Chapter XL

by Jane Austen

　　Fanny was right enough in not expecting to hear from MissCrawford now at the rapid rate in which their correspondencehad begun; Mary's next letter was after a decidedly longerinterval than the last, but she was not right in supposingthat such an interval would be felt a great reliefto herself. Here was another strange revolution of mind!She was really glad to receive the letter when it did come.In her present exile from good society, and distance fromeverything that had been wont to interest her, a letterfrom one belonging to the set where her heart lived,written with affection, and some degree of elegance,was thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of increasingengagements was made in excuse for not havingwritten to her earlier; "And now that I have begun,"she continued, "my letter will not be worth your reading,for there will be no little offering of love at the end,no three or four lines _passionnees_ from the mostdevoted H. C. in the world, for Henry is in Norfolk;business called him to Everingham ten days ago,or perhaps he only pretended to call, for the sake of beingtravelling at the same time that you were. But therehe is, and, by the bye, his absence may sufficiently accountfor any remissness of his sister's in writing, for therehas been no 'Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny?Is not it time for you to write to Fanny?' to spur me on.At last, after various attempts at meeting, I have seenyour cousins, 'dear Julia and dearest Mrs. Rushworth';they found me at home yesterday, and we were glad tosee each other again. We _seemed_ _very_ glad to seeeach other, and I do really think we were a little.We had a vast deal to say. Shall I tell you howMrs. Rushworth looked when your name was mentioned?I did not use to think her wanting in self-possession,but she had not quite enough for the demands of yesterday.Upon the whole, Julia was in the best looks of the two,at least after you were spoken of. There was norecovering the complexion from the moment that I spokeof 'Fanny,' and spoke of her as a sister should.But Mrs. Rushworth's day of good looks will come;we have cards for her first party on the 28th. Then shewill be in beauty, for she will open one of the besthouses in Wimpole Street. I was in it two years ago,when it was Lady Lascelle's, and prefer it to almostany I know in London, and certainly she will then feel,to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworthfor her penny. Henry could not have afforded her sucha house. I hope she will recollect it, and be satisfied,as well as she may, with moving the queen of a palace,though the king may appear best in the background;and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never _force_your name upon her again. She will grow sober by degrees.From all that I hear and guess, Baron Wildenheim'sattentions to Julia continue, but I do not know that hehas any serious encouragement. She ought to do better.A poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine anyliking in the case, for take away his rants, and the poorbaron has nothing. What a difference a vowel makes!If his rents were but equal to his rants! Your cousinEdmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish duties.There may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted.I am unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a _young_ one.Adieu! my dear sweet Fanny, this is a long letter from London:write me a pretty one in reply to gladden Henry's eyes,when he comes back, and send me an account of all the dashingyoung captains whom you disdain for his sake."There was great food for meditation in this letter,and chiefly for unpleasant meditation; and yet, with allthe uneasiness it supplied, it connected her with the absent,it told her of people and things about whom she had neverfelt so much curiosity as now, and she would have beenglad to have been sure of such a letter every week.Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her onlyconcern of higher interest.As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all makeamends for deficiencies at home, there were none withinthe circle of her father's and mother's acquaintanceto afford her the smallest satisfaction: she saw nobodyin whose favour she could wish to overcome her ownshyness and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse,the women all pert, everybody underbred; and she gaveas little contentment as she received from introductionseither to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies whoapproached her at first with some respect, in considerationof her coming from a baronet's family, were soon offendedby what they termed "airs"; for, as she neither playedon the pianoforte nor wore fine pelisses, they could,on farther observation, admit no right of superiority.The first solid consolation which Fanny received forthe evils of home, the first which her judgment couldentirely approve, and which gave any promise of durability,was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of beingof service to her. Susan had always behaved pleasantlyto herself, but the determined character of her generalmanners had astonished and alarmed her, and it was at leasta fortnight before she began to understand a dispositionso totally different from her own. Susan saw that muchwas wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girlof fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason,should err in the method of reform, was not wonderful;and Fanny soon became more disposed to admire the naturallight of the mind which could so early distinguish justly,than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it led.Susan was only acting on the same truths, and pursuingthe same system, which her own judgment acknowledged,but which her more supine and yielding temper wouldhave shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be useful,where _she_ could only have gone away and cried; and thatSusan was useful she could perceive; that things, bad asthey were, would have been worse but for such interposition,and that both her mother and Betsey were restrained fromsome excesses of very offensive indulgence and vulgarity.In every argument with her mother, Susan had in pointof reason the advantage, and never was there any maternaltenderness to buy her off. The blind fondness which wasfor ever producing evil around her she had never known.There was no gratitude for affection past or presentto make her better bear with its excesses to the others.All this became gradually evident, and gradually placedSusan before her sister as an object of mingled compassionand respect. That her manner was wrong, however, at timesvery wrong, her measures often ill-chosen and ill-timed,and her looks and language very often indefensible,Fanny could not cease to feel; but she began to hope theymight be rectified. Susan, she found, looked up to herand wished for her good opinion; and new as anything like anoffice of authority was to Fanny, new as it was to imagineherself capable of guiding or informing any one, she didresolve to give occasional hints to Susan, and endeavourto exercise for her advantage the juster notions of what wasdue to everybody, and what would be wisest for herself,which her own more favoured education had fixed in her.Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it,originated in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after manyhesitations of delicacy, she at last worked herself up to.It had very early occurred to her that a small sumof money might, perhaps, restore peace for ever on thesore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it nowwas continually, and the riches which she was in possessionof herself, her uncle having given her 10 at parting,made her as able as she was willing to be generous.But she was so wholly unused to confer favours,except on the very poor, so unpractised in removing evils,or bestowing kindnesses among her equals, and so fearfulof appearing to elevate herself as a great lady at home,that it took some time to determine that it would not beunbecoming in her to make such a present. It was made,however, at last: a silver knife was bought for Betsey,and accepted with great delight, its newness giving itevery advantage over the other that could be desired;Susan was established in the full possession of her own,Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got one so muchprettier herself, she should never want _that_ again; and noreproach seemed conveyed to the equally satisfied mother,which Fanny had almost feared to be impossible. The deedthoroughly answered: a source of domestic altercationwas entirely done away, and it was the means of openingSusan's heart to her, and giving her something more to loveand be interested in. Susan shewed that she had delicacy:pleased as she was to be mistress of property which shehad been struggling for at least two years, she yetfeared that her sister's judgment had been against her,and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggledas to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity ofthe house.Her temper was open. She acknowledged her fears,blamed herself for having contended so warmly;and from that hour Fanny, understanding the worth of herdisposition and perceiving how fully she was inclinedto seek her good opinion and refer to her judgment,began to feel again the blessing of affection, and toentertain the hope of being useful to a mind so much inneed of help, and so much deserving it. She gave advice,advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding,and given so mildly and considerately as not to irritatean imperfect temper, and she had the happiness of observingits good effects not unfrequently. More was not expectedby one who, while seeing all the obligation and expediencyof submission and forbearance, saw also with sympatheticacuteness of feeling all that must be hourly gratingto a girl like Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subjectsoon became--not that Susan should have been provoked intodisrespect and impatience against her better knowledge--but that so much better knowledge, so many good notionsshould have been hers at all; and that, brought up in themidst of negligence and error, she should have formedsuch proper opinions of what ought to be; she, who hadhad no cousin Edmund to direct her thoughts or fix her principles.The intimacy thus begun between them was a materialadvantage to each. By sitting together upstairs,they avoided a great deal of the disturbance of the house;Fanny had peace, and Susan learned to think it nomisfortune to be quietly employed. They sat withouta fire; but that was a privation familiar even to Fanny,and she suffered the less because reminded by it ofthe East room. It was the only point of resemblance.In space, light, furniture, and prospect, there was nothingalike in the two apartments; and she often heaved a sighat the remembrance of all her books and boxes, and variouscomforts there. By degrees the girls came to spend thechief of the morning upstairs, at first only in workingand talking, but after a few days, the remembrance of thesaid books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny foundit impossible not to try for books again. There were nonein her father's house; but wealth is luxurious and daring,and some of hers found its way to a circulating library.She became a subscriber; amazed at being anything _in__propria_ _persona_, amazed at her own doings in every way,to be a renter, a chuser of books! And to be having anyone's improvement in view in her choice! But so it was.Susan had read nothing, and Fanny longed to give hera share in her own first pleasures, and inspire a tastefor the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself.In this occupation she hoped, moreover, to bury someof the recollections of Mansfield, which were too aptto seize her mind if her fingers only were busy;and, especially at this time, hoped it might be usefulin diverting her thoughts from pursuing Edmund to London,whither, on the authority of her aunt's last letter,she knew he was gone. She had no doubt of what would ensue.The promised notification was hanging over her head.The postman's knock within the neighbourhood was beginningto bring its daily terrors, and if reading could banishthe idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.