Susan earnestly desired to learn horse-riding, but Fanny had qualms—she feared the horses in Mr. Crawford’s stables were too high-spirited. The coachmen and stable-grooms undertook to let the ladies take turns on the oldest and most docile mare on the estate whilst they escorted them about in the paddocks. Fanny would not permit anything more daring, out of her sense of responsibility for Mr. Crawford’s possessions, as well as her anxious fears for her sister.
To have someone to talk to, to sit down to meals with, and have by her side when she ventured about the neighbourhood, was inestimably precious to Fanny. She was forced to exert herself daily for Susan’s sake and not brood over the news of Edmund's marriage. In fact, Fanny had never been in such good health, or looks, as during that summer in Norfolk. She was, for the first time in her life, in command of her own time, mistress of her own affairs and household, and these new freedoms and responsibilities engrossed her entirely.
Fanny and Susan were at breakfast one morning in late August when they opened a letter from Mrs. Butters with no sensation other than happiness and curiosity, but how swiftly did an ordinary day, with its little projects, plans and pleasures, turn into a day whose terrors and fears they would long recall. Mrs. Butters had sent a note reading:
Alarming news, my dear Mrs. Crawford. My home is open to you if you wish to travel hither. We await further bulletins. She had copied out a small notice from the Times of London of 23rd August:
Yesterday Captain Columbine arrived at the Admiralty with dispatches announcing the surrender of Senegal to his Majesty’s arms. Captain Columbine commanded the Solebay frigate, which, we regret to state, has been lost on the coast of Africa, but in what way we do not know.
Fanny endeavoured to keep her composure for the sake of her younger sister, but her anxiety was severe, and with one accord, they both left the table to walk in the garden and exclaim over the letter, trying, if it were possible, by reading it again and again, to find some detail which would allay their anxiety. “We see that Captain Columbine is alive—why should not our own dear William have survived likewise?” asked Fanny, her voice trembling.
“This report is two days old—by now, more will be known,” offered Susan. “Fanny, could we not go to London, and then to Portsmouth? Oh, I want to be home if something has happened!”
“But how shall we travel to London?” asked Fanny, forgetting that as a married woman she could travel without a chaperone; indeed, she could be a chaperone for Susan. Susan’s perplexed look reminded her that she had the independence, the servants, and the means to travel anywhere in Great Britain.
“Yes, of course—we will hire a post chaise! Let us be off immediately! Change into your travelling clothes, Susan, and send for a maid to pack our trunks. I will inform the housekeeper.”
The agitated pair were at the front door with their luggage not long after the coachman drove round. Mr. Maddison, with feelings known only to himself, handed them in, whilst assuring Fanny that the affairs of Everingham would be managed scrupulously in her absence. She had hardly time or sense to make an intelligible reply—Fanny and Susan left Everingham behind, determined to reach Mrs. Butters’ home in Stoke Newington as soon as possible. In Thetford they bid farewell to the old coachman and, attended by one manservant, engaged a post chaise, whose postilions obligingly hurried the horses along as swiftly as Fanny’s nerves could bear.
Fanny had her younger sister’s spirits to support—but oh! Susan could not know of the remorse that tore at Fanny’s heart, which she dare not share with a living soul. For she felt that she, Fanny Price, had been the one who placed her brother on the deck of the ageing frigate; it was done by her agency, her intervention—had she not challenged Henry Crawford to help her brother, he might still be alive and well, a midshipman in Gibraltar rather than, as her fears betokened, lost beneath the deep, his last thoughts, as the waves closed over his head for the final time, of home and the ones who loved him so dearly! She felt dreadful anxiety for William Gibson, and sorrow for the prospect of his loss, but it was the thought that by creating Lieutenant William Price she had also destroyed him, which brought tears to her eyes, despite her best endeavours at self-control. She had yielded to the temptation of trying to extract a benefit out of deceit and prevarication—what if she had, in fact, brought about her own brother’s death? Could the judgments of Heaven be so swift, so cruel? Was her brother to be punished for her wrongdoing?
* * * * * *
Edmund Bertram warily climbed the stairs to the townhouse on Wimpole Street. Some other men might have brought flowers or even jewels to a reunion with an unhappy wife, but Edmund Bertram could never be brought to regard women as a species of irrational creatures whose affections could be bought with trinkets. He had thought his own wife in particular was above the petty female vices of jealousy and vanity and, while possessed of acute sensibilities, was also a creature of reason. He had written to her from Thornton Lacey, announcing his return to London after preaching his usual Sunday sermon, and expressed the hope that they might reconcile. The butler welcomed him gravely; his Aunt Norris, still tenaciously in residence, ordered tea for him, but no wife appeared, and upon his enquiry,
