like a poet in a garret. But then again, speaking of poets in garrets…” she added, then seemed to drift away in thought.
Fanny, though a great deal abashed, resolved to take Mrs. Butters’ advice as kindly meant and to curb her rhapsodic tendencies where Nature was concerned, at least in certain company. With Edmund, (and here a sigh was stifled) she could always speak as she felt, save on one important point.
Soon the streets of Bristol were gained, and Fanny forgot herself in comparing this seaport city with the Portsmouth of her childhood, the sailors striding along in their wide-legged attire, the sight and smell of fish, oysters and whelks, and the red-faced, loud-voiced women who bargained over them. The widow’s first stop was at the draper’s shop owned by her own family, and Fanny had all the pleasure of admiring bolt after bolt of fabric, and enjoying Madame Orly’s transports over lace and ribbon and le dernier chose. Mrs. Butters selected some sober grey for a dress for Fanny and, at Madame Orly’s urging, a periwinkle blue muslin as well. Fanny asked for some fabric scraps to make doll’s clothes for Caroline. Well pleased with their purchases, the ladies stopped at a tea house, and at last Fanny spied a post office across the street and she excused herself to mail her letters.
Fanny returned from her errand as Mrs. Butters was commencing her second cup of tea. Fanny knew that Mrs. Butters took no sugar in her tea, but, with her mind full of those she had left behind at Mansfield Park, she absent-mindedly offered her the sugar tongs. Mrs. Butters declined, adding, “if you knew, Fanny, where sugar comes from, you would not want it any more.”
“You mean the West Indies, I suppose?” asked Fanny.
“I should perhaps say, how that sugar came to be.”
“You are referring to the slave trade, I fear.”
“I would take no pleasure in enlightening you, no pleasure at all, believe me, as young and innocent as you are.” Here Mrs. Butters sighed and looked out the window toward the masts of the ships in the harbour, just visible in the distance, as though recollecting long-ago days.