Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (37 page)

In the evening it was found, according to the predetermination of Mrs. Grant and her sister, that after making up the whist table there would remain sufficient for a round game, and everybody being as perfectly complying and without a choice as on such occasions they always are, speculation was decided on almost as soon as whist; and Lady Bertram soon found herself in the critical situation of being applied to for her own choice between the games, and being required either to draw a card for whist or not. She hesitated. Luckily Sir Thomas was at hand.

‘What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation;
^d
which will amuse me most?’

Sir Thomas, after a moment’s thought, recommended speculation. He was a whist-player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much amuse him to have her for a partner.

‘Very well,’ was her Ladyship’s contented answer—‘then speculation, if you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach me.’

Here Fanny interposed, however, with anxious protestations of her own equal ignorance; she had never played the game nor seen it played in her life; and Lady Bertram felt a moment’s indecision again—but upon everybody’s assuring her that nothing could be so easy, that it was the easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford’s stepping forward with a most earnest request to be allowed to sit between her Ladyship and Miss Price, and teach them both, it was so settled; and Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant being seated at the table of prime intellectual state and dignity, the remaining six, under Miss Crawford’s direction, were arranged round the
other. It was a fine arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with his hands full of business, having two persons’ cards to manage as well as his own—for though it was impossible for Fanny not to feel herself mistress of the rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to inspirit her play, sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which, especially in any competition with William, was a work of some difficulty; and as for Lady Bertram, he must continue in charge of all her fame and fortune through the whole evening; and if quick enough to keep her from looking at her cards when the deal began, must direct her in whatever was to be done with them to the end of it.

He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease, and pre-eminent in all the lively turns, quick resources, and playful impudence that could do honour to the game; and the round table was altogether a very comfortable contrast to the steady sobriety and orderly silence of the other.

Twice had Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment and success of his lady, but in vain; no pause was long enough for the time his measured manner needed; and very little of her state could be known till Mrs. Grant was able, at the end of the first rubber, to go to her and pay her compliments.

‘I hope your Ladyship is pleased with the game?’

‘Oh dear, yes. Very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does all the rest.’

‘Bertram,’ said Crawford, some time afterwards, taking the opportunity of a little languor in the game, ‘I have never told you what happened to me yesterday in my ride home.’ They had been hunting together, and were in the midst of a good run, and at some distance from Mansfield, when, his horse being found to have flung a shoe, Henry Crawford had been obliged to give up and make the best of his way back. ‘I told you I lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew trees, because I can never bear to ask; but I have not told you that, with my usual luck—for I never do wrong without gaining by it—I found myself in due time in the very place which I had a curiosity to see. I was suddenly, upon turning the comer of a steepish downy field, in the midst of a retired little village between gently-rising hills; a small stream before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my right,—which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place,—and not a gentleman or half a gentleman’s house to be seen, excepting one—to be presumed the Parsonage—within a stone’s throw of the said knoll and church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton Lacey.’

‘It sounds like it,’ said Edmund; ‘but which way did you turn after passing Sewell’s farm?’

‘I answer no such irrelevant and insidious questions; though were I to answer all that you could put in the course of an hour, you would never be able to prove that it was
not
Thornton Lacey—for such it certainly was.’

‘You inquired, then?’

‘No, I never inquire. But I
told
a man mending a hedge that it was Thornton Lacey, and he agreed to it.’

‘You have a good memory. I had forgotten having ever told you half so much of the place.’

Thornton Lacey was the name of his impending living, as Miss Crawford well knew; and her interest in a negotiation for William Price’s knave increased.

‘Well,’ continued Edmund, ‘and how did you like what you saw?’

‘Very much indeed. You are a lucky fellow. There will be work for five summers at least before the place is liveable.’

‘No, no, not so bad as that. The farmyard must be moved, I grant you; but I am not aware of anything else. The house is by no means bad, and when the yard is removed, there may be a very tolerable approach to it.’

‘The farmyard must be cleared away entirely, and planted up to shut out the blacksmith’s shop. The house must be turned to front the east instead of the north—the entrance and principal rooms, I mean, must be on that side, where the view is really very pretty; I am sure it may be done. And
there
must be your approach—through what is at present the garden. You must make a new garden at what is now the back of the house; which will be giving it the best aspect in the world— sloping to the south-east. The ground seems precisely formed for it. I rode fifty yards up the lane between the church and the house in order to look about me, and saw how it might all be. Nothing can be easier. The meadows beyond what
will be
the garden, as well as what now is, sweeping round from the lane I stood in to the north-east, that is, to the principal road through the village, must be all laid together of course; very pretty meadows they are, finely sprinkled with timber. They belong to the living, I suppose. If not, you must purchase them. Then the stream—something must be done with the stream; but I could not quite determine what. I had two or three ideas.’

‘And I have two or three ideas also,’ said Edmund, ‘and one of them is, that very little of your plan for Thornton Lacey will ever be put in practice. I must be satisfied with rather less ornament and beauty. I think the house and premises may be made comfortable and given the air of a gentleman’s residence without any very heavy expense, and that must suffice me; and I hope may suffice all who care about me.’

Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain tone of voice and a certain half-look attending the last expression of his hope, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price; and securing his knave at an exorbitant rate, exclaimed, ‘There, I will stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it.’

The game was hers, and only did not pay her for what she had given to secure it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about Thornton Lacey.

‘My plan may not be the best possible; I had not many minutes to form it in: but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it, and you will find yourself not satisfied with much less than it is capable of. (Excuse me, your Ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie just before you.) The place deserves it, Bertram. You talk of giving it the air of a gentleman’s residence.
That
will be done by the removal of the farmyard; for, independent of that terrible nuisance, I never saw a house of the kind which had in itself so much the air of a gentleman’s residence, so much the look of a something above a mere parsonage house—above the expenditure of a few hundreds a year. It is not a scrambling collection of low single rooms, with as many roofs as windows—it is not cramped into the vulgar compactness of a square farmhouse—it is a solid, roomy, mansion-like looking house, such as one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in from generation to generation through two centuries at least, and were now spending from two to three thousand a year in.’ Miss Crawford listened, and Edmund agreed to this. ‘The air of a gentleman’s residence, therefore, you cannot but give it, if you do anything. But it is capable of much more. (Let me see, Mary; Lady Bertram bids a dozen for that queen; no, no, a dozen is more than it is worth. Lady Bertram does
not
bid a dozen. She will have nothing to say to it. Go on, go on.) By some such improvements as I have suggested (I do not really require you to proceed upon my plan, though, by the bye, I doubt anybody’s striking out a better) you may give it a higher character. You may raise it into a
place.
From being the mere gentleman’s residence, it becomes, by judicious improvement, the residence of a man of education, taste, modern manners, good connections. All this may be stamped on it, and that house receive such an air as to make its owner be set down as the great land-holder of the parish by every creature travelling the road, especially as there is no real squire’s house to dispute the point—a circumstance, between ourselves, to enhance the value of such a situation in point of privilege and independence beyond all calculation.
You
think with me, I hope’ (turning with a softened voice to Fanny). ’Have you ever seen the place?’

Fanny gave a quick negative, and tried to hide her interest in the subject by an eager attention to her brother, who was driving as hard a bargain, and imposing on her as much as he could; but Crawford pursued with ‘No, no, you must not part with the queen. You have bought her too dearly, and your brother does not offer half her value. No, no, sir, hands off—hands off. Your sister does not part with the queen. She is quite determined. The game will be yours,’ turning to her again, ‘it will certainly be yours.’

‘And Fanny had much rather it were William’s,’ said Edmund, smiling at her. ‘Poor Fanny! not allowed to cheat herself as she wishes!’

‘Mr. Bertram,’ said Miss Crawford, a few minutes afterwards, ‘you know Henry to be such a capital improver, that you cannot possibly engage in anything of the sort at Thornton Lacey without accepting his help. Only think how useful he was at Sotherton! Only think what grand things were produced there by our all going with him one hot day in August to drive about the grounds, and see his genius take fire. There we went, and there we came home again; and what was done there is not to be told!’

Fanny’s eyes were turned on Crawford for a moment with an expression more than grave, even reproachful; but on catching his were instantly withdrawn. With something of consciousness he shook his head at his sister, and laughingly replied, ‘I cannot say there was much done at Sotherton; but it was a hot day, and we were all walking after each other and bewildered.’ As soon as a general buzz gave him shelter, he added, in a low voice directed solely at Fanny, ‘I should be sorry to have my powers of
planning
judged of by the day at Sotherton. I see things very differently now. Do not think of me as I appeared then.’

Sotherton was a word to catch Mrs. Norris, and being just then in the happy leisure which followed securing the odd trick by Sir Thomas’s capital play and her own against Dr. and Mrs. Grant’s great hands, she called out in high good-humour, ‘Sotherton! Yes, that is a place indeed, and we had a charming day there. William, you are quite out of luck; but the next time you come I hope dear Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth will be at home, and I am sure I can answer for your being kindly received by both. Your cousins are not of a sort to forget their relations, and Mr. Rushworth is a most amiable man. They are at Brighton now, you know—in one of the best houses there, as Mr. Rushworth’s fine fortune gives them a right to be. I do not exactly know the distance, but when you get back to Portsmouth, if it is not very far off, you ought to go over and pay your respects to them; and I could send a little parcel by you that I want to get conveyed to your cousins.’

‘I should be very happy, aunt—but Brighton is almost by Beachy Head; and if I could get so far, I could not expect to be welcome in such a smart place as that—poor scrubby midshipman as I am.’

Mrs. Norris was beginning an eager assurance of the affability he might depend on, when she was stopped by Sir Thomas’s saying with authority, ‘I do not advise your going to Brighton, William, as I trust you may soon have more convenient opportunities of meeting; but my daughters would be happy to see their cousins anywhere, and you will find Mr. Rushworth most sincerely disposed to regard all the connections of our family as his own.’

‘I would rather find him private secretary to the First Lord than anything else,’ was William’s only answer, in an under voice, not meant to reach far, and the subject dropped.