Mansfield Park Revisited (18 page)

BOOK: Mansfield Park Revisited
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“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.”

“Just the same, I think she had better look out for herself. I think, Tom, you had better ask the gentleman his intentions. Yes,
that
would be best. Although he is certainly very far from the kind of match that one would wish for one's
friends,
for Susan, Crawford will do well enough; indeed, she will be exceedingly lucky to fix him. Six thousand a year and the place at Everingham; it is far above what she has any claim to be expecting. A little trouble on your part, Tom, will bring it off and secure for her a satisfactory settlement. Yes, you must have a talk with him, and the sooner the better, while the demise of his sister leaves him in a softened, undecided mood, ready to be pleased with any female who will have him. And such a girl as Susan is certainly all that
he
has a right to expect.”

By the end of this speech Mrs. Yates had worked herself to such a pitch of enthusiastic planning that she quite smiled on her mother and brother.

Lady Bertram had not been able to follow her argument very closely; she said in a perplexed tone,

“Does Mr. Crawford offer for Susan? I thought that it was
Fanny
that he had a partiality for; but that, you know, came to nothing, for she married dear Edmund.”

Tom said irritably, “Julia seems to think, ma'am, that he has been paying Susan attentions; I have seen nothing but what was proper, myself.”

“Well, if that is the case, Tom, you had best ask the gentleman what he intends, and so secure him.”

“But you would not wish to lose Susan, ma'am?”

“If a gentleman of good estate offers for her, I should raise no objection. It would be her duty to have him, indeed; it is every young woman's duty to accept such an offer.”

Both ladies now became greatly engaged in the plan of marrying Susan off to Mr. Crawford, Lady Bertram from disinterested, Julia from highly interested motives. If Susan were once out of Mansfield, sheer inconvenience would soon, Julia shrewdly perceived, drive Tom into matrimony.—While Lady Bertram merely felt that if a man of substantial means such as Mr. Crawford remained unmarried, it was almost a matter of morality that some young woman should attach him; and Susan was a very good girl; if he were available, then she should have him.

This decided, both ladies went to work on Tom at such length and with so lively a persistence that at last, miserable, guilty, dejected, and goaded beyond endurance, he made a kind of promise to do as they recommended, and so escaped them.

His opportunity did not come for several days, not until after the funeral, which was attended by both Tom and Susan. Mrs. Osborne also sat in their pew; Mr. Wadham read the lessons, and the sermon, a very affecting one on the text “They shall not grow old,” was preached by the Bishop.

Henry Crawford sat by himself and they respected his wish for privacy; Susan, as always, had the greatest reluctance to push herself forward, and she had said everything that was possible to him during several earlier meetings; she had been seeing him repeatedly since his sister's death, because, as Mrs. Osborne had said, and Susan agreed, he was so very severely afflicted that without continual company he would hardly hold up.

After the service they were obliged to hasten away. Julia had agreed to sit with Lady Bertram, but said she could not remain upwards of two hours; little Tommy had thrown out a rash and she feared that it might be the chicken-pox.

The tiny group of mourners in the churchyard soon dispersed and went their several ways. Susan, glancing back as they drove off, at the grave mounded with its wreaths of late roses, could see only one lady remaining, who appeared to be studying the wreaths and their inscriptions; the lady, richly dressed in velvet with a feathered hat, bore no evidence of mourning and was not familiar to Susan, who thought that perhaps she was merely a passer-by, not connected with the obsequies at all. On the drive home the strange lady was soon forgotten, since poor Tom was unburdening himself, as he did at least once a day, on the subject of his guilt and wretchedness.

“I hastened her end, Susan. Without question, I hastened her end; if it were not for my blundering stupidity, if I had not taken advantage of her kindness, battened on her, worn out the remains of her strength and resources—I believe she would be with us still.”

“It could have been only a matter of time, Tom,” Susan repeated gently, as she had on many similar occasions. “Everybody knew that; Dr. Feltham knew it; indeed he confessed himself astonished that she had lasted so long. It was the air of Mansfield, he said; anywhere else, in such a case, she must have succumbed far sooner. Her constitution was quite worn out.”

“But if I had not invaded her tranquility—cut up her peace—she might have remained alive long enough to see Fanny—and that was her chiefest wish. I can never forgive myself for that—never!”

“You must forgive yourself, Tom, for
she
had done so; indeed she told me repeatedly that she was glad of the opportunity for getting to know you better; which otherwise, you know, she would never have done.”

“No, because I was such a bigoted, churlish dolt that I would not go to call upon her! Oh, Susan, I am very miserable, indeed! All my behaviour has been at fault. Oh, how deeply I wish she were still with us.”

He could not wish it more deeply than Susan did herself. Every minute she found herself longing for the playful, light-hearted common sense of her friend, who would have been teasing Tom for the self-importance of his grief, and scolding him out of excessive guilt. The burden of his continual self-reproaches was a hard one for Susan to endure, combined, as it was, with the frequent need to be comforting Henry Crawford in his more intense, more rational, less vocal affliction.

She had been walking half an hour with Henry in the shrubbery at Mansfield one evening later that week when, seeing Tom approach, she made her excuses and slipped away along a side-path. She did not feel equal to the combined wretchedness of the pair of them, and hoped that, left together, they might find a means to comfort each other.

—She had been asking Henry his plans, and he had told her that he had none.

“This has been such a bitter blow, Miss Price. I know that you warned me; I see now that you did your best to warn me again and again; but somehow I could not bring myself to believe the truth. I think that it will take me a very considerable time to accept it, even now, even after the event. I believe that I shall travel; to be continually on the move is the only prospect that I can tolerate. Tomorrow I leave Mansfield, first for Norfolk, then I know not where. Perhaps I may go to China.”

Susan found herself envying his freedom, though not his state of mind, as, leaving the two men, she rambled off along a narrow glade. Oh! she thought, the pleasure of such infrequent moments of solitude! The relief of being thus private with one's own thoughts, of having no demands made upon one for sympathy, entertainment, assistance, understanding, support.

Hardly had she framed the thought when, to her astonishment, she heard her own name spoken.

The two men were still not far away from her, though screened, in the little wilderness with its winding walks, by no more than a thicket of syringa; she could clearly hear the voice of her cousin Tom, now demanding in extremely forthright terms whether Mr. Crawford intended to marry his cousin Miss Price, and, if not, whether he had considered how severely he was compromising her by being thus continually and so confidentially in her company?

It was the voice of the old Tom, the old hectoring, domineering Tom, whom Susan had thought banished for good in the reformation wrought by Miss Crawford.

She stood aghast, thunderstruck. For a moment she felt almost stunned with outrage. To hear her name bandied thus—as though
she
were to have no say, no choice in the matter—she, who had been expending herself, hour after hour, day after day, in the consolation of those very two who now appeared to be discussing her as if she were some insentient being without a will of her own!

Picking up her skirts she ran swiftly back through the windings of the maze until she confronted the two of them once more.

Her eyes flashing with indignation—
“Stop!”
she exclaimed. “I will not have this! It is unjust, it is undignified! Pray, Tom, be silent this instant, and never let me hear you touch on this topic again. I am
not
a—a marketable commodity to be offered for barter like some piece of furniture. As for you, sir—” to Mr. Crawford—“I can only apologise deeply that you have been subjected to such embarrassment. Pray endeavour to overlook it. I—I am very unhappy that our last meeting should have been attended with such mortification. —I will now bid you goodbye.”

Unable any longer to withhold her tears she hastily turned away and almost ran from them, leaving them no less aghast than she herself had been.

Chapter 11

For some days, Tom and Susan hardly spoke to one another. The good understanding that had been building between them seemed destroyed for ever; she could not forgive him for his officious, insensitive interference, while he was as much astonished and wounded by her behaviour as if the stock he were tying around his neck had turned into an adder and bit him.

Mr. Crawford left Mansfield on the day following the scene in the shrubbery. But before doing so he wrote a letter to Susan:

My dear Miss Price:

Like you, I very deeply regret that our last meeting should have been clouded by the unfortunate and unnecessary encounter with your cousin. I do not blame him; he was but doing his duty; I do blame myself for my inconsiderate behaviour, for not thinking less of my own needs and more of your good name. Your recent kindness has been of such inestimable benefit to me; I can truly say that I do not think I would have survived after the recent tragic event without the support of your friendship and solicitude. I value it inexpressibly. And—if your cousin had not intervened at that moment—I think it not improbable that I would have implored you to add to your previous generosities by becoming my companion for life—such is the dependence I have fallen into the habit of placing upon you.

I do not ask this now. You, rightly enraged by your cousin's interference, would, might, feel that I was forced to do so by his exigency. The position would be falsified. Our relations would be forced, fettered by the unfortunate circumstances of their commencement.

And yet I find myself still hoping, feeling, that, in the future, when sorrow has died down and humiliation is forgotten, it may not be impossible for us to meet again, for me to put the question that I do not put now, for you to consider the possibility of our union. As to myself, I would welcome it eagerly. I have the deepest admiration for your person, your intelligence, your goodness, your sagacity. You would make me, I am sure, a very happy man. And, if devotion, care, consideration, could achieve it, I believe I could make
you
happy. And I know that, from beyond the grave, Mary would smile, to see what she had been hoping for come about.

Your sincere friend,
Henry Crawford.

After she had read this letter, cried over it, and read it again, Susan resolutely put it away. I will not think about it, she said to herself. Not for a long time. I will wait, and show it to Fanny; until I see her again, I will think no more of it.

Naturally, this was a very hard resolution to keep. Naturally she
did
think of the letter, a great deal; but she adhered to her resolve not to reread it. Such strength of mind was reinforced by a new spiteful tale from Julia, who came into Lady Bertram's room a few days later, exclaiming,

“Well, here is a fine thing! Here has Crawford been seeing Maria again, under our very noses!”

“Indeed?” feebly from Lady Bertram. “How very shocking!”

And from Tom, much more sceptically, “How do you know such a thing as
that,
Julia? Who is your informant?”

“Why, Charlotte Yates's sister, Lady Digweed, was in Northampton lately, buying boots for her children, and she saw the pair of them! Conversing, would you believe it, like old friends! Can you imagine anything so disgraceful?”

“Why should it be disgraceful for Mr. Crawford to converse with a lady whom he has once known?” here quietly inquired Susan. “Unless you feel that, because Maria left her first husband, anybody must be disgraced who talks with her?”

Ignoring this, Julia continued. “It was the day of the funeral. There they were, in the churchyard. He was standing by the grave, and she came up and spoke with him. Lady Digweed saw them both, as near as I am to you. By his own sister's grave! And
that
is the man who has been calling here on terms of familiarity, making himself quite one of the family! It is a thoroughly good thing that he has left Mansfield, and I, for one, hope that he never comes back to pollute it.”

Susan found herself so exasperated by this that, as before, she was obliged to leave the room to prevent herself making some angry remark. Julia's story was so petty, so trifling, so plainly governed by nothing but malice that nobody in their right mind could pay serious heed to it.—Very likely Henry Crawford had encountered Maria Bertram, Maria Ravenshaw as she now was, by pure accident; if she were staying in the neighbourhood there was nothing more likely than that she might have been crossing the churchyard, seen him, or the newly dug grave, and stopped to offer her condolences. What could be more natural, more probable?

And yet, Susan could not help admitting to herself that the story made her uneasy.—She could hardly have said why. She had no reason not to trust Henry Crawford; yet the story made her uneasy.

She was glad that Mr. Crawford had left Mansfield, that she would not be seeing him for some time; she was glad that she had an unlimited period in which to consider his proposal and her own reactions to it.

Would I ever be quite sure of him? she asked herself. A story like that—how trivial. And yet it makes me uneasy. Such a suspicion, in time, would cast a poison on our relations. The poison would be in me, not in him; yet it would be there.

Meanwhile, to her surprise, she began to be aware that Tom's silence and air of constraint towards herself were not prompted by resentment or bad feeling or disgust at her explosive outcry; on the contrary, by small attentions and glances, by the expression in his eyes as he looked at her, she grew to believe that he was profoundly sorry for what had occurred; that he was even wishful to apologise.

In the end he did so, one evening after Lady Bertram had fallen asleep over the cribbage-board and Susan was softly putting away the cards. Tom, with a whisper, summoned her to the other end of the room.

“Susan, I have been mustering up my courage these five days past to say that I am sorry for what I did about Crawford. I should not have approached him in the way that I did. I should not have been interfering in your affairs. It is what I cannot stand in Julia, and it was very bad in me to have done it. If it had not been for Julia and my mother, indeed, I would never have entertained the idea. I should not have heeded them.”

Susan, who had guessed as much long ago, did not find that Julia's instrumentality made her feel any better about the incident; rather the contrary; but she said kindly,

“Never mind it, Tom! It was a mistake. We all make them. But it has done no lasting harm. I do not think I should have accepted his offer, in any case. It has given me more time to think it over.”

Tom's rather shamefaced look turned to quick inquiry.

“Crawford
did
offer, then?”

“I do not think I am under any obligation to tell you—but, yes: he has made me an offer. I am going to take some time in considering it.”

“Susan!” cried Tom; astonishing her, and, very possibly, himself also, “Susan!
Don't
take Crawford! Marry me—do,
do
think of marrying me, Susan! I do not see how we could go on without you, indeed I do not!”

He looked so humble, so beseeching, so uncertain of himself, that Susan was quite amazed. Quickly she said,

“I am very sorry, Tom. I am
truly
sorry. But I cannot marry you—never, never—not just in order to look after Mansfield, you know. I am afraid that is wholly,
wholly
out of the question.”

Incautiously, they had raised their voices, he in agitation, she in emphatic repudiation—and Lady Bertram stirred, opened her eyes, and said thickly,

“I was not asleep. What o'clock is it? Is it time for bed already?”

Susan was glad to go to her aunt's help in untangling the embroidery silks from around her slippers; and Tom dejectedly flung out of the room, shutting the door with an emphatic slam. Susan, having escorted Lady Bertram upstairs, retired to her own chamber with a heavy heart. She looked at the two letters, which lay in a filigree box on her table: Fanny's, and that of Henry Crawford. She read neither of them. Instead, she went sorrowfully to bed, but found it almost impossible to sleep.

***

The following day was a very unhappy one. Susan, looking at the calendar, saw that it was now three weeks since Mary Crawford's death; only three weeks, yet so much seemed to have happened. The world of Mansfield seemed utterly changed. Tom wandered about silent and despondent, or took himself off to the Parsonage; Henry Crawford was gone, and must be missed; and there were no more visits to the White House.

Susan, picking late roses in the garden with little Mary while Lady Bertram drowsed on the terrace, was delighted to see Mrs. Osborne walking across the park, and went out to meet her.

“So! Miss Price, your sister returns in a fortnight from now. You must be very happy at the thought.”

“Very,
very
happy,” said Susan with truth. “I am counting the days.”

“Yet it is a sad prospect for us at the Parsonage,” said Mrs. Osborne cheerfully. “A case of ‘Hieronymo, 'tis time for thee to trudge.' We shall be under the sad necessity of quitting Mansfield. A parish does not need two parsons, and your brother will most capably fill the office; and his parishioners will be glad to welcome him back.”

“But it is very sad that you must go,” Susan said sincerely. “Could you not remove into—into the White House? You have become such friends of all of us, you and your brother.”

“No, my dear. That would not do. I must return to my own little wilderness in Cumberland, and discover how my poor neighbours have been managing without me. To tell the truth, I have been feeling remorseful about them for some time; many of them are old and poor, very poor, and I find means to be of use to them. I have neglected them for too long. I was eager to come to Mansfield—partly out of curiosity, I must confess—but now it is time for me to leave.”

“Curiosity, ma'am?”

“I had heard such a deal about the place from your aunt Mrs. Norris—about you all—that I seized on the chance to come with my brother, having a great wish to see you all in the flesh, to see how the reality measured up to the report.”

“And how
did
it measure up?” asked Susan, smiling. “Remembering my aunt, I can imagine some highly prejudiced reporting!”

“Yes; but I was able to sort out the grain from the chaff. And the reality, I must say, has been exceedingly engrossing. I shall have plenty to think about, in the snowy Cumberland winters!”

“Can you not remain, even for a short period, to make the better acquaintance of Fanny and Edmund? And so that Mr. Wadham can have his excavation after the harvest at Stanby Cross?”

“Poor Frank! I fear he will never have the chance to unearth those ruins! He will have to content himself with excavating some Hindoo temple.—No, my dear; we would both find residence in the White House too sad, after our close connection with dear Mary. Frank was a little in love with her, you know.”

“I think that everybody was,” said Susan. “She was—she was so uncommon. Different from other people.”

“You must not be belittling yourself, my dear,” said Mrs. Osborne, looking at Susan shrewdly. “Frank has been a little in love with you too. Frank is very susceptible to beautiful young ladies.”

“With me?” Susan was astounded. “Mr. Wadham has always been the height of kindness and friendliness, but surely—”

“Oh, he would never make a push to try and gain your hand, my dear. We have talked it over, very often. He knows that is quite out of the question. We both see that you can never transplant from Mansfield. You and your cousin are made for one another. And Frank would not be so culpably inconsiderate as to suggest removing you to the dangers of a tropical climate, where he has almost died himself. He is, indeed, resigned to dying a bachelor; in fact (between ourselves) I think a bachelor life suits him excellently well.”

Susan was so thunderstruck at these revelations that she could only gaze at Mrs. Osborne in silence for a moment or two. Then, after some hesitation, she said doubtingly, “Just now, ma'am, you said—I think I understood you to say—something about my cousin? My cousin Tom?”

“Has he not offered for you yet? Silly fellow! He loves you so dearly—he has been worrying at me for ever about you—wondering if you would have him—wondering how he could bear it if you would not—”

“But, ma'am—don't you think that he wishes to offer for me—simply so that I shall
not
marry Mr. Crawford? Simply so that I shall continue to look after his mother?”

“No, I do not!” said Mrs. Osborne emphatically. “Otherwise I would not advise you to accept him—even if that meant leaving poor Lady Bertram to the tender mercies of Miss Yates!”

“But you do—do you advise me to accept him, then, ma'am?”

“Foolish girl! If I were in your shoes, I would have said
Yes
at the very first opportunity!”

Susan thought of Fanny's letter.

My dearest Susan:

I confess I am a little alarmed at the thought of your proximity to Henry Crawford. I can see how
that
may develop! You are just the woman for him. And, in many ways, it would be an excellent match, if, as I collect, he has now settled down.

Yes, thought Susan, if I were
ever
quite sure that I could trust him. As I could trust Tom.

But if you were to marry Henry Crawford, what of poor Tom? It has for so long been Edmund's and my deepest wish that you and Tom should be married. You seem so admirably suited to one another—when Tom has had time to look around him and discover your worth! Pray, pray, dearest Susan, do not do anything
hasty.
Wait, at least, until Edmund and I are at home to advise you!

Your loving sister, Fanny.

“Excuse me a moment, ma'am—” said Susan. “I see that my aunt is just waking up. Do you step up on to the terrace; she will be so delighted to see you . . .”

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