It so happened that Mr. Crawford was always in the habit of using the Raleigh Inn when in Oxford, and when the Crawfords retired there for the night, he enquired of the landlord if any errant young women had come through recently. He received a description of a timid, tired, shrinking young lady as left no doubt that the innkeeper had indeed seen Miss Price. When eagerly questioned as to her whereabouts, the innkeeper added that ‘she was in no danger,’ and when further pressed, allowed that she had left Oxford in the company of a wealthy widow of great respectability, but more the host declined to say, fearing reprisals either from Mrs. Butters herself, for having given her name to a stranger, or from the family of the wayward Fanny Price, for having aided a runaway girl.
“It appears that our little missing bird is safe enough, Mary,” ventured her brother after they had found a quiet corner in the dining-room. “However, I see no reason to alter our plans for the morrow—let us proceed to St. Albans with Mr. Bertram. Haven’t you always wanted to see the Abbey there? I understand it has the longest nave of any church in England.”
“Really Henry, you are incorrigible! Do you really intend to keep what we have just learned from the Bertrams? You will seize upon any stratagem to delay coming to the point with Maria Bertram. Very well, I shall not betray you, if you will assist me. I wish to retrieve a letter.”
“Where is this letter?”
“In Portsmouth.”
“Could you not have chosen a more salubrious place to misplace a letter? Ah, very well. After St. Albans, we will visit Portsmouth. And afterwards, London. A man may lose himself in London.”
“You will return me to Mansfield, if you please.”
“Where you will convey my regret to the Bertrams—say that I had no time to wait upon them, because the most urgent business called me to my own estates in Everingham.”
“The better to place everything in readiness for your wedding, I trust?”
“Ha!” laughed Crawford, “Do not importune me, dear sister!”
The Crawfords, brother and sister, took their leave of Oxford the morning after they had entered it, with plans to meet with Tom Bertram in St. Albans. Mr. Crawford was in the habit of sitting beside the coachman and either directing his driving or taking the reins himself, as he enjoyed nothing more than driving four-in-hand, but a cold pelting rain rendered the box seat less hospitable, and so he sat with his sister, who seemed ill-disposed for conversation. Mary’s agitation and impatience increased as the morning drew on, until her brother finally exclaimed, “When you will tell me why we need to retrieve a letter in Portsmouth, Mary? I think I deserve to know.”
Mary succumbed to the relief of confiding one part of the secret which had been weighing on her conscience. “I wrote to Miss Price, when we all supposed her to be in Portsmouth, and in that letter I said some things which were not… entirely true and which, upon reflection, it was unwise of me to commit to paper. You know my impulsive nature, Henry. I was carried away by my feelings and, in my defense, I believed I was acting for the best. Miss Price had formed a foolish infatuation for someone very far above her station in life, and to extinguish any hopes she had in that quarter would truly be the office of a friend. Further, I was let into the secret of some of her sentiments toward me, and my temper got the better of me, as it sometimes does. I intended the letter as a much-needed corrective. Had she received it, I am sure she would not have mentioned it to anyone, knowing her timid nature. But, as she was not in Portsmouth, the letter never came to her hand, and heaven knows what has become of it. I should be placed in a very awkward situation indeed, were that letter to come to light now….”
“So you will not name the gentleman upon whom Miss Price had fixed her affections?” he asked, after some moments of silence between them.
“What woman of feeling and delicacy would betray the confidence of a friend in such a fashion?”
At first, Henry naturally supposed that he was the person with whom Miss Price was in love, and he silently reviewed what he had said to her, and she to him, in the brief course of their acquaintance at Mansfield and discovered that, apart from the most commonplace remarks, they were entire strangers! She had never, to his recollection, sought his company, never smiled at him, or made a point of catching his eye, and while he may have missed some symptoms of love, as occupied as he had been with the Miss Bertrams, he was in general so alert to these overtures that Miss Price must be a most extraordinary young lady indeed if she could cherish tender feelings toward him while appearing so utterly indifferent—nay more than indifferent, as he could almost declare that she had avoided his company.
More moments of silence. Since the matter did not concern himself, he would not ordinarily have cared about the identity of the man the silly girl had fallen in love with, but the carriage ride was long and too slow for his liking, he was bored, and he loved a mystery. So far as he knew, the list of gentlemen of Miss Price’s acquaintance was not a long one, as she almost never stirred from home. Rushworth? She had spent a great deal of time with him, helping that dull-witted fellow learn his two-and-forty speeches
