Mansfield Park Revisited (10 page)

“Of myself?”

“Come, come! Let us have no assumed coyness. You need not take on that demure air with me. Do not be telling me that, with your looks, and your advantages, and the background of Mansfield, you yet lack a suitor?”

“I am afraid that is the case,” Susan was obliged to admit. “The life we lead here is so quiet, so retired—My aunt never going into society—”

“Monstrous! Outrageous tyranny! I ought to summon my brother at once, and instruct him to call in half a dozen bachelor friends. And yet,” said Mary Crawford with a sigh, abandoning her sportive tone, “I do not know, after all, why I should be urging you into the arms of the male sex. They have brought
me
little enough pleasure or comfort; and, from what I can see of the lives of my friends, matrimony is a state to be shunned, rather than sought.”

Susan at this could not help but recall the decidedly opposing views of Mrs. Osborne, so recently uttered. She murmured that lady's name.

“Mrs. Osborne? Ah, but
she
is a saint! Lucky the man who captured
her
affections—he could hardly avoid becoming a saint likewise. And by the bye, that reminds me—does she not have a bachelor brother? Who is, no doubt, as delightful as his sister? Ha, you look conscious! Well, I will not tease; but I confess I have a great curiosity to meet this Frank Wadham; I hope he will soon come to pay me a pastoral visit. You might drop a hint.—But now, my dear Susan, now that we have become such confidential friends, I wish you to tell me everything, every foolish detail, every daily triviality concerning the lives and happinesses of our dear Fanny and Edmund. Do not be thinking it will distress me—” twinkling away another tear—“it is what I am come for. It is the breath of life. To hear about them, about their virtues and unselfishness, will do me more good than anything else in the world.”

***

When Susan left the White House, at the end of a two hours' visit, she felt an inclination to walk slowly, not to retrace her way across the park at her usual rapid speed, for she had so much to ponder, to sigh over, to feel, to recall, of Miss Crawford's look, manner, observations, and expressions, that half a day, even a whole day, would hardly be sufficient to absorb all the crowded impressions gained in the course of the conversation.

To begin with, she could not avoid the inference that Miss Crawford was gravely ill. Her emaciation, her dry cracked lips, her frailty—above all, her whole demeanour, that of one thirstily, feverishly endeavouring to secure a moiety of nourishment from life before it might be too late—all these things suggested that her state admitted of little hope; that she herself entertained none. She never said: “When I see Fanny and Edmund, when they come back, I shall do such-and-such—” she did not delude herself. She had accepted the harsh truth that she must manage to subsist on Susan's reports of Fanny and Edmund; that the living realities must not be depended upon.

I will go to visit her every day that I can manage, Susan resolved then. I do not care a straw what Tom says, or what Julia thinks. I will contrive to see her as often as possible; and I am sure Mrs. Osborne will approve, and will help in making arrangements for Aunt Bertram.

The next consideration must be to write a letter to Fanny.

“You will be writing soon to your sister?” Mary Crawford had said wistfully as Susan rose to take her departure. “You will give her—and Edmund—my love, my dear love? You will explain that at present I find myself too weak to write—such debility makes me excessively impatient, when I remember the long, intimate, nonsensical scrawls I used to be dashing off to Fanny all the time—which she, I dare swear, hardly read through, dismissed as trivial, frivolous stuff; yet writing to her always did me good; I felt I had access to a fountain of value, of integrity, even if it seemed to have little effect upon me. Yes, the mere process of writing to her used to winnow out my thoughts and separate the chaff from the good grain. There! You see how the very thought of Fanny inculcates in me, a city girl born and bred, poetical and pastoral images!”

Writing to Fanny, then, must be an immediate, if painful task; depicting the gravity of Mary Crawford's condition, and urging a speedy reply. Susan sighed, thinking of the period of time which must elapse before that reply could be received. As she walked, her fingers fairly itched for the pen; she was impatient to commence without delay.

But, on arrival at the house she discovered that, for the time being, withdrawal to her private sanctuary in the East Room must reluctantly be postponed; since, besides Mrs. Osborne, good-naturedly sitting with Lady Bertram and instructing her in the mysteries of carpet-work, other callers had arrived: Julia and Miss Yates were there, as well as Mrs. Maddox from Gresham Hill and her niece Miss Harley.

Observing all this company, Susan gave swift instructions to Baddeley, and a collation of cold meat, fruit, and cake was soon laid out on the large table for the refreshment of the party; also a message was despatched to Tom, reported to be inspecting his plantations at no great distance.—He returned after the visitors had been a short time assembled round the table; Susan could not help imagining Miss Crawford's ironic eye and satirical comments on the subsequent behaviour of the party.

Susan's own entrance, of course, had been acknowledged by Mrs. Yates and Charlotte with the barest cool indifference; the hint of a curtsey, a half nod, was considered quite sufficient; and it was plain that the pair had been even less delighted to encounter Mrs. Maddox and Miss Harley; paying little heed to the ladies from Gresham Hill, Julia and her sister-in-law sat perfectly silent, or conversed with one another in low voices. Their ill-mannered silence, however, was concealed by the conversation of Mrs. Osborne, who, easy, cheerful, and well-bred, had been conducting a conversation about the beauties of the country with Mrs. Maddox and her niece. And Miss Harley, as always, talked enough for three; a good-humoured, exuberant, pretty girl, she smiled at all she saw, felt delight at all she experienced, and her chat bubbled out like water from a spring.

“Such delicious lambs on the way here—I do believe, Lady Bertram, that the Mansfield lambs are the prettiest in the whole country. Their amusing capers had me laughing all the way—did they not, Aunt Catherine? Their long ears and long legs and little black faces are so bewitching, I do not see how anybody can ever have the heart to eat
spring
lamb
—and yet, to be sure, spring lamb with mint sauce is so very good: Lord! what a great plateful I had last Sunday when it was served at my aunt's table. I fear I must be the most amazingly inconsistent creature in the whole of Northamptonshire—” laughing at her own folly—“but tell me, Lady Bertram, how does Pug go on? How old is he now?
Ten?
Good heaven, that is an age, indeed. He does not shew it; he looks very well. You remember me, do you not, you dear old Pug? Hark! how he snores at me, that means he likes me, does it not, Lady Bertram?''

“I do not know, my dear; in truth, he snores at everybody. It is his way of speaking, you know.”

“Oh, I am quite sure he likes me”—stroking his nose; “I love him far better than my cousins' pointers, which are always underfoot, barking their heads off and muddying one's skirts; he is a dear, good old Pug, sitting like a graven image of the sopha, quiet and snoring, and his face is so delightfully black and wrinkled; I declare I love it better than anything else in the world, and if I were an artist I should paint a picture of it.”

“And do you excel at drawing, Miss Harley?” kindly inquired Mrs. Osborne.

“Lord, bless you, no, ma'am! I could not draw so much as a chair without the lines being crooked. Charles and Frederick were for ever laughing at me when we were all children. Oh! how thankful I was to leave the schoolroom and know that I must never have my knuckles rapped again by cross old Miss Marchmont for blotting my copy-book and forgetting my recitation and ruling my lines askew. I believe one of the greatest pleasures of growing up is the knowledge that one need never be educated again. Do not you agree, Miss Price? Did you not detest being educated?”

“Oh, above everything,” Susan told her, feeling, as she always did, quite charmed and disarmed by Miss Harley's inconsequentiality.

“But if you girls are not to be educated,” said Mrs. Osborne, laughing heartily, “how in the world will you ever be able to instruct your own little ones when you have them?”

“Oh, very easily, ma'am; by hiring cross old Miss Marchmont to
rap
their knuckles and make them miserable. She is still about in the village at Gresham, you know, and I daresay will be happy to come and persecute them with her umbrella, and her snuff-box, and her tin of brimstone and treacle lozenges. How my heart used to sink as she stept into the schoolroom every morning, and how I used to cry, and pretend to have the stomach-ache or the tooth-ache, just to get out of lessons; I would sooner by far be put to bed with a poultice, or a dose of Gregory's Mixture; how many times have I not deceived dear Aunt Catherine here, who was always so good-natured and believed my tales of unspeakable agony. Ah! here now is Sir Thomas Bertram, come in from his coverts; tell me, Sir Thomas, do you not truly think that education is the most obnoxious process in the whole world?”

It seemed plain that Miss Harley's pearly teeth, her artless enjoyment of the company she was in, the ingenuousness with which she smiled up at Tom out of the corners of her long blue eyes, and the infantine fairness of her hair and complexion, could have persuaded him into agreement with any statement she made, however preposterous; he stood smiling down at her, displaying the most unfeigned admiration; and this irritated his sister and her companion so much that, very shortly after, they rose to take their leave, plainly hoping that Mrs. Maddox would follow their example.

“What, Julia, going already?” said Tom carelessly. “Surely you have but just now come?—Well, give my regards to Yates. When do we see him? He has not been to Mansfield this age. By the bye—” recollecting, “what about our party to view the Roman ruins? Have you mentioned that to Yates? Does he care to join us? And have you discussed the matter with your brother, Mrs. Osborne? Has he decided on which day he can best spare us for the excursion?”

Julia was excessively annoyed with her brother. To be fixing the arrangements for the excursion had, indeed, been her prime object in coming over to Mansfield; but she especially did
not
wish Miss Harley to be of the party, and had been proposing to go away without speaking of the project, rather than have it mentioned; for now, exactly what she did not wish to happen came about.

“What, are you to view some ruins?” cried out Louisa. “How charming! If there is one thing in the world that I doat upon rather than another, it is a ruin! I do hope, dear Sir Thomas, that I and my cousins and Aunt Catherine may be permitted to be of the party? Do you not doat on ruins, Miss Price? There is something so deliciously desolate about them.”

“It is my painful task to inform you, Miss Harley,” said Tom, “that no ruins are to be seen
as yet;
but still, with the help of Mr. Wadham, who is a great expert on Roman affairs, we may hope to unearth some.”

“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.

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 have 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.”