Fanny looked to her cousin Edmund for help, and he laid aside his book and remonstrated with his aunt.
“Do not urge her, madam. It is not fair to urge her in this manner. You see she does not like to act. Let her choose for herself.”
“I am not going to urge her,” his aunt replied sharply, “but I shall think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her—very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and what she is.”
Fanny turned crimson, then pale. Turning her back on the rest of the company, she hurried back to her seat and bent her head over her sewing.
The rest of the party were briefly silenced—Edmund was too angry to speak, Maria was chagrined that their guests were witness to this breach of decorum in their family circle and even Tom recognized that another word from him, either of comfort or censure, might destroy Fanny’s composure completely. For a moment, the only sound to be heard was the gentle snoring of Lady Bertram on her sofa, happily oblivious to the discord in the bosom of her family.
“I do not like my situation, this place is too hot for me,” Miss Crawford announced calmly, rising and moving her chair away from Mrs. Norris and settling down next to Fanny, saying to her, in a kind, low whisper, “Never mind, my dear Miss Price, this is a cross evening: everybody is cross and teasing, but do not let us mind them.”
For the next quarter of an hour Fanny received Miss Crawford’s warm praise of her needle-work, and mechanically answered her enquiries and remarks, until rising feelings of humiliation threatened to overpower her altogether. That it was Miss Crawford who, of all the company, was endeavouring to soothe and revive her, was a mixed blessing, as it obliged her to think better of her neighbour than she wished.
Fortunately, Miss Crawford’s attention was soon called away by the other young people. Fanny was too discomposed to attend to the conversation but heard enough to understand that the subject was again the play, Lovers' Vows, and the question of which of them was to undertake which part, and she dreaded a renewal of those urgings which had destroyed her peace. She wanted to escape and go to her bedchamber, but she could not trust herself to make her excuses in a tolerably complacent fashion. As for leaving the room directly, her aunt’s angry words—considering who and what she is—echoed in her ears again and again, humbling her too utterly to contemplate such a lack of ceremony.
Who was she, and what was she? A penniless relation, a dependent female, taken in as a child out of motives of charity. She had never resented her cousins for their superior beauty, dress, or accomplishments, and seldom did she bridle at always being at the command of her Bertram relatives. But to be accused of ingratitude, obstinacy, and willfulness—she, who might as well not even have a will of her own, so seldom had she been given an opportunity to exercise her own inclinations? At that moment, an unaccustomed sensation burnt in her breast, rising until she felt it must choke her. It was anger; it was resentment at being so misunderstood by those who should have known her best.
She had disapproved of the acting scheme, agreeing with Edmund that it was disrespectful for the younger Bertrams to engage in play-acting when their father, her uncle, was engaged on a perilous ocean voyage. As the youngest person in the household and a dependent relation, she would never presume so far as to lay down the correct course of conduct to her cousins Maria and Julia, who appeared blind to the indelicacy of representing on stage females with whom their father would have barred all association. It was deference alone which prevented Fanny from raising those objections which could only be perceived as rebukes. She stood with Edmund in refusing to participate but had confided her feelings only to him. Unaware of her disapprobation and her forebodings of mischief, Tom laid her refusals to childish timidity, Mrs. Norris to a peevish disobliging nature.
And yet, Fanny reflected, bending lower over her work, was it not true that she would still shrink from participating in the theatricals, even if were there no such objections to be met with as had occurred to her and Edmund? Did she not wish to avoid being contrasted on the same stage with the pretty, sprightly, Miss Crawford or her handsome cousin Maria? Was it not for this same reason that, when a child, she had refused, absolutely refused, to study piano and drawing—for fear of comparisons to her more accomplished cousins? Could her seeming modesty and reticence be, in reality, a species of pride?
Feelings of self-pity, mingling with feelings of self-loathing, struggled inside of her. She had only one wish; to escape from herself. She observed Miss Crawford returning to sit next to her, she saw Miss Crawford’s lips move, something was “disagreeable” to her; Fanny nodded her head in seeming acquiescence, but she heard none of it. Although her disordered mind rendered all conversations into an unintelligible babble, she could yet observe—and she caught sight of Edmund’s admiring gaze fixed upon Miss Crawford. Another glance, full of meaning, he swiftly bestowed on Fanny, one which said, “Miss Crawford, and she alone, was kind enough to comfort you, and I honour her for it.”
Fanny had not thought it possible to feel more despondent than she had for the last half-hour, but now fresh well-springs of misery flowed forth. Edmund was giving every evidence of
