Mansfield Park Revisited

by Joan Aiken

  So she contented herself by saying, in a tone of haughty astonishment, “Tom’s back-rest? Borrowed for Miss Crawford? I do not imagine we shall ever see that again,” and passed on into the saloon.

  It was not to be expected that the party would sit down in any very cordial spirits to breakfast next morning; all had retired late the night before, and there was a general air of lassitude, fatigue, and unwillingness to converse over the tea and coffee. Except, that is, for William, who had risen at seven, taken a turn through the gardens and coppices; had an excellent appetite and much to ask his cousin Tom about drainage, tillage, timber felling, and a host of related topics. His unimpaired cheerfulness and flow of spirits, his evident unawareness of having committed any fault, and the happy unconsciousness with which he consumed his cold ham and hot toast rendered it impossible for Tom to be bearing a grudge against him. The two cousins presently walked out into the sunshine and Tom was heard inviting William to come and inspect the paces of his newly acquired colt.

  Presently in came Mr. Wadham and Mrs. Osborne to talk over the ball and show Lady Bertram a charade that Mr. Wadham had composed:

  “My first is when my whole is heard,

  My second sounds the traveler’s rest,

  My whole’s a bird, and yet my third

  Would drown its song and drench its nest.”

  “Dear me, Mr. Wadham, how very clever. I am certain that I shall never be able to guess what it can be. ‘My whole’s a bird’—good gracious—can it be a swan? A peacock? An eagle?”

  Seeing that Lady Bertram would be comfortably entertained for hours by this puzzle, Susan slipped away to the White House to inquire whether the back-rest had at all helped to alleviate Miss Crawford’s discomfort.

  She found the brother and sister sitting in the sunny garden, the back-rest in position; and congratulated the sister very sincerely upon the improvement which this change must denote; indeed she did think Miss Crawford looking better, more animated, with a touch of colour in her cheeks and a livelier aspect.

  After a few moments Henry rose and left them, saying that he believed his sister did better with only one caller at a time, and he would see to his horses at the George, take a turn about the village, and revive old memories.

  “He has encountered an acquaintance at the George,” said his sister. “Captain Sarton, your brother’s traveling companion. But now, tell me about the ball: did your cousin Tom propose to Miss Harley? Were you much admired? I am able to inform you immediately that you have one admirer—my brother has not been so greatly struck since the last time he was in Florence and visited the Uffizi Palazzo—and that, let me tell you, was a long time ago! Seriously, he was greatly impressed by your appearance, and only feels it a great shame that you should be languishing here, unseen by the polite world, in the season of your chiefest youth and beauty. I tell him that you are playing a more essential role by keeping me cheerful and entertained; which he is prepared to accept, though with an ill grace.—In good earnest now, what do you think of Henry?” she went on, observing Susan to be not in the mood for banter. “Is he what you expected? Is he how you imagined your sister Fanny’s lover?”

  “No, not at all. Oh, how can I tell? I do not know. He seems very—very serious.”

  Susan found Miss Crawford’s questions hard to answer; she spoke almost at random. Her friend, after giving her a long, acute look, said kindly, “You are fatigued after the evening’s pleasures and difficulties. Never mind telling about them. They will keep. Some other time will do to tell me about how Miss Yates snubbed Captain Sarton, and how Julia found fault with the rout cakes.”

  Studying Miss Crawford, now that her brother was gone, Susan began to think the apparent improvement delusive; the colour, she suspected, was a touch of rouge, and the animation merely that brought on by the joy of his presence. She insisted stoutly, however, that she was better—much better—in a fair way to being quite well. Only her eyes betrayed her.

  “The back-rest is an immense comfort. I am infinitely obliged to you for the thought of it. Chair backs are so hard and so vertical! And I am infinitely happy that you and Henry have met; it was one of my chiefest wishes, but I hardly dared hope that it might be fulfilled. All I have left to wish for now is Fanny’s return.”

  Her self-mocking smile wrung Susan’s heart.

  “You did not bring little Mary to see me today? You thought I should be too occupied with Henry and should not want her. But you were wrong; quite wrong; I always want her, and she always does me good. Pray bring her again soon—tomorrow.”

  Susan promised to do so and went away shortly thereafter, not wishing, by her presence, to keep brother and sister apart. Besides, she had her own brother to seek out. She was deliberating in her mind how she could best hint to him that in wooing and pursuing Miss Harley so guilelessly—and without, presumably, any very serious intentions—he was doing a decided disservice to his cousin Tom; only, how to put this in such a way that it would effectively convince William? She could imagine him laughing and saying that Cousin Tom must look out for himself; if the young lady’s affections were so easily beguiled away from her first suitor, then they could not have been so very strong to begin with. Such sisterly admonitions were not to be given immediately, however: on her return home Susan discovered that William had borrowed Tom’s covert-hack and gone out riding with Captain Sarton; he did not reappear until dinner-time, when it was learned that the two friends had taken a turn round the countryside and incidentally called at Gresham Hill to inquire whether Miss Harley had been much fatigued by the exertions of the evening. There they had been most kindly received by Mrs. Maddox and invited to take a nuncheon. William brought messages that the lame horse was now better and that the Maddoxes would hold themselves in readiness at Tom’s disposal whenever the scheme to uncover the Roman ruins should again be in train.

  William himself, thus apprised of the plan, was all active enthusiasm; he had seen some capital Roman ruins himself, at Herculaneum and at Rome and that other place in Spain; those Romans were certainly devils of fellows for going about the world and leaving great ruins behind everywhere! What puzzled him was why they never seemed to build walls to their houses, but only those great draughty pillars and arches, with nothing to keep out the weather? But if there were Roman ruins to be found on Cousin Tom’s property, he would be very happy to see them, and if they needed to be dug out, why, give him a spade, and he would dig; it would be famous fun.

  Tom’s own enthusiasm, which seemed to have diminished somewhat, was rekindled by this support; messages were sent about once more, and, the weather continuing favourable, the third day following was fixed upon for the scheme.

  At such short notice the size of the party must, of necessity, be reduced; the Howards and Montforts had other engagements, Captain Sarton must return to London; but the Yateses declared their eagerness to come, and so did the Maddoxes; so did the Stanley sisters if any body could convey them; and Tom said that he already had a confirmation from Mr. Wadham that he would be happy to attend the group and could carry two extra persons in his barouche, which would account for the Stanley ladies and Susan.

  Susan declared that she must stay with her aunt, who could not spare her. During the afternoon, however, she was surprised to receive a note from Mrs. Osborne. “My dear Miss Price: I am hoping that you will do me the favour of allowing me to remain with Lady Bertram while you join the picnic party. To tell you the truth—Roman ruins are no treat to me; I have seen countless examples of them at every Mediterranean port you care to mention. I shall far prefer to sit comfortably with your aunt in her drawing-room or under the shade of the arbour, while you are all grubbing about in the heat or eating chicken bones on your laps. And I feel that the party will benefit by the presence in person of the one who, I am very sure, will have made most of the arrangements. Yrs sincerely, Elinor Osborne.”

  How very kind in Mrs. Osborne! w
as Susan’s natural reaction. She wishes me not to lose a whole day of William’s company.

  Going in search of her aunt in the arbour, Susan asked whether Lady Bertram would have any objection to the substitution. “Here is Mrs. Osborne, ma’am, offering to sit with you on Thursday while I go to the picnic. Would you mind this exchange?”

  “Go to the picnic, my dear? But why should you do that? Has Tom suggested it? Does he wish you to be present? Does Julia? Do you wish it yourself?”

  “Why—I do not suppose my cousins would be unwilling for me to go.—I could oversee the servants, you know, with the refreshments, and so on.”

  “You have never gone on such an excursion before.”

  “No, ma’am—but then, there has not been one.”

  “Oh dear—well—I do not know what to say. We had best ask Tom when he returns.”

  Tom, who came in presently, hot and tired from a day spent schooling his horse, had no objections to the inclusion of his cousin on the expedition. He felt that it was exceedingly kind of Mrs. Osborne to sacrifice her own pleasure—very disinterested and obliging indeed. To be sure, then Susan could keep an eye on the service of the nuncheon; there was something to be said for the plan. —Julia, on hearing about Susan’s addition to the party, wholly disagreed. She saw no necessity for it at all; why could not Mrs. Osborne be minding her own business? What affair was it of hers?

  “William may like his sister to be of the party,” suggested Tom.

  “He does not over-burden her with his society while he is in the house.” replied Julia.

  It was true that William, though a loving brother, did not propose to pass the major part of his day, as Susan must, of necessity, in the company of Lady Bertram. He found his aunt, who could not remember the difference between Malta and Majorca, a dead bore, and, though kind and civil always when he engaged her in conversation, spent no more time with her than was proper. He was happy to escort Susan about the village or anywhere else if she walked out; at other times he borrowed a rod from his cousin Tom and fished the stream which ran through the Mansfield woods; he also hired a horse from the George, because, he said, it was a shame to be always spunging on his cousin’s stable. Thus mounted, he explored the country, and was absent from the house sometimes for several hours at a stretch.

  ***

  Thursday came, and though warm and still as the preceding days had been, carried with it something of sultry oppressiveness, which made Tom shake his head as he looked at the sky, and say,

  “I wish we might have gone sooner. I wish we had gone when the scheme was first canvassed. I fear the weather is about to break; we shall be lucky if there is not a storm.”

  Susan hoped that Tom might be wrong. She herself had so many things to do, ensuring that her aunt’s tapestry-work was in a fit state to be left to her own operations on it, arranging for the amusement of little Mary, who was considered too small to be of the party, and overseeing the carrying out of her and Tom’s orders for the refreshment of the picnickers—which had been countermanded and altered so frequently by Julia that the servants were in a state of continual confusion—that she had little time left to be observing the sky.

  “Did you wish the cart with the lunch to be driven to Easton or to Stanby, Tom? Here is Baddeley very perplexed, because he says he understood you to say Stanby Cross, but Mrs. Yates told him that you changed your mind and it was some other thing. And was it to be at noon, or at one o’clock?”

  “I wish Julia would not find it necessary to meddle! Let her take care of those two ill-behaved brats, and leave me to manage my own business.”

  Despite these difficulties, and the melancholy prospect of William’s departure on the following day, Susan could not help a feeling of eager pleasure, as, the final instructions given, the final arrangements agreed or disagreed, she stept into Mr. Wadham’s barouche, taking the place of Mrs. Osborne who had gone up to Lady Bertram, and exchanged greetings with the Miss Stanleys, who were filled with equal enthusiasm.

  “Such a charming plan for an outing—they had been on nutting parties, and bramble-picking parties, and sketching parties, but a Roman picnic was something quite out of the common, and sure to be the talk of the neighbourhood. Perhaps Mr. Wadham would discover a Roman bath—perhaps as a result of his investigations, Mansfield would be wholly changed, and presently rival the city of Bath as a fashionable watering-place.”

  Susan thought this unlikely, but was not wishful to argue. Since she had rarely traveled beyond the confines of Mansfield, save when it was necessary to escort her aunt to the dentist in Kettering, she found novelties and beauties to admire on every side, in the leafy copses, luxuriant hayfields, and ripening crops of summer; she would have preferred to sit silent, enjoying the unfamiliar scenes, but, since the good-hearted Stanley sisters were great talkers, felt it only civil to keep the conversation going.

  “And was it true that Captain William Price had been riding over to Gresham Hill every day; that he was in earnest to make up a match with Miss Harley? So their cook had heard from the carrier, who had it from his sister, who was a dairy-woman at Gresham Hill farm. And was it true that Mr. Crawford, the brother of the sad sick lady at the White House, was about to take a lease of Stanwix Lodge? So said Mr. Knight the apothecary, who should know, for his brother, Mr. Sam Knight, was the clerk of the attorney who was to draw up the agreement.”

  Susan was unable to confirm either of these rumours; the first one made her decidedly uneasy, and she began to feel that, greatly though she would miss William’s cheerful company, it was, on the whole, a fortunate circumstance that tomorrow would see the conclusion of his visit.

  Tom and William, on horseback, soon overtook the carriage and drew on ahead, Tom calling back that he could not possibly ride alongside because Pharaoh was too fidgety.

  “He needs a gallop to settle him down.’

  Pharaoh did seem decidedly restive, tossing his head against the bit, and plunging across the road. The Miss Stanleys had heard that Sir Andrew Pickering, from whom Tom had purchased the colt, was glad to be rid of him because he was too ill-mannered to train. The anxiety which this information bred in Susan began, a little, to dull the pleasure of the outing; she knew that Tom had not ridden Pharaoh outside the training paddock before, and only hoped that the colt would behave himself during the day’s varied activities.—She would be glad when they were safe home again.

  It had been arranged that the Yateses and Maddoxes, who came from different directions, should meet the party from Mansfield at Stanby cross-roads. From that place a cart-track led to Easton copse; at that point it would probably be necessary for the company to dismount and proceed on foot.

  The Maddox carriage was already there and waiting when Mr. Wadham pulled up his horses at the stone cross, and the Maddox brothers, on their horses, could be seen a quarter of a mile down the cart-track with Tom and William.

  Mrs. Maddox and Miss Harley gave them cheerful greetings.

  “Good day! Is it not sultry! Our friends and brothers are gone on ahead, and bade us inform you that we are to follow on foot: the lane is quite dry and not at all dirty underfoot, but too narrow for the carriages. Sir Thomas believes that Easton copse will be the pleasantest spot for lunch, since the trees will give us shade; so we may be inspecting its capabilities while we are eating our nuncheon. Perhaps, Mr. Wadham, you will not object to escort us forlorn ladies, who have all been deserted by our gallant cavaliers?”

  Mr. Wadham declared himself happy to do so.

  “I am wondering,” said Susan, “whether I ought not to wait here for the Yateses; otherwise it is possible that they may not know which way we are gone. When I heard Julia discussing the rendezvous yesterday, with Tom, it sounded to me as if she had only an imperfect knowledge of this part of the country, and was not quite certain which place he was alluding to. And I cannot see any sign of their carriage.”

&nbs
p; All the party gazed around them. Stanby cross-roads lay at the height of a gentle eminence from which, in several directions, a considerable stretch of the country could be seen; but the view was not complete, for patches of woodland blocked off part of the scene. The road along which the Yates conveyance might be expected was not visible for more than half a mile along its length.

  “Will they not guess, when they see the carriages, which way we are gone?”

  “But there are two tracks here; and I am not quite confident that Julia understood Tom’s intentions. They were disputing about the spot a great deal yesterday. Do you all go on,” said Susan, “and I will remain here, sitting on the milestone, until I see them coming and can give them directions.”

  She was able, by perseverance, to overcome the various remonstrations against this scheme, as well as the offer of the friendly Stanley sisters to remain with her, and soon had the pleasure of seeing the five others set off down the deep narrow lane without her. For Susan it was no hardship at all, but, on the contrary, a most unwonted treat, to sit alone in the midst of a warm summer landscape and listen to no sound but the shrilling of larks overhead.

  After fifteen minutes or so, she began, however, to be a little perturbed, and to wonder if the Yates party had been delayed, had been misdirected, had mistaken the time, the day, the road?