And so, in halting fashion, step by step, Fanny unfolded her story, and Edmund his, and as well, he recounted the progress and destruction of Maria’s engagement to Henry Crawford.
Edmund’s courtship of Mary Crawford in London, their quarrel and reconciliation, and the final abandonment of his scruples in the face of his strong attachment, were but briefly touched upon by him. He wished not to cause Fanny any pain; she wished likewise to spare him the agony of describing a union which began with every expectation of felicity and which now, even if she had only his altered features as her authority, was clearly a cause of disillusionment and regret.
Fanny described her winter and spring with the Smallridges, the kindness she had received from Mrs. Butters, her serious illness and recovery, but when, in her recitation, she came to the time when the Crawfords surprised her by appearing at Keynsham Hill, she paused in embarrassment. She felt that, even under these circumstances, she could not betray Henry Crawford’s confidence and the agreement she had made with him. But Edmund took up the narrative and did not ask her about her supposed trip to Gretna Green.
“Once again, Fanny, I must ask—when Mary and her brother departed to seek you out, I gave Mary a letter to give to you. And I gave her a present for you, a gold chain. Did you receive them?”
Fanny shook her head in the negative. Then, recollecting, added, “Wait, cousin, she did bring to me a parcel containing some half-a-dozen gold chains, which she said all belonged to her. She said she wished to make a gift to me, and asked me to make a selection of one of them, but she made no mention of a gift from you. I am wearing the chain she gave me,” and she held it out for Edmund’s inspection.
He looked at it briefly, smiled sadly, and said, “that is a necklace I have seen around her neck before. It is not the chain I bought for you. She told me that you had refused to accept my gift.”
“I? No, cousin, never.”
“But wait, Fanny, you did write me a short note from London in response to mine—it was in your hand, and it said, “Dear Sir… Many thanks for your kind remembrances….”—and Edmund began to recite from memory the brief letter that Mary had dictated.
Fanny’s face was suffused with blushes. Her lips started to form the words, ‘Mary.”
Edmund looked, nodded, then stood up and began to pace around the room. “Pray continue.”
In a soft but steady voice, Fanny explained that she had supposed she was writing to Mr. Yates.
“What happened next?” asked Edmund.
“Well—Mr. Crawford and I, that is—Mr. Crawford and I went on to Everingham.” Edmund turned and looked at her enquiringly. Now, surely was the time for Fanny to unfold her reasons for entering into matrimony with a man she had hitherto disliked, and for him to extend his best wishes in response. But she remained silent. At last, Edmund ventured, “And you have lived with him there since that time?”
“I have lived there, but I have seen very little of Mr. Crawford since—he did write to inform me of your marriage.” Fanny looked down. She knew that she should, in her turn, be wishing Edmund great joy in his marriage. But they both knew the words would be worse than hollow, they would be actually cruel. A sudden inspiration allowed her to change the subject. “Edmund, I am so happy and proud that you are now ordained! I have wanted so much to hear a little news about you—I have thought of you very often, you may be sure. I was assured that you were very angry with me, which I sometimes doubted, but I had some hope of receiving a line from you, and did not.”
“I did write to you Fanny—I wrote you, at Everingham, several times, including this past month.”
“You did? You did?” Fanny also stood and clasped her hand to her mouth. “Oh! cousin, we have been completely imposed upon! Those letters never reached me!”
Another round of questions and wonderings. The agitated pair stood, sat, paced, held hands, embraced, exclaimed, then paced the room again, questioning, wondering, and in Fanny’s case, shedding a few tears of relief mixed with remorse for all the lost times when she might have had Edmund’s counsel and had denied it to herself. Edmund was thunderstruck at the confirmation of deceit more complete, more thorough, than even his darkest suspicions. As a clergyman, it was his calling to encourage and guide the families in his parish, to warn them from the paths of sin and danger. Now he felt as helpless as a babe in the woods, wholly unaware of where duplicity resided, unable to conceive that such malevolence could occur outside of a gothic novel, and incapable of recognizing the evils had been brooding by his own fireside.
There followed reassurances of their mutual good feeling, and exclamations over the revival of that sorely missed, that best comfort, which if known, might have been claimed at any time this past half year. Edmund wondered to himself if Fanny could possibly have loved Henry Crawford when she entered into marriage with him—she appeared to be learning here, for the first time, of his cruelty in intercepting her letters. And had she any inkling of the worst of her husband’s conduct?
Finally, Fanny also thought of her cousins and asked about Maria. Edmund’s countenance fell again and out of an overflow of grief, he murmured, without any preamble, “Maria is lost to us, Fanny. She is ruined.”
Fanny looked searchingly into his eyes. He could not tell her,
