—Such thoughts as these passed through Susan’s mind. Meanwhile Tom was saying to her in a very cutting manner,
“But Miss Susan here, who never met any of these persons before, since at that time she was dwelling in Portsmouth—” he made Portsmouth sound like a sink of vulgar depravity—“Miss Susan Price must needs get into communication with this precious pair; next, for all we know to the contrary, she will be issuing invitations for them to dine at the great house.”
“Odious!” cried Julia again. “What can you have been thinking of, cousin?”
“Ah—decidedly odd,” yawned Miss Yates. “Truly Gothick, indeed.”
And even Lady Bertram said, “I am sure it was very bad. How came it, Susan, that you writ notes to these people that you had never met?”
Susan felt almost strangled with mortification and injustice; her throat was tight with tears, she flushed deeply and had much ado to command her countenance. She endeavoured to calm herself, however, took a deep breath, and when she was in tolerable control of her voice replied,
“You have a wrong notion of the circumstances, Aunt Bertram, Cousin Tom.”
Towards Julia and her sister-in-law she did not look. “The first communication, in this case, came from Miss Crawford and was addressed to my sister Fanny. Mrs. Osborne delivered it to me, as it had been taken to the Parsonage. Miss Crawford wrote most affectingly, and properly too as it seemed to me, claiming the bonds of old acquaintance, adducing her very severe indisposition as a cause, and—and asking to be received at Mansfield. How could I, in conscience, have refused her?—But in any case, refusal was out of my power, for the letter had been delayed on the way, and by the time it came into my hands, Miss Crawford was already installed at the White House. All I could do was to reply and inform her that my sister was not here at the present time.”
“Humph!” said Tom. “Where is this letter?”
Susan raised her brows. “I have despatched it, naturally, to Fanny.”
Tom said, after a moment’s hesitation, “And why did you not obtain the advice of some older person—some person more closely connected with the family—before thus hurrying into action, extending what must be construed as a welcome to this woman?”
And to whom would you have me apply? Susan felt like answering hotly. To your mother—who has not an idea in her head unless it was put there by somebody else? To Julia—who cannot even manage her own children? (At this present, little Johnny and little Tommy were busily wreaking havoc in their grandmother’s work-box, snipping her silks and thrusting her scissors into the earth.) To Miss Yates? She swallowed, checked a hot rejoinder, and was beginning, “You yourself were away at Thornton Lacey, cousin, and the poor lady’s state of illness and anxious hope must command my first consideration—”
At this moment they all became aware that another person had joined the group. Mr. Wadham, the rector, had been standing hesitantly at the foot of the steps—for how long, nobody there quite knew—evidently feeling considerable scruple at intruding on what was plainly a family discussion.
He now coughed politely and made his presence known.
“Ahem! Good morning, Lady Bertram; good morning, Sir Thomas. Miss Price. Your butler informed me that you were all out here taking the air; he proposed to announce me, but from where we stood I could see you, indeed, making such a pleasant party in the sunshine, so I ventured to set aside formality and take the liberty of joining you. What charming weather! I feel myself exceedingly fortunate that the spring is proving such a benign one. I daresay I may have counted a hundred clumps of primroses in Mansfield Lane.”
He kept his gaze upon Lady Bertram during the greater part of this speech which seemed designed by its length to give the disputants time to recollect themselves and cool down; but one quick sympathetic glance directed at poor Susan’s flushed countenance assured her that he must have heard a great deal of the foregoing discussion, that he understood and felt for her in her position; nay, even admired her for what she had done. Immediately her sense of injustice and misusage was lightened; she began to feel more comfortable; if but one other person felt she had acted rightly, the burden of family disapproval was nothing to bear. And such a one! Mr. Wadham was a kind, an intelligent, a discerning man; and a most agreeable one too. Not unamused, Susan observed with what a sharpening of interest Julia and Miss Yates were inspecting the newcomer, approving his gentlemanlike air, his easy, friendly manner, and his prepossessing countenance, as Tom introduced him. Lady Bertram, who had taken a calm liking to Mr. Wadham on his previous visit, quite brightened up, and issued an invitation to him and his sister to come and eat luncheon at the great house whenever they chose.
After a little general conversation Mr. Wadham produced the object of his visit, a paragraph cut from a newspaper which he thought must be of interest to Sir Thomas, for it related the discovery of a Roman pavement in a not-too-far-distant village.
Tom read it eagerly and exclaimed, “I have quite come round to your opinion, sir! I was talking to my tenant at Thornton Lacey and he agrees. I believe we should stand a very fair chance of discovering Roman remains either at Stanby cross-roads or by Easton copse. Why do we not make up a party, an excursion to go and inspect those places, to see which, on closer examination, appears the better subject for excavation?”
“Oh yes!” exclaimed Julia, clapping her hands. “An excursion! We can all go in carriages and take a picnic. It will be delightful, a fête chamþêtre; we shall wear bonnets—shall we not, Charlotte?—and Johnny and Tommy can bring trowels and dig to their hearts’ content, and Mr. Wadham shall tell us all about the Romans. What could be more charming?”
“I am at your service,” said Mr. Wadham, “whenever you care to chuse a day.”
“But will not such an exertion be rather too much for you, sir?” said Susan.
He gave her a very kind look, as he answered, “I find myself so greatly improved in health, Miss Price, from two weeks spent in the invigorating air of Mansfield, that I can hardly believe any exertion, in these surroundings, would be too much.—Ah—excuse me.” At this point Mr. Wadham stept aside, removed Lady Bertram’s knife and scissors from the grasp of little Tommy and little Johnny respectively, they being on the point of slashing and gashing one another; gave the combatants each a light tap, gentle-looking but brisk enough to subdue for the moment their rampageous spirits and send them away in search of other diversion at the far end of the terrace; then he restored the misused implements (first cleaning them on his handkerchief) to their owner, who sighed and said, “Thank you, Mr. Wadham. I do not know how it is that little Johnny and little Tommy are always so bad-behaved when their cousin, little Mary, is always so good.”
Julia was silent from annoyance; and Susan, seizing the opportunity, said to Mr. Wadham, “I learn, sir, that your sister has been visiting Miss Crawford; she sent me a message to that effect by my cousin here—” glancing in the direction of Tom, who looked surly and displeased but could hardly break in. Susan went on, “Can you tell me how Mrs. Osborne found that lady? Is her illness of a very serious nature?”
“I am afraid it is,” he replied, shaking his head. “My sister, who has a long experience of nursing the sick, from her many years at sea, is, I understand, not sanguine about the poor lady’s chances of recovery. It is exceedingly sad, for she is still young, not above five-and-twenty, and, my sister tells me, of very prepossessing appearance and manner. Mrs. Osborne has taken a great liking to her, indeed, and is glad to be able to perform a good many services for the poor lady, who has only servants to care for her.”
“What of her brother then?” said Tom rather gruffly. “Is he not there?”
Susan could see that Tom was looking decidedly uncomfortable. She guessed that he felt in grave danger of being put in the wrong, a state which nobody relishes, and Tom Bertram least of all, he being, at all times, quite certain of his own rightness.
“Mr. Crawford? No, having installed his sister he departed again. I collect, from what Mrs. Osborne told me, that he felt his presence in Mansfield might—might not be welcome. Ahem! On that head, Sir Thomas—might I crave the indulgence of a private word in your ear?”
So saying, Mr. Wadham took Tom’s arm, in the most natural, friendly manner, and walked away with him down the terrace. Tom looked a little reluctant, and almost suspicious, as if he were afraid of being won over against his will, but he could not help liking Mr. Wadham very well, and feeling an instinctive respect for the older man’s judgment.
They strolled together back and forth across a distant lawn, while Susan fetched some gingerbread for the little boys, who were now demanding attention, and Julia enthusiastically discussed with Miss Yates the plan for a picnic party to inspect the Roman sites.
“We may as well invite the Maddoxes—and the Olivers—and the Montforts—the larger such a party is, the better.”
“No,” here put in Miss Yates languidly. “Let us not invite the Maddoxes. They are sure to bring their cousin Miss Harley and I find her the most boring, insipid, affected girl that ever was. So vulgar, too; there is no bearing her company.”
“True; you are right. It is a pity, though, because the Maddox brothers, on their own, are pleasant enough. It is too bad they always feel the necessity of including Miss Harley.”
“Can you drop a hint to them not to do so?”
Even Julia looked doubtful at this.
“What are you girls about? What are you discussing?” here drowsily inquired Lady Bertram.
“A picnic, ma’am, to examine some Roman ruins that Mr. Wadham is wishful to excavate.”
“Shall I be invited to take part? Shall I enjoy it?”
“Oh, no, ma’am!” her daughter hastily told her. “You would find it far too tiring and be fagged to death before you were halfway there. No, you shall stay at home, with Susan to look after you, and we shall tell you all about it when we come back.”
“I daresay you are right, my love.—Susan, give me your arm to help me indoors. The sun grows too hot here. Julia, you will say all that is proper to Mr. Wadham for me. He is a very agreeable man—perfectly gentlemanlike and pleasant. I like him very well, and his sister also. Susan, where is my work-box? Ah, you have it, that is right.”
Susan, though sorry not to see the last of Mr. Wadham, was delighted to escape from the company of Mrs. Yates and Charlotte. —And Mr. Wadham’s long conversation with Tom bore most satisfactory fruit; whether he had put the case of Mr. Crawford in a juster light, or enlisted Tom’s sympathy for the suffering sister, or both, the result was that Tom ceased to scold Susan for her dealings with the White House; indeed, she began to think Mr. Wadham must have said something quite decided in her praise, for she occasionally, thereafter, caught Tom’s eye upon her in a look of wondering perplexity, and reconsideration.
Chapter 5
Since Tom, at the exhortations of Mr. Wadham, appeared to have withdrawn his objections to Susan’s commencing an intimacy with Miss Crawford—or, at least, had ceased to give utterance to these objections—Susan waited her opportunity, and on a morning several days later, when Mrs. Osborne had come to sit with Lady Bertram, availed herself of the chance to walk across the park to the White House.
It was not without considerable trepidation that she rang the bell. So much had been said, so much hinted, so much suggested about the Crawford pair since Mary’s letter for Fanny had first arrived, that Susan felt quite as if she were about to encounter the heroine of some wild melodrama. Tom seemed almost to regard Miss Crawford in the light of a fata morgana, a baneful influence, who had in the past nearly ensnared his brother Edmund, that most judicious and levelheaded of men, then, subsequently, bamboozled Ormiston into marrying her—and look what had been her effect on him! Locked up, witless and raving! It was true that Wadham, or at least Wadham’s sister, seemed to have been charmed by the lady, but for Tom’s part, he did not intend to go within a gunshot of the White House; Miss Crawford need not think that she was going to wind him round her little finger.
Julia’s opinion, loudly voiced on every visit to Mansfield, was even more adverse.—A shrewd, cold, heartless, scheming villainess. Mary Crawford had laid out her wiles to tempt Edmund into offering for her only when there was considerable reason to believe that Tom was dying of a consumption, so that Edmund would succeed to the title; such hopes having been proved baseless, the schemer had pretty soon sheered off. Later out of pure malice she had persuaded her brother Henry to attend a party at Miss Crawford’s house where he would be bound to re-encounter the newly married Maria Bertram, and so had contributed to Maria’s subsequent ruin.—There was nothing good to be said for Mary Crawford. Well, to be sure, she was quite entertaining, lively company, could talk well, and sing well, and play the harp.
“But we know that lively talk and facile accomplishments are not the principal object and ambition of a woman who claims to have taste and intelligence—do we not, my dear Charlotte?”
“Ah—certainly,” drawled Charlotte—who might well be grateful for such a conclusion, since she was signally deficient both in liveliness of conversation and diversity of accomplishments.
To the maid who answered the bell, Susan gave her name and the message that she should be happy to converse with Miss Crawford, but only if that lady felt perfectly equal to the visit.—After a short interval she was invited to step upstairs and enter the sick chamber.
Susan’s first impression was: How wonderfully elegant! For Miss Crawford lay against a pile of pillows, diaphanously enwrapped in a book-muslin bed gown, a chambray gauze shift, and a French net nightcap. The room was light, for the window had a southerly aspect, overlooking Mansfield Park, and the curtains had been drawn back, admitting all the air possible. The invalid’s bed was placed so that she might command a view out of the window, and a chair had been drawn up beside it.
Hesitant in the doorway, Susan recollected with alarm that here was a lady of fashion, such as she had never encountered in her life before: somebody accustomed to move with ease and enjoyment among the chief of London society. What topic of conversation can I possibly find that will interest her? was an immediate, and panic-stricken reaction.
“My dear Miss Price—or no, I intend to call you Susan. You do not object? I feel already on such terms of intimacy with you that I hope we may dispense with the preliminary formalities. Please be seated. But chuse another chair if that one is not to your liking. Chairs in rented houses are always shockingly uncomfortable—oh, pray excuse me! I had forgot for the moment that the house belongs to your cousin. His chairs must, of course, be above reproach, and you are not to be blamed for them.”
Susan, laughing in spite of herself, disclaimed any objections as to the chair and sat down on it. Her second impression, the elegance of invalid attire once put by, was of harrowing thinness and plainness. Wretched woman! How could anybody ever have said that she was beautiful? Why, she looked like a starving pauper—like a sheeted ghost!
Miss Crawford’s face, which must once have been charming in shape and outline, was now nothing but skin and bone; two sparkling dark eyes looked out of shadowy sockets, and her bewitchingly shaped mouth was indented between two deep creases of pain.—But as soon as she spoke the painful impression was lightened by the warmth of her manner, by the way she seemed able to laugh at herself and at her own predicament.
“Was there ever anything so ridiculous as that I should cumber my poor brother with the burden of fetching me all the way to Mansfield on a wild-goose chase, to find the two people I looked to see were not here, nor like to be? All my life I have been continually committing such helter-skelter follies; indeed, as I look back on it, my whole life itself appears to have been nothing but a wild-goose chase. Only, what was the wild goose, I wonder? Does everybody have a wild goose? Do you have one, Miss Price—Susan, rather? I plan to cal
l you Susan because already I feel like a sister towards you. In the old days it was my fond hope to address our dear Fanny as Sister; that hope, alas, was never to be fulfilled; yet somehow I have never managed to get myself out of the habit. I still think of her as a sister. And therefore, my dear Susan, you must accept me as one too. Do you have any other sisters? I seem to recall Fanny speaking of another, a younger one—Belinda, Betty?”
“It is Betsey, ma’am—I am amazed that you should remember!”
“Mary—you must call me Mary! How old is Betsey?”
“She is only nine.”
“And brothers? I remember charming William, who became a lieutenant through my uncle the admiral’s good offices. How has he fared?”
Susan explained that William, last heard of in the Mediterranean, was hoping soon to be promoted captain; then she was led on to tell the fortunes of Sam, now a midshipman, Tom and Charles, still in naval school at Portsmouth, John, a clerk in a public office in London, of whom nothing had been heard for several years; and Richard, a lieutenant aboard an East Indiaman.
“Such a fine family!” sighed Miss Crawford. “And yet I daresay they gave your mother trouble and anxiety enough in their time. But now they can be a source of unmixed gratification—lucky, lucky woman! Whereas I, childless and fated to remain so, can do no more than take an interest in the young families of my friends. But now tell me about Fanny—she has two children, I understand. What are their ages?”