Fanny's consequence increased on her cousins’ departure. As the only young woman in the drawing-room, she was more attended to than she had ever been before; and "Where is Fanny?" became a common question.
Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. There she became a welcome guest, and in the gloom and dirt of November, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Mrs. Grant, eager to get any change for her sister, persuaded herself that she was doing the kindest thing for Fanny, and giving her opportunities of improvement in frequently inviting her.
Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and being seen from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter under an oak, was forced, with modest reluctance on her part, to come in. Dr. Grant himself went out with an umbrella; and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating the dismal rain very despondently, the sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping in the vestibule, was delightful. The value of an event on a wet day in the country was forcibly brought before her. She was alive again directly, and most active in being useful to Fanny and providing her with dry clothes. Since Fanny was obliged to stay for an hour while the rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to think of was extended.
The two sisters were so kind to her, that Fanny might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the way, and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having Dr. Grant's carriage out to take her home. As her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was perfectly aware that no alarm would be felt by anyone.
It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp, asked some questions about it, and acknowledged that she wished very much to hear it, for she had never yet heard it since its being in Mansfield. To Fanny this appeared very natural. She had scarcely been at the Parsonage since the instrument's arrival; but Miss Crawford was concerned at her own neglect; and "Shall I play to you now?" and "What will you have?" were questions immediately following with the readiest good-humour.
She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener who seemed so full of wonder at the performance, and who showed herself not wanting in taste. She played till Fanny's eyes strayed to the window.
"Another quarter of an hour," said Miss Crawford. "Those clouds look alarming."
"But they are passed over," said Fanny. "This weather is all from the south."
"I know a black cloud when I see it; and you must not set forward while it is so threatening. And besides, I want to play you a very pretty piece—your cousin Edmund's favourite."
Fanny felt that she must hear it; she fancied him sitting in that room, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now, listening with delight to the favourite air, played with superior tone and expression. Though glad to like whatever was liked by him, at the end she was more sincerely impatient to go away. She was so kindly asked to call again, and hear more of the harp, that she felt it must be done.
Such was the origin of the intimacy between them—an intimacy resulting chiefly from Miss Crawford's desire of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny's feelings. Fanny went to her every two or three days: she could not be easy without going, and yet it was without loving her, or thinking like her; and deriving no higher pleasure from her conversation than occasional amusement, and that often at the expense of her judgment.
She went, however, and they sauntered about together in Mrs. Grant's shrubbery, venturing sometimes to sit down on one of the benches, and remaining there, perhaps, till in the midst of some tender remark of Fanny's on the sweets of autumn, they were forced to jump up and walk for warmth.
"This is very pretty," said Fanny, looking around her as they were sitting together one day; "every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with its beauty. Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow, never thought of as capable of becoming anything; and now it is converted into a walk; and perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting what it was before. How very wonderful the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind! If any faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than the rest, I do think it is memory. It is sometimes so retentive, so obedient; at others, so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond control!"
Miss Crawford, untouched, had nothing to say; and Fanny returned to what she thought must interest.
"I must admire the taste Mrs. Grant has shown in all this. There is such a quiet simplicity in the plan of the walk!"
"Yes," replied Miss Crawford carelessly, "it does very well for a place of this sort. Till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country parson ever aspired to a shrubbery."
"I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!" said Fanny. "My uncle's gardener says the soil here is better than his own, and so it appears from the growth of the evergreens. How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the evergreen! How astonishing a variety of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same soil and sun should nurture plants so widely differing. You will think me rhapsodising; but when I am out of doors, I am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strain. One cannot fix one's eyes on the commonest natural object without finding food for a rambling fancy."
"To say the truth," replied Miss Crawford, "Like the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV, I see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in it. If anybody had told me a year ago that this place would be my home, I should not have believed them. I have now been here nearly five months; the quietest five months I ever passed."
"Too quiet for you, I believe."
"I should have thought so, but," and her eyes brightened, "all and all, I never spent so happy a summer. But then," more thoughtfully, "there is no saying what it may lead to."
Fanny's heart beat quick, and she could not speak. Miss Crawford, however, soon went on—
"I am better reconciled to a country residence than I had ever expected to be. I can even suppose it pleasant to spend half the year in the country, under certain circumstances. An elegant house in the centre of family connexions; continual engagements; commanding the first society in the neighbourhood; and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to a tête-à-tête with the person one feels most agreeable in the world. There is nothing frightful in such a picture, is there, Miss Price? One need not envy the new Mrs. Rushworth with such a home as that."
"Envy Mrs. Rushworth!"
"I look forward to our owing her a great many brilliant, happy hours at Sotherton. The first pleasures of Mr. Rushworth's wife must be to fill her house, and give the best balls in the country."
Fanny was silent, and Miss Crawford relapsed into thoughtfulness, till suddenly looking up, she exclaimed, "Ah! here he is." It was not Mr. Rushworth, however, but Edmund, who appeared with Mrs. Grant. "I am so glad your eldest cousin is gone, that he may be Mr. Bertram again. There is something in the sound of Mr. Edmund Bertram so pitiful, so younger-brother-like, that I detest it."
"How differently we feel!" cried Fanny. "To me, the sound of Mr. Bertram is so cold and nothing-meaning! It just stands for a gentleman, and that's all. But there is nobleness in the name of Edmund. It is a name of heroism and renown; and seems to breathe the spirit of chivalry and warm affections."
"I grant you the name is good in itself, and Lord Edmund or Sir Edmund sound delightfully; but sink it under the annihilation of a Mr., and Mr. Edmund is no more than Mr. John or Mr. Thomas. Well, shall we join them?"
Edmund met them with pleasure. A friendship between two so very dear to him was exactly what he could have wished: and to his credit, he did not consider Fanny as the only, or even as the greater gainer by such a friendship.
"Well," said Miss Crawford, "do you not scold us for our imprudence in sitting outside?"
"Perhaps I might have scolded," said Edmund, "if either
of you had been alone; but while you do wrong together, I can overlook a great deal."
"They cannot have been sitting long," cried Mrs. Grant, "for when I saw them from the staircase window, they were walking."
"And really," added Edmund, "the day is so mild, that your sitting down can be hardly thought imprudent."
"Upon my word," cried Miss Crawford, "you are two of the most unfeeling kind friends I ever met with! There is no giving you a moment's uneasiness. You do not know what chills we have felt! I had very little hope of Mr Bertram from the first; but you, Mrs. Grant, my own sister, I think I had a right to alarm you a little."
"My dearest Mary, you have not the smallest chance of moving me. If I could have altered the weather, you would have had a good sharp east wind blowing on you—for here are some of my plants which Robert will leave out, and I know that we shall have a sudden hard frost setting in, and I shall lose every one; and what is worse, cook has just been telling me that the turkey, which I particularly wished not to be dressed till Sunday, will not keep beyond to-morrow. These are grievances, and make me think the weather most unseasonably warm."
"The sweets of housekeeping in a country village!" said Miss Crawford archly.
"My dear child, what would you have me do?"
"Oh! nothing but what you do already: be plagued very often, and never lose your temper."
"Thank you; but there is no escaping these little vexations, Mary, wherever we live; and when you are settled in town, I dare say I shall find you with yours."
"I mean to be too rich to feel anything of the sort. A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of."
"You intend to be very rich?" said Edmund seriously.
"To be sure. Do not you? Do not we all?"
"I cannot intend anything which it is so completely beyond my power to command. Miss Crawford may choose her degree of wealth. She has only to fix on her number of thousands a year, and there can be no doubt of their coming. My intentions are only not to be poor."
"By moderation and economy, and all that. And a very proper plan it is for a person at your time of life, with such limited means and poor connexions, with relations in no situation to do anything for you. Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich."
"I do not mean to be poor. Honesty in the middle state, is all that I am anxious for your not looking down on."
"But I do look down upon it, if it might have been higher. I must look down upon anything contented with obscurity when it might rise to distinction."
"But how may it rise? How may my honesty rise to any distinction?"
This was not so very easy a question to answer, and occasioned an "Oh!" from the lady before she could add, "You ought to be in parliament, or you should have gone into the army ten years ago."
"That is not much to the purpose now; and as to parliament, I must wait till there is an especial assembly for younger sons with little to live on. No, Miss Crawford," he added more seriously, "there are distinctions which I should be miserable if I thought I could never obtain—but they are of a different character."
A look of consciousness as he spoke, and a consciousness of manner on Miss Crawford's side as she made some laughing answer, was sorrowful for Fanny to observe. She resolved on going home immediately, and began her adieus; on which Edmund recollected that his mother had been inquiring for her, and that he had walked down to the Parsonage to bring her back.
Fanny would have hastened away alone; but she found that Edmund meant to go with her. He took his leave of Dr Grant, and was invited to eat with him the next day. Then Mrs. Grant turned to her and asked for the pleasure of her company too.
This was so perfectly new a circumstance in Fanny's life, that she was all embarrassment; and while stammering out "but she did not suppose it would be in her power," was looking at Edmund for his help. But Edmund, delighted at the offer, could not imagine that his mother would make any difficulty, and therefore advised that the invitation should be accepted; and it was soon settled that Mrs. Grant might expect her.
"And you know what your dinner will be," said Mrs. Grant, smiling—"the turkey, which cook insists upon being dressed to-morrow."
"I am glad to hear it," cried Dr. Grant. "But a friendly meeting, and not a fine dinner, is all we have in view."
The two cousins walked home together; and, except in the discussion of this engagement, which Edmund spoke of with satisfaction, it was a silent walk; for having finished that subject, he grew thoughtful and indisposed for any other.
CHAPTER 23