“Miss Price, you were not offended, I hope, by my proposal that we correspond? I like talking with you, my little friend, and I thought we could form our own circulating library, as it were, and share books and discuss them by letter. Would you think it improper?”
“Well… if we entered into a correspondence, would we not lay ourselves open to the suspicion, or expectation….” she coughed, he leaned closer to hear her. “Mr. Gibson, you were candid enough to say that you have resolved against—against entering upon domestic life, because of your commitment to your cause, and I just wanted to explain that I… that I…”
“You love someone,” he said, with that same gentle smile. She was surprised, but nodded, feeling a flood of relief upon sharing her secret with someone.
“Mrs. Butters and I, we each thought as much, after hearing you recite Helena’s speech so beautifully that evening. We did differ on—well, let us just say that Mrs. Butters owes me a shilling. Does this gentleman know his good fortune?”
“Oh! No, no, that could never be.”
“Why?” Mr. Gibson let the question hang in the air.
Fanny furrowed her brow. “Well, he is—I am not…”
“Let me ask you something, Miss Price. I am very curious. Just over a week ago, you almost left this vale of tears behind and went to sit at the Right Hand, perched on a cloud, no doubt, with wings on your back and a harp in your hand.” She rolled her eyes at him, knowing that he was teasing her. “Or, we must await further bulletins on the precise conditions of the life hereafter, because, to my intense disappointment, you don’t recall seeing heaven or angels, rather—if I understood you correctly—only the ramparts around Portsmouth, and the sea beyond it, and I refuse to believe that the eternal reward for God’s righteous servants is to bob about in the Spithead.
“At any rate, at the time you were so very ill, didn’t you regret the fact that the gentleman was in ignorance of your affection for him? Did you regret that your secret would die with you? Because, truthfully, if I loved, and if I thought I might never see the young lady again, whether or not I had any hope whatsoever of a return, I believe I would unburden myself and tell her as much.”
“But that is different! You are a man, and women don’t….” her voice trailed off.
“Indeed. You wouldn’t want to be indecorous. It would be too shocking altogether.” He started idly pulling up some nearby wildflowers and stripping the leaves from them absent-mindedly. “Still, I would like to know, what is the worst thing that could happen if you informed the gentleman? You would be exchanging uncertainty for certainty, would you not?”
Fanny closed her eyes.
“Forgive me. I have over-tired you, and asked questions which were none of my business. We scribblers are like that. Beware of making friends with any of our tribe, Miss Price, or you may find yourself inscribed within the pages of some novel whether you will or no. I can control your destiny as a puppet master pulls the strings on his puppets! So, I will take my leave, most reluctantly. But may we correspond?”
“Yes, I would like that very, very much. No one here seems to care about books. I’d like to discuss them with you.”
“Good afternoon, then, Miss Price.” He rose, and took her little hand carefully, and placed it gently back on the blanket which covered her. He rode away slowly, with a borrowed pony cart, and wondered how it could be that such an intelligent, discerning, gentle woman could think so lowly of herself. Had the man she loved treated her cruelly? What had her childhood been like? He himself had survived a childhood of neglect and severity and yet, he was by nature optimistic, confident, certain of the way he wished to conduct his own life. He had been planted in rocky soil and by his own estimation, he had flourished. But Fanny was different—she was a delicate plant, and she had been badly bruised, and a man naturally felt the urge to protect and shelter her, and to see that she came to no harm. But, what could he do for her, as poor and obscure as he was?
* * * * * *
“Only three months more, Maria,” Julia said consolingly. “It is now April, and surely father will relent by July, if not earlier, and allow Dr. Grant to publish the banns.” And then she carelessly added, “any man who truly loved would not object to waiting only three months.”
A heavy rain having suspended all plans for an outing, the Bertram sisters were passing a dull and seemingly endless afternoon in their bedchamber. Mrs. Norris was muttering over her needlework in the parlour, their brother Edmund was in his father’s study, puzzling over some ambitious drawings from Henry Crawford concerning alterations that Mary wanted done at the parsonage at Thornton Lacey, and the servants were keeping themselves well out of sight below stairs. Something of an unhealthy east wind had made both sisters feel dissatisfied and anxious, too restless to choose some useful pursuit but too troubled by a prickly conscience to abandon themselves to doing nothing at all. Julia’s pianoforte sat untouched, Maria’s embroidery lay in a tangle, and the letters they had promised to their Mansfield friends would go unwritten another day. Maria in particular only wanted to sit at the window and watch and wait; Julia felt morose because she had no one to wait for. And yet, she acknowledged, she no longer envied Maria. What happiness had her sister’s passion for Henry Crawford brought her? Maria was impatient and cross, jealous and fearful, when she ought to be radiant, cheerful and glowing. Julia could truly pity her.
“You suppose, because he has seldom called upon us here,
