“This is like last winter, Edmund. He was, as we supposed, riding all over England, looking for Fanny, so no one could write to him, or bring him to the point. Now he has left his hotel, with no forwarding address. Unless his sister knows his direction.”
“It’s not fair to Mary to expect her to hold his chain, as though he were a tame bear,” Edmund snapped, uncharacteristically ill-tempered.
“I beg your pardon.”
“No, I beg yours, Tom, I’m sorry. Mary says she has no idea where he is, but that it is not unusual for him to fly about, particularly in the spring—rather like yourself.”
“But I am not an engaged man—and I’m looking for proof that Crawford considers himself to be one.”
“I wager he’ll appear on our doorstep once my father has deposited Maria’s marriage settlement in the bank for him,” said Edmund bitterly. “Ten thousand pounds is a fair inducement.”
“Well….. about that….”
“What, the rumours are true?”
“I don’t know about any rumours, Edmund, but our father has been arranging the sale of a controlling interest in the Antigua properties to some new partners, to have the ready cash for both of our sisters and… for other projects that are coming along, rather than draw down the principal on the invested funds.”
Julia, who had been practicing a new piece on the piano as her brothers spoke, looked up, startled.
“What? Is father in difficulty for money? How can this be? Why did he permit us to spend so much on our presentation dresses—and—rent this house, and rent a pianoforte, and let us buy so many new dresses, if he had not enough money?”
“Please do not worry yourself, Julia,” Tom assured her. “Father told me that when he sells a majority share of the plantation, he will have enough ready funds for dowries for both you and Maria. Mother’s jointure will remain untouched, the harvest at home should be plentiful this year, and our affairs are going well at Mansfield.”
“But, surely,” Edmund persisted, as Julia, satisfied, went back to her music, “with matters as they are now in Antigua, he will not realize a good price? The passage of the anti-slave trading bill has caused great uncertainty, has it not? I have heard that many smaller plantations have sold out to larger landowners.”
“He has told me he wants to wash his hands of the entire business, but it’s d-mned difficult to sell at a good price at this time, so yes, he has taken an offer from a company of investors,” Tom affirmed, “he will be a minority partner—no need for him to return to Antigua, we trust—his partners will invest in other prospects, which should yield better returns in the future. Cotton in the Georgia colony looks more promising, for example. There’s rice in the Carolinas, and I have my eye on horses in Virginia.”
“Do you really? Tell me about it.”
Edmund poured some wine and served his brother. The plantations in Antigua, like the lies that Mary had told him, were something he preferred not to think about, and he would be happy if they were sold out of the family, even if they fetched a disappointing price.
* * * * * *
Fanny felt someone sponging cool water on her face, and murmured, “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” until someone said, “ssshhhh.” She sank back into a deep sleep and dreamt she was at Sotherton, the estate of Maria’s former fiancé, standing in the little chapel with her cousins and the Crawfords. She heard the soft, insinuating voice of Mr. Crawford saying to Maria, ‘I do not like to see Miss Bertram so near the altar.’ She saw Mary Crawford looking truly aghast as she first understood that Edmund was to be a clergyman. Then she saw herself walking with Edmund and Miss Crawford in the woods at Sotherton. They tied her down, laughing, to a bench, and they ran away. She frowned, trying to remember the actual day. It was true that Edmund and Mary left her behind on the bench, but had she in fact been tied down? If not, why hadn’t she got up? Why had she sat there, a helpless spectator, as everyone else came and went? Then along came the surgeon to force more of his emetic down her throat, and the torture began again.
Later, she dreamt again, and found herself back on the ramparts in Portsmouth with her brother William. It was a sunny day, the kind of day when you almost had to squint to watch the white foam on the waves billowing beyond the harbour. He told her that if she ran and jumped, she could fly over the walls, over the water, over the sails of the ships. She tried. She ran and jumped, and for a time she floated upward, and looked down over the Portsmouth harbour, and the bobbing ships, and the twinkling waves in the Spithead, and then felt herself sinking through the air, and gently falling, and the cold sea came rushing up to meet her, but she wasn’t frightened, and she gently plunged into the water and began to sink, down, down through the murky currents, feeling relaxed and weightless. She watched herself sinking, arms and legs spread out, and saw that she had a little smile on her face and her eyes were closed, and her brown hair bobbed about her like seaweed, and she felt free and contented, and nothing mattered anymore.
* * * * * *
Mary Crawford seldom read the shipping news, but one morning not long after her engagement to Edmund, she happened to be sipping her hot chocolate and saw a notice saying that HMS Antwerp, after many adventures, hazards and prizes won, had triumphantly returned
