Mansfield Park Revisited

by Joan Aiken

  “I do not mind! It is all the same! What a famous time we shall have! Perhaps we may discover a sword, or a suit of armour, or a skeleton! Oh I do so hope we discover a skeleton—it will be so very horrible! How we shall laugh! When is this party to take place, Sir Thomas?”

  Mrs. Osborne was then again applied to, and a day in the following week suggested, discussed, and finally fixed upon. Tom stated his intention of inviting several other friends, the Olivers, the Montforts, the Stanleys, and the Howards; Mrs. Maddox was begged to notify her two sons of the scheme; and arrangements about carriages, who was to travel with whom, and what provisions were to be taken for the party’s refreshment, all far too premature to be of any value, were generally canvassed.

  Susan listened to all this with a detached mind, in the knowledge that, whoever went, she was certain not to be of the party.

  Chapter 6

  On the following day, Susan had the rare pleasure of a letter from her brother William.

  The Price children had never been burdened with undue attention from their mother. Mrs. Price, easy, indolent, not over-endowed with intelligence, resembled her sister Lady Bertram in all but fortune; given a life of wealth and comfort, she, too, would have been glad to lie on a sopha all day long and make fringe; but unfortunately she had married a lieutenant of Marines, a man of rough habits, irritable temper, and no ambition; the home in Portsmouth had always been small, crowded, disorderly, ill-kept, and uncomfortable. With little care from either parent, the children had been left to scramble themselves up into adulthood and knowledge of some profession as best they might.

  Their uncle Sir Thomas Bertram had, indeed, probably done more for the young Prices than had their own father: arranging for William and Sam’s entry into the Navy as midshipmen, finding a position for John as clerk in a City office, paying the fees of the younger boys at school, adopting Fanny at the age of ten, and Susan at fourteen. They had much cause to be grateful to their uncle.

  Since there had been little warmth or affection spared to her children by the harassed Mrs. Price, they had naturally turned to each other in comradeship. Among the elder ones, William had always been Fanny’s particular brother, until she was sent to Mansfield and he to sea; John and Susan, likewise, had been constant companions and friends. When John departed to London, Susan had missed him severely; the more so, as, having in him more than a touch of his mother’s indolence, he did not trouble himself to write to Susan more than twice in three years, and had now not been heard from for some eighteen months.—She feared and suspected from this that he was not finding life easy in the metropolis. William, on the other hand, was an excellent correspondent, describing all kinds of adventures at sea in a simple but spirited manner which made his letters very entertaining. These were mostly directed to Fanny, yet latterly, since Susan had been resident at Mansfield, there was always a kind message and a remembrance to “Sister Sue”; and here, now, positively, was a letter addressed to herself, entirely her own property.

  “Since I know Fanny to be abroad I communicate with you, dear Sue,” he wrote.

  Congratulate me! I have my Captaincy at last, and must post up to London next week for confirmation of it, and to receive my orders at the Admiralty. While I am there I must also find time to visit a lawyer, for my Uncle has been so good as to leave me £2000, which I had never expected, and am greatly Amazed and pleased at; I take it very kindly in him and only wish he himself were here to be thanked. The money will be of great assistance in furnishing me with the necessary equipment, for a captain must be drest as befits his rank, and his cabin decently furnished, or his officers will never respect him. I should have been puzzled how to manage, even with £30 prize money from our last engagement; but now, thanks to my uncle’s benevolence, I can spend with a liberal hand. Another piece of news is that I have a fortnight’s leave of absence. While the Heron was refitting at Portsmouth I was able to see my mother and father, and the younger ones, so have no hesitation in soliciting to know if I may come and spend part of that time in Mansfield. Can you be so good as to inquire of my aunt and Cousin Tom if they have any objection to receive me? Of your own good wishes I have no fear . . . Yr affct Brother, William Price.

  With what happiness did Susan, on receipt of this, inform Lady Bertram of William’s success and inquire if his visit might be acceptable.

  “William? Ah, to be sure, my sister Price’s eldest boy. An industrious, good boy; I recall Sir Thomas was very taken with him when he came to Mansfield before. Sir Thomas said, I remember, that William had well repaid our benevolence towards him; as, indeed, he ought. I gave him 10L. when he went away . . . Indeed, it is not to be wondered at that he has done so well.”

  “Do you have any objection to my writing to say that he may come, ma’am?” Susan inquired, reflecting that Lady Bertram seemed to feel William’s promotion to captain must be directly attributable to that ten pounds.

  “No, my love, not the least in the world. But you had better also ask your cousin Tom. Tom is not quite pleased when matters are managed without reference to him.”

  Well aware of this, Susan had every intention of applying to Tom for his sanction.

  She found him in the paddock, exercising a new young horse that he had recently acquired from an acquaintance, and intended training up to use in the hunting field during the following winter. Tom, observing Susan by the rail, turned and came cantering in her direction; the horse, which was only half broken, took exception to the appearance of Susan in her white dress, so much so, as to give several plunges, kick out, and caper about in a very excitable manner. Tom dismounted, handed him over to a groom, and came to inquire what his cousin wanted.

  “Is not that horse rather vicious, Tom?” she asked impulsively. “I saw him take a great bite at John groom, and he lashed out at you too.”

  “Pho, pho, Cousin Sue! Confine yourself to what you know about, and leave management of my horses to me. There is not the least vice in the world about Pharaoh. He is full of tricks and spirits, playful, that is all. He will make a capital hunter by September, by which time I shall have made him know who is master, and cured him of his nonsense.”

  Discreetly, Susan said no more on the subject of Pharaoh, but handed Tom her brother’s letter, and asked if he would have any objection to the proposed visit. Far from voicing any dissent, Tom’s face lit up at the news.

  “Cousin William? Capital! I have not seen him in an age. He is an excellent fellow. Promoted to captain? That is famous news; I daresay he will very shortly be an admiral, and too high-up for us poor backward folk at Mansfield. Do, cousin, by all means write to bid him here for as long as he may care to remain.—And I tell you what—if he can come to us before Thursday—he may make one on the excursion to Stanby Cross and Easton Wood. William is a first-rate horseman; I recall his mastering my black Sultan when he came here before; he can ride my covert-hack and I will ride Pharaoh to the picnic.”

  Susan’s face expressed some doubts as to the wisdom of this plan, but she wisely held her peace. Tom went on, thinking aloud,

  “By the bye, I have been considering that it would be no bad thing if we were to have a ball at Mansfield; not a grand ball, you know, nothing elaborate; that would not do, in the present circumstances; but that fellow Taylor whom I have taken on as second woodman is a very fair fiddler, they tell me, and we could easily raise five or six couple, just from the neighbourhood, you know, and divert ourselves with a pleasant hop. What do you say, cousin? We could summon the Olivers—and the Montforts; I daresay Wadham and his sister would not object to come; she is rather old, to be sure, but a clergyman may dance as well as any other body; and you and I; and the Maddoxes, with Miss Harley—what do you say?”

  Susan could not help being greatly engaged by the idea; she had never in her life been to a ball, for although Tom sometimes attended the Northampton Assemblies he had never thought to take her; indeed her aunt could not ha
ve spared her; and, latterly, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, preferring tranquillity and sobriety, had not bestirred themselves to hold such entertainments at Mansfield. But then she recollected, and said doubtingly,

  “Do you think it would be quite right, cousin, so very soon after my uncle’s death?”

  “Soon? You call it soon? Why, my father died in March, and here it is nearly June. Lord bless you! Where is the harm in that? To my way of thinking, three months is quite long enough to pay respect to the dead. I was as fond of my father as anyone may be, but one cannot be going about with a long face for ever.”

  “I think Mrs. Yates might object that it was rather soon.”

  “Julia? Oh, plague take her fidgets! She is always prosing on, these days, about propriety, about what is done and what is not done; all because she has that whey-faced Charlotte Yates staying with her. No one would believe that Julia herself once flung her bonnet over the moon.—I shall take no account of what she says. What a confounded nuisance that she need come to the dance; but I suppose she is certain to get wind of it, and will be pushing Miss Yates at me for a partner all the evening. I know, only too well, what she will be at. But she may spare her pains, for my intentions are quite other. I shall offer for Miss Harley in November; I would even do it now (for when one is engaged, all one’s cares are over, and nobody else can be pestering one with wretched girls whose single ambition is to be off the shelf) but I do not wish to be tying myself up just yet, not until Christmas, at all events.”

  “Why Christmas?” inquired Susan, feeling a little indignant on Miss Harley’s behalf, that Tom should be so confident as to her holding herself in readiness to have him the moment he might decide to drop the handkerchief.

  “Why, one could not be entangling oneself in matrimony just at the very start of the hunting season! That would be the most devilish thing in the world! And yet, so it would turn out—by the time I had proposed, and she had accepted, and so on and so forth; we would be obliged to set forth on some abominable wedding-journey, to Paris or Florence or Rome, or some other wretched town abroad, just at the time when cub-hunting begins. It would be a great deal too bad, and quite puts one off the whole notion of marriage.”

  “You could propose today, marry in July, set out for Florence immediately, and be back at Mansfield in time for cub-hunting,” suggested Susan.

  “Now, cousin! Pray let me be managing my own affairs! Do not you be interfering—I have enough trouble of that kind with Julia. I do not wish to spend the whole summer meddling about with lists and troublesome business with settlements and all that marriage arrangements involve.”

  Susan rather wished that Mrs. Yates could have heard this conversation, that she might feel less confidence in her efforts to promote a match between Tom and Charlotte Yates. Almost every day at present, the weather continuing particularly fine and dry, Julia’s barouche was at Mansfield, and she and Miss Yates would either be sitting with Lady Bertram or roaming about the gardens in search of Tom. The one advantage of this, for Susan, was that, from time to time, leaving Lady Bertram in the company of her daughter, she herself had more opportunity to slip across the park in order to visit Miss Crawford.

  One objection to Tom’s scheme for a ball which Susan had not voiced, for she knew it would only irritate him, was a feeling she entertained privately in her own heart and conscience, that it would be somehow wrong, almost wicked, for such an entertainment to be taking place, with all its gaieties and pleasures, when, so close at hand, somebody who would once have played a principal part and found particular enjoyment in those gaieties, was in such an evil case. It was cruel; the contrast was too cruel. She felt herself a traitor even to be thinking of satin sandals and spangled ribbons.

  Occupied by these thoughts, she opened the wicket-gate that led directly from Mansfield Park into the garden of the White House; for, now that she was on terms of friendly intimacy with the household, she generally made use of this short cut.

  In the garden, to her surprise, she discovered Mr. Wadham, putting together a nosegay of white pinks and sweet-williams.

  “No,” he said, smiling, as she greeted him, “no, Miss Price, you have not caught me stealing from my neighbour’s garden; nor hoping to acquire the credit for presenting a posy garnered from the recipient’s own borders; I have been sent out by the patient on this errand while Dr. Feltham examines her. Miss Crawford expressed a craving for the scent of clove-pinks, and bade me pick her some.”

  “I had not for one moment entertained such shocking suspicions of you,” replied Susan, smiling also. “But tell me, how do you find Miss Crawford? Is she any better?”

  “She declares her intention of coming downstairs next week; she wishes to be out of doors and sitting in the garden. But no,” he said, sighing and shaking his head, “no, Miss Price, we must not deceive ourselves. I am too familiar with sick-beds to mistake; and so says Elinor also. Day by day she loses ground. It is terrible—particularly terrible—to see so rare, so radiant a spirit struggling, as she is, to fight against impending dissolution.”

  “Do you think she is struggling?” said Susan. “I do not. I believe her only wish is to see Fanny and Edmund again; if that deep, strong wish were granted, I believe she would say goodbye to life with an easy mind.”

  “And yet she takes such great interest in day-to-day matters! She questions me with such acuteness and vivacity about the events of the village—about my parishioners and their doings. And my sister Elinor tells the same story—Mary cannot hear enough of all she has to tell.—You stare, I daresay, to hear me refer to her as Mary, on such brief acquaintance, but she has invited me and Elinor to do so, and we have been spending such a deal of time with her that indeed we begin to feel like old friends; Elinor, I believe, passes the greater part of her day at the White House; she will run in before breakfast and again, I do not know how many times, during the following twelve hours.”

  “Mary Crawford is lucky to have you both,” said Susan with tears in her eyes.

  “She is lucky to have you, too, Miss Price; I know how little of your own time can be spared from Lady Bertram, and how much of that you contrive to pass at the White House. And I know in how strong a sisterly regard Mary holds you. It was a fortunate impulse that brought her to Mansfield. The journey may have hastened her bodily deterioration, but that I believe will have made no ultimate difference. Whereas the mental comfort that Mansfield affords her—even lacking the company of your sister and brother—the lightness of spirit that she has been gaining here, is, to me, a wonderful thing.”

  “I am very glad to hear that,” said Susan. “It seemed such a heart-breaking disappointment that she should arrive to find them gone—almost unbearable. And I was afraid that had contributed to her—to the fact that she is not getting better.—I mind that so very much!” she exclaimed, unaffectedly wiping the tears from her eyes. “For I have become so truly fond of her. At first I believed that we could have nothing in common—she has been used to be so very fashionable and—and my sister, in the past, could not help thinking her somewhat worldly, with her mind fixed, perhaps, too much, on material advantage, and money, and high position. But I have found no such thing.”

  “I think, indeed, since she came to Mansfield, she has been changing daily,” said Mr. Wadham. “She is an unique being, indeed; I am glad to have had the chance of meeting her.”

  His thin face, as he spoke these words, seemed quite irradiated; Susan could not help looking at him with a kind of anguish. Like an arrow in her heart formed the notion: he loves her! He loves Mary Crawford! What a terrible situation! She could say nothing further; her throat seemed closed with tears. In any case at this moment the doctor could be heard descending the stair, and they both turned indoors.

  Dr. Feltham had nothing favourable to say. He had prescribed various medicines which might ease the symptoms but could do nothing to affect the ultimate issue.

  “I
t depends on the patient’s own resistance to the malady,” was his verdict, “as to how long the matter may remain in doubt. Perhaps two months—perhaps less. Not having been long acquainted with the lady, nor being familiar with her constitution, I find it hard to judge.”

  “Do you think that her brother should be sent for?” said Mr. Wadham. “This point has been greatly exercising my sister’s mind. Miss Crawford herself is much against his being summoned. ‘It will be to frighten him, poor fellow,’ she says. ‘And why should I do that? I go on very well as I am; I have so many kind friends that I lack for nothing. If Henry is summoned he will be sure to come posting down to Northamptonshire in terror, believing me to be at death’s door. Whereas it is no such thing!’—But what do you think, doctor? It would be dreadful for him if he were not summoned and—and the worst happened, and he was not here. We should reproach ourselves for ever. I understand that he is devotedly attached to his sister. Yet we do not want to alarm him unnecessarily.”

  “I believe you had best send for him,” was the doctor’s conclusion, after some thought. “It can do no harm; and it may help the patient to surmount this present increase in debility.”

  So saying he took his leave.

  Mr. Wadham escorted Susan upstairs, but himself remained only a moment or two, to present his posy and deliver a message from his sister respecting a preparation of arrowroot which she proposed to bring later in the day. Then he, too, quitted the White House, giving Susan a brief, serious look as he left, which she received as an intimation that he or Mrs. Osborne would be undertaking the task of communicating with Henry Crawford.

  “What a truly delightful man that is!” exclaimed Mary, when he had gone. “What a prize he will make for some lucky girl! What can you be thinking of, Susan, not to snap him up at once?”