October 27, 2025 • 20 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter forty six. As Fanny could not doubt that her
answer was conveying a real disappointment, she was rather an
expectation from her knowledge of miss Crawford's temper of being
urged again. And though no second letter arrived for the
space of a week, she had still the same feeling
when it did come. On receiving it, she could instantly
(00:21):
decide on its containing little writing, and was persuaded of
its having the air of a letter of haste and business.
Its object was unquestionable, and two moments were enough to
start the probability of its being merely to give her
notice that they should be in Portsmouth that very day,
and to throw her into all the agitation of doubting
what she ought to do in such a case. If
(00:42):
two moments, however, can surround with difficulties, a third can
disperse them. And before she had opened the letter, the
possibility of mister and missus Crawford's having applied to her
uncle and obtained his permission was giving her ease. This
was the letter. A most scandalous ill nature rumor has
just reached me, and I write, dear Fanny, to warn
(01:03):
you against giving the least credit to it should it
spread into the country, depend upon it. There is some mistake,
and that a day or two will clear it up
at any rate. That Henry is blameless, And in spite
of a moment, said Tudree thinks of nobody. But you
say not a word of it. Hear nothing, surmise, nothing,
whisper nothing till I write again. I am sure it
(01:25):
will be all hushed up and nothing proved but Rushworth's folly.
If they are gone, I would lay my life. They
are only gone to Mansfield Park and Julia with them.
But why would not you let us come for you?
I wish you may not repent it yours, et cetera.
Fanny stood aghast, as no scandalous, ill natured rumor had
(01:47):
reached her. It was impossible for her to understand much
of this strange letter. She could only perceive that it
must relate to Wimpole Street and mister Crawford, and only
conjecture that something very imprudent had just occurred in that
quarter to draw the notice of the world and to
excite her jealousy. In Miss Crawford's apprehension, if she heard it,
Miss Crawford need not be alarmed, for her. She was
(02:08):
only sorry for the parties concerned and for Mansfield if
the report should spread so far, but she hoped it
might not. If the Rushworths were gone themselves to Mansfield,
as was to be inferred from what Miss Crawford said,
it was not likely that anything unpleasant should have preceded them,
or at least should make any impression. As to mister Crawford,
she hoped it might give him a knowledge of his
(02:30):
own disposition, convince him that he was not capable of
being steadily attached to any one woman in the world,
and shame him from persisting any longer. In addressing herself,
it was very strange. She had begun to think he
really loved her, and to fancy his affection for her
something more than common, And his sister still said that
he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been
(02:52):
some marked display of attentions to her cousin. There must
have been some strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not
of a sort to regard us slight one. Very uncomfortable
she was, and must continue till she heard from Miss
Crawford again. It was impossible to banish the letter from
her thoughts and she could not relieve herself by speaking
of it to any human being. Miss Crawford need not
(03:14):
have urged secrecy with so much warmth. She might have
trusted to her sense of what was due to her
cousin the next day came and brought no second letter.
Fanny was disappointed. She could still think of little else
all the morning. But when her father came back in
the afternoon with the daily newspaper as usual, she was
so far from expecting any elucidations through such a channel
(03:35):
that the subject was for a moment out of her head.
She was deep another musing the remembrance of her first
evening in that room of her father, and his newspaper
came across her. No candle was now wanted. The sun
was yet an hour and a half above the horizon.
She felt that she had indeed been three months there.
And the son's rays falling strongly into the parlor instead
(03:57):
of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared
to her a totally different thing in a town and
in the country. Here its power was only a glare,
a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains
and dirt that might otherwise have slept. There was neither
health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town. She sat
(04:18):
in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of
moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the
walls marked by her father's head to the table cut
and notched by her brother's where stood the tea board,
never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks,
the milk a mixture of moats floating in thin blue,
and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy
(04:41):
than even Rebecca's hands had first produced it. Her father
read his newspaper, and her mother lamented over the ragged
carpet as usual, while the tea was in preparation, and
wished Rebecca would mend it. And Fanny was first roused
by his calling out to her, after humping and considering
over a particular paragraph, or soon of your great cousins
in town fan A moment's recollection enabled her to say, rushworth, sir,
(05:06):
And don't they live in Wimpole Street? Yes, sir, Then
there's the devil to pay among them, that's all there,
holding out the newspaper to her, much good may such
fine relations? Do you I don't know what Sir Thomas
may think of such matters. He may be too much
of the courtier in fine gentleman to like his daughter
the less. But by God, if she belonged to me,
(05:26):
I'd give her the ropes, and as long as I
could stand over her, a little flogging for man and
woman too would be the best way of preventing such things.
Fanny read to herself that it was with infinite concern
the newspaper had to announce to the world a matrimonial
frakha in the family of mister R of Wimpole Street,
the beautiful missus R, whose name had not long been
(05:47):
enrolled in the lists of hymen, and who had promised
to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world,
having quitted her husband's roof in company with the well
known and captivating mister C, the intimate friend and associate
of mister R. And it was not known even to
the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone. It
is a mistake, Sir, said Fanny instantly. It must be
(06:09):
a mistake. It cannot be true. It must mean some
other people. She spoke from the instinctive wish of delaying shame.
She spoke with a resolution which sprung from despair. For
she spoke what she did not could not believe herself.
It had been the shock of conviction as she read
the truth rushed on her. And how she could have
spoken at all, how she could even have breathed, was
(06:31):
afterwards matter of wonder to herself. Mister Price cared too
little about the report to make her much answer. It
might be all a lie, he acknowledged, but so many
fine ladies were going to the devil now a days
that way, that there was no answering for anybody. Indeed,
I hope it is not true, said missus Price plaintively.
It would be so very shocking if I have once
(06:52):
spoke to Rebecca about that carpet. I am sure I
have spoke at least a dozen times, have not I, Betsy,
And it would not be ten minutes work. The horror
of a mind like Fanny's, as it received the conviction
of such guilt and began to take in some part
of the misery that must ensue can hardly be described.
At first it was a sort of stupefaction, but every
(07:14):
moment was quickening. Her perception of the horrible evil, she
could not doubt. She dared not indulge a hope of
the paragraph being false. Miss Crawford's letter, which she had
read so often as to make every line her own,
was in frightful conformity with it. Her eager defense of
her brother, her hope of its being hushed up, her
evident agitation were all of a peace with something very bad.
(07:39):
And if there was a woman of character and existence
who could treat as a trifle this sin of the
first magnitude, who could try to gloss it over and
desire to have it unpunished, she could believe Miss Crawford
to be the woman. Now she could see her own mistake.
As to who were gone, or said to be gone,
It was not mister and missus Rushworth. It was missus
(07:59):
Rushworth and mister Crawford. Fanny seemed to herself never to
have been shocked before. There was no possibility of rest.
The evening passed without a pause of misery. The night
was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness
to shudderings of horror, and from hot fits of fever
to cold. The event was so shocking that there were moments,
(08:22):
even when her heart revolted from it as impossible, when
she thought it could not be. A woman married only
six months ago, a man professing himself devoted, even engaged
to another, that other her near relation, the whole family,
both families, connected as they were by tie upon tie,
all friends, all intimate together. It was too horrible, a
(08:45):
confusion of guilt, too gross, a complication of evil for
human nature, not in a state of utter barbarism to
be capable of. Yet her judgment told her it was so.
His unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity, Maria's decided attachment,
and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it possibility.
Miss Crawford's letter stamped it a fact. What would be
(09:08):
the consequence? Whom would it not injure? Whose views might
it not affect? Whose peace would it not cut up forever?
Miss Crawford herself, Edmund. But it was dangerous, perhaps to
tread such ground. She confined herself, or tried to confine
herself to the simple, indubitable family misery which must envelop
(09:28):
all if it were indeed a matter of certified guilt
and public exposure. The mother's sufferings the father's there, she paused, Julia's,
Tom's Edmond's there a yet longer pause. They were the
two on whom it would fall most horribly. Sir Thomas's
parental solicitude and high sense of honor and decorum, Edmond's
(09:50):
upright principles, unsuspicious temper and genuine strength of feeling made
her think it scarcely possible for them to support life
and reason under such disgrace. And it appeared to her that,
as far as this world alone was concerned, the greatest
blessing to every one of kindred with Missus Rushworth would
be instant annihilation. Nothing happened the next day or the
(10:12):
next to weaken her terrors. Two posts came in and
brought no refutation public or private. There was no second
letter to explain away the first from Miss Crawford. There
was no intelligence from Mansfield, though it was now full
time for her to hear again from her aunt. This
was an evil omen She had, indeed scarcely the shadow
(10:32):
of a hope to soothe her mind, and was reduced
to so low and wan and trembling, a condition as
no mother, not unkind except Missus Price, could have overlooked
when the third day did bring the sickening knock, and
a letter was again put into her hands. It bore
the London postmark and came from Edmund. Dear Fanny, you
(10:53):
know our present wretchedness. May God support you under your share.
We have been here two days, but there is nothing
to be done. They cannot be traced. You may not
have heard of the last blow Julia's elopement. She has
gone to Scotland with Yates. She left London a few
hours before we entered it. At any other time this
would have been felt dreadfully. Now it seems nothing. Yet
(11:15):
it is an heavy aggravation. My father is not overpowered.
More cannot be hoped. He is still able to think
and act, and I write by his desire to propose
your returning home. He is anxious to get you there
for my mother's sake. I shall be at Portsmouth the
morning after you receive this, and hope to find you
ready to set off for Mansfield. My father wishes you
(11:37):
to invite Susan to go with you for a few months.
Settle it as you like, say what is proper. I
am sure you will feel such an instance of his
kindness at such a moment, do justice to his meaning.
However I may confuse it. You may imagine something of
my present state. There is no end of the evil.
Let loose upon us. You will see me early by
the mail yours, et cetera. Never had found any more
(12:00):
wanted a cordial Never had she felt such a one
as this letter contained. Tomorrow to leave Portsmouth tomorrow she was.
She felt she was in the greatest danger of being
exquisitely happy, while so many were miserable. The evil which
brought such good to her, she dreaded lest she should
learn to be insensible of it. To be going so soon,
(12:23):
sent for, so kindly, sent for as a comfort, and
with leave to take Susan, was altogether such a combination
of blessings as set her heart in a glow, and
for a time seemed to distance every pain and make
her incapable of suitably sharing the distress, even of those
whose distress she thought of most. Julia's elopement could affect
(12:43):
her comparatively but little. She was amazed and shocked, but
it could not occupy her, could not dwell on her mind.
She was obliged to call herself to think of it
and acknowledge it to be terrible and grievous, or it
was escaping her in the midst of all the agitating, pressing,
joyful cares. Attending this summons to herself, there is nothing
like employment, active, indispensable employment for relieving sorrow. Employment even
(13:09):
melancholy may dispel melancholy. And her occupations were hopeful. She
had so much to do that not even the horrible
story of Missus Rushworth, now fixed to the last point
of certainty, could affect her as it had done before.
She had not time to be miserable. Within twenty four
hours she was hoping to be gone. Her father and
mother must be spoken to, Susan prepared, everything got ready,
(13:32):
Business followed business. The day was hardly long enough. The
happiness she was imparting too, happiness very little alloyed by
the black communication which must briefly precede it. The joyful
consent of her father and mother to Susan's going with her,
the general satisfaction with which the going of both seemed regarded,
and the ecstasy of Susan herself, was all serving to
(13:54):
support her spirits. The affliction of the Bertrams was little
felt in the family. Missus Price talked of her poor
sister for a few minutes, but how to find anything
to hold Susan's clothes, because Rebecca took away all the
boxes and spoilt them. Was much more in her thoughts.
And as for Susan, now unexpectedly gratified in the first
wish of her heart, and knowing nothing personally of those
(14:16):
who had sinned or of those who were sorrowing, if
she could help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was
as much as ought to be expected from human virtue
at fourteen, as nothing was really left for the decision
of missus Price or the good offices of Rebecca. Everything
was rationally and duly accomplished, and the girls were ready
for the morrow. The advantage of much sleep to prepare
(14:37):
them for their journey was impossible. The cousin who was
traveling towards them could hardly have less than visited their
agitated spirits, one all happiness, the other all varying and
indescribable perturbation. By eight in the morning, Edmund was in
the house. The girls heard his entrance from above, and
Fanny went down the idea of immediately seeing him, with
(14:58):
the knowledge of what he must be suffering brought back
all her own first feelings. He so near her, and
in misery she was ready to sink. As she entered
the parlor, he was alone and met her instantly, and
she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words,
just articulate, my Fanny, my only sister, my only comfort.
(15:19):
Now she could say nothing, nor for some minutes could
he say more. He turned away to recover himself, and
when he spoke again, though his voice still faltered, his
manner showed the wish of self command and the resolution
of avoiding any farther illusion. Have you breakfasted? When shall
you be ready? Does Susan go? Were questions following each
(15:41):
other rapidly. His great object was to be off as
soon as possible. When Mansfield was considered, time was precious,
and the state of his own mind made him find
relief only in motion. It was settled that he should
order the carriage to the door in half an hour.
Fanny answered for their having breakfasted and being quiet ready.
In half an hour he had already ate and declined,
(16:03):
staying for their meal. He would walk round the ramparts
and join them with the carriage. He was gone again,
glad to get away, even from Fanny, he looked very ill,
evidently suffering under violent emotions which he was determined to suppress.
She knew it must be so, but it was terrible
to her. The carriage came, and he entered the house
(16:24):
again at the same moment, just in time to spend
a few minutes with the family and be a witness,
but that he saw nothing of the tranquil manner in
which the daughters were parted with, and just in time
to prevent their sitting down to the breakfast table, which,
by dint of much unusual activity, was quite and completely
ready as the carriage drove from the door. Fanny's last
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meal in her father's house was in character with her first.
She was dismissed from it as hospitably as she had
been welcomed. How her heart swelled with joy and gratitude
as she passed the barriers of Portsmouth, And how Susan's
face wore its broadest smiles may be easily conceived Sitting forwards, however,
and screened by her bonnet, those smiles were unseen. The
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journey was likely to be a silent one. Edmond's deep
sighs often reached Fanny had he been alone with her,
his heart must have opened in spite of every resolution.
But Susan's presence drove him quite into himself, and his
attempts to talk on a different subjects could never be
long supported. Fanny watched him with never failing solicitude, and
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sometimes catching his eye, received an affectionate smile, which comforted her.
But the first day's journey passed without her hearing a
word from him on the subjects that were weighing him down.
The next morning produced a little more. Just before their
setting out from Oxford, while Susan was stationed at a
window in eager observation of the departure of a large
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family from the inn, the other two were standing by
the fire, and Edmund, particularly struck by the alteration in
Fanny's looks and from his ignorance of the daily evils
of her father's house, attributing an undue share of the change,
attributing all to the recent event, took her hand and said,
in a low but very expressive tone, no wonder you
(18:10):
must feel it. You must suffer how a man who
had once loved could desert you. But yours, your regard
was new Compared with Fanny think of me. The first
division of their journey occupied a long day and brought
them almost knocked up to Oxford, but the second was
over at a much earlier hour. They were in the
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environs of Mansfield long before the usual dinner time, and
as they approached the beloved place, the hearts of both
sisters sank a little. Fanny began to dread the meeting
with her aunts and Tom under so dreadful a humiliation,
and Susan to feel with some anxiety that all her
best manners, all her lately acquired knowledge of what was
(18:52):
practiced here, was on the point of being called into action.
Visions of good and ill, breeding, of old vulgarisms and
new gentlesies were before her, and she was meditating much
upon silver forks, napkins, and finger glasses. Fanny had been
everywhere awake to the difference of the country since February,
but when they entered the park, her perceptions and her
(19:13):
pleasures were of the keenest sort. It was three months,
three full months since her quitting it, and the change
was from winter to summer. Her eye fell everywhere on
lawns and plantations of the freshest green and the trees,
though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when
far the beauty is known to be at hand, and
(19:34):
when while much is actually given to the sight, yet
more remains for the imagination. Her enjoyment, however, was for
herself alone. Edmund could not share it. She looked at him,
but he was leaning back, sunk in a deeper gloom
than ever, and with eyes closed, as if the view
of cheerfulness oppressed him, and the lovely scenes of home
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must be shut out. It made her melancholy again, and
the knowledge of what must be due during there invested
even the house, modern airy and well situated as it was,
with a melancholy aspect by one of the suffering party within.
They were expected with such impatience as she had never
known before. Fanny had scarcely passed the solemn looking servants.
(20:17):
When Lady Bertram came from the drawing room to meet her,
came with no indolent step, and, falling on her neck,
said dear Fanny, now I shall be comfortable. End of
Chapter forty six
Chapter forty six. As Fanny could not doubt that her
answer was conveying a real disappointment, she was rather an
expectation from her knowledge of miss Crawford's temper of being
urged again. And though no second letter arrived for the
space of a week, she had still the same feeling
when it did come. On receiving it, she could instantly
(00:21):
decide on its containing little writing, and was persuaded of
its having the air of a letter of haste and business.
Its object was unquestionable, and two moments were enough to
start the probability of its being merely to give her
notice that they should be in Portsmouth that very day,
and to throw her into all the agitation of doubting
what she ought to do in such a case. If
(00:42):
two moments, however, can surround with difficulties, a third can
disperse them. And before she had opened the letter, the
possibility of mister and missus Crawford's having applied to her
uncle and obtained his permission was giving her ease. This
was the letter. A most scandalous ill nature rumor has
just reached me, and I write, dear Fanny, to warn
(01:03):
you against giving the least credit to it should it
spread into the country, depend upon it. There is some mistake,
and that a day or two will clear it up
at any rate. That Henry is blameless, And in spite
of a moment, said Tudree thinks of nobody. But you
say not a word of it. Hear nothing, surmise, nothing,
whisper nothing till I write again. I am sure it
(01:25):
will be all hushed up and nothing proved but Rushworth's folly.
If they are gone, I would lay my life. They
are only gone to Mansfield Park and Julia with them.
But why would not you let us come for you?
I wish you may not repent it yours, et cetera.
Fanny stood aghast, as no scandalous, ill natured rumor had
(01:47):
reached her. It was impossible for her to understand much
of this strange letter. She could only perceive that it
must relate to Wimpole Street and mister Crawford, and only
conjecture that something very imprudent had just occurred in that
quarter to draw the notice of the world and to
excite her jealousy. In Miss Crawford's apprehension, if she heard it,
Miss Crawford need not be alarmed, for her. She was
(02:08):
only sorry for the parties concerned and for Mansfield if
the report should spread so far, but she hoped it
might not. If the Rushworths were gone themselves to Mansfield,
as was to be inferred from what Miss Crawford said,
it was not likely that anything unpleasant should have preceded them,
or at least should make any impression. As to mister Crawford,
she hoped it might give him a knowledge of his
(02:30):
own disposition, convince him that he was not capable of
being steadily attached to any one woman in the world,
and shame him from persisting any longer. In addressing herself,
it was very strange. She had begun to think he
really loved her, and to fancy his affection for her
something more than common, And his sister still said that
he cared for nobody else. Yet there must have been
(02:52):
some marked display of attentions to her cousin. There must
have been some strong indiscretion, since her correspondent was not
of a sort to regard us slight one. Very uncomfortable
she was, and must continue till she heard from Miss
Crawford again. It was impossible to banish the letter from
her thoughts and she could not relieve herself by speaking
of it to any human being. Miss Crawford need not
(03:14):
have urged secrecy with so much warmth. She might have
trusted to her sense of what was due to her
cousin the next day came and brought no second letter.
Fanny was disappointed. She could still think of little else
all the morning. But when her father came back in
the afternoon with the daily newspaper as usual, she was
so far from expecting any elucidations through such a channel
(03:35):
that the subject was for a moment out of her head.
She was deep another musing the remembrance of her first
evening in that room of her father, and his newspaper
came across her. No candle was now wanted. The sun
was yet an hour and a half above the horizon.
She felt that she had indeed been three months there.
And the son's rays falling strongly into the parlor instead
(03:57):
of cheering, made her still more melancholy, for sunshine appeared
to her a totally different thing in a town and
in the country. Here its power was only a glare,
a stifling, sickly glare, serving but to bring forward stains
and dirt that might otherwise have slept. There was neither
health nor gaiety in sunshine in a town. She sat
(04:18):
in a blaze of oppressive heat, in a cloud of
moving dust, and her eyes could only wander from the
walls marked by her father's head to the table cut
and notched by her brother's where stood the tea board,
never thoroughly cleaned, the cups and saucers wiped in streaks,
the milk a mixture of moats floating in thin blue,
and the bread and butter growing every minute more greasy
(04:41):
than even Rebecca's hands had first produced it. Her father
read his newspaper, and her mother lamented over the ragged
carpet as usual, while the tea was in preparation, and
wished Rebecca would mend it. And Fanny was first roused
by his calling out to her, after humping and considering
over a particular paragraph, or soon of your great cousins
in town fan A moment's recollection enabled her to say, rushworth, sir,
(05:06):
And don't they live in Wimpole Street? Yes, sir, Then
there's the devil to pay among them, that's all there,
holding out the newspaper to her, much good may such
fine relations? Do you I don't know what Sir Thomas
may think of such matters. He may be too much
of the courtier in fine gentleman to like his daughter
the less. But by God, if she belonged to me,
(05:26):
I'd give her the ropes, and as long as I
could stand over her, a little flogging for man and
woman too would be the best way of preventing such things.
Fanny read to herself that it was with infinite concern
the newspaper had to announce to the world a matrimonial
frakha in the family of mister R of Wimpole Street,
the beautiful missus R, whose name had not long been
(05:47):
enrolled in the lists of hymen, and who had promised
to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world,
having quitted her husband's roof in company with the well
known and captivating mister C, the intimate friend and associate
of mister R. And it was not known even to
the editor of the newspaper whither they were gone. It
is a mistake, Sir, said Fanny instantly. It must be
(06:09):
a mistake. It cannot be true. It must mean some
other people. She spoke from the instinctive wish of delaying shame.
She spoke with a resolution which sprung from despair. For
she spoke what she did not could not believe herself.
It had been the shock of conviction as she read
the truth rushed on her. And how she could have
spoken at all, how she could even have breathed, was
(06:31):
afterwards matter of wonder to herself. Mister Price cared too
little about the report to make her much answer. It
might be all a lie, he acknowledged, but so many
fine ladies were going to the devil now a days
that way, that there was no answering for anybody. Indeed,
I hope it is not true, said missus Price plaintively.
It would be so very shocking if I have once
(06:52):
spoke to Rebecca about that carpet. I am sure I
have spoke at least a dozen times, have not I, Betsy,
And it would not be ten minutes work. The horror
of a mind like Fanny's, as it received the conviction
of such guilt and began to take in some part
of the misery that must ensue can hardly be described.
At first it was a sort of stupefaction, but every
(07:14):
moment was quickening. Her perception of the horrible evil, she
could not doubt. She dared not indulge a hope of
the paragraph being false. Miss Crawford's letter, which she had
read so often as to make every line her own,
was in frightful conformity with it. Her eager defense of
her brother, her hope of its being hushed up, her
evident agitation were all of a peace with something very bad.
(07:39):
And if there was a woman of character and existence
who could treat as a trifle this sin of the
first magnitude, who could try to gloss it over and
desire to have it unpunished, she could believe Miss Crawford
to be the woman. Now she could see her own mistake.
As to who were gone, or said to be gone,
It was not mister and missus Rushworth. It was missus
(07:59):
Rushworth and mister Crawford. Fanny seemed to herself never to
have been shocked before. There was no possibility of rest.
The evening passed without a pause of misery. The night
was totally sleepless. She passed only from feelings of sickness
to shudderings of horror, and from hot fits of fever
to cold. The event was so shocking that there were moments,
(08:22):
even when her heart revolted from it as impossible, when
she thought it could not be. A woman married only
six months ago, a man professing himself devoted, even engaged
to another, that other her near relation, the whole family,
both families, connected as they were by tie upon tie,
all friends, all intimate together. It was too horrible, a
(08:45):
confusion of guilt, too gross, a complication of evil for
human nature, not in a state of utter barbarism to
be capable of. Yet her judgment told her it was so.
His unsettled affections, wavering with his vanity, Maria's decided attachment,
and no sufficient principle on either side, gave it possibility.
Miss Crawford's letter stamped it a fact. What would be
(09:08):
the consequence? Whom would it not injure? Whose views might
it not affect? Whose peace would it not cut up forever?
Miss Crawford herself, Edmund. But it was dangerous, perhaps to
tread such ground. She confined herself, or tried to confine
herself to the simple, indubitable family misery which must envelop
(09:28):
all if it were indeed a matter of certified guilt
and public exposure. The mother's sufferings the father's there, she paused, Julia's,
Tom's Edmond's there a yet longer pause. They were the
two on whom it would fall most horribly. Sir Thomas's
parental solicitude and high sense of honor and decorum, Edmond's
(09:50):
upright principles, unsuspicious temper and genuine strength of feeling made
her think it scarcely possible for them to support life
and reason under such disgrace. And it appeared to her that,
as far as this world alone was concerned, the greatest
blessing to every one of kindred with Missus Rushworth would
be instant annihilation. Nothing happened the next day or the
(10:12):
next to weaken her terrors. Two posts came in and
brought no refutation public or private. There was no second
letter to explain away the first from Miss Crawford. There
was no intelligence from Mansfield, though it was now full
time for her to hear again from her aunt. This
was an evil omen She had, indeed scarcely the shadow
(10:32):
of a hope to soothe her mind, and was reduced
to so low and wan and trembling, a condition as
no mother, not unkind except Missus Price, could have overlooked
when the third day did bring the sickening knock, and
a letter was again put into her hands. It bore
the London postmark and came from Edmund. Dear Fanny, you
(10:53):
know our present wretchedness. May God support you under your share.
We have been here two days, but there is nothing
to be done. They cannot be traced. You may not
have heard of the last blow Julia's elopement. She has
gone to Scotland with Yates. She left London a few
hours before we entered it. At any other time this
would have been felt dreadfully. Now it seems nothing. Yet
(11:15):
it is an heavy aggravation. My father is not overpowered.
More cannot be hoped. He is still able to think
and act, and I write by his desire to propose
your returning home. He is anxious to get you there
for my mother's sake. I shall be at Portsmouth the
morning after you receive this, and hope to find you
ready to set off for Mansfield. My father wishes you
(11:37):
to invite Susan to go with you for a few months.
Settle it as you like, say what is proper. I
am sure you will feel such an instance of his
kindness at such a moment, do justice to his meaning.
However I may confuse it. You may imagine something of
my present state. There is no end of the evil.
Let loose upon us. You will see me early by
the mail yours, et cetera. Never had found any more
(12:00):
wanted a cordial Never had she felt such a one
as this letter contained. Tomorrow to leave Portsmouth tomorrow she was.
She felt she was in the greatest danger of being
exquisitely happy, while so many were miserable. The evil which
brought such good to her, she dreaded lest she should
learn to be insensible of it. To be going so soon,
(12:23):
sent for, so kindly, sent for as a comfort, and
with leave to take Susan, was altogether such a combination
of blessings as set her heart in a glow, and
for a time seemed to distance every pain and make
her incapable of suitably sharing the distress, even of those
whose distress she thought of most. Julia's elopement could affect
(12:43):
her comparatively but little. She was amazed and shocked, but
it could not occupy her, could not dwell on her mind.
She was obliged to call herself to think of it
and acknowledge it to be terrible and grievous, or it
was escaping her in the midst of all the agitating, pressing,
joyful cares. Attending this summons to herself, there is nothing
like employment, active, indispensable employment for relieving sorrow. Employment even
(13:09):
melancholy may dispel melancholy. And her occupations were hopeful. She
had so much to do that not even the horrible
story of Missus Rushworth, now fixed to the last point
of certainty, could affect her as it had done before.
She had not time to be miserable. Within twenty four
hours she was hoping to be gone. Her father and
mother must be spoken to, Susan prepared, everything got ready,
(13:32):
Business followed business. The day was hardly long enough. The
happiness she was imparting too, happiness very little alloyed by
the black communication which must briefly precede it. The joyful
consent of her father and mother to Susan's going with her,
the general satisfaction with which the going of both seemed regarded,
and the ecstasy of Susan herself, was all serving to
(13:54):
support her spirits. The affliction of the Bertrams was little
felt in the family. Missus Price talked of her poor
sister for a few minutes, but how to find anything
to hold Susan's clothes, because Rebecca took away all the
boxes and spoilt them. Was much more in her thoughts.
And as for Susan, now unexpectedly gratified in the first
wish of her heart, and knowing nothing personally of those
(14:16):
who had sinned or of those who were sorrowing, if
she could help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was
as much as ought to be expected from human virtue
at fourteen, as nothing was really left for the decision
of missus Price or the good offices of Rebecca. Everything
was rationally and duly accomplished, and the girls were ready
for the morrow. The advantage of much sleep to prepare
(14:37):
them for their journey was impossible. The cousin who was
traveling towards them could hardly have less than visited their
agitated spirits, one all happiness, the other all varying and
indescribable perturbation. By eight in the morning, Edmund was in
the house. The girls heard his entrance from above, and
Fanny went down the idea of immediately seeing him, with
(14:58):
the knowledge of what he must be suffering brought back
all her own first feelings. He so near her, and
in misery she was ready to sink. As she entered
the parlor, he was alone and met her instantly, and
she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words,
just articulate, my Fanny, my only sister, my only comfort.
(15:19):
Now she could say nothing, nor for some minutes could
he say more. He turned away to recover himself, and
when he spoke again, though his voice still faltered, his
manner showed the wish of self command and the resolution
of avoiding any farther illusion. Have you breakfasted? When shall
you be ready? Does Susan go? Were questions following each
(15:41):
other rapidly. His great object was to be off as
soon as possible. When Mansfield was considered, time was precious,
and the state of his own mind made him find
relief only in motion. It was settled that he should
order the carriage to the door in half an hour.
Fanny answered for their having breakfasted and being quiet ready.
In half an hour he had already ate and declined,
(16:03):
staying for their meal. He would walk round the ramparts
and join them with the carriage. He was gone again,
glad to get away, even from Fanny, he looked very ill,
evidently suffering under violent emotions which he was determined to suppress.
She knew it must be so, but it was terrible
to her. The carriage came, and he entered the house
(16:24):
again at the same moment, just in time to spend
a few minutes with the family and be a witness,
but that he saw nothing of the tranquil manner in
which the daughters were parted with, and just in time
to prevent their sitting down to the breakfast table, which,
by dint of much unusual activity, was quite and completely
ready as the carriage drove from the door. Fanny's last
(16:45):
meal in her father's house was in character with her first.
She was dismissed from it as hospitably as she had
been welcomed. How her heart swelled with joy and gratitude
as she passed the barriers of Portsmouth, And how Susan's
face wore its broadest smiles may be easily conceived Sitting forwards, however,
and screened by her bonnet, those smiles were unseen. The
(17:08):
journey was likely to be a silent one. Edmond's deep
sighs often reached Fanny had he been alone with her,
his heart must have opened in spite of every resolution.
But Susan's presence drove him quite into himself, and his
attempts to talk on a different subjects could never be
long supported. Fanny watched him with never failing solicitude, and
(17:29):
sometimes catching his eye, received an affectionate smile, which comforted her.
But the first day's journey passed without her hearing a
word from him on the subjects that were weighing him down.
The next morning produced a little more. Just before their
setting out from Oxford, while Susan was stationed at a
window in eager observation of the departure of a large
(17:49):
family from the inn, the other two were standing by
the fire, and Edmund, particularly struck by the alteration in
Fanny's looks and from his ignorance of the daily evils
of her father's house, attributing an undue share of the change,
attributing all to the recent event, took her hand and said,
in a low but very expressive tone, no wonder you
(18:10):
must feel it. You must suffer how a man who
had once loved could desert you. But yours, your regard
was new Compared with Fanny think of me. The first
division of their journey occupied a long day and brought
them almost knocked up to Oxford, but the second was
over at a much earlier hour. They were in the
(18:31):
environs of Mansfield long before the usual dinner time, and
as they approached the beloved place, the hearts of both
sisters sank a little. Fanny began to dread the meeting
with her aunts and Tom under so dreadful a humiliation,
and Susan to feel with some anxiety that all her
best manners, all her lately acquired knowledge of what was
(18:52):
practiced here, was on the point of being called into action.
Visions of good and ill, breeding, of old vulgarisms and
new gentlesies were before her, and she was meditating much
upon silver forks, napkins, and finger glasses. Fanny had been
everywhere awake to the difference of the country since February,
but when they entered the park, her perceptions and her
(19:13):
pleasures were of the keenest sort. It was three months,
three full months since her quitting it, and the change
was from winter to summer. Her eye fell everywhere on
lawns and plantations of the freshest green and the trees,
though not fully clothed, were in that delightful state when
far the beauty is known to be at hand, and
(19:34):
when while much is actually given to the sight, yet
more remains for the imagination. Her enjoyment, however, was for
herself alone. Edmund could not share it. She looked at him,
but he was leaning back, sunk in a deeper gloom
than ever, and with eyes closed, as if the view
of cheerfulness oppressed him, and the lovely scenes of home
(19:54):
must be shut out. It made her melancholy again, and
the knowledge of what must be due during there invested
even the house, modern airy and well situated as it was,
with a melancholy aspect by one of the suffering party within.
They were expected with such impatience as she had never
known before. Fanny had scarcely passed the solemn looking servants.
(20:17):
When Lady Bertram came from the drawing room to meet her,
came with no indolent step, and, falling on her neck,
said dear Fanny, now I shall be comfortable. End of
Chapter forty six
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