Mansfield Park (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (51 page)

Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, or have refrained from at least trying to get away in spite of all the too public opposition she foresaw to it, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief, the very sound which she had been long watching for, and long thinking strangely delayed.

The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her from a grievous imprisonment of body and mind. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected.

Edmund was not sorry to be admitted again among the number of those who might speak and hear. But though the conference had seemed full long to him, and though on looking at Fanny he saw rather a flush of vexation, he inclined to hope that so much could not have been said and listened to without some profit to the speaker.

E
dmund had determined that it belonged entirely to Fanny to choose whether her situation with regard to Crawford should be mentioned between them or not; and that if she did not lead the way, it should never be touched on by him; but after a day or two of mutual reserve, he was induced by his father to change his mind, and try what his influence might do for his friend.

A day, and a very early day, was actually fixed for the Crawfords’ departure; and Sir Thomas thought it might be as well to make one more effort for the young man before he left Mansfield, that all his professions and vows of unshaken attachment might have as much hope to sustain them as possible.

Sir Thomas was most cordially anxious for the perfection of Mr. Crawford’s character in that point. He wished him to be a model of constancy; and fancied the best means of effecting it would be by not trying him too long.

Edmund was not unwilling to be persuaded to engage in the business; he wanted to know Fanny’s feelings. She had been used to consult him in every difficulty, and he loved her too well to bear to be denied her confidence now; he hoped to be of service to her, he thought he must be of service to her—whom else had she to open her heart to? If she did not need counsel, she must need the comfort of communication. Fanny estranged from him, silent and reserved, was an unnatural state of things; a state which he must break through, and which he could easily learn to think she was wanting him to break through.

‘I will speak to her, sir; I will take the first opportunity of speaking to her alone,’ was the result of such thoughts as these; and upon Sir Thomas’s information of her being at that very time walking alone in the shrubbery, he instantly joined her.

‘I am come to walk with you, Fanny,’ said he. ‘Shall I?’— (drawing her arm within his); ‘it is a long while since we have had a comfortable walk together.’

She assented to it all rather by look than word. Her spirits were low.

‘But, Fanny,’ he presently added, ‘in order to have a comfortable walk, something more is necessary than merely pacing this gravel together. You must talk to me. I know you have something on your mind. I know what you are thinking of. You cannot suppose me uninformed. Am I to hear of it from everybody but Fanny herself?’

Fanny, at once agitated and dejected, replied, ‘If you hear of it from everybody, cousin, there can be nothing for me to tell.’

‘Not of facts, perhaps; but of feelings, Fanny. No one but you can tell me them. I do not mean to press you, however. If it is not what you wish yourself, I have done. I had thought it might be a relief.’

‘I am afraid we think too differently, for me to find any relief in talking of what I feel.’

‘Do you suppose that we think differently? I have no idea of it. I daresay that, on a comparison of our opinions, they would be found as much alike as they have been used to be: to the point—I consider Crawford’s proposals as most advantageous and desirable, if you could return his affection. I consider it as most natural that all your family should wish you could return it; but that as you cannot, you have done exactly as you ought in refusing him. Can there be any disagreement between us here?’

‘Oh no! But I thought you blamed me. I thought you were against me. This is such a comfort!’

‘This comfort you might have had sooner, Fanny, had you sought it. But how could you possibly suppose me against you? How could you imagine me an advocate for marriage without love? Were I even careless in general on such matters, how could you imagine me so where
your
happiness was at stake?’

‘My uncle thought me wrong, and I knew he had been talking to you.’

‘As far as you have gone, Fanny, I think you perfectly right. I may be sorry, I may be surprised—though hardly
that,
for you had not had time to attach yourself: but I think you perfectly right. Can it admit of a question? It is disgraceful to us if it does. You did not love him—nothing could have justified your accepting him.’

Fanny had not felt so comfortable for days and days.

‘So far your conduct has been faultless, and they were quite mistaken who wished you to do otherwise. But the matter does not end here. Crawford’s is no common attachment; he perseveres, with the hope of creating that regard which had not been created before. This, we know, must be a work of time. But’ (with an affectionate smile) ’let him succeed at last, Fanny, let him succeed at last. You have proved yourself upright and disinterested, prove yourself grateful and tender-hearted; and then you will be the perfect model of a woman, which I have always believed you born for.‘

‘Oh! never, never, never; he never will succeed with me.’ And she spoke with a warmth which quite astonished Edmund, and which she blushed at the recollection of herself, when she saw his look, and heard him reply, ‘Never! Fanny:—so very determined and positive! This is not like yourself, your rational self.’

‘I mean,’ she cried, sorrowfully, correcting herself, ‘that I
think
I never shall, as far as the future can be answered for—I think I never shall return his regard.’

‘I must hope better things. I am aware, more aware than Crawford can be, that the man who means to make you love him (you having due notice of his intentions) must have very uphill work, for there are all your early attachments and habits in battle array; and before he can get your heart for his own use, he has to unfasten it from all the holds upon things animate and inanimate, which so many years’ growth has confirmed, and which are considerably tightened for the moment by the very idea of separation. I know that the apprehension of being forced to quit Mansfield will for a time be arming you against him. I wish he had not been obliged to tell you what he was trying for. I wish he had known you as well as I do, Fanny. Between us, I think we should have won you. My theoretical and his practical knowledge together could not have failed. He should have worked upon my plans. I must hope, however, that time, proving him (as I firmly believe it will) to deserve you by his steady affection, will give him his reward. I cannot suppose that you have not the
wish
to love him—the natural wish of gratitude. You must have some feeling of that sort. You must be sorry for your own indifference.’

‘We are so totally unlike,’ said Fanny, avoiding a direct answer, ‘we are so very, very different in all our inclinations and ways, that I consider it as quite impossible we should ever be tolerably happy together, even if I
could
like him. There never were two people more dissimilar. We have not one taste in common. We should be miserable.’

‘You are mistaken, Fanny. The dissimilarity is not so strong. You are quite enough alike. You
have
tastes in common. You have moral and literary tastes in common. You have both warm hearts and benevolent feelings; and, Fanny, who that heard him read, and saw you listen to Shakespeare the other night, will think you unfitted as companions? You forget yourself: there is a decided difference in your tempers, I allow. He is lively, you are serious; but so much the better; his spirits will support yours. It is your disposition to be easily dejected, and to fancy difficulties greater than they are. His cheerfulness will counteract this. He sees difficulties nowhere; and his pleasantness and gaiety will be a constant support to you. Your being so far unlike, Fanny, does not in the smallest degree make against the probability of your happiness together: do not imagine it. I am myself convinced that it is rather a favourable circumstance. I am perfectly persuaded that the tempers had better be unlike; I mean unlike in the flow of the spirits, in the manners, in the inclination for much or little company, in the propensity to talk or to be silent, to be grave or to be gay. Some opposition here is, I am thoroughly convinced, friendly to matrimonial happiness. I exclude extremes of course; and a very close resemblance in all those points would be the likeliest way to produce an extreme. A counteraction, gentle and continual, is the best safeguard of manners and conduct.’

Full well could Fanny guess where his thoughts were now. Miss Crawford’s power was all returning. He had been speaking of her cheerfully from the hour of his coming home. His avoiding her was quite at an end. He had dined at the Parsonage only the preceding day.

After leaving him to his happier thoughts for some minutes, Fanny, feeling it due to herself, returned to Mr. Crawford, and said, ‘It is not merely in
temper
that I consider him as totally unsuited to myself; though in that respect. I think the difference between us too great, infinitely too great; his spirits often oppress me—but there is something in him which I object to still more. I must say, cousin, that I cannot approve his character. I have not thought well of him from the time of the play. I then saw him behaving, as it appeared to me, so very improperly and unfeelingly—I may speak of it now because it is all over—so improperly by poor Mr. Rushworth, not seeming to care how he exposed or hurt him, and paying attentions to my cousin Maria, which—in short, at the time of the play, I received an impression which will never be got over.’

‘My dear Fanny,’ replied Edmund, scarcely hearing her to the end, ‘let us not, any of us, be judged by what we appeared at that period of general folly. The time of the play is a time which I hate to recollect. Maria was wrong, Crawford was wrong, we were all wrong together; but none so wrong as myself. Compared with me, all the rest were blameless. I was playing the fool with my eyes open.’

‘As a bystander,’ said Fanny. ‘perhaps I saw more than you did; and I do think that Mr. Rushworth was sometimes very jealous.’

‘Very possibly. No wonder. Nothing could be more improper than the whole business. I am shocked whenever I think that Maria could be capable of it; but if she could undertake the part, we must not be surprised at the rest.’

‘Before the play, I am much mistaken if
Julia
did not think he was paying her attentions.’

Julia!—I have heard before from some one of his being in love with Julia, but I could never see anything of it. And, Fanny, though I hope I do justice to my sisters’ good qualities, I think it very possible that they might, one or both, be more desirous of being admired by Crawford, and might show that desire rather more unguardedly than was perfectly prudent. I can remember that they were evidently fond of his society; and with such encouragement, a man like Crawford, lively, and it may be a little unthinking, might be led on to—there could be nothing very striking, because it is clear that he had no pretensions: his heart was reserved for you. And I must say, that its being for you has raised him inconceivably in my opinion. It does him the highest honour; it shows his proper estimation of the blessing of domestic happiness and pure attachment. It proves him unspoiled by his uncle. It proves him, in short, everything that I had been used to wish to believe him, and feared he was not.’

‘I am persuaded that he does not think as he ought on serious subjects.’

‘Say rather that he has not thought at all upon serious subjects, which I believe to be a good deal the case. How could it be otherwise, with such an education and adviser? Under the disadvantages, indeed, which both have had, is it not wonderful that they should be what they are? Crawford’s
feelings,
I am ready to acknowledge, have hitherto been too much his guides. Happily, those feelings have generally been good. You will supply the rest; and a most fortunate man he is to attach himself to such a creature—to a woman who, firm as a rock in her own principles, has a gentleness of character so well adapted to recommend them. He has chosen his partner, indeed, with rare felicity. He will make you happy, Fanny, I know he will make you happy; but you will make him everything.’

‘I would not engage in such a charge,’ cried Fanny, in a shrinking accent—‘in such an office of high responsibility!’

‘As usual, believing yourself unequal to anything!—fancying everything too much for you! Well, though I may not be able to persuade you into different feelings, you will be persuaded into them, I trust. I confess myself sincerely anxious that you may. I have no common interest in Crawford’s well-doing. Next to your happiness, Fanny, his has the first claim on me. You are aware of my having no common interest in Crawford.’