“Oh, would to God we had never met!” The bitter cry burst forth from Edmund. In answer, Mary’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she started to swoon away so that he had to catch her to prevent her from falling, senseless, to the ground. He stood irresolute for a moment, looking down at the lovely form lying helplessly in his arms, then her eyelids fluttered, and she looked up at him through her long lashes. “If you must turn me away, Edmund,” she murmured, “please, be my husband again just for one night.” She reached into his shirt to stroke his chest. His knees trembled violently, he almost stumbled; he carried her to their bed and very soon thereafter he made the surprising discovery that, while anger at a wife may cool the heart, it can still heat the blood.
* * * * * *
Mrs. Butters’ carriage, with Fanny and Susan, rolled into Portsmouth in the early days of September, a few days before the court-martial, for a happy reunion with friends and relations. William Gibson was retrieved from the Price’s attic, where little Betsey had been his principal nurse. She had brought him food and hot water, and, to ensure that she would return three times a day, he had told her little stories about a family of monkeys who lived in a cocoa-nut tree.
Mrs. Butters installed him in more comfortable and restful lodgings in the Crown Inn and aggressively nursed and fed him.
William and Fanny had much to relate to each other, and genuine sorrow to share over the death of Henry Crawford. He was thunderstruck that his mild, timid sister had loved him well enough to stoop to such an expedient to win his preferment. The astonishment of his friend William Gibson was no less complete, and his secret satisfaction in learning that Miss Price was not married, played no small part in his recovery from his illness.
Fanny’s father, however, assumed the worst at first and threatened to ‘give Fanny the rope's end as long as he could stand over her.’ He enquired of the landlord of the Crown Inn, and was assured Mr. and Mrs. Crawford had indeed taken separate rooms when visiting there last spring. Fanny was acquitted of immorality, but Mr. Price regretted the loss of his wealthy son-in-law, the son-in-law who had never been, for some time longer.
Even though matters were cleared up, Fanny spent very little time with her parents; she spent her time walking and talking on the ramparts with William, and hearing, once again, all the details of the trip down the African coast, the attack on the French at St. Louis, the loss of the Solebay and the capture of the slave ship.
“Once the authorities uncover the identity of the owners of that ship, they will pay a fine of one hundred pounds for every African that was on board,” William explained to her one morning when they were escorting Mr. Gibson for a brief walk in the sunshine, “and the Clementine will be forfeit, and she was a beauty.”
They came to a comfortable bench, and Fanny suddenly realized that, by prearrangement between her two companions, her brother was going to leave her there for a tête à tête with Mr. Gibson. William Price strolled on, alone, hearing the faint laughter of Fanny and his friend carried on the sea breeze and feeling well pleased with himself.
William Gibson questioned Fanny, in that mild, yet direct way that she fondly recalled from their previous conversations, about her sham marriage to the late Henry Crawford. Fanny blushed and demurred, “You once teased me, Mr. Gibson, that you might drop me into a three-volume novel, but I had no fears of this so long as the life I led was unexceptional—but now—please promise me that you are not inspired to weave a story about my cousins and Mr. Crawford and me! The papers have been full of the scandal of the late ‘Mr. C’ and his erstwhile bride, ‘Miss P’, to my everlasting chagrin.”
“You ask a great deal, Miss Price, given that I have the advantage of being acquainted with one of the principals. I had even thought, when the news of your marriage first reached me, that it was I who had brought it about—that you had taken up my advice to confess your love to the object of your devotion. I had supposed that, thanks to my timely counsel, you were embarked on a lifetime of the greatest felicity with the man of your choice.”
Fanny shook her head and replied calmly, “That gentleman—he—it will never be, it can never be, and I have come some way in schooling myself to feel nothing more than the warmest regard for him.”
“If your affections were less tenacious than they are, they would not be worth the winning,” Gibson observed quietly, and Fanny could only look away from him and blink back the tears that rose to her eyes. After a pause, he added, “Your brother tells me that you and he and your sister Susan are all invited to Northamptonshire.”
“Yes—my uncle has written me, most kindly, and so has my aunt Bertram. How wonderful it will be to see Mansfield again! Even though, I suppose, it will never be the same, for better or for worse. My cousin Maria is in Norfolk, and my cousin Tom is on his way to America—my aunt must have been very lonely these past months.”
“Mansfield Park is a place of some grandeur, I collect?”
“Yes—and I know what you are thinking. You know the source of a goodly portion of my uncle’s wealth, and you cannot think as well of Mansfield Park and my uncle as I could wish.”
“My thoughts are even more radical than you could suppose. I want to one day live in an England where a man who grows
