Before Edmund could reply in the negative, Mrs. Norris went on. “Well, your future wife understood that this so-called farewell letter was actually a disguised invitation to an assignation. Moreover, Mary quite rightly shamed Fanny for her lack of gratitude to your father and us all. It is all there in Mary’s letter. Here,” and to Mary’s horror, she pulled a much-crumpled note out of her pocket and handed it to Edmund, who took it gravely.
“This is my wife’s private correspondence with my cousin?”
“Oh, that doesn’t signify—I was reading it quite unawares, I do assure you, before I saw who it was from. But do read it, and congratulate yourself that your future wife warned Fanny off in no uncertain terms. Didn’t I always say that Fanny was always trying to put herself forward? And of course,” Mrs. Norris nodded at Mary, “you preserved Edmund from her designs but then your own brother was ensnared. I believe that she would marry any man of means who would have her, you know.”
Increasingly perplexed, Edmund was preparing to hand the letter, unread, to his wife, when he beheld her expression. He paused, and gently asked, “Is there any reason, my dear, why you would wish me to not read this letter?”
Mary coloured, “I believe, Edmund, that you and I, for some time, have not shared quite the same opinion about Fanny, so my letter may cause you some pain. On that account, I ask you to return it to me, as many events have occurred since then, and none of us are the persons that we were last autumn, when that little note was written. I can barely recall what it said, at any rate.” Edmund held it out to her, feeling it only right, and Mary, with every show of casual indifference, was about to take it, when Mrs. Norris, leaning forward, snatched it back.
“Then allow me to read it to you now, Mary! You were so correct in what you said!”
“Pray do not trouble yourself, ma’am. Please, allow me to help you to some roast vegetables.”
“Hmmm….. hmmmm. Here: ‘Edmund has shown me the letter you left for him upon your departure from Mansfield, Fanny, and as a friend—"
“A letter from Fanny to me—that I showed to you, Mary?” said Edmund slowly and quietly.
Mrs. Norris ignored the interruption, exulting that Fanny’s character was exposed at last: “Let’s see. ah, yes: ‘I write to you candidly as a friend and, soon to be a relation of yours, for Edmund has chosen me as his future partner, in despite of your efforts to blacken my character to him, as your letter so clearly evidences. Your arrogance in presuming to give advice to Edmund on the question of whom he ought to marry is of a piece with your mistaken notions of your place in the family.’ Too true, Mary, didn’t I always say so, she was forever imagining that she was the same as dear Maria or dear Julia. Well. I wish she had received your letter, Mary, and profited by it.”
And so on and on spoke Mrs. Norris, who did not perceive, by Edmund’s grave silence and Mary’s lowered eyes, that a dangerous and silent conversation was unravelling between her host and hostess.
“This would be a letter which Fanny left for me in... the East Room, where you, Mary, were so good as to go in search of her, after we had first discovered her to be missing?” Edmund could not resist asking, as he endeavoured to keep his voice as level as possible.
Mary looked back at him defiantly. “If there is any point of confusion about those events which occurred so many months ago, I can assure you that whatever I did, was done for the best. Now, I pray, both of you will excuse me. I find I have a violent headache.”
Mary did not ordinarily flee the field of battle, but she wanted to speak to Edmund privately, without having to contradict herself in front of Mrs. Norris. You knew this must come to light sooner or later, she reminded herself, and, you are now married. There is nothing he can do.
Edmund remained at the table, unmoving, as his aunt exulted in the fact that in Mary, she had found another person who saw through Fanny Price’s machinations. When she finally rose from the table, he asked her if she could entertain herself for the rest of the evening, as he wished to go for a long walk. “And I find that I must return to Thornton Lacey early in the morning, Aunt Norris. I should be very much obliged if you could remain here, and keep Mary company for so long as she stays in London? I should dislike to leave her with no companion.”
Mrs. Norris had never been backward about proposing herself as a guest in the homes of others, and she in fact had had it at her tongue’s end to suggest the same; she happily assented, and settled herself down in the parlour with her needlework. She heard Edmund slowly walk down the front steps, and she congratulated herself on being back in the bosom of her family, and being as useful and necessary to them all as she had always been.
It was unseasonably cold, and raining steadily the following morning when Edmund left Wimpole Street soon after the dawn, and before anyone else in the household had stirred. Edmund was grateful for the rain and the solitude of
