Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: Abridged

Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through the village as he rode into it. He had thought them to be far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight purposely to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield ready to feed on melancholy remembrances, when her own fair self was before him, leaning on her brother's arm, and he found himself receiving a friendly welcome from the woman whom, two moments before, he had been thinking of as seventy miles off.

  Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped for. Coming as he did from his ordainment, he would have expected anything rather than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning. It was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the right state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises at hand.

  In William's promotion he found a source of cheerfulness all dinner-time. After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny's history; and then all the great events of the last fortnight were known to him.

  Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual in the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her; and when she saw Edmund again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He sat down by her, took her hand, and pressed it kindly; and she thought that, but for the occupation which the tea-things afforded, she must have betrayed her emotion.

  He was not intending, however, to convey to her his unqualified encouragement. He wished only to express his interest and affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father's side of the question. He was not so surprised as his father at her refusing Crawford, because he had never believed her to have a preference for him—rather the reverse; and he believed she had been completely unprepared; but the connexion had every recommendation to him. He earnestly hoped and believed that it would be a match at last, and that their dispositions were exactly fitted to make them blessed in each other. Crawford had been too hasty. He had not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end. With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers, Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion. Meanwhile, he scrupulously guarded against saying anything to give Fanny further embarrassment.

  Crawford called the next day, and Sir Thomas asked him to stay to dinner. Edmund had then ample opportunity for observing how much encouragement he received from Fanny’s manner; and it was so little, so very, very little, that he was almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage.

  In the evening, circumstances occurred which he thought more promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother and Fanny were sitting silently at work, in apparently deep tranquillity.

  "Fanny has been reading to me," said his mother. There was a volume of Shakespeare on the table. "She often reads to me; and she was in the middle of a very fine speech when we heard your footsteps."

  Crawford took up the volume. "Let me have the pleasure of finishing that speech to your ladyship," said he. "I shall find it immediately." And he did find it, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny given. All her attention was for her work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else.

  But taste was too strong in her. She was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good reading extreme. Her uncle read well, Edmund very well, but in Mr. Crawford's reading there was excellence beyond what she had ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, he could alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches; and whether it were dignity, or tenderness, or remorse to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty. His acting had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his reading brought all his acting before her again; nay, perhaps with greater enjoyment, for it came with no such drawback as she had suffered in seeing him on the stage with Miss Bertram.

  Edmund watched, and was amused by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework: how it fell from her hand while she sat motionless, and at last, how her eyes were turned and fixed on Crawford—fixed on him, in short, till the attraction drew Crawford's eyes upon her, and the book was closed, and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into herself, blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been enough to give Edmund encouragement for his friend.

  "That play must be a favourite with you," said he.

  "It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour," replied Crawford; "but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution; one is intimate with him by instinct."

  "No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree," said Edmund, "from one's earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions. To know him in bits and scraps is common enough; but to read him well aloud is no everyday talent."

  "Sir, you do me honour," was Crawford's answer, with a bow of mock gravity.

  Both gentlemen glanced at Fanny, to see if a word of praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not be. Her praise had been given in her attention; that must content them.

  "It was really like being at a play," said Lady Bertram. "I wish Sir Thomas had been here."

  Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her languor, could feel this, her niece must feel much more.

  "I will tell you what, Mr Crawford,” said her ladyship, “I think you will have a theatre at your house in Norfolk, when you are settled there. I do indeed."

  "Do you, ma'am?" cried he quickly. "No, that will never be. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!" And he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant, "That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham."

  Edmund saw it, and saw Fanny determined not to see it. Such a ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than not.

  The two young men, standing by the fire, talked over the too common neglect of reading aloud in the school-system, and the consequent ignorance of men when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud; giving instances of blunders and failures, the lack of management of the voice, of proper emphasis, all proceeding from the want of early attention and habit. Fanny was listening again with great entertainment.

  "Even in my profession," said Edmund, with a smile, "how little the art of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad. It is felt that distinctness and energy may help to convey the most solid truths; and besides, knowledge of good reading is more widespread than formerly; in every congregation there are more who know a little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise."

  Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination; and upon this being understood, Crawford asked him many questions with the vivacity of friendly interest, and none of that levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny. When Crawford asked his opinion as to the befitting manner in which particular passages in the service should be delivered, showing it to be a subject on which he had thought, Edmund was still more pleased. This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by gallantry and wit; or, at least, she would not be won by them so soon, without the assistance of seriousness on serious subjects.

  "Our liturgy," observed Crawford, "has beauties which no
t even a careless style of reading can destroy; but it has also redundancies which require good reading not to be felt. I must confess to being not always so attentive as I ought to be" (here was a glance at Fanny); "nineteen times out of twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to read it myself. Did you speak?" stepping eagerly to Fanny, and addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying "No," he added, "Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not allow my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?"

  "No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to—even supposing—"

  She stopped, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be prevailed on to add another word. He returned to his former place, and went on.

  "A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well read. A thoroughly good sermon, thoroughly well delivered, is a capital pleasure. I can never hear such a one without the greatest admiration, and more than half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch such a mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or striking, anything that rouses the attention without wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not honour enough. I should like to be such a man."

  Edmund laughed.

  "I should indeed,” said Crawford. “I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without envy. But I must have a London audience. I could only preach to the educated. And I should not be fond of preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring; but not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy."

  Here Fanny involuntarily shook her head, and Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her meaning; and as Edmund perceived that it was to be a very thorough attack, he sank as quietly as possible into a corner and took up a newspaper, sincerely wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into explaining away that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her ardent lover; and he tried to bury every sound of the business in murmurs of his own, over the advertisements of "A most desirable Estate in South Wales" and a "Capital season'd Hunter."

  Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself, and grieved to see Edmund's arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest, gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both.

  "What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was it meant to express? Disapprobation, I fear. What had I been saying to displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly on the subject? Only tell me if I was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?"

  In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford," repeated; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager voice, he went on, reurging the same questions. She grew more agitated and displeased.

  "How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can—"

  "Do I astonish you?" said he. "Do you wonder? I will explain to you instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me an interest in what you look and do. I will not leave you to wonder long."

  In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said nothing.

  "You shook your head at my saying that I should not like the duties of a clergyman for a constancy. Yes, that was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did you think I ought?"

  "Perhaps, sir," said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking—"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment."

  Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined to keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such extreme reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was only a change from one set of words to another. He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The opportunity was too fair. None such might occur again before his leaving Mansfield. Lady Bertram's being just on the other side of the table was a trifle, for she was only half-awake, and Edmund's advertisements were still proving most useful.

  "Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment. But we shall see. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. They shall prove that I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit, I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. It is he who worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. There I build my confidence. By that right I do and will deserve you. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay" (seeing her draw back displeased), "forgive me; but by what other name can I call you? It is 'Fanny' that I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such sweetness, that nothing else can be descriptive of you."

  Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief, the sound which she had been long waiting for, and thinking strangely delayed.

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

  Edmund was not sorry to be again able to speak and hear. On looking at Fanny he saw a flush of vexation; yet he hoped that so much could not have been said without some profit to the speaker.

  CHAPTER 35