Mansfield Park Revisited

by Joan Aiken

  He could not leave the White House without regret, although fully aware that it was only proper in him to do so as soon as possible.

  “But to be there, listening to her conversation, listening to her angelic performance upon the harp,” he said. “Oh, Susan! It has entirely changed my life. I do believe that it has changed my life.”

  Susan quite believed him. She could see the change. Susan was Tom’s confidante at this time—and the weight of his confidence was both pleasure to her and pain. He was not yet strong enough to be out of doors for more than an hour or so, nor to be occupied within doors very continuously; in consequence of which there was a great deal of time left to walk about, and fret, and talk to his cousin, while Lady Bertram nodded over her tapestry and Pug snored. Susan found these confidential sessions very tiring; particularly as the questions put to her by Tom, over and over, “Do you think my being in the White House fatigued her? Did her harm? Or did she, could she, find any pleasure in my company?” were exceedingly difficult to answer.

  One escape from Tom’s questions was to walk down to the White House to see Mary for herself; and this at least was powerfully seconded by Tom, who, every morning and every evening would exhort her to do so.

  “Do you not think you should visit Miss Crawford and find out how she goes on? Take the chaise, cousin, if you feel tired. I will sit with my mother.”

  Tom had never been so mild, so thoughtful, so considerate.

  The reason why Susan found Tom’s questions hard to answer was because she thought his visit had done Mary considerable harm; drained her of what small vitality she had left, depleted her dwindling resources. And yet, there was also no doubt that she had found enjoyment in his company; that, she herself freely admitted. And her questions were almost as difficult to answer as Tom’s.

  “Did I do wrong, my dearest Susan, in practising my art upon him, just a little? I found it such a pleasure! Even more so than practising upon the harp—and much less fatiguing! I could hardly avoid being a trifle proud that I had not lost my former skill through lack of exercising it.—I do assure you that, with Tom, I was not behaving like a coquette; never less so. At first, I cannot deny, there was a degree of satisfaction in triumphing over a mind so conditioned to dislike, so filled with prejudice against me. But my conduct has been thoroughly guarded at all times; he was never in the least danger of over-excitation, I promise you.”

  Susan was fascinated, almost frightened, almost repelled. She had never before heard Mary in this vein; it was like witnessing the final stages of a conflagration in some great mansion, when the flames, which the firemen had thought extinguished, suddenly leap out of an upper window with terrifying power to annihilate all within their reach.

  “It has been of absorbing interest to me, Susan, to observe his altered manner. I recall him in the old days!—so careless, so self-satisfied, so confident that any woman would be delighted to accept him if he should be pleased to offer for her; as, indeed, he must lately have been in regard to Miss Harley. This has been a salutary month for Master Tom. And he has been wholly unaware of my objective—like true art, concealed and interwoven in its own medium. I won him over entirely by serious conversation. He has never, it is very plain, been in the company of a woman of intelligence before—excepting your own, my love, and since he has been used, from the first, to regard you as an inferior being, the likelihood of your true value has never even occurred to him. I return him to you at the very least a greatly improved companion, capable of rational conversation, his mind opened to receive the possibility of new ideas. I may hazard a guess that he is half in love with me, and since it is plain that he has never been anything like near to losing his heart before, that cannot but be doing him good. Love is a civilising influence on a young man.”

  Susan listened in silence, wondering at her friend’s animation. This was a different Mary indeed! the difference between the cat asleep on the hearthstone and the same cat at full stretch in pursuit of a mouse. It was a Mary that she had never known before.

  Mary observed her expression, paused, and smiled.—They were sitting in the garden, under the shade of a thick mulberry tree. An arrangement of three chairs, set together, with cushions and the canvas back-rest, had been made for Mary’s comfort, yet it was evident that she was in pain. A muscle contracted in her cheek from time to time. The day was an exceedingly close one; after the storm that had caused Tom’s accident, the fine weather had returned, even warmer than before; hot July was turning to sultry August.

  “I hope I do not shock you, my dear Susan? I believe I could not speak so to our beloved Fanny; but you are of a robuster nature. And these things must, they ought to be thought of. The relations between men and women should not be a matter of chance; as our behaviour in all other aspects of life is governed by the acquired skill of intelligent good manners, so should the most important area of all, between the male and female sex. My art, like the potter’s guiding hand, has transformed Tom into something more approaching a useful domestic vessel; some female unknown to me (not Miss Yates, I hope) will, in future, have cause to thank me, though by that time I shall be long forgotten.”

  Susan here made some inarticulate exclamation of distress, a jumbled sentence in which “cooler weather of autumn,” “Fanny’s return” and “change of medical treatment” were intertangled. But Mary smiled and shook her head.

  “No, my dear, I am not deceived, and I shall take it as a kindness if you will now disabuse yourself of any such fanciful notions. Argument is a waste of our valuable time together. I shall not be seeing Fanny. My time is measured in weeks, if not in days. I have asked our kind Frank Wadham to bring me the Sacrament soon, while I am in my right mind, before I become too weak and wandering to follow the service.—You stare, to hear me talk so, directly after having expressed myself in such a very different vein. But I am as I was made. If, in my life, I have done harm through thoughtlessness, I trust that it was not so very bad, and that I am atoning for it now. For my part, I think that a little flirtation is far less of a sin than vindictiveness, or arrogance, or pride; and of those I have not been guilty.”

  “No indeed!”

  “I have sent for an attorney, dear Susan, in order to arrange my last bequests; for I should greatly dislike the Ormiston family to be benefiting in any way by my decease. They have sufficient gold of their own. What I leave—and it is not much; I have been a thriftless grasshopper, not a prudent ant—I leave to you, my love, so that you need not be applying to your cousin Tom when you are in need of a new gown; my legacy will not provide you with much more than that.”

  Susan exclaimed again, a wordless cry of protest, sorrow, and gratitude, which Mary brushed aside.

  “Now listen: what I wish to say to you is of importance. Kindly pay close attention. I am laying no command on you—no behest, no exhortation. I do not care for deathbed dramatics, and I detest the notion of a dead hand reaching out from the past to govern people’s actions. But it would fulfill a very dear hope of mine if you and Henry were to come together in marriage.”

  “Oh—but—”

  “Hush! I do not ask—I do not question. Henry has a high—a very high opinion of you, I know. He has never seen another woman, after Fanny, whom he could possibly consider as a wife—excepting yourself. You are the first. And he would be a good husband—kind, considerate, loving, provident. You would be looked after, cared for, most devotedly; an experience which, I think, must be new to you,” said Mary with a faint smile. “But it may not come to pass; I make no reservation, no demand; I have no right. One of the lessons I have learned, here at Mansfield, is that we must not seek to govern one another. I learned it from you, my love—among other things.”

  “From me?”

  “Among other virtues, you have that of being blind to your own merit!—But here is Henry, come to drive you home; and indeed it is time. I have made myself quite breathless with preaching at you,
poor Susan; and you have others beside me to care for. Pray, pray bring little Mary here tomorrow, to rummage in my writing-desk; and give my sincerely affectionate greetings to Tom.”

  Weak and breathless though she had rendered herself, the parting smile she gave Susan had something in it of her old wicked sparkle.

  Susan’s being driven home by Henry was now an established thing; very often they did not speak at all on the way, or only of simple matters, the weather, the harvest, what kind of fruit might be procured for Mary; but they were at ease together, the companionable ease of brother and sister. On this occasion, Susan did not feel that what Mary had just said to her in any way changed the tenor of their relationship.

  Sometimes Henry came into the great house, to talk with Lady Bertram a little, or play a short game of billiards with Tom, who was now very nearly restored to normal health. If Julia’s carriage were to be seen outside, Henry tactfully did not enter the house; he knew that Mrs. Yates regarded him with abhorrence and could hardly spare the pains for bare civility to him, should they chance to meet.

  In mid August came a batch of letters from the West Indies; one from Fanny, for Susan, one from Edmund, for Tom. Edmund’s letter told of business prosperously completed, and gave a date for their departure from Antigua, a date now long since passed, for the letter had been written in June and announced that they would embark in July.

  “So already, at this time, they are on the sea!” exclaimed Susan joyfully.

  The thought of her sister’s return was inexpressibly relieving to her; she felt that she could hardly bear to wait with patience the necessary weeks remaining before the arrival date. All day she carried Fanny’s letter about with her, like a talisman.

  “I have written to Mary Crawford by the same mail,” wrote Fanny; and at evening Susan walked down, over the hot, limp grass, with little Mary, to discover if this letter, also, had been received.

  She found that it had. She found Mary in a remarkable state, visibly weaker, as she now grew day by day, yet flushed, touched, elevated, as if she had been witness to some miraculous event.

  “No, I will not tell you what Fanny said to me! I see that you had a letter from her too. But such letters are private—not to be shared, not even by one’s dearest friend. Fanny herself would not wish it. And I do not ask to hear what she has said to you. I can see that it has made you happy; that is the main thing.

  “Come here, now, little Mary, and I will show you how the ancient Greeks used to make sacrifices to their gods; hand me tinder and taper from the writing-desk, and we shall have a fine bonfire.”

  While the child watched with wondering eyes, Mary carefully burned her letter, page by page, on the flagstones of the terrace.

  “There! It is all gone into thin air. Now, little one, you must blow the ashes away—puff out your cheeks and blow—so! And when you are an old, old lady, you will remember blowing those pages away and wonder what was written upon them.”

  ***

  A week later Susan found Frank Wadham outside the White House when she paid her evening visit.

  “I have administered the Sacrament,” he said. “Feltham says, and I agree, that she is not likely to last the night. She came over very faint a while since; Elinor has made her some mint tea, but she could only take the smallest sip. Go in: she has been hoping to see you. She is in the back room; she was too weak to climb the stair, and did not wish to be carried.”

  Susan found Mary in the bed that had been provided for Tom. The door and window to the garden stood open, for it was another breathlessly hot evening, with not a hint of wind. Henry was in the garden, walking up and down on the terrace.

  “Do you feel much pain, dear Mary?” Susan asked.

  Mary slightly moved her head in negation. She had not strength to speak for the moment; but she raised her brows with a slight, wry smile at her friend, and, after a little while, murmured, “I think these must be the pangs of death. They are certainly like no other! Except, perhaps, those of birth: but my own birth—I do not remember; and of any other—I have no experience . . .”

  Her voice died away. Elinor Osborne came into the room with a napkin dipped in lavender water, which she proffered, but Mary wordlessly waved it away. Her head moved a little, continuously, on the pillow, but she said no more, except once, faintly, “I wish it would rain!”

  Henry came in and stood by the empty hearth. Susan stept to the door, but he caught at her hand, as if imploring her to remain; and indeed she had no thought of returning to the great house, she had meant merely to retire to the front room. Tom had promised to remain with his mother should his cousin find herself unable to leave Mary. “Give her my love,” he had muttered hoarsely, and Susan had faithfully passed on the message, which was received with the same faint, wry smile.

  At midnight a heavy pattering commenced on the leaves of the mulberry tree outside; it could plainly be heard, for the casement still stood wide open.

  “Hark!” said Susan. “It rains!”

  Mary’s dark eyes moved towards the window; she gave a small sigh of pleasure. The patter outside increased to a drumming; through the window came a scent of wet grass and vegetation. No sound but the rain could now be heard.

  “It is a fine rain!” whispered Mary. “A fine, drenching rain.”

  She sighed again, moved a little as if seeking a more comfortable position, and was still.

  “She has gone,” said Elinor quietly.

  Henry moved to the bedside and closed her eyes.

  They sat on beside her, all reluctant to leave the room, listening to the solemn, continuous drumming of the rain on the terrace and on the grass.

  ***

  “So,” remarked Mrs. Yates, walking into Lady Bertram’s drawing-room, “so, Mary Crawford has died at last. Well, she will be no loss. Mansfield will be the better for the lack of her presence at the White House. She should never have come here; it was a most impertinent intrusion. I suppose, now, that the brother will go away again, and that also will be an excellent thing.”

  Susan, who had been sitting at the far end of the room, unseen by her cousin, sorting out a basket of wools, here quietly rose to her feet and walked towards the door.

  “I should be obliged, ma’am,” she said, pausing there to address Julia, “if you would not be speaking so of Miss Crawford in my presence. I consider that her character exemplified all that was excellent, in virtue, sense, and taste; she was my great friend. I will not remain to hear ill things spoken against her.”

  “Hey-day!” cried Julia, very much ruffled, as Susan left the room. “Here’s a great to-do about a trifle. I should like to know what right she thinks she has to prevent my speaking my mind in my own home.”

  “But this is not your home, you know,” said Lady Bertram. “Your home is at Shawcross.”

  Ignoring her mother’s mild remark, Julia continued, “It was not before time that pernicious woman died, if she was to be putting such ideas into my cousin’s head. And I daresay you will be glad enough, ma’am, not to have Susan continually running off down to the White House, as she has been wont to do during these last months.”

  Tom walked into the room, looking spent and haggard. He said to his mother, “I thought it right, ma’am, to call at the White House and leave your respects and condolences as well as my own. Mr. Crawford asks to be remembered to you and thanks you.”

  “Did you see the corpse?” inquired Julia. “How does it appear? When is the funeral to be? Does Mr. Wadham conduct the service?”

  “It is to be at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Northampton,” said Tom. “Mr. Wadham will assist at the service but it will be conducted by the Bishop of Oxford who, it seems, is a friend of Mr. Crawford.”

  “Oh—! How singular! In that case, however, I suppose there is no necessity for us to go. If it had been here in the village it might have been otherwise. I certainly
shall not go, and I am sure you need not, ma’am.”

  “I intend to go,” said Tom quietly. “The funeral will take place on Tuesday. If you wish to attend it, ma’am, I shall be very glad to escort you.”

  “Oh dear,” said Lady Bertram. “No; I do not think I shall go. Funerals are so very fatiguing. And then, the drive to Northampton is so disagreeable. Besides, I have not seen Mary Crawford in so many years; not since that other time when she and her brother were staying at the Parsonage. No, I shall not undertake such a journey. If you attend, Tom, that will be sufficient.”

  Julia eyed her brother sharply and asked, “Is your fever come back, Tom? You do not look at all the thing.”

  “No, I am well. It is nothing.—I have asked Crawford to dinner here, ma’am, this evening; it is not right that he should be alone at such a time.”

  “Do you think that really necessary, my love? Cannot he go to the Parsonage?”

  “Wadham and his sister have been with Crawford continually as it is.”

  “Very well. If you think it right. I daresay you will remind Susan to tell Baddeley.”

  Julia, who had looked very far from approving at this announcement, now remarked,

  “It is certainly highly inconvenient that all this should be taking place here. I suppose, in order to satisfy the dictates of civility, you must have Crawford here, but it is not at all what one would be wishing.—Such a connection!—Speaking of which, Tom, I think you had best, at this juncture, drop a hint to our cousin—or perhaps you would be the properest person to do it, ma’am—not to be quite so close and confidential with the gentleman as, I am informed, has lately been the case. Day after day to be driving here from the village in his curricle: it is not at all the thing; very far, Lady Bertram, from the way in which you brought your own daughters up to behave.”

  “Susan has a great deal of sense and propriety,” said Lady Bertram placidly. “I am not at all afraid of her behaving herself unladylike.”