His aunt looked at him sharply, but he only looked back at her with the blandest of expressions on his face.
“Beware yourself, Tom! You cannot be too guarded with these types of designing females, as handsome and as eligible as you are. Our dear Maria has such a strict sense of propriety, so much of that true delicacy which one seldom meets with nowadays—but how readily a young man can be brought to forget himself when a young lady behaves in a shameless fashion!” She fetched breath and continued, “Depend upon it, Tom, Fanny Price will rue the day she ever aspired to become Mrs. Henry Crawford, for people are never respected when they step out of their proper sphere. The nonsense and folly of people's stepping out of their rank and trying to appear above themselves—how ridiculous she will be, and how the servants at Everingham will laugh at her behind her back, when she tries to make herself its mistress!”
* * * * * *
“What shall you do once we arrive in Everingham, Mr. Crawford? That is, will you return to London?”
“Indeed I shall, Mrs. Crawford. You will not have heard of the Four-in-Hand club, but I have had the honour to be proposed for membership. They meet during these spring months, twice a month, and we ride with our teams in procession.”
“Ah, it is a society for gentlemen who enjoy driving coaches, I apprehend.”
“Yes. We even have our own clothing,” Henry laughed self-consciously. “Something similar to the coachmen who drive the mail.”
“Should I need to communicate with you, shall I write to your hotel?”
“You may,” he said carelessly, “but I shall be everywhere, you know.”
Fanny surmised they must be approaching Everingham, when Mr. Crawford suddenly called the coach driver to stop. Fanny waited quietly for an explanation, as she knew him well enough by now to understand he loved to cloak his doings with mystery and drama. She had not long to wait. He pulled from his pocket a little box, lined with velvet, containing a simple but pretty gold ring, small enough to fit the third finger of her left hand.
“We will be in Everingham in about half an hour,” he explained quietly. “All the servants will be lined up along the sweep to meet you. I forgot about this, and thought I had better give it to you now, to give you time to recover from weeping before we arrived. And here—I ordered you two dozen extra handkerchiefs. You see, I have thought of every detail.”
Fanny was deeply abashed, but his mockery, though almost affectionate, was not enough to stop her from crying, just a little, at the shame of wearing what should only be worn by those who have taken the most solemn oaths before their Creator. The ring burnt her finger like fire.
Chapter Twenty
Henry Crawford stayed barely a week, only long enough to see Fanny settled in her new home, to assure himself that she was able to carry off the imposture, and long enough to see the response from Sir Thomas, to the news of the supposed marriage.
Dear Mrs. Crawford:
I thought it not inappropriate, on the occasion of your marriage, to convey to you my sentiments. It is the usual custom, I believe, to proffer “best wishes” to a bride. However, I think it is my duty to mark my opinion of your conduct. I am in no small doubt as to how you shall receive this letter as you have recently shown, by every means possible, that you disdain the deference that youth and inexperience owes to wisdom and authority. You have disappointed every expectation I had formed, and proved yourself of a character the very reverse of what I had supposed.
Firstly—and if the fact had not been confirmed by Miss Crawford herself I could scarcely credit it—you assumed the role of governess in a household near Bristol. That a niece of Sir Thomas Bertram, raised under his roof, would stoop to this expedient, and would flee from home, from family, from safety, honour, comfort and ease, to repay our generosity with resentment and scorn, is past all my powers to comprehend.
Secondly—you have flouted the laws of England respecting the marriage of underage persons, and entered into the state of matrimony, with a man who was in honour pledged to my daughter Maria. Time alone will reveal who will be the greater sufferer as a result of this rash action—the daughter who lost Mr. Crawford as a husband or the niece who gained him as one.
You do not owe me the duty of a child. But, Fanny, if your heart can acquit you of ingratitude on this occasion, then your heart must not be as tender as I once supposed.
While my judgment in this matter has been severe, depend upon it, I remain your well-wisher and friend. May you never know the pain of being so grievously disappointed by those to whom you are bound by the tenderest ties of affection.
Your sorrowful uncle, Thomas Bertram
Fanny had been making some progress in training herself not to cry every time her feelings were wounded, but a letter such as this from her uncle, a man whom she had always feared and respected, caused her to retire to her bedchamber to weep until slumber brought her some relief. It appeared that Miss Crawford had told her nothing less than the truth—she was rejected by her family—she was cast out of Mansfield Park—she was nothing to them now!
Henry Crawford, partially out of resentment at being thus insulted by Sir Thomas, and partially out of pity and good feeling for Fanny, instructed the steward that any letters from her Bertram cousins be kept away from Mrs. Crawford and locked up in his study until his return, so
