The intimacy between the two families was now nearly restored to its former state. Sir Thomas found the Grants and their young inmates really worth visiting; and though above scheming for any marriage, he could not avoid perceiving, in a grand and careless way, that Mr. Crawford was distinguishing his niece, and he assented more willingly to invitations on that account.
His readiness, however, in agreeing to dine at the Parsonage, when the general invitation was at last sent out, proceeded from goodwill alone, and had nothing to do with Mr. Crawford: for it was during that visit that he first began to think Mr Crawford was the admirer of Fanny Price.
The meeting was a pleasant one, and the dinner was elegant and plentiful, according to the usual style of the Grants, and enjoyed by everyone except Mrs. Norris, who could never behold either the wide table or the number of dishes on it with patience.
In the evening it was found that after making up the whist-table there would remain sufficient people for a round game. Speculation was decided on; and Lady Bertram soon found herself being asked to choose between the games. She hesitated.
"What shall I do, Sir Thomas? Whist and speculation; which will amuse me most?"
Sir Thomas, after a moment's thought, recommended speculation. He was a whist player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much amuse him to have her for a partner.
"Very well," was her ladyship's contented answer; "then speculation, if you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach me."
Here Fanny interposed anxiously; she had never played the game; but upon everybody's assuring her that it was the easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford's stepping forward with an earnest request to sit between her ladyship and Miss Price, and teach them both, it was settled. Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant being seated at the table of prime intellectual state, the remaining six, under Miss Crawford's direction, were arranged round the other.
It was a fine arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with two persons' cards to manage as well as his own; for though it was impossible for Fanny not to master the rules in three minutes, he had yet to sharpen her avarice and harden her heart, which, especially in any competition with William, was a work of some difficulty. As for Lady Bertram, he was in charge of her fortune through the whole evening.
He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease and playful impudence; and the round table was altogether a very comfortable contrast to the sobriety and orderly silence of the other.
Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment of his lady. "I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game."
"Oh dear, yes! very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does all the rest."
"Bertram," said Crawford, some time afterwards, "I have never told you what happened to me yesterday in my ride home." They had been hunting together, and were at some distance from Mansfield, when his horse flung a shoe, and Henry Crawford had been obliged to give up and make his way back. "I lost my way after passing that old farmhouse with the yew-trees, because I can never bear to ask; and I found myself in the very place which I was curious to see. I was suddenly in a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream before me, a church standing to my right—which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, where there was no gentleman's house to be seen excepting one—to be presumed the Parsonage—within a stone's throw of the church. I found myself, in short, in Thornton Lacey."
"It sounds like it," said Edmund. "You inquired, then?"
"No, I never inquire. But I told a man mending a hedge that it was Thornton Lacey, and he agreed."
"You have a good memory. I had forgotten having ever told you half so much of the place."
Thornton Lacey was the name of his impending living, as Miss Crawford well knew; and her interest in a negotiation for William Price's knave increased.
"Well," continued Edmund, "and how did you like what you saw?"
"Very much indeed. You are a lucky fellow. There will be work for five summers at least before the place is liveable."
"No, no, not so bad as that. The farmyard must be moved, I grant you; but I am not aware of anything else. The house is by no means bad, and when the yard is removed, there may be a very tolerable approach to it."
"The farmyard must be cleared away entirely, and planted up. The house must be turned to face the east, where the view is really very pretty; I am sure it may be done. And your approach must be through what is at present the garden. You must make a new garden at the back of the house; which will give it the best aspect, sloping to the south-east. I rode fifty yards up the lane, between the church and the house, in order to look about me; and saw how it might all be. Nothing can be easier. The meadows must be all laid together, of course; very pretty meadows they are, finely sprinkled with timber. They belong to the living, I suppose; if not, you must purchase them. Then the stream—something must be done with the stream; but I could not quite determine what. I had two or three ideas."
"And I have two or three ideas also," said Edmund, "and one of them is, that very little of your plan for Thornton Lacey will ever be put in practice. I must be satisfied with rather less. I think the house may be made comfortable, and given the air of a gentleman's residence, without any very heavy expense, and that must suffice me; and, I hope, may suffice all who care about me."
Miss Crawford, a little suspicious and resentful of a certain half-look attending this last expression, made a hasty finish of her dealings with William Price, and exclaimed, "There, I will stake my last like a woman of spirit. No cold prudence for me. If I lose the game, it shall not be from not striving for it."
The game was hers, and only did not repay her what she had paid for it. Another deal proceeded, and Crawford began again about Thornton Lacey.
"My plan may not be the best possible: but you must do a good deal. The place deserves it. (Excuse me, your ladyship must not see your cards. There, let them lie before you.) You talk of giving it the air of a gentleman's residence. That will be done by the removal of the farmyard; for the house has the look of a something above a mere parsonage. It is a solid, roomy, mansion-like house, such as one might suppose a respectable old country family had lived in through two centuries at least." Miss Crawford listened, and Edmund agreed. "The air of a gentleman's residence, therefore, you cannot help giving it. But it is capable of much more. (Lady Bertram bids a dozen for that queen; no, no, a dozen is more than it is worth. Lady Bertram does not bid. Go on, go on.) By some improvements you may give it a higher character. It may become the residence of a man of education, taste, and good connexions. All this may be stamped on it; and that house receive such an air as to make its owner be set down as the great landholder of the parish; especially as there is no real squire's house to dispute the point. You think with me, I hope," (turning with a softened voice to Fanny). "Have you ever seen the place?"
Fanny gave a quick negative, and tried to hide her interest by attending to her brother, who was driving a hard bargain; but Crawford pursued with "No, no, you must not part with the queen. Your brother does not offer half her value. Hands off, sir. Your sister does not part with the queen. The game will be yours," turning to her again; "it will certainly be yours."
"And Fanny had much rather it were William's," said Edmund, smiling. "Poor Fanny! not allowed to cheat herself as she wishes!"
"Mr. Bertram," said Miss Crawford, "you know Henry to be such a capital improver, that you cannot do anything at Thornton Lacey without his help. Only think how useful he was at Sotherton! Only think what grand things were produced there that one hot day in August. What was done there is not to be told!"
Fanny's eyes were turned on Crawford for a moment with an expression more than grave—even reproachful; but on catching his, were instantly withdrawn. With some consciousness he shook his head at his sister, and laughingly replied, "I cannot say there was much done at Sotherto
n; we were all walking after each other, and bewildered." He added, in a low voice, directed solely at Fanny, "I should be sorry to have my powers of planning judged of by the day at Sotherton. I see things very differently now. Do not think of me as I appeared then."
Sotherton was a word to catch Mrs. Norris, and she called out, in high good-humour, "Sotherton! Yes, that is a place, indeed, and we had a charming day there. William, the next time you come, I hope dear Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth will be at home, and I can answer for your being kindly received by both. They are at Brighton now, you know; in one of the best houses there. I do not exactly know the distance, but when you get back to Portsmouth, you ought to go over and pay your respects to them; and I could send a little parcel by you that I want to get to your cousins."
"I should be very happy, aunt; but Brighton is almost by Beachey Head; and if I could get so far, I could not expect to be welcome in such a smart place as that—poor scrubby midshipman as I am."
Mrs. Norris’s eager assurance to the contrary was stopped by Sir Thomas's saying with authority, "I do not advise your going to Brighton, William, as I trust you may have more convenient opportunities of meeting. My daughters would be happy to see their cousins anywhere; and you will find Mr. Rushworth well disposed towards you."
"I would rather find him private secretary to the First Lord than anything else," was William's only answer, in an undervoice, and the subject dropped.
As yet Sir Thomas had seen nothing to remark in Mr. Crawford's behaviour; but when the whist-table broke up, he became a looker-on at the other, and found his niece the object of pointed attentions.
Henry Crawford was in the glow of another scheme about Thornton Lacey; and was detailing it to Fanny with a look of earnestness. His scheme was to rent the house himself the following winter, that he might have a home of his own in that neighbourhood; not merely for the use of it in the hunting-season, (as he said), for his attachment to that neighbourhood did not depend upon one amusement or one season of the year: he had set his heart upon having a place that he could come to at any time, a home where his holidays might be spent, so that he might continue that friendship with the Mansfield Park family which was increasing in value to him every day.
Sir Thomas heard and was not offended. There was no want of respect in the young man's address; and Fanny's reception of it was so calm and uninviting, that he had nothing to censure in her. Finding by whom he was observed, Henry Crawford addressed himself on the subject to Sir Thomas.
"I want to be your neighbour, Sir Thomas, as you have, perhaps, heard me telling Miss Price. May I hope for your acquiescence?"
Sir Thomas, politely bowing, replied, "It is the only way, sir, in which I could not wish you established as a permanent neighbour; but I hope and believe that Edmund will occupy his own house at Thornton Lacey. Edmund, am I saying too much?"
"Certainly, sir, I have no idea but of residence," answered Edmund. "But, Crawford, though I refuse you as a tenant, come to me as a friend. Consider the house as half yours every winter, and we will add to the stables on your own improved plan."
"We shall be the losers," continued Sir Thomas. "Edmund’s going, though only eight miles, will be an unwelcome contraction of our family circle; but I should have been deeply mortified if my son could reconcile himself to doing less. A parish has claims which can be known only by a clergyman constantly resident. Edmund might read prayers and preach, without giving up Mansfield Park: he might ride over every Sunday and go through divine service; he might be the clergyman of Thornton Lacey every seventh day, for three or four hours, if that would content him. But it will not. He knows that if he does not live among his parishioners, and prove himself their well-wisher and friend, he does very little either for their good or his own. Thornton Lacey, therefore, is the only house in the neighbourhood which I should not be happy for Mr. Crawford to occupy."
Mr. Crawford bowed.
Whatever effect Sir Thomas's little harangue might really produce on Mr. Crawford, it raised some awkward sensations in two of his most attentive listeners. Fanny, having not understood that Thornton was so soon to be his home, was pondering with downcast eyes on what it would be not to see Edmund every day; and Miss Crawford, startled from the agreeable fancies she had been indulging on the strength of her brother's description, was no longer able, in her picture of a future Thornton, to shut out the church, sink the clergyman, and see only the elegant, modernised residence of a man of independent fortune. She considered Sir Thomas as the destroyer of all this.
Her agreeable speculation was over. It was time to have done with cards, if sermons prevailed; and she was glad to refresh her spirits by a change of place and neighbour.
Most of the party were now collected round the fire. William and Fanny remained together at the deserted card-table, talking comfortably. Henry Crawford sat silently observing them for a few minutes; himself, in the meanwhile, observed by Sir Thomas.
"This is the assembly night," said William. "If I were at Portsmouth I should be at it, perhaps."
"But you do not wish yourself at Portsmouth, William?"
"No, Fanny, I do not. I shall have enough of Portsmouth later. And I do not know that there would be any good in going to the assembly, for the Portsmouth girls turn up their noses at anybody who has not a commission. A midshipman is nothing. You remember the Gregorys; they are grown up amazing fine girls, but they will hardly speak to me, because Lucy is courted by a lieutenant."
"Oh! shame! But never mind, William" (her own cheeks in a glow of indignation). "It is not worth minding. It is no more than the greatest admirals have experienced, in their time. You must think of it as one of the hardships which fall to every sailor, but it will end when you are a lieutenant!"
"I begin to think I shall never be a lieutenant, Fanny. Everybody gets made but me."
"Oh! my dear William, do not talk so; do not be so desponding. My uncle says nothing, but I am sure he will do everything in his power to get you made.”
She was checked by the sight of her uncle much nearer to them than she had supposed, and each began to talk of something else.
"Are you fond of dancing, Fanny?"
"Yes, very; only I am soon tired."
"I should like to go to a ball with you and see you dance. Have you never any balls at Northampton? I'd dance with you, for nobody would know who I was, and I should like to be your partner once more. We used to jump about together many a time, did not we? when the hand-organ was in the street? I am a pretty good dancer in my way, but I dare say you are a better." And turning to his uncle, "Is not Fanny a very good dancer, sir?"
Fanny did not know which way to look. Some very grave reproof must be coming to distress her brother, and sink her to the ground.
But, on the contrary, Sir Thomas answered, "I am sorry to say that I have never seen Fanny dance; but I trust she will acquit herself like a gentlewoman when we do see her, which, perhaps, we may have an opportunity of doing before long."
"I have had the pleasure of seeing your sister dance, Mr. Price," said Henry Crawford, leaning forward, "and will engage to answer your every inquiry on the subject. But I believe" (seeing Fanny looked distressed) "it must be at some other time. There is one person in company who does not like to have Miss Price spoken of."
True enough, he had once seen Fanny dance; and it was equally true that he would now have answered for her gliding about with quiet, light elegance; but, in fact, he could not for the life of him recall what her dancing had been.
He passed, however, for an admirer of her dancing; and Sir Thomas, pleased, prolonged the conversation, and was so well engaged in describing the balls of Antigua, that he did not hear his carriage announced, until Mrs. Norris began to bustle.
"Come, Fanny, what are you about? We are going. Quick, quick! I cannot bear to keep good old Wilcox waiting. My dear Sir Thomas, we have settled it that the carriage should come back for you, and Edmund and William."
Sir Thomas could not dissent, as it
had been his own arrangement; but that seemed forgotten by Mrs. Norris, who must fancy that she had settled it all herself.
Fanny's last feeling was disappointment: for the shawl which Edmund was quietly taking from the servant to put round her shoulders was seized by Mr. Crawford, and she was obliged to be indebted to his more prominent attention.
CHAPTER 26