Henry Crawford, a guest who was welcome at Mrs. Fraser’s at any hour, looked up from his sausage and eggs. “Yes, I believe so.”
She handed the paper to him. “I believe that Midshipman Price is now returned to England. Undoubtedly the Bertrams will see this information as well.”
“And the significance of that is……?”
“William, you may recall, was the only topic that Miss Price would prattle on about. Her older brother, the dashing midshipman. And—I recollect this point in particular, for that humourless girl never could understand when I was speaking in jest—although he was her brother, he would write long letters—unlike you.”
“Ah, yes, I recollect now! The faithful correspondent! He may know precisely where Miss Price is to be found.”
“Exactly. And I should far rather you were the one to locate Miss Price, before anyone else.”
“Of course. I’ve no objection to playing the hero. But would not he refuse to reveal her true whereabouts to us?”
Mary Crawford shrugged her lovely shoulders. “I can try, if you will take me to see him.”
Henry laughed. “To Portsmouth again, then—and the elegant home of Mr. and Mrs. Price, no doubt, where a certain letter is still mislaid somewhere.”
“You will not be sorry to leave London?” she teased.
“As a matter of fact, you are asking a great deal of me. Tom Bertram may be helping his father, and Edmund Bertram may be—” he coughed discreetly “—keeping his sisters away from unscrupulous cads here in town, but I have weightier matters on my mind. I have been nominated for membership in Mr. Buxton’s society of gentlemen coachmen, the Four-in-hand Club. I am waiting to learn if that exclusive body will enroll me among its members. As for you—will it not destroy you to be torn apart from your beloved Edmund?”
Mary rolled her eyes coquettishly. “I had better avoid temptation until my wedding night.”
“Good. At least one of you should behave like a timid virgin.”
She wanted to fling the tea pot at him. “Never say anything like that again, Henry. Why must you be so unguarded!”
* * * * * *
On the fifth day of Fanny’s illness, Mr. Forrest was called away to a serious carriage accident and it was the misfortunes of others which perhaps saved Fanny’s life. Spared of his ministrations for a few days, allowed to simply rest, without purging or bleeding, able to drink cool boiled water and to kick off her heavy blankets, Fanny came to herself.
“What day is it, Martha?” She whispered to the housemaid who came to change her wrappings.
“Why, ‘tis Sunday, Miss. Can’t you hear them church bells?”
“I mean, what is the date?”
“Oh, I don’t rightly know. It is the fourth Sunday of Lent. Easter has come so late this year! There, the rash is all gone and the crusts are falling off. I think we can have these wrappings off you now, if you promise not to scratch yourself!”
Fanny tried to calculate…. when did she last write to her brother William? She wrote to him faithfully every month, but her time for writing had coincided with the children’s falling ill. She hoped he was not worried about her. She was still far too weak to hold a pen.
The next day, the children were allowed to visit Miss Price for a few moments, and Fanny rejoiced in seeing them looking so well. She had recovered enough of her own strength to refuse to be bled any more—indeed, she turned Mr. Forrest away with a firmness and calmness which would have surprised anyone who knew the shrinking Miss Price of Mansfield Park. Mrs. Smallridge herself, once assured that Miss Price was no longer a source of contagion, visited her and tearfully thanked her for helping to preserve her two children. All of her former reserve and hauteur was gone as she pressed Fanny’s hand gratefully.
“I was in such agonies, Miss Price, and when they told me that you never left my children’s bedside, I dared to hope, and I cannot thank you enough. My husband and I are so extremely grateful…” and truly she did repeat herself, for truly she could not thank Fanny Price enough, and Fanny for once in her life was able to accept some words of praise—if only because she was too tired to summon the energy to refuse them. Mrs. Smallridge’s remarks about her “dear husband” also gave Fanny hope that the misery of the past month had knit the couple more closely together, rather than the opposite, and so it proved to be, at least for a time.
Fanny was cared for with tender solicitude by the housekeeper and the nursery maids, and was promised she should have her own chaise, made of basket-work, to rest in the garden when the days were warm enough, and she was plied with beef tea and calves’-foot jelly and even oranges, fetched by Mr. Smallridge from Bristol. A friendly letter of enquiry came from Mrs. Butters, although she was still too weak to respond, followed by another note, slipped into her hand by a giggling housemaid, and Fanny opened it and saw for the first time the loose scrawl of William Gibson, writing to her directly—
Miss Price:
I have learned from Mrs. Butters that you have been very ill and that for a time your life was despaired of. Mrs. Butters was very concerned about you. Naturally she has heard some details from the Smallridges, but—between you and me and Mrs. Butters—they are not the most eloquent, or should I say, coherent, of correspondents. We did learn that while in delirium, you frequently apologized to everyone for having fallen ill, and Mrs. Butters says, that much she can well believe. But you do not mind a little badinage from that kind
