Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (12 page)

‘I believe I have: but this is hardly fair; I see what you are at. You are quizzing me and Miss Anderson.’

‘No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what you mean. I am quite in the dark. But I
will
quiz you with a great deal of pleasure, if you will tell me what about.’

‘Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite so far imposed on. You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye in describing an altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly so. The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them the other day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson. The circumstance was precisely as this lady has represented it. When Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his sister was not
out,
and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with only her and a little girl or two in the room, the governess being sick or run away, and the mother in and out every moment with letters of business; and I could hardly get a word or a look from the young lady,—nothing like a civil answer,—she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then
out.
I met her at Mrs. Holford’s, and did not recollect her. She came up to me, claimed me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance, and talked and laughed till I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has heard the story.’

‘And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I daresay, than does credit to Miss Anderson. It is too common a fault. Mothers certainly have not yet got quite the right way of managing their daughters. I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.’

‘Those who are showing the world what female manners
should be,’
said Mr. Bertram, gallantly, ‘are doing a great deal to set them right.’

‘The error is plain enough,’ said the less courteous Edmund; ‘such girls are ill brought up. They are given wrong notions from the beginning. They are always acting upon motives of vanity, and there is no more real modesty in their behaviour
before
they appear in public than afterwards.’

‘I do not know,’ replied Miss Crawford, hesitatingly. ‘Yes, I cannot agree with you there. It is certainly the modestest part of the business. It is much worse to have girls
not out
give themselves the same airs and take the same liberties as if they were, which I
have
seen done.
That
is worse than anything—quite disgusting!’

‘Yes,
that
is very inconvenient, indeed,’ said Mr. Bertram. ‘It leads one astray; one does not know what to do. The close bonnet and demure air you describe so well (and nothing was ever juster) tell one what is expected; but I got into a dreadful scrape last year from the want of them. I went down to Rams-gate for a week with a friend last September, just after my return from the West Indies. My friend Sneyd,—you have heard me speak of Sneyd, Edmund,—his father and mother and sisters were there, all new to me. When we reached Albion Place they were out: we went after them, and found them on the pier,—Mrs. and the two Miss Sneyds, with others of their acquaintance. I made my bow in form; and as Mrs. Sneyd was surrounded by men, attached myself to one of her daughters, walked by her side all the way home, and made myself as agreeable as I could,—the young lady perfectly easy in her manners, and as ready to talk as to listen. I had not a suspicion that I could be doing anything wrong. They looked just the same: both well dressed, with veils and parasols like other girls; but I afterwards found that I had been giving all my attention to the youngest, who was not
out,
and had most excessively offended the eldest. Miss Augusta ought not to have been noticed for the next six months; and Miss Sneyd, I believe, has never forgiven me.’

‘That was bad indeed. Poor Miss Sneyd! Though I have no younger sister, I feel for her. To be neglected before one’s time must be very vexatious; but it was entirely the mother’s fault. Miss Augusta should have been with her governess. Such half-and-half doings never prosper. But now I must be satisfied about Miss Price. Does she go to balls? Does she dine out everywhere, as well as at my sister’s?’

‘No,’ replied Edmund, ‘I do not think she has ever been to a ball. My mother seldom goes into company herself, and dines nowhere but with Mrs. Grant, and Fanny stays at home with her.’

‘Oh, then the point is clear. Miss Price is
not
out.’

M
r. Bertram set off for—, and Miss Crawford was prepared to find a great chasm in their society, and to miss him decidedly in the meetings which were now becoming almost daily between the families; and on their all dining together at the Park soon after his going, she retook her chosen place near the bottom of the table, fully expecting to feel a most melancholy difference in the change of masters. It would be a very flat business, she was sure. In comparison with his brother, Edmund would have nothing to say. The soup would be sent round in a most spiritless manner, wine drunk without any smiles or agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote of any former haunch, or a single entertaining story about ‘my friend such a one.’ She must try to find amusement in what was passing at the upper end of the table, and in observing Mr. Rushworth, who was now making his appearance at Mansfield for the first time since the Crawfords’ arrival. He had been visiting a friend in a neighbouring county, and that friend having recently had his grounds laid out by an improver,
²
Mr. Rushworth was returned with his head full of the subject, and very eager to be improving his own place in the same way; and though not saying much to the purpose, could talk of nothing else. The subject had been already handled in the drawing-room; it was revived in the dining-parlour. Miss Bertram’s attention and opinion were evidently his chief aim; and though her deportment showed rather conscious superiority than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court, and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency which prevented her from being very ungracious.

‘I wish you could see Compton,’ said he, ‘it is the most complete thing! I never saw a place so altered in my life. I told Smith I did not know where I was. The approach
now
is one of the finest things in the country; you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison—quite a dismal old prison.’

‘Oh, for shame!’ cried Mrs. Norris. ‘A prison, indeed! Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world.’

‘It wants improvement, ma’am, beyond anything. I never saw a place that wanted so much improvement in my life; and it is so forlorn, that I do not know what can be done with it.’

‘No wonder that Mr. Rushworth should think so at present,’ said Mrs. Grant to Mrs. Norris, with a smile; ‘but depend upon it, Sotherton will have
every
improvement in time which his heart can desire.’

‘I must try to do something with it,’ said Mr. Rushworth, ‘but I do not know what. I hope I shall have some good friend to help me.’

‘Your best friend upon such an occasion,’ said Miss Bertram calmly, ‘would be Mr. Repton, I imagine.’

‘That is what I was thinking of. As he has done so well by Smith, I think I had better have him at once. His terms are five guineas a day.’

‘Well, and if they were
ten,’
cried Mrs. Norris, ‘I am sure
you
need not regard it. The expense need not be any impediment. If I were you, I should not think of the expense, I would have everything done in the best style, and made as nice as possible. Such a place as Sotherton Court deserves everything that taste and money can do. You have space to work upon there, and grounds that will well reward you. For my own part, if I had anything within the fiftieth part of the size of Sotherton, I should be always planting and improving, for naturally I am excessively fond of it. It would be too ridiculous for me to attempt anything where I am now, with my little half-acre. It would be quite a burlesque. But if I had more room, I should take a prodigious delight in improving and planting. We did a vast deal in that way at the Parsonage: we made it quite a different place from what it was when we first had it. You young ones do not remember much about it, perhaps: but if dear Sir Thomas were here, he could tell you what improvements we made; and a great deal more would have been done, but for poor Mr. Norris’s sad state of health. He could hardly ever get out, poor man, to enjoy anything, and
that
disheartened me from doing several things that Sir Thomas and I used to talk of. If it had not been for
that,
we should have carried on the garden wall, and made the plantation to shut out the churchyard, just as Dr. Grant has done. We were always doing something as it was. It was only the spring twelvemonth before Mr. Norris’s death, that we put in the apricot against the stable wall, which is now grown such a noble tree, and getting to such perfection, sir,’ addressing herself then to Dr. Grant.

‘The tree thrives well beyond a doubt, madam,’ replied Dr. Grant. ‘The soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting that the fruit should be so little worth the trouble of gathering.’

‘Sir, it is a Moor Park, we bought it as a Moor Park, and it cost us—that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill, and I know it cost seven shillings, and was charged as a Moor Park.’

‘You were imposed on, ma’am,’ replied Dr. Grant: ’these potatoes have as much the flavour of a Moor Park apricot as the fruit from that tree. It is an insipid fruit at the best; but a good apricot is eatable, which none from my garden are.’

‘The truth is, ma’am,’ said Mrs. Grant, pretending to whisper across the table to Mrs. Norris, ’that Dr. Grant hardly knows what the natural taste of our apricot is; he is scarcely ever indulged with one, for it is so valuable a fruit with a little assistance, and ours is such a remarkably large, fair sort, that what with early tarts and preserves my cook contrives to get them all.’

Mrs. Norris, who had begun to redden, was appeased; and, for a little while, other subjects took place of the improvements of Sotherton. Dr. Grant and Mrs. Norris were seldom good friends; their acquaintance had begun in dilapidations,
³
and their habits were totally dissimilar.

After a short interruption, Mr. Rushworth began again. ‘Smith’s place is the admiration of all the country; and it was a mere nothing before Repton took it in hand. I think I shall have Repton.’

‘Mr. Rushworth,’ said Lady Bertram, ‘if I were you, I would have a very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine weather.’

Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her Ladyship of his acquiescence, and tried to make out something complimentary; but between his submission to
her
taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with the superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies in general, and of insinuating that there was one only whom he was anxious to please, he grew puzzled; and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine. Mr. Rushworth, however, though not usually a great talker, had still more to say on the subject next his heart. ‘Smith has not much above a hundred acres altogether in his grounds, which is little enough, and makes it more surprising that the place can have been so improved. Now, at Sotherton, we have a good seven hundred, without reckoning the water meadows; so that I think, if so much could be done at Compton, we need not despair. There have been two or three fine old trees cut down that grew too near the house, and it opens the prospect amazingly, which makes me think that Repton, or anybody of that sort, would certainly have the avenue at Sotherton down; the avenue that leads from the west front to the top of the hill, you know,’ turning to Miss Bertram particularly as he spoke. But Miss Bertram thought it most becoming to reply—

‘The avenue! Oh, I do not recollect it. I really know very little of Sotherton.’

Fanny, who was sitting on the other side of Edmund, exactly opposite Miss Crawford, and who had been attentively listening, now looked at him, and said, in a low voice—

‘Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does not it make you think of Cowper? “Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.”’

He smiled as he answered, ‘I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance, Fanny.’

‘I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down, to see the place as it is now, in its old state; but I do not suppose I shall.’

‘Have you never been there? No, you never can; and unluckily it is out of distance for a ride. I wish we could contrive it.’

‘Oh, it does not signify. Whenever I do see it, you will tell me how it has been altered.’