Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (33 page)

‘This is pretty, very pretty,’ said Fanny, looking around her as they were thus sitting together one day: ‘every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and, perhaps, in another three years we may be forgetting—almost forgetting what it was before. How wonderful, how very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!’ And following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: ‘If any one faculty of our nature may be called
more
wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. There seems something more speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities of memory, than in any other of our intelligences. The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient ; at others, so bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way—but our powers of recollecting and of forgetting do seem peculiarly past finding out.’

Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say; and Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she thought must interest.

‘It may seem impertinent in
me
to praise, but I must admire the taste Mrs. Grant has shown in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in the plan of the walk!—not too much attempted!’

‘Yes,’ replied Miss Crawford carelessly, ‘it does very well for a place of this sort. One does not think of extent
here;
and, between ourselves, till I came to Mansfield I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery or anything of the kind.’

‘I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!’ said Fanny, in reply. ‘My uncle’s gardener always says the soil here is better than his own, and so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in general. The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first rule and law of their existence. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one’s eyes on the commonest natural production without finding food for a rambling fancy.’

‘To say the truth,’ replied Miss Crawford, ‘I am something like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV.; and may declare that I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had told me a year ago that this place would be my home, that I should be spending month after month here, as I have done, I certainly should not have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; and, moreover, the quietest five months I ever passed.’

‘Too
quiet for you, I believe.’

‘I should have thought so
theoretically
myself, but,’ and her eyes brightened as she spoke, ‘take it all and all, I never spent so happy a summer. But then,’ with a more thoughtful air and lowered voice, ‘there is no saying what it may lead to.’

Fanny’s heart beat quick, and she felt quite unequal to surmising or soliciting anything more. Miss Crawford, however, with renewed animation, soon went on—

‘I am conscious of being far better reconciled to a country residence than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to spend
half
the year in the country, under certain circumstances—very pleasant. An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family connections; continual engagements among them; commanding the first society in the neighbourhood ; looked up to, perhaps, as leading it even more than those of larger fortune, and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to nothing worse than a
tête-à-tête
with the person one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing frightful in such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy the new Mrs. Rushworth with such a home as
that.’—‘
Envy Mrs. Rushworth!’ was all that Fanny attempted to say.—‘Come, come, it would be very unhandsome in us to be severe on Mrs. Rushworth, for I look forward to our owing her a great many gay, brilliant, happy hours. I expect we shall be all very much at Sotherton another year. Such a match as Miss Bertram has made is a public blessing; for the first pleasures of Mr. Rushworth’s wife must be to fill her house, and give the best balls in the country.’

Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till suddenly looking up at the end of a few minutes, she exclaimed, ‘Ah! here he is.’ It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who then appeared walking towards them with Mrs. Grant. ‘My sister and Mr. Bertram. I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he
may
be Mr. Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr.
Edmund
Bertram so formal, so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it.’

‘How differently we feel!’ cried Fanny. ‘To me, the sound of
Mr.
Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning, so entirely without warmth or character! It just stands for a gentleman, and that’s all. But there is nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; of kings, princes, and knights; and seems to breathe the spirit of chivalry and warm affections.’

‘I grant you the name is good in itself, and
Lord
Edmund or
Sir
Edmund sounds delightfully; but sink it under the chill, the annihilation of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr. Thomas. Well, shall we join and disappoint them of half their lecture upon sitting down out of doors at this time of year, by being up before they can begin?’

Edmund met them with particular pleasure. It was the first time of his seeing them together since the beginning of that better acquaintance which he had been hearing of with great satisfaction. A friendship between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished; and to the credit of the lover’s understanding be it stated, that he did not by any means consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater, gainer by such a friendship.

‘Well,’ said Miss Crawford, ‘and do not you scold us for our imprudence? What do you think we have been sitting down for but to be talked to about it, and entreated and supplicated never to do so again?’

‘Perhaps I might have scolded,’ said Edmund, ‘if either of you had been sitting down alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a great deal.’

‘They cannot have been sitting long,’ cried Mrs. Grant, ‘for when I went up for my shawl I saw them from the staircase window, and then they were walking.’

‘And really,’ added Edmund, ‘the day is so mild, that your sitting down for a few minutes can be hardly thought imprudent. Our weather must not always be judged by the calendar. We may sometimes take greater liberties in November than in May.’

‘Upon my word,’ cried Miss Crawford, ‘you are two of the most disappointing and unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no giving you a moment’s uneasiness. You do not know how much we have been suffering, nor what chills we have felt! But I have long thought Mr. Bertram one of the worst subjects to work on, in any little manoeuvre against common sense, that a woman could be plagued with. I had very little hope of
him
from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my sister, my own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little.’

‘Do not flatter yourself, my dearest Mary. You have not the smallest chance of moving me. I have my alarms, but they are quite in a different quarter; and if I could have altered the weather, you would have had a good sharp east wind blowing on you the whole time—for here are some of my plants which Robert will leave out because the nights are so mild, and I know the end of it will be, that we shall have a sudden change of weather, a hard frost setting in all at once, taking everybody (at least Robert) by surprise, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished not to be dressed till Sunday, because I know how much more Dr. Grant would enjoy it on Sunday after the fatigues of the day, will not keep beyond to-morrow. These are something like grievances, and make me think the weather most unseasonably close.’

‘The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!’ said Miss Crawford archly. ‘Commend me to the nurseryman and the poulterer.’

‘My dear child, commend Dr. Grant to the deanery of Westminster or St. Paul’s, and I should be as glad of your nurseryman and poulterer as you could be. But we have no such people in Mansfield. What would you have me do?’

‘Oh, you can do nothing but what you do already; be plagued very often, and never lose your temper.’

‘Thank you—but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, live where we may; and when you are settled in town and I come to see you, I dare say I shall find you with yours, in spite of the nurseryman and the poulterer—or perhaps on their very account. Their remoteness and unpunctuality, or their exorbitant charges and frauds, will be drawing forth bitter lamentations.’

‘I mean to be too rich to lament or to feel anything of the sort. A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of. It certainly may secure all the myrtle and turkey part of it.’

‘You intend to be very rich,’ said Edmund, with a look which, to Fanny’s eye, had a great deal of serious meaning.

‘To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?’

‘I cannot intend anything which it must be so completely beyond my power to command. Miss Crawford may choose her degree of wealth. She has only to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor.’

‘By moderation and economy, and bringing down your wants to your income, and all that. I understand you,—and a very proper plan it is for a person at your time of life, with such limited means and indifferent connections. What can
you
want but a decent maintenance? You have not much time before you; and your relations are in no situation to do anything for you, or to mortify you by the contrast of their own wealth and consequence. Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.’

‘Your degree of respect for honesty, rich or poor, is precisely what I have no manner of concern with. I do not mean to be poor. Poverty is exactly what I have determined against. Honesty, in the something between, in the middle state of worldly circumstances, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on.’

‘But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction.’

‘But how may it rise? How may my honesty at least rise to any distinction?’

This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an ‘Oh!’ of some length from the fair lady before she could add, ‘You ought to be in Parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago.’

‘That
is not much to the purpose now; and as to my being in Parliament, I believe I must wait till there is an especial assembly for the representation of younger sons who have little to live on. No, Miss Crawford,’ he added, in a more serious tone, ‘there
are
distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought myself without any chance—absolutely without chance or possibility of obtaining—but they are of a different character.’

A look of consciousness as he spoke, and what seemed a consciousness of manner on Miss Crawford’s side as she made some laughing answer, was sorrowful food for Fanny’s observation; and finding herself quite unable to attend as she ought to Mrs. Grant, by whose side she was now following the others, she had nearly resolved on going home immediately, and only waited for courage to say so, when the sound of the great clock at Mansfield Park, striking three, made her feel that she had really been much longer absent than usual, and brought the previous self-inquiry of whether she should take her leave or not just then, and how, to a very speedy issue. With undoubting decision she directly began her adieus; and Edmund began at the same time to recollect that his mother had been inquiring for her, and that he had walked down to the Parsonage on purpose to bring her back.

Fanny’s hurry increased, and, without in the least expecting Edmund’s attendance, she would have hastened away alone; but the general pace was quickened, and they all accompanied her into the house, through which it was necessary to pass. Dr. Grant was in the vestibule, and as they stopped to speak to him, she found, from Edmund’s manner, that he
did
mean to go with her. He too was taking leave. She could not but be thankful. In the moment of parting, Edmund was invited by Dr. Grant to eat his mutton with him the next day; and Fanny had barely time for an unpleasant feeling on the occasion, when Mrs. Grant, with sudden recollection, turned to her, and asked for the pleasure of her company too. This was so new an attention, so perfectly new a circumstance in the events of Fanny’s life, that she was all surprise and embarrassment; and while stammering out her great obligation, and her ‘but she did not suppose it would be in her power,’ was looking at Edmund for his opinion and help. But Edmund, delighted with her having such a happiness offered, and ascertaining with half a look and half a sentence that she had no objection but on her aunt’s account, could not imagine that his mother would make any difficulty of sparing her, and therefore gave his decided open advice that the invitation should be accepted; and though Fanny would not venture, even on his encouragement, to such a flight of audacious independence, it was soon settled that, if nothing were heard to the contrary, Mrs. Grant might expect her.