“Mary!” He cried hoarsely, grasping her face between his hands, raining kisses on her hair, her eyelids, her forehead, her cheek, her lips. “I am burning. I love you so, I love you utterly, I will love you until my last breath. But—”
“If you love me, you must forgive me, Edmund! Forgive me!” He tasted the salt tears on her soft lips. She was nearly fainting in his arms. “Edmund, I would do anything for you. You make me want to be a better person, I need you to help me. I love you, my love for you has made me reckless, shameless. Please, Edmund, please help me.”
He embraced her tightly but briefly, then cupped her face again in both of his hands, tipping her lovely face upwards so that her eyes met his. The pent-up feelings poured out of him, all the things he had longed to say, “Mary, if you love me, you must understand I cannot abandon my profession, or transform myself into what you desire. If you want London, fashion, wealth—I cannot give you that life. Please, Mary, please say you will be content with such a life as I can offer you? I swear to you that I will not claim one shilling of your fortune—it will be yours to spend on what you wish, to go where you wish, to do as you wish—my love, my Mary, so long as you come home to me. More I cannot offer you. Please, Mary—no, no, do not speak, not yet, let me kiss you again, my love! I cannot give you up! I will not!”
Now the sparkling tears in her eyes were in earnest.
Chapter Fifteen
A few days after their fevers had broken, the Smallridge children were permitted to sit up in bed and have their warm milk and bread, and Fanny was quickly stitching up more night caps for Caroline's little bare head, when she became aware of feeling oppressively hot. She had been more than a week with only scattered sleep, had only paused to wash her face and drink a cup of tea before returning to the children’s bedside, and so it was no surprise that the rocking chair she sat in seemed to be rocking of its own accord and the nursery started to spin. She tried to stand up but a swirling darkness overtook her, and her next distinct sensation was of waking in her own narrow bed, with the housekeeper peering down at her anxiously, and asking the physician, “Will she live, Mr. Forrest?”
Over her feeble moans of protest, Mr. Forrest exposed her arm and stuck her with his lancet, to release a dark stream of blood into a basin. “We will do everything for her that we can, Mrs. Campbell. My course of treatment has cured the children completely, as you can see, so we can hope for no less with Miss Price. I did not prescribe emetics for the children, on account of their youth, but Miss Price ought to be purged twice a day. I will return tomorrow to bleed her some more and in the meantime, keep her away from drafts –on no account open the window.”
The next few days were a nightmare. Foul tasting medicine was forced down her already sore and inflamed throat, despite her tears and protests, which caused her to vomit again and again, when she had nothing to bring up. She had never experienced such dread as she felt when wave after wave of dry heaving wracked her exhausted frame. She was kept in sweltering heat and tightly wrapped from neck to foot, and the doctor drained several basins of blood from her. He had no difficulty locating the blue veins on those thin arms! The nursery maids began to mutter about keeping Mr. Forrest locked out of the room, but Fanny could not hear them; she was in a delirium, sometimes calling for Mrs. Butters, sometimes for ‘cousin.’ Her hair was cut very short, but not shaved, and she lost a good deal of what little flesh she had, so that the nursemaids could count the ribs on her narrow chest when they changed her wrappings. Sleep brought her no peace, for she dreamt of Aunt Norris, who told her she must sew enough green baize curtains to wrap around Mansfield Park, and have it done by nightfall, or she would be a most ungrateful girl. Fanny’s wasted frame shook with rage—she screamed back at her aunt, screaming out years of deeply buried anger and resentment, but no sound came out of her mouth. Aunt Norris just continued to sit and to sew and to ignore her.
Fanny came to herself long enough to hear someone say, “Does she have any family? Shall she be buried here, then?” and the thought occurred to her it didn’t really matter where she was buried, so long as she caused as little trouble as possible.
* * * * * *
Edmund alternated between being in a happy daze, as regards his own engagement to a woman of uncertain candour, and dire disapproval for his sister Maria’s proven deceit. He forbad Maria to leave the house without Mrs. Norris or himself—she was never to cross the threshold of Mrs. Fraser’s door, and she could only see Mr. Crawford if he came to visit them, in the parlour, with a chaperone. Maria chafed and raged, but had to submit. She mostly kept to her room, and saw as few morning visitors as possible. With every passing day, she grew more fretful.
To her increasing distress, Mr. Crawford did not come to visit. A week went by, and there was no word from him. Tom Bertram, who
