October 25, 2025 • 18 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter forty four. Seven weeks of the two months were
very nearly gone when the one letter, the letter from
Edmonds so long expected, was put into Fanny's hands. As
she opened and saw its length, she prepared herself for
a minute detail of happiness and a profusion of love
and praise towards the fortunate creature who was now mistress
(00:21):
of his fate. These were the contents Mansfield Park, My
dear Fanny, excuse me that I have not written before.
Crawford told me that you were wishing to hear from me,
But I found it impossible to write from London, and
persuaded myself that you would understand my silence. Could I
have sent a few happy lines they should not have
(00:42):
been wanting, But nothing of that nature was ever in
my power. I am returned to Mansfield in a less
assured state than when I left it. My hopes are
much weaker. You are probably aware of this already, so
very fond of you, as Miss Crawford is, it is
most natural that she should tell you enough of her
own feelings to furnish a tolerable guess at mine. I
(01:03):
will not be prevented, however, from making my own communication.
Our confidences in you need not clash. I ask no questions.
There is something soothing in the idea that we have
the same friend, and that whatever unhappy differences of opinion
may exist between us, we are united in our love
of view. It will be a comfort to me to
(01:23):
tell you how things now are, and what are my
present plans, If plans I can be said to have,
I have been returned since Saturday. I was three weeks
in London and saw her for London very often. I
had every attention, from the phrases that could be reasonably expected.
I dare say I was not reasonable in carrying with
(01:43):
me the hopes of an intercourse at all like that
of Mansfield. It was her manner, however, rather than any
unfrequency of meeting. Had she been different when I did
see her, I should have made no complaint. But from
the very first she was altered. My first reception was
so unlike what I had hoped that I had almost
resolved on leaving London again directly. I need not particular rise.
(02:07):
You know the weak side of her character, and may
imagine the sentiments and expressions which were torturing me. She
was in high spirits and surrounded by those who were
giving all the support of their own bad sense to
her too lively. Mind, I do not like missus Fraser.
She is a cold hearted, vain woman who has married
entirely from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage,
(02:31):
places her disappointment not to thoughts of judgment or temper
or disproportion of age, but to her being, after all,
less affluent than many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister,
Lady Stornoway, and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary
and ambitious, provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough.
(02:51):
I look upon her intimacy with those two sisters as
the greatest misfortune of her life and mine. They have
been leading her astray for years? Could she be detached
from them? And sometimes I do not despair of it,
for the affection appears to me principally on their side,
they are very fond of her. But I am sure
she does not love them as she loves you. When
(03:13):
I think of her great attachment to you, indeed, and
the whole of her judicious, upright conduct as a sister,
she appears a very different creature, capable of everything noble.
And I am ready to blame myself for a too
harsh construction of a playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny.
She is the only woman in the world whom I
could ever think of as a wife. If I did
(03:35):
not believe that she had some regard for me, of
course I should not say this, but I do believe it.
I am convinced that she is not without a decided preference.
I have no jealousy of any individual. It is the
influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous of.
It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her
ideas are not higher than her own fortune may warrant,
(03:58):
but they are beyond what are incomes United could authorize.
There is comfort. However, even here I could better bear
to lose her because not rich enough, than because of
my profession. That would only prove her affection not equal
to sacrifices, which in fact I am scarcely justified in asking.
And if I am refused that I think will be
(04:20):
the honest motive. Her prejudices, I trust, are not so
strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as
they arise, my dear Fanny. Perhaps they are sometimes contradictory,
but it will not be a less faithful picture of
my mind having once begun. It is a pleasure to
me to tell you all I feel I cannot give
her up, connected as we already are and I hope
(04:43):
are to be. To give up Mary Crawford would be
to give up the society of some of those most
dear to me, to banish myself from the very houses
and friends whom, under any other distress I should turn
to for consolation. The loss of Mary I must consider
as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were
it a decided thing, an actual refusal, I hope I
(05:06):
should know how to bear it, and how to endeavor
to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the
course of a few years. But I am writing nonsense.
Where I refuse, I must bear it, and till I
am I can never cease to try for her. This
is the truth. The only question is how, what may
be the lightliest means. I have sometimes thought of going
(05:27):
to London again after Easter, and sometimes resolved on doing
nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now she speaks
with pleasure of being in Mansfield. In June but June
is at a great distance, and I believe I shall
write to her. I have nearly determined on explaining myself
by a letter. To be at an early certainty is
a material object. My present state is miserably irksome considering everything.
(05:52):
I think a letter will be decidedly the best method
of explanation. I shall be able to write much that
I could not say, and shall be giving her time
for reflection before she resolves on her answer. And I
am less afraid of the result of reflection than of
an immediate hasty impulse. I think I am. My greatest
danger would lie in her consulting Missus Fraser, and I,
(06:14):
at a distance, unable to help my own cause. A
letter exposes to all the evil of consultation, and where
the mind is anything short of perfect decision, an adviser may,
in an unlucky moment, lead it to do what it
may afterwards regret. I must think this matter over a little.
This long letter, full of my own concerns alone will
(06:36):
be enough to tire even the friendship of a fanny.
The last time I saw Crawford was at Missus Fraser's party.
I am more and more satisfied with all that I
see and hear of him, there is not a shadow
of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind and acts
up to his resolutions, an inestimable quality. I could not
see him and my oldest sister in the same room
(06:57):
without recollecting what you once told me, and I acknowledge
that they did not meet as friends. There was marked
coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him
draw back, surprised, and I was sorry that missus Rushworth
should resent any former supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You
will wish to hear my opinion of Maria's degree of
(07:18):
comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of unhappiness.
I hope they get on pretty well together. I dine
twice in Wimpole Street and might have been there oftener,
but it is mortifying to be with Rushworth as a brother.
Julia seems to enjoy London exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there,
but have less here. We are not a lively party.
(07:39):
You are very much wanted. I miss you more than
I can express. My mother desires her best love and
hopes to hear from you soon. She talks of you
almost every hour, and I am sorry to find how
many weeks more she is likely to be without you.
My father means to fetch you himself, but it will
not be till after Easter, when he has business in town.
(08:00):
You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but this must
not be a yearly visit. I want you at home
that I may have your opinion about Thornton Lacy. I
have little heart for extensive improvements till I know that
it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall
certainly write. It is quite settled that the Grants go
to Bath they leave Mansfield on Monday. I am glad
(08:21):
of it. I am not comfortable enough to be fit
for anybody. But your aunt seems to feel out of
luck that such an article of Mansfield News should fall
to my pen instead of hers. Yours. Ever, my dearest Fanny,
I never will no, I certainly never will wish for
a letter again, was Fanny's secret declaration as she finished this.
(08:41):
What do they bring but disappointment and sorrow? Not to
laugh to easter? How shall I bear it? And my
poor aunt talking of me every hour? Fanny checked the
tendency of these thoughts as well as she could but
she was within half a minute of starting the idea
that Sir Thomas was quite unkind, both to her aunt
and to herself. As for the main subject of the letter,
(09:05):
there was nothing in that to soothe irritation. She was
almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. There is
no good in this delay, said she. Why is not
it settled? He is blinded, and nothing will open his eyes.
Nothing can. After having had truths before him so long
in vain, he will marry her and be poor and miserable.
(09:26):
God grant that her influence do not make him cease
to be respectable. She looked over the letter again. So
very fond of me tis nonsense. All she loves nobody
but herself and her brother. Her friends leading her astray
for years, She is quite as likely to have led
them astray. They have all perhaps been corrupting one another.
(09:46):
But if they are so much fonder of her than
she is of them, she is the less likely to
have been hurt except by their flattery. The only woman
in the world whom he could ever think of as
a wife. I firmly believe it it is an a
attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused. His
heart is wedded to her forever. The loss of Mary
(10:07):
I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny. Edmund,
you do not know me. The families would never be
connected if you did not connect them. Oh, write, write,
finish it at once. Let there be an end of
this suspense. Fix commit, condemn yourself. Such sensations, however, were
(10:28):
too near akin to resentment, to be long guiding Fanny's soliloquies.
She was soon more softened and sorrowful. His warm regard,
his kind expressions, his confidential treatment touched her strongly. He
was only too good to everybody. It was a letter,
in short, which she would not but have had for
the world, and which could never be valued enough. This
(10:51):
was the end of it. Everybody at all addicted to
letter writing without having much to say, which will include
a large proportion of the female world at least, must
feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck
in having such a capital piece of Mansfield news, as
the certainty of the grant's going to bath occur at
a time when she could make no advantage of it.
And will admit that it must have been very mortifying
(11:14):
to her to see it fall to the share of
her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at
the end of a long letter, instead of having it
to spread over the largest part of a page of
her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the
epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want
of other employment and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being
in Parliament, got into the way of making and keeping correspondence,
(11:38):
and formed for herself a very creditable, commonplace amplifying style,
so that a very little matter was enough for her.
She could not do entirely without any She must have
something to write about, even to her niece, And being
so soon to lose all the benefit of doctor Grant's
gouty symptoms and Missus Grant's mourning cause, it was very
(11:59):
hard upon her to be deprived of one of the
last epistolary uses she could put them to. There was
a richermens, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram's hour of
good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt
of Edmund's letter. Fanny had one from her art beginning Thus,
my dear Fanny, I take up my pen to communicate
(12:20):
some very alarming intelligence, which I make no doubt will
give you much concern. This was a great deal better
than to have to take up the pen to acquaint
her with all the particulars of the grant's intended journey.
For the present intelligence was of a nature to promise
occupation for the pen for many days to come, being
no less than the dangerous illness of her eldest son,
(12:41):
of which they had received notice by express A few
hours before. Tom had gone from London with a party
of young men to Newmarket, where a neglected fall and
a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever,
and when the party broke up, being unable to move,
had been left by himself at the house of one
of these young men, to the comforts of sickness and
(13:01):
solitude and the attendance only of servants. Instead of soon
being well enough to follow his friends, as he had
then hoped, his disorder increased considerably, and it was not
long before he thought so ill of himself as to
be as ready as his physician to have a letter
despatched to Mansfield. This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose,
(13:22):
observed her ladyship, after giving the substance of it, has
agitated us succeedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being
greatly alarmed and apprehensive for the poor invalid, whose state
Sir Thomas fears may be very critical. And Edmund kindly
proposes attending his brother immediately. But I am happy to
add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on this
(13:45):
distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me.
We shall greatly miss Edmund in our small circle, but
I trust and hope he will find the poor invalid
in a less alarming state than might be apprehended, and
that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly,
which Sir Thomas proposes should be done and thinks best
(14:05):
on every account. And I flatter myself the poor sufferer
will soon be able to bear the removal without material
inconvenience or injury. As I have little doubt of your
feeling for us, my dear Fanny, under these distressing circumstances,
I will write again very soon. Fanny's feelings on the
occasion were indeed considerably more warm and genuine than her
(14:28):
aunt's style of writing. She felt truly for them all
Tom dangerously ill, Edmond gone to attend him, and the
sadly small party remaining at Mansfield were cares to shut
out every other care or almost every other. She could
just find selfishness enough to wonder whether Edmund had written
to Miss Crawford before this summons came. But no sentiment
(14:50):
dwelt long with her that was not purely affectionate and
disinterestedly anxious. Her aunt did not neglect her. She wrote
again and again. They were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund,
and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny in
the same diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts,
hopes and fears, all following and producing each other at haphazard.
(15:13):
It was a sort of playing at being frightened. The
sufferings which Lady Bertram did not see, had little power
over her fancy, and she wrote very comfortably about agitation
and anxiety and poor invalids till Tom was actually conveyed
to Mansfield and her own eyes had beheld his altered appearance.
Then a letter which she had been previously preparing for
(15:35):
Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language
of real feeling and alarm. Then she wrote, as she
might have spoken, he is just come, my dear Fanny,
and is taken up stairs, and I am so shocked
to see him that I do not know what to do.
I am sure he has been very ill, poor Tom.
I am quite grieved for him, and very much frightened,
(15:56):
and so is Sir Thomas. And how glad I should
be if he will here to comfort me. But Sir
Thomas hopes he will be better tomorrow, and says we
must consider his journey. The real solicitude now awakened in
the maternal bosom, was not soon over. Tom's extreme impatience
to be removed to Mansfield and experience those comforts of
(16:17):
home and family which had been little thought of in
uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being conveyed thither too early,
as a return of fever came on, and for a
week he was in a more alarming state than ever.
They were all very seriously frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her
daily terrors to her niece, who might now be said
(16:37):
to live upon letters, and pass all her time between
suffering from that of to day and looking forward to
tomorrow's without any particular affection for her eldest cousin. Her
tenderness of heart made her feel that she could not
spare him, and the purity of her principles added yet
a keener solicitude when she considered how little useful, how
little self denying, his life had. Apparently Susan was her
(17:02):
only companion and listener. On this, as on more common occasions,
Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathize. Nobody
else could be interested in so remote and evil as
illness in a family above an hundred miles off, Not
even Missus Price, beyond a brief question or two, if
she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand,
and now and then the quiet observation of my poor
(17:25):
sister Bertram must be in a great deal of trouble.
So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of
blood were little more than nothing. An attachment originally as
tranquil as their tempers was, now become a mere name.
Missus Price did quite as much for Lady Bertram as
Lady Bertram would have done for Missus Price. Three or
(17:45):
four prices might have been swept away any or all
except Fanny and William and Lady Bertram would have thought
little about it, or perhaps might have caught from Missus
Norris's lips the count of its being a very happy thing,
and a great blessing to their poor dear sister price
to have them so well provided for. End of chapter
(18:06):
forty four,
Chapter forty four. Seven weeks of the two months were
very nearly gone when the one letter, the letter from
Edmonds so long expected, was put into Fanny's hands. As
she opened and saw its length, she prepared herself for
a minute detail of happiness and a profusion of love
and praise towards the fortunate creature who was now mistress
(00:21):
of his fate. These were the contents Mansfield Park, My
dear Fanny, excuse me that I have not written before.
Crawford told me that you were wishing to hear from me,
But I found it impossible to write from London, and
persuaded myself that you would understand my silence. Could I
have sent a few happy lines they should not have
(00:42):
been wanting, But nothing of that nature was ever in
my power. I am returned to Mansfield in a less
assured state than when I left it. My hopes are
much weaker. You are probably aware of this already, so
very fond of you, as Miss Crawford is, it is
most natural that she should tell you enough of her
own feelings to furnish a tolerable guess at mine. I
(01:03):
will not be prevented, however, from making my own communication.
Our confidences in you need not clash. I ask no questions.
There is something soothing in the idea that we have
the same friend, and that whatever unhappy differences of opinion
may exist between us, we are united in our love
of view. It will be a comfort to me to
(01:23):
tell you how things now are, and what are my
present plans, If plans I can be said to have,
I have been returned since Saturday. I was three weeks
in London and saw her for London very often. I
had every attention, from the phrases that could be reasonably expected.
I dare say I was not reasonable in carrying with
(01:43):
me the hopes of an intercourse at all like that
of Mansfield. It was her manner, however, rather than any
unfrequency of meeting. Had she been different when I did
see her, I should have made no complaint. But from
the very first she was altered. My first reception was
so unlike what I had hoped that I had almost
resolved on leaving London again directly. I need not particular rise.
(02:07):
You know the weak side of her character, and may
imagine the sentiments and expressions which were torturing me. She
was in high spirits and surrounded by those who were
giving all the support of their own bad sense to
her too lively. Mind, I do not like missus Fraser.
She is a cold hearted, vain woman who has married
entirely from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage,
(02:31):
places her disappointment not to thoughts of judgment or temper
or disproportion of age, but to her being, after all,
less affluent than many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister,
Lady Stornoway, and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary
and ambitious, provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough.
(02:51):
I look upon her intimacy with those two sisters as
the greatest misfortune of her life and mine. They have
been leading her astray for years? Could she be detached
from them? And sometimes I do not despair of it,
for the affection appears to me principally on their side,
they are very fond of her. But I am sure
she does not love them as she loves you. When
(03:13):
I think of her great attachment to you, indeed, and
the whole of her judicious, upright conduct as a sister,
she appears a very different creature, capable of everything noble.
And I am ready to blame myself for a too
harsh construction of a playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny.
She is the only woman in the world whom I
could ever think of as a wife. If I did
(03:35):
not believe that she had some regard for me, of
course I should not say this, but I do believe it.
I am convinced that she is not without a decided preference.
I have no jealousy of any individual. It is the
influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous of.
It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her
ideas are not higher than her own fortune may warrant,
(03:58):
but they are beyond what are incomes United could authorize.
There is comfort. However, even here I could better bear
to lose her because not rich enough, than because of
my profession. That would only prove her affection not equal
to sacrifices, which in fact I am scarcely justified in asking.
And if I am refused that I think will be
(04:20):
the honest motive. Her prejudices, I trust, are not so
strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as
they arise, my dear Fanny. Perhaps they are sometimes contradictory,
but it will not be a less faithful picture of
my mind having once begun. It is a pleasure to
me to tell you all I feel I cannot give
her up, connected as we already are and I hope
(04:43):
are to be. To give up Mary Crawford would be
to give up the society of some of those most
dear to me, to banish myself from the very houses
and friends whom, under any other distress I should turn
to for consolation. The loss of Mary I must consider
as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were
it a decided thing, an actual refusal, I hope I
(05:06):
should know how to bear it, and how to endeavor
to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the
course of a few years. But I am writing nonsense.
Where I refuse, I must bear it, and till I
am I can never cease to try for her. This
is the truth. The only question is how, what may
be the lightliest means. I have sometimes thought of going
(05:27):
to London again after Easter, and sometimes resolved on doing
nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now she speaks
with pleasure of being in Mansfield. In June but June
is at a great distance, and I believe I shall
write to her. I have nearly determined on explaining myself
by a letter. To be at an early certainty is
a material object. My present state is miserably irksome considering everything.
(05:52):
I think a letter will be decidedly the best method
of explanation. I shall be able to write much that
I could not say, and shall be giving her time
for reflection before she resolves on her answer. And I
am less afraid of the result of reflection than of
an immediate hasty impulse. I think I am. My greatest
danger would lie in her consulting Missus Fraser, and I,
(06:14):
at a distance, unable to help my own cause. A
letter exposes to all the evil of consultation, and where
the mind is anything short of perfect decision, an adviser may,
in an unlucky moment, lead it to do what it
may afterwards regret. I must think this matter over a little.
This long letter, full of my own concerns alone will
(06:36):
be enough to tire even the friendship of a fanny.
The last time I saw Crawford was at Missus Fraser's party.
I am more and more satisfied with all that I
see and hear of him, there is not a shadow
of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind and acts
up to his resolutions, an inestimable quality. I could not
see him and my oldest sister in the same room
(06:57):
without recollecting what you once told me, and I acknowledge
that they did not meet as friends. There was marked
coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him
draw back, surprised, and I was sorry that missus Rushworth
should resent any former supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You
will wish to hear my opinion of Maria's degree of
(07:18):
comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of unhappiness.
I hope they get on pretty well together. I dine
twice in Wimpole Street and might have been there oftener,
but it is mortifying to be with Rushworth as a brother.
Julia seems to enjoy London exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there,
but have less here. We are not a lively party.
(07:39):
You are very much wanted. I miss you more than
I can express. My mother desires her best love and
hopes to hear from you soon. She talks of you
almost every hour, and I am sorry to find how
many weeks more she is likely to be without you.
My father means to fetch you himself, but it will
not be till after Easter, when he has business in town.
(08:00):
You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but this must
not be a yearly visit. I want you at home
that I may have your opinion about Thornton Lacy. I
have little heart for extensive improvements till I know that
it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall
certainly write. It is quite settled that the Grants go
to Bath they leave Mansfield on Monday. I am glad
(08:21):
of it. I am not comfortable enough to be fit
for anybody. But your aunt seems to feel out of
luck that such an article of Mansfield News should fall
to my pen instead of hers. Yours. Ever, my dearest Fanny,
I never will no, I certainly never will wish for
a letter again, was Fanny's secret declaration as she finished this.
(08:41):
What do they bring but disappointment and sorrow? Not to
laugh to easter? How shall I bear it? And my
poor aunt talking of me every hour? Fanny checked the
tendency of these thoughts as well as she could but
she was within half a minute of starting the idea
that Sir Thomas was quite unkind, both to her aunt
and to herself. As for the main subject of the letter,
(09:05):
there was nothing in that to soothe irritation. She was
almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. There is
no good in this delay, said she. Why is not
it settled? He is blinded, and nothing will open his eyes.
Nothing can. After having had truths before him so long
in vain, he will marry her and be poor and miserable.
(09:26):
God grant that her influence do not make him cease
to be respectable. She looked over the letter again. So
very fond of me tis nonsense. All she loves nobody
but herself and her brother. Her friends leading her astray
for years, She is quite as likely to have led
them astray. They have all perhaps been corrupting one another.
(09:46):
But if they are so much fonder of her than
she is of them, she is the less likely to
have been hurt except by their flattery. The only woman
in the world whom he could ever think of as
a wife. I firmly believe it it is an a
attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused. His
heart is wedded to her forever. The loss of Mary
(10:07):
I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny. Edmund,
you do not know me. The families would never be
connected if you did not connect them. Oh, write, write,
finish it at once. Let there be an end of
this suspense. Fix commit, condemn yourself. Such sensations, however, were
(10:28):
too near akin to resentment, to be long guiding Fanny's soliloquies.
She was soon more softened and sorrowful. His warm regard,
his kind expressions, his confidential treatment touched her strongly. He
was only too good to everybody. It was a letter,
in short, which she would not but have had for
the world, and which could never be valued enough. This
(10:51):
was the end of it. Everybody at all addicted to
letter writing without having much to say, which will include
a large proportion of the female world at least, must
feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck
in having such a capital piece of Mansfield news, as
the certainty of the grant's going to bath occur at
a time when she could make no advantage of it.
And will admit that it must have been very mortifying
(11:14):
to her to see it fall to the share of
her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at
the end of a long letter, instead of having it
to spread over the largest part of a page of
her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the
epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want
of other employment and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being
in Parliament, got into the way of making and keeping correspondence,
(11:38):
and formed for herself a very creditable, commonplace amplifying style,
so that a very little matter was enough for her.
She could not do entirely without any She must have
something to write about, even to her niece, And being
so soon to lose all the benefit of doctor Grant's
gouty symptoms and Missus Grant's mourning cause, it was very
(11:59):
hard upon her to be deprived of one of the
last epistolary uses she could put them to. There was
a richermens, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram's hour of
good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt
of Edmund's letter. Fanny had one from her art beginning Thus,
my dear Fanny, I take up my pen to communicate
(12:20):
some very alarming intelligence, which I make no doubt will
give you much concern. This was a great deal better
than to have to take up the pen to acquaint
her with all the particulars of the grant's intended journey.
For the present intelligence was of a nature to promise
occupation for the pen for many days to come, being
no less than the dangerous illness of her eldest son,
(12:41):
of which they had received notice by express A few
hours before. Tom had gone from London with a party
of young men to Newmarket, where a neglected fall and
a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever,
and when the party broke up, being unable to move,
had been left by himself at the house of one
of these young men, to the comforts of sickness and
(13:01):
solitude and the attendance only of servants. Instead of soon
being well enough to follow his friends, as he had
then hoped, his disorder increased considerably, and it was not
long before he thought so ill of himself as to
be as ready as his physician to have a letter
despatched to Mansfield. This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose,
(13:22):
observed her ladyship, after giving the substance of it, has
agitated us succeedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being
greatly alarmed and apprehensive for the poor invalid, whose state
Sir Thomas fears may be very critical. And Edmund kindly
proposes attending his brother immediately. But I am happy to
add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on this
(13:45):
distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me.
We shall greatly miss Edmund in our small circle, but
I trust and hope he will find the poor invalid
in a less alarming state than might be apprehended, and
that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly,
which Sir Thomas proposes should be done and thinks best
(14:05):
on every account. And I flatter myself the poor sufferer
will soon be able to bear the removal without material
inconvenience or injury. As I have little doubt of your
feeling for us, my dear Fanny, under these distressing circumstances,
I will write again very soon. Fanny's feelings on the
occasion were indeed considerably more warm and genuine than her
(14:28):
aunt's style of writing. She felt truly for them all
Tom dangerously ill, Edmond gone to attend him, and the
sadly small party remaining at Mansfield were cares to shut
out every other care or almost every other. She could
just find selfishness enough to wonder whether Edmund had written
to Miss Crawford before this summons came. But no sentiment
(14:50):
dwelt long with her that was not purely affectionate and
disinterestedly anxious. Her aunt did not neglect her. She wrote
again and again. They were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund,
and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny in
the same diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts,
hopes and fears, all following and producing each other at haphazard.
(15:13):
It was a sort of playing at being frightened. The
sufferings which Lady Bertram did not see, had little power
over her fancy, and she wrote very comfortably about agitation
and anxiety and poor invalids till Tom was actually conveyed
to Mansfield and her own eyes had beheld his altered appearance.
Then a letter which she had been previously preparing for
(15:35):
Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language
of real feeling and alarm. Then she wrote, as she
might have spoken, he is just come, my dear Fanny,
and is taken up stairs, and I am so shocked
to see him that I do not know what to do.
I am sure he has been very ill, poor Tom.
I am quite grieved for him, and very much frightened,
(15:56):
and so is Sir Thomas. And how glad I should
be if he will here to comfort me. But Sir
Thomas hopes he will be better tomorrow, and says we
must consider his journey. The real solicitude now awakened in
the maternal bosom, was not soon over. Tom's extreme impatience
to be removed to Mansfield and experience those comforts of
(16:17):
home and family which had been little thought of in
uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being conveyed thither too early,
as a return of fever came on, and for a
week he was in a more alarming state than ever.
They were all very seriously frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her
daily terrors to her niece, who might now be said
(16:37):
to live upon letters, and pass all her time between
suffering from that of to day and looking forward to
tomorrow's without any particular affection for her eldest cousin. Her
tenderness of heart made her feel that she could not
spare him, and the purity of her principles added yet
a keener solicitude when she considered how little useful, how
little self denying, his life had. Apparently Susan was her
(17:02):
only companion and listener. On this, as on more common occasions,
Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathize. Nobody
else could be interested in so remote and evil as
illness in a family above an hundred miles off, Not
even Missus Price, beyond a brief question or two, if
she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand,
and now and then the quiet observation of my poor
(17:25):
sister Bertram must be in a great deal of trouble.
So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of
blood were little more than nothing. An attachment originally as
tranquil as their tempers was, now become a mere name.
Missus Price did quite as much for Lady Bertram as
Lady Bertram would have done for Missus Price. Three or
(17:45):
four prices might have been swept away any or all
except Fanny and William and Lady Bertram would have thought
little about it, or perhaps might have caught from Missus
Norris's lips the count of its being a very happy thing,
and a great blessing to their poor dear sister price
to have them so well provided for. End of chapter
(18:06):
forty four,
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