Chapter XLI

by Jane Austen

　　A week was gone since Edmund might be supposedin town, and Fanny had heard nothing of him.There were three different conclusions to be drawn fromhis silence, between which her mind was in fluctuation;each of them at times being held the most probable.Either his going had been again delayed, or he had yetprocured no opportunity of seeing Miss Crawford alone,or he was too happy for letter-writing!One morning, about this time, Fanny having now been nearlyfour weeks from Mansfield, a point which she never failedto think over and calculate every day, as she and Susanwere preparing to remove, as usual, upstairs, they werestopped by the knock of a visitor, whom they felt they couldnot avoid, from Rebecca's alertness in going to the door,a duty which always interested her beyond any other.It was a gentleman's voice; it was a voice that Fannywas just turning pale about, when Mr. Crawford walkedinto the room.Good sense, like hers, will always act when reallycalled upon; and she found that she had been able to namehim to her mother, and recall her remembrance of the name,as that of "William's friend," though she could notpreviously have believed herself capable of uttering asyllable at such a moment. The consciousness of his beingknown there only as William's friend was some support.Having introduced him, however, and being all reseated,the terrors that occurred of what this visit might leadto were overpowering, and she fancied herself on the pointof fainting away.While trying to keep herself alive, their visitor, who hadat first approached her with as animated a countenanceas ever, was wisely and kindly keeping his eyes away,and giving her time to recover, while he devoted himselfentirely to her mother, addressing her, and attending toher with the utmost politeness and propriety, at the sametime with a degree of friendliness, of interest at least,which was making his manner perfect.Mrs. Price's manners were also at their best. Warmed bythe sight of such a friend to her son, and regulatedby the wish of appearing to advantage before him, she wasoverflowing with gratitude--artless, maternal gratitude--which could not be unpleasing. Mr. Price was out,which she regretted very much. Fanny was just recoveredenough to feel that _she_ could not regret it; for to hermany other sources of uneasiness was added the severeone of shame for the home in which he found her.She might scold herself for the weakness, but there wasno scolding it away. She was ashamed, and she would havebeen yet more ashamed of her father than of all the rest.They talked of William, a subject on which Mrs. Pricecould never tire; and Mr. Crawford was as warm in hiscommendation as even her heart could wish. She feltthat she had never seen so agreeable a man in her life;and was only astonished to find that, so great and soagreeable as he was, he should be come down to Portsmouthneither on a visit to the port-admiral, nor the commissioner,nor yet with the intention of going over to the island,nor of seeing the dockyard. Nothing of all that shehad been used to think of as the proof of importance,or the employment of wealth, had brought him to Portsmouth.He had reached it late the night before, was come for aday or two, was staying at the Crown, had accidentallymet with a navy officer or two of his acquaintance sincehis arrival, but had no object of that kind in coming.By the time he had given all this information, it was notunreasonable to suppose that Fanny might be looked atand spoken to; and she was tolerably able to bear his eye,and hear that he had spent half an hour with his sisterthe evening before his leaving London; that she had senther best and kindest love, but had had no time for writing;that he thought himself lucky in seeing Mary for even halfan hour, having spent scarcely twenty-four hours in London,after his return from Norfolk, before he set off again;that her cousin Edmund was in town, had been in town,he understood, a few days; that he had not seen him himself,but that he was well, had left them all well at Mansfield,and was to dine, as yesterday, with the Frasers.Fanny listened collectedly, even to the last-mentionedcircumstance; nay, it seemed a relief to her wornmind to be at any certainty; and the words, "then bythis time it is all settled," passed internally,without more evidence of emotion than a faint blushAfter talking a little more about Mansfield, a subjectin which her interest was most apparent, Crawford beganto hint at the expediency of an early walk. "It was alovely morning, and at that season of the year a fine morningso often turned off, that it was wisest for everybody notto delay their exercise"; and such hints producing nothing,he soon proceeded to a positive recommendation to Mrs. Priceand her daughters to take their walk without loss of time.Now they came to an understanding. Mrs. Price, it appeared,scarcely ever stirred out of doors, except of a Sunday;she owned she could seldom, with her large family,find time for a walk. "Would she not, then, persuade herdaughters to take advantage of such weather, and allowhim the pleasure of attending them?" Mrs. Price wasgreatly obliged and very complying. "Her daughterswere very much confined; Portsmouth was a sad place;they did not often get out; and she knew they had someerrands in the town, which they would be very glad to do."And the consequence was, that Fanny, strange as it was--strange, awkward, and distressing--found herself and Susan,within ten minutes, walking towards the High Streetwith Mr. Crawford.It was soon pain upon pain, confusion upon confusion;for they were hardly in the High Street before they mether father, whose appearance was not the better from itsbeing Saturday. He stopt; and, ungentlemanlike as he looked,Fanny was obliged to introduce him to Mr. Crawford.She could not have a doubt of the manner in whichMr. Crawford must be struck. He must be ashamedand disgusted altogether. He must soon give her up,and cease to have the smallest inclination for the match;and yet, though she had been so much wanting his affectionto be cured, this was a sort of cure that would be almostas bad as the complaint; and I believe there is scarcelya young lady in the United Kingdoms who would not ratherput up with the misfortune of being sought by a clever,agreeable man, than have him driven away by the vulgarityof her nearest relations.Mr. Crawford probably could not regard his futurefather-in-law with any idea of taking him for a modelin dress; but (as Fanny instantly, and to her greatrelief, discerned) her father was a very different man,a very different Mr. Price in his behaviour to this mosthighly respected stranger, from what he was in his ownfamily at home. His manners now, though not polished,were more than passable: they were grateful, animated, manly;his expressions were those of an attached father,and a sensible man; his loud tones did very well in theopen air, and there was not a single oath to be heard.Such was his instinctive compliment to the good mannersof Mr. Crawford; and, be the consequence what it might,Fanny's immediate feelings were infinitely soothed.The conclusion of the two gentlemen's civilities was an offerof Mr. Price's to take Mr. Crawford into the dockyard,which Mr. Crawford, desirous of accepting as a favourwhat was intended as such, though he had seen the dockyardagain and again, and hoping to be so much the longerwith Fanny, was very gratefully disposed to avail himself of,if the Miss Prices were not afraid of the fatigue;and as it was somehow or other ascertained, or inferred,or at least acted upon, that they were not at all afraid,to the dockyard they were all to go; and but forMr. Crawford, Mr. Price would have turned thither directly,without the smallest consideration for his daughters'errands in the High Street. He took care, however, that theyshould be allowed to go to the shops they came out expresslyto visit; and it did not delay them long, for Fanny couldso little bear to excite impatience, or be waited for,that before the gentlemen, as they stood at the door,could do more than begin upon the last naval regulations,or settle the number of three-deckers now in commission,their companions were ready to proceed.They were then to set forward for the dockyard at once,and the walk would have been conducted--according toMr. Crawford's opinion--in a singular manner,had Mr. Price been allowed the entire regulation of it,as the two girls, he found, would have been leftto follow, and keep up with them or not, as they could,while they walked on together at their own hasty pace.He was able to introduce some improvement occasionally,though by no means to the extent he wished; he absolutelywould not walk away from them; and at any crossingor any crowd, when Mr. Price was only calling out,"Come, girls; come, Fan; come, Sue, take care of yourselves;keep a sharp lookout!" he would give them his particularattendance.Once fairly in the dockyard, he began to reckon uponsome happy intercourse with Fanny, as they were very soonjoined by a brother lounger of Mr. Price's, who was cometo take his daily survey of how things went on, and whomust prove a far more worthy companion than himself;and after a time the two officers seemed very well satisfiedgoing about together, and discussing matters of equaland never-failing interest, while the young people sat downupon some timbers in the yard, or found a seat on boarda vessel in the stocks which they all went to look at.Fanny was most conveniently in want of rest. Crawford couldnot have wished her more fatigued or more ready to sit down;but he could have wished her sister away. A quick-lookinggirl of Susan's age was the very worst third in the world:totally different from Lady Bertram, all eyes and ears;and there was no introducing the main point before her.He must content himself with being only generally agreeable,and letting Susan have her share of entertainment,with the indulgence, now and then, of a look or hintfor the better-informed and conscious Fanny. Norfolk waswhat he had mostly to talk of: there he had been some time,and everything there was rising in importance from hispresent schemes. Such a man could come from no place,no society, without importing something to amuse;his journeys and his acquaintance were all of use,and Susan was entertained in a way quite new to her.For Fanny, somewhat more was related than the accidentalagreeableness of the parties he had been in.For her approbation, the particular reason of his going intoNorfolk at all, at this unusual time of year, was given.It had been real business, relative to the renewal of alease in which the welfare of a large and--he believed--industrious family was at stake. He had suspected hisagent of some underhand dealing; of meaning to bias himagainst the deserving; and he had determined to go himself,and thoroughly investigate the merits of the case.He had gone, had done even more good than he had foreseen,had been useful to more than his first plan had comprehended,and was now able to congratulate himself upon it, and tofeel that in performing a duty, he had secured agreeablerecollections for his own mind. He had introduced himselfto some tenants whom he had never seen before; he had begunmaking acquaintance with cottages whose very existence,though on his own estate, had been hitherto unknown to him.This was aimed, and well aimed, at Fanny. It was pleasingto hear him speak so properly; here he had been actingas he ought to do. To be the friend of the poor andthe oppressed! Nothing could be more grateful to her;and she was on the point of giving him an approving look,when it was all frightened off by his adding a somethingtoo pointed of his hoping soon to have an assistant,a friend, a guide in every plan of utility or charityfor Everingham: a somebody that would make Everinghamand all about it a dearer object than it had ever beenyet.She turned away, and wished he would not say such things.She was willing to allow he might have more goodqualities than she had been wont to suppose. She beganto feel the possibility of his turning out well at last;but he was and must ever be completely unsuited to her,and ought not to think of her.He perceived that enough had been said of Everingham,and that it would be as well to talk of something else,and turned to Mansfield. He could not have chosen better;that was a topic to bring back her attention and her looksalmost instantly. It was a real indulgence to her to hearor to speak of Mansfield. Now so long divided fromeverybody who knew the place, she felt it quite the voiceof a friend when he mentioned it, and led the way to herfond exclamations in praise of its beauties and comforts,and by his honourable tribute to its inhabitants allowedher to gratify her own heart in the warmest eulogium,in speaking of her uncle as all that was clever and good,and her aunt as having the sweetest of all sweet tempers.He had a great attachment to Mansfield himself; he said so;he looked forward with the hope of spending much, very much,of his time there; always there, or in the neighbourhood.He particularly built upon a very happy summer andautumn there this year; he felt that it would be so:he depended upon it; a summer and autumn infinitely superiorto the last. As animated, as diversified, as social,but with circumstances of superiority undescribable."Mansfield, Sotherton, Thornton Lacey," he continued;"what a society will be comprised in those houses!And at Michaelmas, perhaps, a fourth may be added:some small hunting-box in the vicinity of everything so dear;for as to any partnership in Thornton Lacey, as EdmundBertram once good-humouredly proposed, I hope I foreseetwo objections: two fair, excellent, irresistible objectionsto that plan."Fanny was doubly silenced here; though when the momentwas passed, could regret that she had not forced herself intothe acknowledged comprehension of one half of his meaning,and encouraged him to say something more of his sisterand Edmund. It was a subject which she must learn to speak of,and the weakness that shrunk from it would soon be quiteunpardonable.When Mr. Price and his friend had seen all that they wished,or had time for, the others were ready to return;and in the course of their walk back, Mr. Crawford contriveda minute's privacy for telling Fanny that his onlybusiness in Portsmouth was to see her; that he was comedown for a couple of days on her account, and hers only,and because he could not endure a longer total separation.She was sorry, really sorry; and yet in spite of this and thetwo or three other things which she wished he had not said,she thought him altogether improved since she had seen him;he was much more gentle, obliging, and attentive to otherpeople's feelings than he had ever been at Mansfield;she had never seen him so agreeable--so _near_ being agreeable;his behaviour to her father could not offend, and therewas something particularly kind and proper in the noticehe took of Susan. He was decidedly improved. She wishedthe next day over, she wished he had come only for one day;but it was not so very bad as she would have expected:the pleasure of talking of Mansfield was so very great!Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure,and one of no trivial kind. Her father asked him to dothem the honour of taking his mutton with them, and Fannyhad time for only one thrill of horror, before he declaredhimself prevented by a prior engagement. He was engagedto dinner already both for that day and the next; he had metwith some acquaintance at the Crown who would not be denied;he should have the honour, however, of waiting on themagain on the morrow, etc., and so they parted--Fanny ina state of actual felicity from escaping so horrible an evil!To have had him join their family dinner-party, and seeall their deficiencies, would have been dreadful!Rebecca's cookery and Rebecca's waiting, and Betsey'seating at table without restraint, and pulling everythingabout as she chose, were what Fanny herself was not yetenough inured to for her often to make a tolerable meal._She_ was nice only from natural delicacy, but _he_ had beenbrought up in a school of luxury and epicurism.