A Contrary Wind: a variation on Mansfield Park (Mansfield Trilogy Book 1)

by Lona Manning

  And, as thoughts of self will intrude even at such times as these, Fanny meditated on the reverses and sorrows of her own life, and berated herself for ever thinking that she had endured anything that deserved the name of hardship, as compared to the anguish of a mother who had already lost one child, and was not permitted to attend the deathbed of another for fear of contagion, and who, because of the pride and the ill-will that had built up between them, could not even seek consolation in her husband’s arms. Fanny thought of her own mother, who was considered lucky to have brought ten children into the world, and had lost only one of them, and she wondered how often her family thought of poor Mary, whose time had been so brief on this earth. Or, even considering Caroline herself, who lay between life and death, at only six years of age—would those six years be all that she ever knew before death closed her eyes? How did suffering the pinpricks of an Aunt Norris compare to having to quit this earth after only six years? Fanny made a solemn pledge to her Creator to combat her besetting sin—which she now identified as, if not self-love, then excessive solicitude for herself—if only, if only, little Caroline would keep breathing! If she could only give a small answering squeeze of her tiny hand!

  In the middle of the night, Fanny became aware that Mr. Smallridge had entered and was kneeling at the foot of Caroline’s bed. She could smell the brandy on his breath. He wept and watched helplessly, and asked if there was any hope, and Fanny promised to send for him if there was any change, for better or worse. After about an hour, he went away, still weeping. Fanny kept applying cool cloths and fanning the little girl, and speaking words of encouragement and exhortation to Caroline in low tones, and the minutes crept slowly by, with hours to go before the dawn.

  * * * * * *

  Maria privately applied to her father for his blessing on her marriage with Henry Crawford, but Sir Thomas would not relent. He had determined that July, four months away, would be the earliest month on which he would pronounce on the matter; the end of July being when the lease of their London town home expired and the London Bertrams would rejoin the Mansfield Park Bertrams once again. With so many doubts raised against Henry Crawford’s constancy in love, a three months’ courtship was hardly sufficient to put that constancy to the proof, especially considering Crawford had absented himself for most of that time. And in that further interval, Sir Thomas sincerely wished to find reasons to like his proposed new son-in-law better than he did, and to feel secure in entrusting his daughter’s happiness to him. He could no longer deceive himself—he saw that Henry Crawford was indifferent in his attentions to his daughter, he was lured away from her side by numerous other pleasures, and while he was an engaging and intelligent young man, he was not a serious one. He therefore hoped that Maria herself would tire of her suitor’s neglect and put an end to the match and for that reason did not make a point of insisting that Crawford apply formally for her hand, as he ought to have done last autumn.

  Sir Thomas had another reason for delaying the match—the returns from his Antigua plantations continued at a loss; the lack of labour, owing to the restrictions on the slave trade, began to be felt (for the unhealthy climate, and the rigorous toil, took more lives than were ever born on those islands) and he determined that he would sell part or all of his interests, if a ready buyer could be found. It would be from the proceeds of this sale that he could come down with the funds for Maria’s dowry, which he would rather do than diminish the funds held in investments for that purpose.

  With such a holding back on the part of the father, Henry Crawford resumed thinking of his wedding to Maria as a very distant thing, which might, after all, come apart in the end. His affection for his sister Mary, and her continued interest in Mr. Edmund Bertram, guaranteed his continuing good behaviour toward the Bertrams in public, and he could not find sufficient reasons to put off his irregular secret meetings with Maria Bertram—such as solicitude for her honour, or respect for himself—so long as he could derive some fresh pleasure from them.

  It was on a gloomy Tuesday afternoon in March, with a thick rain making all indoor occupations both desirable and pleasant, and Maria was supposed to be visiting with Lady Stornoway in Richmond but was instead lying abed with Henry Crawford, her unbound and tangled hair giving witness against her, and Henry was feeling particularly affectionate and careless about parrying her hints for an elopement.

  “My dear Maria,” he laughed, “I know you better than you know yourself. A trip to Gretna Green may satisfy your romantic notions for a time, but soon, you would sorely regret that you were not married in St. George’s, Hanover Square, as you should be—nay, you have a duty to be married in London. Why were you born so beautiful, why were you born a baronet’s daughter, if not to serve as an example to the world? Why be married at all if you do not arouse the proper degree of envy in others? Why be married if you can have no bridesmaids? There will be my sister, and Julia, and any other of your friends, perhaps even that little cousin of yours, if she can be found.”

  “Yes, of course I should like to see Fanny at my wedding,” Maria responded absently, “and I know that Edmund truly misses her.” She surmised also that if Henry Crawford located Fanny, her father might be better reconciled to their union, while Henry was not averse to anything that would give him an excuse for putting off naming the own wedding date. Although he thought to himself, I hope Edmund does not wish little Miss Price to be a bridesmaid at his wedding. She would undoubtedly weep through the entire ceremony, and Mary would not care for that.

  As Maria could hardly refuse his assistance in finding her cousin, lest she appear indifferent to Fanny, she agreed that he could make some further enquiries.

  “Very well. Let us review the letter your cousin sent to your family from Bristol—I believe it was about a month after she left you—the one in which she was most grievously, sincerely, pray-excuse-me sorry. Your lady mother supplied me with a copy of it—it is here in my travelling trunk.” He leapt agilely from the four-poster, and Maria admired the symmetry of his compact figure as he bent over his luggage, throwing his linen around the room as he searched for the letter. “Ha, here it is.”

  Resuming his place beside Maria, he read the letter over again attentively, murmuring…. “so sorry…… regret…… apologies……—a-ha!” He looked up, triumphant. “Here is a detail, a morsel buried in the mountain of remorse, the needle in the haystack, the diamond in the coal mine. Your cousin wrote, “an important event occurring in the family who are now my employers, made it impossible for me to send this letter to you in as timely a fashion as I fully intended.” Mmmm-hmm. She did not wish to give her letter to one of her fellow servants to post—yes? Just as, prior to her departure from Mansfield Park, she visited the post office not far from your gentle Aunt Norris’s abode in the village, not once, we have learned, but several times, to prevent the faithful Baddeley or one of the footmen from observing that she was receiving correspondence from a new and unfamiliar quarter. She is saying here she was prevented by the important event, from reaching a post office.”

  “Well, obviously,” Maria retorted impatiently, slowly stroking his chest.

  “My dear, the ‘important event’ is the key here. What are the important events in life? Marriage—” he leaned over and kissed her nose— “birth—death. The three occasions, we are told, when a lady’s name may with propriety appear in the newspaper.”

  He sat bolt upright. “In the newspaper!”

  She looked at him, wonderingly.

  He flung the letter to the floor. “You have no idea how fortunate you are, Maria. Very few gentlemen can exhaust all their resources and yet recover to meet the demands made on their talents as rapidly as I.”

  “You will renew the hunt for my cousin?”

  “I was not referring to that, but yes, I shall.”

  While Henry Crawford was, in truth, perfectly indifferent as to the question of whether Fanny Price would return to her family, he was still intrigued by her disappearance, in that
he flattered himself if anyone could locate her, it was he. The information he gleaned from the landlord of the Raleigh Inn, that Miss Price had left Oxford with a wealthy widow, had fallen into his lap too easily, and in fact he had not pursued the clue, but now that he had bethought himself of another avenue of investigation, he was eager to try it.

  Henry Crawford knew of a coffee house in Cowper’s Court that catered to seafaring merchants and captains. Shortly after his interlude with Maria, he visited the Jerusalem, whose subscription room carried all the newspapers from the port cities—Bristol, Portsmouth, and Liverpool. He was able to order a bowl of thick, bitter coffee which he left untouched, take possession of a quiet corner, and thumb through the November and December editions of the Bristol Journal and the Gazette, armed with a pencil and a scrap of paper, perusing the notices which disclosed the names of various Bristol families whose titles or estates confirmed that they were wealthy enough to employ the services of a private governess. Miss So-and So was married, Mr. Thus-and-So died, much lamented, and ah, here— ‘At Keynsham Hill on the 10th inst., the lady of Horace Smallridge, Esq., safely delivered of twin daughters.’ The Smallridges joined a select list of genteel families around Bristol for whom last November had been notable.

  Chapter Fourteen

  All of fashionable London was supposed to be gathered at the fortnightly receptions in the palatial London mansion of Mrs. Stanhope, so Edmund had searched, from one end of her drawing-rooms to the other, but he had not seen the light and graceful form, nor heard the enchanting laugh, of Mary Crawford. He had hoped he would, that very afternoon, be reconciled with her, would see in her eyes and in her face and in her voice, a supplication and a relenting as would answer his fondest hopes, but she was nowhere to be found.

  He was disappointed, but he was not entirely downcast because against all probability, hope had been reborn in his heart.

  He was now a clergyman; the bishop had blessed him and pronounced him fit to perform the offices of the church. He could marry, bury, and christen, and could preach the gospel every Sunday—according to an elegantly scribed parchment he had received. But he had undergone the ceremony with his spirits in such perturbation, as humbled and confused him, and rendered him, as he then felt, unfit to think of himself as a leader of the faithful, or even as a dispenser of common wisdom. How could he preach to his new flock that “virtue was its own reward”? His reward for being a dutiful son was to perform more duties. His reward for taking the cloth was to lose the one woman he could rationally and passionately love. He acknowledged to himself that, however much he had intended to forget Mary Crawford, she would not be forgotten, and for some time, the pain must be severe.

  He felt as a man at the dock, sentenced to spend at least three purgatorial months in London, escorting his sisters, acting on behalf of his father, before he could gain his release and bury himself in the countryside. He anticipated that he would see Miss Crawford repeatedly, would see her in company, laughing and surrounded by her admirers, belonging to them, and to everything that was glittering and bright and unlike himself. This was to be endured, and more besides. He did not seek to lessen his pain by reflecting uncharitably on the prize he had lost—on the contrary, in his recollection her faults had dwindled to nothing, and while he was naturally of a calm and sanguine temperament, it was at times a desperate calmness, as he contemplated the aridity of his future.

  Then he learned that while he was away, Mary had spent many mornings in the parlour at Wimpole Street; there, she had spoken of him often, and with warmth and affection. His aunt related how assiduously, how respectfully, Mary Crawford had waited upon her, how intelligently the young woman had plied her with questions about the proper manner of running a parsonage—lessons indeed, which she could never have learned from her own spendthrift sister, whose expenditures on wages for her cook, on meat and butter and brandy and claret and asparagus and artichokes, must severely drain Dr. Grant’s purse. He nodded his acquiescence at all that was said upon the subject of the Grants, while his heart fluttered with joy. The intelligence received from his aunt provided assurance, almost as reliably as though he had heard confirmation from Mary’s own lips, that, by some miracle, she had consented to become a clergyman’s wife.

  On his side the inclination was stronger, on hers less equivocal. His objections, the scruples of his integrity, were all done away, nobody could tell how; and the doubts and hesitations of her ambition were equally got over—and equally without apparent reason. She had made her preference known as clearly as a well-judging and intelligent young lady could, and he was wild to speak to her again. She was not to be found today, but found she would be, and soon, and he would not hesitate to put the question to her, once and for all.

  “Pardon me, sir, but aren’t you Mr. Edmund Bertram?” said a voice at approximately his elbow. He broke from his reverie, looked around and then down, and saw a young lady who appeared to be no more than one or two-and-twenty addressing him. She was well below the middle height, inclining to plumpness, with dark heavy brows which rested incongruously on her round, rosy face. She alternated between looking up at him imploringly—and how she had to crane her neck back to do it—and furtive glimpses around the room.

  “Edmund Bertram, at your service, ma’am. Whom have I the honour of addressing?”

  “I am Margaret Fraser. I believe you are acquainted with my step-mother. She is the intimate friend of Miss Crawford. May I speak to you for a moment, sir, in privacy?”

  Edmund instantly extended an arm and escorted Miss Fraser through the French doors to a small interior courtyard where she sought out a stone bench supported by little carved cupids and screened by tall palms.

  “Miss Fraser, shall I presume that what you have to say to me, concerns Miss Crawford? Because, if so, please understand that I wish to hear no communication which would betray a confidence.”

  Miss Fraser rolled her eyes, impatiently. “I think you do wish to know what I know, although I have hesitated to tell you. My step-mother will be so very angry with me, should she hear of this! It concerns your sister, Miss Maria Bertram.”

  With a wrench, Edmund pulled his thoughts away from Mary and recollected that Mrs. Fraser had indeed extended many invitations to both of his sisters, but principally to Maria. “Yes, I understand from my aunt, that my sister has been much in your mother’s company this spring. Are you acquainted with my sister?”

  “Of course. You have supposed her to be a guest in our house very frequently, have you not?”

  “Not less often than once a fortnight, I should say.”

  Miss Fraser looked down at her feet as though she were earnestly studying her little kid slippers.

  “Oh yes, she arrives at our house, but more often than not, she does not rest there.”

  “My aunt, Mrs. Norris, is always informed if your step-mother escorts my sister and Miss Crawford to a concert or some other outing. I believe what you are telling me is not unexpected, Miss Fraser.”

  His companion shook her head. “No, no, you misunderstand me. Your sister—when she says she is visiting my step-mother—she leaves—she goes—she goes to see—” a deep breath and then—”M-Mr. H-Henry Crawford.”

  Edmund flushed and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, but he forced himself to respond calmly, almost indifferently. “Miss Fraser, are you speaking from your own knowledge? Are you quite certain of where she goes?”

  “Oh yes, for she talks of it openly. And when she comes back to our house,”—Miss Fraser’s chin began to tremble, and she struggled in vain to keep her voice even— “she speaks of ‘Henry this’ and ‘Henry that’ and how they are to b-be married.”

  “You say this has occurred more than once.”

  Miss Fraser nodded solemnly, still looking down at her shoes. “And last w-week, when your sister was invited to accompany my step-mother to Richmond, in reality, she went to Twickenham, where Mr. Crawford’s uncle has a small c-c-cottage.” This last declaration evide
ntly awakened such painful thoughts, or such bitter memories, that Miss Fraser fell silent, struggling to hold back her tears.

  A short thoughtful pause ensued and Edmund reached into his pocket for a handkerchief, which he pressed into the young woman’s hand. She dabbed at her eyes, obviously agitated, perhaps with more to reveal, but she remained silent.

  “My sister went to visit your step-mother only yesterday, I believe.” Edmund ventured. “I think my aunt spoke of escorting her there.”

  “Yes, and my step-mother isn’t even at home. She is still in Richmond. She will be away for a fortnight.” Having made the communication, the young lady appeared relieved, and began to speak more rapidly. “I wanted to tell you this before, but I had no opportunity—I am always with either my step-mother, or with Miss Crawford, but today I came away with my aunt.”

  “I am obliged to you, Miss Fraser, and if our conversation has caused you any pain, or will expose you to any difficulties at home, I am most sincerely sorry. But please be assured of my gratitude. If I may presume to offer reassurance on the propriety of confiding this information, you have done as you thought was right, and your judgment did not err.”

  She nodded, still doubtful.

  “May I ask, if your step-mother was not at home to receive my sister during this last visit, who was there? Yourself?”

  “Yes, I saw her…. and Miss Crawford was there, of course,” the girl answered simply, with a helpless shrug of her shoulders.

  A dozen anxious questions came to Edmund, but he saw that Miss Fraser was trembling with suppressed feelings, he guessed, of anger, and relief, and worry, and he did not wish to expose her before such a multitude as were collected at Mrs. Stanhope’s mansion. “Let us take a turn around this courtyard, Miss Fraser, and then rejoin the others. I trust you are not too cold without your wrap.”