“Oh, certainly, you could be in no doubt you would be very much missed—very much—and if I may venture to add, your absence would be felt, not only by the worthy lady you have named, but also by your other friends—that is, by these young sempstresses, whose devotion I believe you have secured—and it is not to be wondered at, not at all. And it is not merely as an instructress of the needle arts that you have benefited them. You are, if I may quote the poet, the pattern of a gentlewoman. ‘Unobtrusive, serious and meek, the first to listen and the last to speak.’”
A half-smile and a nod was her best response here, for if Mr. Edifice approved of her tendency to be ‘the last to speak,’ she could easily oblige him.
Alas for Mr. Edifice’s hopes! He could not know that Fanny had loved another clergyman before she ever met him, and further, he stood no comparison with Edmund Bertram, her cousin—not in understanding, nor in address, nor in true benevolence and integrity.
Fanny’s love for Edmund was a carefully guarded secret. When she was a child, he had opened the world to her through reading and conversation. His good principles were her guide. But, convinced of her own lowliness and unworthiness, she never presumed to hint of her attachment. She had watched helplessly when he fell in love with the beautiful and fascinating Mary Crawford. Even though he and Mary were estranged, he was still a married man. Fanny harshly reproved herself for entertaining any thoughts of Edmund which were not entirely cousin-like. She knew it was wrong to think of the touch of his hand, or his embrace when they last parted, or the feel of his lips brushing her cheek.
She missed him, every day, his friendship, and his company. She longed for him even as she recognized it was best to stay far away from him. He filled a place in her heart, that no-one else ever could.
* * * * * * *
Edmund dipped his quill in his ink, and paused, looking up from his blank sheet of paper to gaze out of the window. He recalled when Mary’s brother Henry suggested they build a garden “at what is now the back of the house; which will be giving it the best aspect in the world, sloping to the south-east. The ground seems precisely formed for it.” Henry used to pique himself on his abilities as a landscape designer, and the Crawfords and Bertrams once travelled together to the country home of his sister’s fiancé Mr. Rushworth, so Henry could advise on improvements to his grounds. The visit to the gardens of Sotherton turned out to be anything but innocent for all of the young people hovering on the brink of love or desire. Henry had flirted with Julia all the way there, and, once arrived, had transferred his attentions to Maria. And Mary had discovered that Edmund intended to be a clergyman. Her reaction to this news, ought to have taught Edmund to guard his heart from her. Instead, she had bewitched him.
Edmund recalled, with painful clarity, how delightful Mary had been, when he and she and Fanny strolled through the patch of forest known as the Wilderness. When Fanny, pleading fatigue, had asked to rest for a while, he immediately found a bench; he warmly urged the ladies to sit down, and his heart beat faster when Mary declined, saying, in her delightfully contrary way, that ‘resting fatigues me.’
The opportunity was so fair and so was she. They left Fanny behind and walked along the secluded footpaths, which curved and wound about until they found themselves at a side gate which led to a broad oak avenue, one of the approaches to the manor itself. Mary was still playfully arguing with him about how long they had been walking in the Wilderness, and how far they had come.
“You may put your watch away, Mr. Bertram. I have now walked long enough to want some rest—so, since I am never tired, it does follow that we have covered a prodigious distance,” she said.
“If my watch does not refute you, perhaps the poet will.” Edmund recalled some lines from Cowper:
We tread the wilderness, whose well-roll’d walks,
With curvature of slow and easy sweep—
Deception innocent—give ample space
To narrow bounds.
“‘Ample space to narrow bounds,’” Mary repeated. “One is reminded of Hamlet: ‘I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space.’ Not I. I should hate to be confined. Even these noble trees crowd in upon me.”
Mary spread her shawl on the grass under one of broadest oaks, and they sat down together in its welcome shade.
“You are correct in what you said, Mr. Bertram,” said she, pointing down the avenue. “The house is ill-placed. If only it had been situated at the crest of the valley, instead of the bottom! How much more could be done to improve the setting! Sotherton must have a decidedly gloomy aspect in winter.”
“It is highly pleasing to me, just at present.”
A sideways smile awarded his attempt at gallantry.
“I think you have almost blundered upon some repartee, Mr. Bertram, and I will own myself flattered.”
“You are generous to admit the sentiment while overlooking the lack of eloquence which clothed it. Well then, Miss Crawford, do you think your brother will recommend that this avenue be taken down?”
“I think he would sweep everything away—the gates, the walls, the hedges, to open up the view as much as possible. He would return it to a state of untouched nature—-which is an exacting business, as you know, for these so-called natural landscapes are
