The chief of William’s letter consisted of telling her all his hopes and fears, plans, and solicitudes respecting that long thought of, dearly earned, and justly valued blessing of promotion. Everybody gets made but me, Fanny, he wrote despairingly. And this war will end before I am ever more than a worthless midshipman. Our family has no influence at the Admiralty. I hope I am not boastful when I say that I have earned a promotion through merit and diligence, and I passed the lieutenant’s exam with distinction, but without patronage…. as you know….. I fear it shall never be.
Fanny's disposition was such that she could never even think of her aunt Norris in the meagreness and cheerlessness of her own small house, without reproaching herself for some little want of attention to her when they had been last together; much less could her feelings acquit her of having done and said and thought everything by William that was due to him.
Gladly did Fanny lay aside her own sorrows and perplexities to think upon William and to wish with all her soul that she could contrive some way to help him. Her own prospects for a happy, successful life were irredeemably blighted but her brother, uniting as he did, intelligence, fortitude, talent and enterprise, deserved every happiness which public fame or private domestic felicity could bestow. If it were possible, through any sacrifice on her part, to obtain a promotion for her brother, she believed she was equal to it. But no amount of earnest contemplation could suggest an answer to the problem.
* * * * * *
“Now I am at a loss, Henry,” exclaimed Mary in vexation as soon as they were alone again. “I had assumed that she would return with us and that I could so work upon her to make her afraid to speak to anyone by the name of Bertram! If we leave her here, she is beyond my control, and Edmund will write to her, perhaps even visit her, before our marriage—I am certain he will.”
“You desire that Fanny Price be removed somewhere that will satisfy her cousin Edmund,” Henry pondered aloud, “but be so situated that he feels under no account obliged to visit her, or even write her, nor she him.”
“While you,” smiled Mary, “wish that your marriage to the lovely Maria remain a distant event, but the one reason that you advanced for postponing it—the disappearance of her cousin—has been removed, thanks to your own ingenuity! And did you not observe how discomposed Miss Price became when you spoke of your marriage to Maria?”
“Is it at all possible that she is jealous? Could she be acting a part, hiding some regard for me? How well do you know this girl? I had very little to do with her at Mansfield and now I find, to my surprise, that she appears to dislike me. It’s neither here nor there of course, but—”
Mary was grateful for an occasion to laugh, given the hardships which enveloped her. “My dear brother, you cannot make a hole in every girl’s heart, you must rest content with making the Bertram girls and Margaret Fraser and half-a-dozen others miserable!”
“Either she is affronted because I did not distinguish her, as I did her cousins,” Crawford mused aloud, “or she is prudish and did not admire how adept I was at making love to two Bertram sisters at once.”
“The latter, I conjecture.”
“If we know her character, we can trim our sails accordingly. I do not despair of persuading her to return to Portsmouth with us—her devotion to her brother is very evident.”
“Now that we have found her, what shall you tell Maria? Shall I order my dress for your wedding?”
Henry yawned. “Were it not for Boney, I’d be off to go rock-climbing in Switzerland, followed by a leisurely tour of Italy in the winter, perhaps. Ah well, I always wanted to make a walking tour of the Hebrides. I know very well how to place myself beyond the reach of matrimony, but where, where, shall you place Miss Price?”
“The bottom of Bristol harbour does suggest itself,” laughed Mary. “No, no, that will not do, even for a jest. However, I am certain she was very ill indeed, and quite recently—her hair all shorn off—and she has lost so much flesh—why are the Fates so capricious?”
“Here is a challenge to confound even our ingenuity!”
The pair were indeed profoundly silent for some time, and Mary Crawford was feeling very vexed with Fanny Price by the time they returned to their hostelry in Bristol and ate a quiet supper. Mary was about to propose turning in for the night, when Henry laughed, clapped his hands, and exclaimed, “I have it, Mary! I have a solution that will answer your wishes—and my own.”
Chapter Seventeen
Mr. Smallridge escorted Mary Crawford in to dinner, Henry Crawford had the honour of conducting Mrs. Smallridge to her seat, and last of all, Fanny was handed in by Mr. Chatsworth, the local vicar. Mrs. Smallridge was too taken up with entertaining the Crawfords to observe that her governess, the supposed relative of her dinner guests, never joined in their conversation or even smiled at their wit. Fanny could not escape hearing all that was said, of course. Mr. Crawford, with all the skills of address that she herself lacked, was interposing himself in the Smallridge’s usual talk about their neighbours and their estate and their dogs, with amusing anecdotes about his own coachman, or the eccentric old dowager who was his nearest neighbour at Everingham, while also asking them questions about their own country—their horses—their pursuits—and his conversation was all that was agreeable and captivating while still being perfectly proper and gentleman-like. He transformed the shopworn topics the Smallridges usually canvassed, that she had been used to think
