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Henry Crawford was lying in agony at The Spaniards Pub, close by the Heath, whose proprietors were accustomed to receiving injured parties from duels. A surgeon was swiftly summoned and pronounced what no one needed a surgeon to perceive—although the injuries to Mr. Crawford’s head looked alarming and bloody, they were inconsequential as compared to the injuries to his legs, which were mangled and crushed beyond repair. He would require amputation, which he refused. “That’s right, the young gentlemens always refuses—at first. And when they changes their minds, it’s often too late,” said the surgeon philosophically, packing up his bloody tools into his satchel.
Upon hearing the grim news from Edmund, Mrs. Butters swiftly offered her own home to receive Mr. Crawford, who she still supposed to be Fanny’s husband. “What agonies the young man will be in!” exclaimed the kindly widow. “Oh dear, and his horses—I expect they were all put down, poor things.”
A few hours later the injured man arrived at their door, laid upon a blanket which had been ingeniously suspended by four corners in the back of a hay wagon to protect him from the bumping and jostling of a hazardous trip over country roads. The full extent of his injuries were not apparent until he was brought inside and laid upon a mattress placed on Mrs. Butter’s dining table. His pain was severe; he had been well plied with brandy, to little avail. Both Mrs. Butters and her housekeeper received their unexpected guest with composure, having had experience in years past with the injuries suffered by shipwrights on the Bristol docks; the sight did not overpower them, but even Fanny, to Edmund’s surprise, placed herself at Crawford’s side and took his hand, offering him calm reassurance. He was half-delirious, and more concerned about the fate of his team of horses than himself.
Others crowded into the room—Edmund, Mr. Anderson, and Mr. Stanhope, who had followed Henry Crawford to the dueling grounds to act as his second, but who had fallen behind when Crawford unaccountably whipped his horses into a frenzy.
“Fanny—waste—waste—waste!” Henry gasped out through his pain. Fanny moved closer to listen.
Mrs. Butters supposed that Crawford, facing his own extinction, was lamenting his misspent life, and was about to exhort him to think on eternity, but Fanny said, “No, ma’am, I believe he is saying ‘waistcoat.’ Something about a waistcoat.’ An answering squeeze to her hand confirmed that she was correct.
“Do you want your club waistcoat, Crawford?” asked Mr. Stanhope. “Your blue-and-yellow? It is not here, but I can have it brought to you,” he promised, though thinking within himself it was a trivial request from a trivial man facing his final judgement. Crawford shook his head and moaned. Fanny bent over him, he whispered something, and she reported, “He says, ‘look in the pocket of his waistcoat.’”
Crawford’s waistcoat had been cut from his body at The Spaniard Pub, and was located with some difficulty, half-hidden under the blood-spattered hay in the wagon. Inside were found his settlements, sworn before a lawyer, on Miss Maria Bertram, to be his wife, and on Miss Fanny Price, in reparation for the injury done to her reputation. Fanny was to have three thousand pounds.
With a great effort Crawford exclaimed, “Where is Maria? I may die under the surgeon—need to take my vows first. For God’s sake, bring her swiftly.”
Mr. Stanhope volunteered to use his influence to obtain a special license as quickly as possible. Edmund offered to fetch the Admiral or Mary to the bedside but Crawford refused vehemently— “You don’t want the Admiral at a wedding, and I don’t want Mary to see—” before fainting away.
Mrs. Butters was dumbfounded to learn that Fanny was not Henry Crawford’s wife, but to Fanny’s relief, she did not condemn her for telling falsehoods. Mrs. Butters had her own reasons for being pleased that Fanny was a free woman and although she was no poet, she could hardly wait to find a quiet moment to put pen to paper and inform certain friends that Mrs. Crawford was in fact still Miss Price, and would be three thousand pounds richer into the bargain.
In the almost twenty-four hours of agonizing waiting that followed, Fanny tried her best to comfort and support Henry through his ordeal, as Edmund hastened to fetch his sister from the secluded village where she lived, whose location he had learnt from Tom just prior to his brother’s hasty departure for Liverpool.
At about two in the morning, Fanny heard Mr. Crawford’s breathing become fainter, and she feared that he was slipping away.
“Mr. Crawford,” she whispered, squeezing his hand. “Mr. Crawford, you must wait for Maria. She is carrying your child.”
She heard his ragged intake of breath in the darkness. “Then I am not going anywhere, Miss Price, I do assure you.”
The entire household watched anxiously for Edmund’s carriage, which finally arrived in the late morning the day after Mr. Crawford’s accident. It rattled swiftly up the street, a heavily veiled lady climbed down awkwardly and was carefully escorted inside. Fanny had hardly left Henry Crawford’s side through his ordeal, but shrank away when she saw her cousin Maria arrive. She did not see the lovers reunited, did not see Henry Crawford take Maria’s hand and kiss it, did not see the tears falling on her cheeks, as she guided his hand to her belly so he could feel his child kicking under her heart.
“Ah, Maria, he has good strong legs,” Henry jested weakly.
It had taken a substantial fee to obtain a special license that waived the reading of the
