by Joan Aiken
Mrs. Osborne laughed very heartily at the notion of her conversation being thought to provide mental exertion.
“If my chat is of benefit to her, Miss Price, she may have it again whenever she chuses. I will engage to prose on for ever about the Streights and the Forties, the Bermudas and the Bahamas; it is always a pleasure to me to recall those times.”
Her sensible, benevolent face was, indeed, lit with happiness at the mere recollection; and Susan was forcibly struck by the contrast between such a well-spent life, whose minutest event could be recalled with interest and pleasure or profit; and that of Fanny’s correspondent, Mary Crawford, who seemed basing her every hope and prospect of recovery from illness on the memory of a few summer months passed at Mansfield, during a life otherwise wasted in trifling, unprofitable, perhaps actively harmful occupations.
—Susan was much tempted to divulge the contents of Miss Crawford’s letter to Mrs. Osborne, and beg her advice; already she found herself very ready to depend on the judicious, upright sense and quick understanding of this new friend; but a moment’s consideration showed her that it would not do; she had no right to be disclosing Miss Crawford’s plight to an outsider. She must make up her mind for herself as to the best course to follow.
Mrs. Osborne extracted her brother from the billiard-room, where the two men were not found to be playing billiards, quite a brief game having proved sufficient for Mr. Wadham’s strength; they had been looking at maps and discussing ancient history, for Mr. Wadham, it seemed, was a scholar, a Latinist, with a decided bent for the pursuit and investigation of antiquities, and he had been quizzing Tom as to the likelihood of Roman remains being discovered on the Mansfield acres.
“I have been telling your cousin, Miss Price.’ he cried eagerly, “that it is entirely probable that the great thoroughfare of Watling Street passed across his property—going from Ratae, which was Leicester, you know, to Verulameum—which of course was St. Albans. There is a very good chance that if we were to try an excavation here—” pointing to the estate map, “or here, we might come across the remains of a Roman posting station, or villa.”
Tom, Susan could see, was quite charmed with the notion that his land might yield such an interesting discovery, and the two men were very well pleased with one another.—They bade each other a cordial farewell, and the parsonage pair walked off across the park.
Chapter 4
Some hours of reflection must pass before Susan found herself equal to the task of answering Mary Crawford’s letter. Among the difficulties to be faced was the fact that although Miss Crawford, or Lady Ormiston, was probably not even aware that such a person as Susan Price even existed in the world, yet she, Susan Price, possessed a quite deep and extensive knowledge as to the history of Mary Crawford.
How many times, when the two sisters were sitting sewing together in the drawing-room at Mansfield, or picking roses in the garden, or taking Pug for an airing in the shrubberies, had Fanny not described those old days to Susan, telling the story of the summer when the Crawfords came to Mansfield Parsonage; of how—charming, good-natured, gifted as they were—yet they had contrived to wreak havoc, and quite cut up the peace of the family at the great house.
Henry and Mary Crawford had been brother and sister to Mrs. Grant, wife to the incumbent at that time occupying the Parsonage. Talented, lively, and attractive, they had been, ready to please and be pleased; accustomed to polished London society, yet by no means despising the pleasures of rural quietude. Yet their charm, based on mere easy good-nature, had concealed both calculating ambition and callous vanity. Their natures, fundamentally shallow, had been spoilt by the bad influence of an uncle who had brought them up, a man of gross ways and scandalous connections. Miss Crawford, with twenty thousand pounds of her own, had her heart set on a rich marriage; her brother Henry, endowed with a handsome competence, led the life of a man-about-town and was a selfish, thoughtless, flirt; untouched by any affection himself (save for his sister) he delighted to make young ladies fall in love with him, and, in this aim, his smiles, his lively conversation, and his caressing ways were universally successful. Maria and Julia, the two Bertram sisters, had both succumbed to his addresses, and both had, later, flung themselves into imprudent marriages in their distress and anger at the realisation that his intentions had never been serious towards either of them.
But then a strange thing had happened: the apparently heartless Henry Crawford had fallen deeply, sincerely, head over heels in love with the Bertram sisters’ unassuming cousin Fanny, so much less handsome, less dowered, so much less accomplished or forthcoming than Julia and Maria, the acknowledged beauties of the neighbourhood. How it could have happened was hardly to be understood, yet so it was: the hitherto unconquerable, untouchable Henry Crawford was found to be pleading, with genuine, unaffected emotion, for the hand of Fanny Price.
“Why would you not have him, sister?” Susan always asked at this point. For in spite of his bad behaviour towards the Bertram sisters (and Susan, who could not like Julia Bertram, found no particular difficulty in pardoning someone who had used her slightingly) Henry Crawford, even as described by Fanny, who disapproved of him had—apart from the tendency to flirt—been endowed with every quality that could please. His looks were not handsome, but that was of little importance, since air and manner were so agreeable; he could talk entertainingly on every topic, was well educated, and had a great gift for acting, singing, and reading aloud; he was a skilful and intrepid horseman, a conscientious landlord, and was in many ways extremely kind-hearted, would go out of his road to do anybody a good turn.
“So why would you not have him, sister?” Susan would repeat. And Fanny always replied,
“Need you ask? Had he been endowed with every perfection of character as well as such superficial good qualities, I would not have had him; for I was deep in love with my cousin Edmund, and had been from a child.—And then, you know, there was the scandal regarding Maria; that, in the end, effectually sundered the two families. Poor Edmund! He felt it very much at the time, because of his attachment to Mary.”
For that had been another complication. Mary Crawford, the sister, even more delightful than her brother—and without the heedless, vain propensity to flirt which impaired his character—Mary had been very much disposed to favour the suit of Edmund Bertram, although he was only a younger brother, and despite her ambition to marry money. And Edmund—to the unuttered, unutterable wretchedness of Fanny—Edmund had for a time fancied himself in love with the lively London beauty.
“She could play the harp so well, Susan—and her talk was so amusing—though sometimes, to my way of thinking, it bordered on impropriety. She could never resist making fun of the clergy; such levity used to pain poor Edmund sadly. The fact of his being in Holy Orders, and of having only a younger brother’s portion—these, I think, to her, were decided impediments to the match. Yet I think she did love him—as much as her shallow nature would allow—I think she would, in the end, have accepted him, if it had not been for the disaster of Maria.”
Maria, now married to her rich and stupid husband, had met Henry Crawford again in London, and, still resentful at the way he had trifled with and then left her, had received him coldly and slightingly. His vanity was stung by this into making an attempt to win back her favour, and before he realised the danger he was courting, she had quitted her unloved husband and fled to him.
Good heaven! thought Susan at this point in her reflections. And is such a despoiler—such a libertine—to be received again, acknowledged again, within the precincts of Mansfield? Surely not! Tom would never allow it.
At that point it occurred to Susan that it was perhaps her duty to inform Tom as to the identity of the new tenants that he was, it seemed unwittingly, harbouring at the White House.
Tom, alone among the Bertram brothers and sisters, had not fallen prey to the fatal charm of the Crawford pair. Either because of better j
udgment, or insensibility, or lack of proximity, he had somehow been spared the general infection, and, his severe attack of fever happening to lay him low at the time when the rupture of Maria’s marriage was taking place, he had by chance not been so painfully aware of the part played by the brother and sister. The name Crawford when mentioned to him by his agent had evidently not struck him.
Yes, Tom must be made aware who they were; it was undoubtedly Susan’s duty to give him the information.—Yet, she felt, her paramount and primary duty was towards that poor invalid who had written to Fanny with such longing, with such affection and trust. At this very moment, perhaps—having not received the “No” which, she had asseverated, would be sufficient to turn her from her purpose—at this very moment she might be on her way hither; hoping to see her friends, perhaps, in a matter of hours.—Susan found that she could not bear such a notion, and summoned the butler.
“Baddeley, do you happen to know whether Mr. Tom’s new tenants have yet arrived at the White House?”
She could be sure that in a village so small as Mansfield, such news would instantly be passed from mouth to mouth, and would be known to everybody in the place before sunset; the family at the great house would be the last to hear it, but their servants must be certain to have the information. And so it proved.
“Yes, miss, they came in a barouche from Northampton. The lady looked poorly enough, they say; very poorly indeed she looked, and was put to bed straight by her maid. Dr. Feltham is attending her. They are the same ones, miss, as was here some five or six years agone, before you was come to Mansfield, when old Dr. Grant was still at the Parsonage; ’twas the summer when Master Tom took a fancy for playacting and ordered a theatre to be builded in Master’s business room. Lord, what a dust-up there was, to be sure, when Master—old Master that was—come back from furrin parts and found a platform built and fifty yard o’ baize curtain in his study.—Yes, those at the White House be the self-same ones that used to be up here then, acting and singing and carrying on with Miss Maria and Miss Julia and Mr. Edmund. That Miss Crawford was a rare pretty lady. But ’tis said she’s sadly changed now. The gentleman baint in any way altered, but the lady have lost her looks, they say.”
“Thank you, Baddeley,” said Susan, and, as soon as he had withdrawn, sat down to write her note.
“Dear Madam,” she wrote, then crossed this out and substituted:
Dear Miss Crawford:
I have but now received your letter addressed to my sister Fanny and write in haste to apprise you of the sad news that my sister and brother-in-law are not in Mansfield at present. They have been obliged to sail for the West Indies on business relating to the recent death of my uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram. I took the liberty of opening your letter, having been instructed by my sister to inform all correspondents of her departure and her present whereabouts. I shall, of course, despatch your letter to her by the next sea-mail, but fear it may be at least sixteen weeks before you can expect to receive an answer from her. She and Mr. Bertram are not expected back before September at the earliest.
I am exceedingly sorry to be the means of conveying to you information which I know must cause you grief and disappointment.
I understand that you are not in good health, and at present may not be equal to society, so I will not venture to call upon you until I hear from you that such a visit would be acceptable; but I should be glad to do anything that lies within my power to remedy the misfortune of my sister’s absence. Pray let me know if in any way I can be of service to you.
Yours etc.
Susan Price
Having despatched this by a servant, she went in search of Tom, only to learn that he had, two hours ago, gone off to Thornton Lacey, a small village at some distance from Mansfield in which he owned the living and an extensive stretch of property. He was not expected back for a day, perhaps for several days.—Tom was given to these sudden, unheralded departures, when the quiet and repose at Mansfield became too much for his impatient nature. During the time of his absence, therefore, nothing could be done.
Thought could hardly be avoided, however, and, during the customary evening’s cribbage with Lady Bertram, while Susan mechanically counted, and reckoned up the score, and dealt her own and her aunt’s cards, her mind ran continually on the new occupants of the White House.
What a contrast that poor woman must find, in the surroundings that she had recalled with such happiness: so many of those she had known previously no longer here; her own family departed from the Parsonage, besides the loss of Fanny, Edmund, Sir Thomas, Maria, and Mrs. Norris; all were gone, and Susan, who read extensively in Shakespeare, could not fail to be reminded of the line “Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.”
How different, how much livelier, Mansfield must have been in those bygone days. Now there was only remaining Lady Bertram, who, easy and indolent even when young, brought by age to something not far from total vacancy, would hardly be valued as a companion, and Julia, on her fretful, fault-finding visits little more agreeable. Certainly there was Tom, but since, in the past, Miss Crawford had preferred his younger brother despite the difference in expectations, it was not to be supposed that she would have any greater wish for his company now; and in any case Susan could not imagine that loud-voiced, careless, insensitive Tom would be welcome in a chamber of sickness.
How is Miss Crawford to find entertainment here? she wondered, and then, with relief, remembered Mrs. Osborne. That lady would certainly bring cheer and comfort to a sickroom, and could be confidently expected in such a case to give her time with generosity.
Then, as well at the White House, there was Henry Crawford, and regarding the formation of his character Susan could not avoid considerable speculation. What kind of a man could he be, who would insensitively trifle with the affections of the Bertram ladies, yet fall genuinely, deeply in love with her quiet sister Fanny? What kind of man could beguile handsome, dashing Maria Bertram on to her ruin, yet remain during many years unattached and unmarried for the sake of her gentle cousin?
He was evidently a devoted brother, and that must stand in his favour; he sat by his sister’s sick-bed, urging her, begging her not to die; he could therefore not be wholly deficient in heart and natural affections.—Susan did not deny to herself that she felt a curiosity to see him, though she feared there might be impropriety in her doing so. It was certain that he could never be invited to Mansfield; the betrayer of Maria Bertram could never be received there. Yet still Susan could not help wondering what Mr. Crawford was like.
Then, with a sudden start, she recollected that in fact she had met him, long ago, at the time when he had been eagerly prosecuting his suit of her sister Fanny. Fanny, reared among her cousins at Mansfield Park from the age of ten, had, when she was eighteen, returned to her family in Portsmouth for a visit of several months’ duration. And Mr. Crawford, not able to bear the lack of her company for so long a period, had come down to Portsmouth to stay at the Crown; he had called at the Price home and had accompanied Fanny and Susan, then aged fourteen, on a walk round the Dockyard with their father; and on a subsequent fine Sunday had joined the Price family in their weekly promenade on the ramparts. Delving in her memory, Susan began to recall him with a fair degree of accuracy: a black-haired man, not handsome—no, he certainly was not that—yet well built, gentlemanlike, with a lively countenance and a very pleasing address. Even to the fourteen-year-old Susan he had taken pains to make himself agreeable, instead of plainly wishing her elsewhere, as a more vulgar or ill-natured suitor might have done.
Her conclusion, after all this pondering, was that he must be an interesting man; not unblemished as to character, but perhaps with sufficient better qualities as to make him capable of redemption. —Years had passed, after all, since the summer when he had flirted so dangerously with the Bertram sisters; years during which he had lived a steadier, simpler and more tranquil life on the estate i
n Norfolk. (Susan had ascertained by reference to the gazetteer in the library that Everingham lay remote from all towns on a stretch of the coast beyond King’s Lynn.) He must, by now, be greatly matured, improved, less volatile, less tempted to flirtation or flattery, altogether steadier and more deserving of regard. It would, in course, be very disappointing for him to arrive at Mansfield and discover that the people in whom he must feel most interest had departed on a six-months’ journey; yet, on consideration, perhaps this was no bad thing. To be meeting again the woman he had loved and who had preferred another man, to be meeting his successful rival—this must be productive of pain and chagrin. He might be relieved to find them gone. Perhaps indeed he had been dreading the encounter.
And Susan here applauded the unselfishness of a brother who, to give his sister comfort, would venture into a society where he might anticipate such pain, where he might, too, very probably be received with coldness and repudiation.
To say that Susan intended to seek the company of Mr. Crawford would be to assert a very unlikely thing; yet she had settled it with herself that she should not go out of her way to avoid an encounter; no, she should certainly not do that. It must be of particular interest to meet a man who had felt such deep, such sustained and overmastering love for her sister Fanny as to abjure any thought of ever marrying. Fondly attached as Susan was to her sister, this must be Henry Crawford’s warmest recommendation to her: already she felt that she could entertain a sisterly regard for him.
Having discussed her state of mind to this degree, it was, naturally, a cause of no little dissatisfaction to learn from Baddeley, next morning, that the gentleman, his sister having been established at the White House, had left again almost immediately.