'Go into the law! with as much ease as I was told to go into this wilderness.'
'Now you are going to say something about law being the worst wilderness of the two, but I forestall you; remember I have forestalled you.'
'You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent my saying a bon mot, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a repartee for half an hour together without striking it out.'
A general silence succeeded. Each was thoughtful. Fanny made the first interruption by saying, 'I wonder that I should be tired with only walking in this sweet wood; but the next time we come to a seat, if it is not disagreeable to you, I should be glad to sit down for a little while.'
'My dear Fanny,' cried Edmund, immediately drawing her arm within his, 'how thoughtless I have been! I hope you are not very tired. Perhaps,' turning to Miss Crawford, 'my other companion may do me the honour of taking an arm.'
'Thank you, but I am not at all tired.' She took it, however, as she spoke, and the gratification of having her do so, of feeling such a connection for the first time, made him a little forgetful of Fanny. 'You scarcely touch me,' said he. 'You do not make me of any use. What a difference in the weight of a woman's arm from that of a man! At Oxford I have been a good deal used to have a man lean on me for the length of a street, and you are only a fly in the comparison.'
'I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have?'
'Not half a mile,' was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet so much in love as to measure distance, or reckon time, with feminine lawlessness.
'Oh, you do not consider how much we have wound about. We have taken such a very serpentine course; and the wood itself must be half a mile long in a straight line, for we have never seen the end of it yet, since we left the first great path.'
'But if you remember, before we left that first great path, we saw directly to the end of it. We looked down the whole vista, and saw it closed by iron gates, and it could not have been more than a furlong in length.'
'Oh, I know nothing of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long wood; and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into it; and therefore when I say that we have walked a mile in it, I must speak within compass.'
'We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here,' said Edmund, taking out his watch. 'Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?'
'Oh, do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.'
A few steps farther brought them out at the bottom of the very walk they had been talking of; and standing back, well shaded and sheltered, and looking over a ha-hab into the park, was a comfortable-sized bench, on which they all sat down.
'I am afraid you are very tired, Fanny,' said Edmund, observing her; 'why would not you speak sooner? This will be a bad day's amusement for you, if you are to be knocked up. Every sort of exercise fatigues her so soon, Miss Crawford, except riding.'
'How abominable in you, then, to let me engross her horse as I did all last week! I am ashamed of you and of myself, but it shall never happen again.'
'Your attentiveness and consideration make me more sensible of my own neglect. Fanny's interest seems in safer hands with you than with me.'
'That she should be tired now, however, gives me no surprise; for there is nothing in the course of one's duties so fatiguing as what we have been doing this morning--seeing a great house, dawdling from one room to another--straining one's eyes and one's attention--hearing what one does not understand--admiring what one does not care for. It is generally allowed to be the greatest bore in the world, and Miss Price has found it so, though she did not know it.'
'I shall soon be rested,' said Fanny: 'to sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment.'
After sitting a little while, Miss Crawford was up again. 'I must move,' said she, 'resting fatigues me. I have looked across the ha-ha till I am weary. I must go and look through that iron gate at the same view, without being able to see it so well.'
Edmund left the seat likewise. 'Now, Miss Crawford, if you will look up the walk, you will convince yourself that it cannot be half a mile long, or half half a mile.'
'It is an immense distance,' said she; 'I see that with a glance.'
He still reasoned with her, but in vain. She would not calculate, she would not compare. She would only smile and assert. The greatest degree of rational consistency could not have been more engaging, and they talked with mutual satisfaction. At last it was agreed that they should endeavour to determine the dimensions of the wood by walking a little more about it. They would go to one end of it, in the line they were then in (for there was a straight green walk along the bottom by the side of the ha-ha), and perhaps turn a little way in some other direction, if it seemed likely to assist them, and be back in a few minutes. Fanny said she was rested, and would have moved too, but this was not suffered. Edmund urged her remaining where she was with an earnestness which she could not resist, and she was left on the bench to think with pleasure of her cousin's care, but with great regret that she was not stronger. She watched them till they had turned the corner, and listened till all sound of them had ceased.
CHAPTER X
A quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, passed away, and Fanny was still thinking of Edmund, Miss Crawford, and herself, without interruption from any one. She began to be surprised at being left so long, and to listen with an anxious desire of hearing their steps and their voices again. She listened, and at length she heard; she heard voices and feet approaching; but she had just satisfied herself that it was not those she wanted, when Miss Bertram, Mr. Rushworth, and Mr. Crawford, issued from the same path which she had trod herself, and were before her.
'Miss Price all alone!' and 'My dear Fanny, how comes this?' were the first salutations. She told her story. 'Poor dear Fanny,' cried her cousin, 'how ill you have been used by them! You had better have stayed with us.'
Then seating herself with a gentleman on each side, she resumed the conversation which had engaged them before, and discussed the possibility of improvements with much animation. Nothing was fixed on--but Henry Crawford was full of ideas and projects, and, generally speaking, whatever he proposed was immediately approved, first by her, and then by Mr. Rushworth, whose principal business seemed to be to hear the others, and who scarcely risked an original thought of his own beyond a wish that they had seen his friend Smith's place.
After some minutes spent in this way, Miss Bertram observing the iron gate, expressed a wish of passing through it into the park, that their views and their plans might be more comprehensive. It was the very thing of all others to be wished, it was the best, it was the only way of proceeding with any advantage, in Henry Crawford's opinion; and he directly saw a knoll not half a mile off, which would give them exactly the requisite command of the house. Go therefore they must to that knoll, and through that gate; but the gate was locked. Mr. Rushworth wished he had brought the key; he had been very near think-86 ing whether he should not bring the key; he was determined he would never come without the key again; but still this did not remove the present evil. They could not get through; and as Miss Bertram's inclination for so doing did by no means lessen, it ended in Mr. Rushworth's declaring outright that he would go and fetch the key. He set off accordingly.
'It is undoubtedly the best thing we can do now, as we are so far from the house already,' said Mr. Crawford, when he was gone.
'Yes, there is nothing else to be done. But now, sincerely, do not you find the place altogether worse than you expected?'
'No, indeed, far otherwise. I find it better, grander, more complete in its style, though that style may not be the best. And to tell you the truth,' speaking rather lower, 'I do not think that I shall ever see Sotherton again with so much pleasure as I do now. Another su
mmer will hardly improve it to me.'
After a moment's embarrassment the lady replied, 'You are too much a man of the world not to see with the eyes of the world. If other people think Sotherton improved, I have no doubt that you will.'
'I am afraid I am not quite so much the man of the world as might be good for me in some points. My feelings are not quite so evanescent, nor my memory of the past under such easy dominion, as one finds to be the case with men of the world.'
This was followed by a short silence. Miss Bertram began again. 'You seemed to enjoy your drive here very much this morning. I was glad to see you so well entertained. You and Julia were laughing the whole way.'
'Were we? Yes, I believe we were; but I have not the least recollection at what. Oh, I believe I was relating to her some ridiculous stories of an old Irish groom of my uncle's. Your sister loves to laugh.'
'You think her more light-hearted than I am?'
'More easily amused,' he replied, 'consequently, you know,' smiling, 'better company. I could not have hoped to entertain you with Irish anecdotes during a ten miles' drive.'
'Naturally, I believe, I am as lively as Julia, but I have more to think of now.'
'You have undoubtedly--and there are situations in which very high spirits denote insensibility. Your prospects, however, are too fair to justify want of spirits. You have a very smiling scene before you.'
'Do you mean literally or figuratively? Literally, I conclude. Yes, certainly, the sun shines and the park looks very cheerful. But unluckily that iron gate, that ha-ha, give me a feeling of restraint and hardship. I cannot get out, as the starling said.' As she spoke, and it was with expression, she walked to the gate; he followed her. 'Mr. Rushworth is so long fetching this key!'
'And for the world you would not get out without the key and without Mr. Rushworth's authority and protection, or I think you might with little difficulty pass round the edge of the gate, here, with my assistance; I think it might be done, if you really wished to be more at large, and could allow yourself to think it not prohibited.'
'Prohibited! nonsense! I certainly can get out that way, and I will. Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment you know--we shall not be out of sight.'
'Or if we are, Miss Price will be so good as to tell him that he will find us near that knoll, the grove of oak on the knoll.'
Fanny, feeling all this to be wrong, could not help making an effort to prevent it. 'You will hurt yourself, Miss Bertram,' she cried, 'you will certainly hurt yourself against those spikes--you will tear your gown--you will be in danger of slipping into the ha-ha. You had better not go.'
Her cousin was safe on the other side while these words were spoken, and, smiling with all the good-humour of success, she said, 'Thank you, my dear Fanny, but I and my gown are alive and well, and so good-bye.'
Fanny was again left to her solitude, and with no increase of pleasant feelings, for she was sorry for almost all that she had seen and heard, astonished at Miss Bertram, and angry with Mr. Crawford. By taking a circuitous, and, as it appeared to her, very unreasonable direction to the knoll, they were soon beyond her eye; and for some minutes longer she remained without sight or sound of any companion. She seemed to have the little wood all to herself. She could almost have thought that Edmund and Miss Crawford had left it, but that it was impossible for Edmund to forget her so entirely.
She was again roused from disagreeable musings by sudden footsteps; somebody was coming at a quick pace down the principal walk. She expected Mr. Rushworth, but it was Julia, who, hot and out of breath, and with a look of disappointment, cried out on seeing her, 'Heyday! where are the others? I thought Maria and Mr. Crawford were with you.'
Fanny explained.
'A pretty trick, upon my word! I cannot see them anywhere,' looking eagerly into the park. 'But they cannot be very far off, and I think I am equal to as much as Maria, even without help.'
'But, Julia, Mr. Rushworth will be here in a moment with the key. Do wait for Mr. Rushworth.'
'Not I, indeed. I have had enough of the family for one morning. Why, child, I have but this moment escaped from his horrible mother. Such a penance as I have been enduring, while you were sitting here so composed and so happy! It might have been as well, perhaps, if you had been in my place, but you always contrive to keep out of these scrapes.'
This was a most unjust reflection, but Fanny could allow for it, and let it pass: Julia was vexed, and her temper was hasty; but she felt that it would not last, and therefore, taking no notice, only asked her if she had not seen Mr. Rushworth.
'Yes, yes, we saw him. He was posting away as if upon life and death, and could but just spare time to tell us his errand, and where you all were.'
'It is a pity that he should have so much trouble for nothing.'
'That is Miss Maria's concern. I am not obliged to punish myself for her sins. The mother I could not avoid, as long as my tiresome aunt was dancing about with the housekeeper, but the son I can get away from.'
And she immediately scrambled across the fence, and walked away, not attending to Fanny's last question of whether she had seen anything of Miss Crawford and Edmund. The sort of dread in which Fanny now sat of seeing Mr. Rushworth prevented her thinking so much of their continued absence, however, as she might have done. She felt that he had been very ill used, and was quite unhappy in having to communicate what had passed. He joined her within five minutes after Julia's exit; and though she made the best of the story, he was evidently mortified and displeased in no common degree. At first he scarcely said anything; his looks only expressed his extreme surprise and vexation, and he walked to the gate and stood there, without seeming to know what to do.
'They desired me to say--my cousin Maria charged me to say that you would find them at that knoll, or thereabouts.'
'I do not believe I shall go any further,' said he, sullenly; 'I see nothing of them. By the time I get to the knoll, they may be gone somewhere else. I have had walking enough.'
And he sat down with a most gloomy countenance by Fanny.
'I am very sorry,' said she; 'it is very unlucky.' And she longed to be able to say something more to the purpose.
After an interval of silence, 'I think they might as well have stayed for me,' said he.
'Miss Bertram thought you would follow her.'
'I should not have had to follow her if she had stayed.'
This could not be denied, and Fanny was silenced. After another pause, he went on:--'Pray, Miss Price, are you such a great admirer of this Mr. Crawford as some people are? For my part, I can see nothing in him.'
'I do not think him at all handsome.'
'Handsome! Nobody can call such an under-sized man handsome. He is not five foot nine. I should not wonder if he was not more than five foot eight. I think he is an ill-looking fellow. In my opinion, these Crawfords are no addition at all. We did very well without them.'
A small sigh escaped Fanny here, and she did not know how to contradict him.
'If I had made any difficulty about fetching the key, there might have been some excuse, but I went the very moment she said she wanted it.'
'Nothing could be more obliging than your manner, I am sure, and I daresay you walked as fast as you could; but still it is some distance, you know, from this spot to the house, quite into the house; and when people are waiting, they are bad judges of time, and every half-minute seems like five.'
He got up and walked to the gate again, and 'wished he had had the key about him at the time.' Fanny thought she discerned in his standing there an indication of relenting, which encouraged her to another attempt, and she said, therefore, 'It is a pity you should not join them. They expected to have a better view of the house from that part of the park, and will be thinking how it may be improved; and nothing of that sort, you know, can be settled without you.'
She found herself more successful in sending away than in retaining a companion. Mr. Rushworth was worked on. 'Well,' said he, 'if you really think I had b
etter go; it would be foolish to bring the key for nothing.' And letting himself out, he walked off without further ceremony.
Fanny's thoughts were now all engrossed by the two who had left her so long ago, and getting quite impatient, she resolved to go in search of them. She followed their steps along the bottom walk, and had just turned up into another, when the voice and the laugh of Miss Crawford once more caught her ear; the sound approached, and a few more windings brought them before her. They were just returned into the wilderness from the park, to which a side gate, not fastened, had tempted them very soon after their leaving her, and they had been across a portion of the park into the very avenue which Fanny had been hoping the whole morning to reach at last, and had been sitting down under one of the trees. This was their history. It was evident that they had been spending their time pleasantly, and were not aware of the length of their absence. Fanny's best consolation was in being assured that Edmund had wished for her very much, and that he should certainly have come back for her, had she not been tired already; but this was not quite sufficient to do away the pain of having been left a whole hour, when he had talked of only a few minutes, nor to banish the sort of curiosity she felt to know what they had been conversing about all that time; and the result of the whole was to her disappointment and depression, as they prepared, by general agreement, to return to the house.
On reaching the bottom of the steps to the terrace, Mrs. Rushworth and Mrs. Norris presented themselves at the top, just ready for the wilderness, at the end of an hour and a half from their leaving the house. Mrs. Norris had been too well employed to move faster. Whatever cross accidents had occurred to intercept the pleasures of her nieces, she had found a morning of complete enjoyment--for the housekeeper, after a great many courtesies on the subject of pheasants, had taken her to the dairy, told her all about their cows, and given her the receipt for a famous cream cheese; and since Julia's leaving them, they had been met by the gardener, with whom she had made a most satisfactory acquaintance, for she had set him right as to his grandson's illness, convinced him it was an ague, and promised him a charm for it; and he, in return, had shown her all his choicest nursery of plants, and actually presented her with a very curious specimen of heath.