He was met at the door, most unexpectedly, by Madame Orly, and he could not read the expression on her face, but he instantly feared that something was wrong.
“Good day to you, Madame Orly. Is Miss Price within?”
“Oh! Non, non, Monsieur Gibson. I am so very sorry. But you see, not an hour ago, Fanny set out for Wapping, for to fetch her brother John. And they are to go to Portsmouth, by the post.”
At first Mr. Gibson was afraid Fanny had suffered such perturbation at the thought of his impending marriage proposal, that she had flown to Portsmouth as a form of escape. Madame Orly was holding out a note to him—could it be a letter from Fanny?
“Why has she gone? Is something the matter, Madame Orly?”
“Ah, yes, something of the most unfortunate. Fanny left me this letter, she said that you could read it all.”
And William took the note, written in an awkward hand:
My dearest Sister,
I have some Awful News for you. This Morning at about 2:00 am our Father Died. He had come back from a walk with mother & sat down to eat a grand Dinner—for we were celebrating with William & Julia—& he was in the best of spirits, & ate & drank with as good an Appetite as always but he was seized of an Apoplexy while rising from the table. We call’d for the Apothecary but there was Nothing to be done for him. He did not regain his Senses & he Died.
Our Mother of course is in the most miserable State.
A great many of our Father’s freinds have kindly sent their Regards & have said the most obliging things about him which will be of some comfort to his Sons no doubt.
William & Julia & Aunt Norris are here as you know. As for dear Sam & Richard—Heaven only knows when my Letters will find them so far out to sea & could you please tell John yrself? I think that would be the best way & wd save him a Shilling for the Post.
O Fanny I very much want you & brother John to come here & assist us. Do say that you can come quickly! He will be buried this Monday afternoon & unless John comes, poor William will have to go to the burial alone of the family.
Yr sister,
Susan
Chapter Twenty-Three
William and John Price buried their father on Monday and John returned to London on Tuesday. Fanny remained with her family. Julia and Mrs. Norris stayed in the Crown Inn, but called upon Mrs. Price every day, a level of solicitude which was almost more than the desolate widow could well tolerate.
Fanny was staunch in her support for William and Julia’s marriage to proceed as they had first intended, before the untimely death of Mr. Price. At first William, much stricken by his father’s passing, condemned the idea as impossible—disrespectful—and was resigning himself to sending Julia back to Thornton Lacey. But after the passage of a few more hours, and a few more days, he reflected that, after all, his father had blessed the marriage, and he and Julia had already waited two years. And fortunately, everyone to whom he turned for advice—and perhaps he was more inclined to go for advice to some persons than others—counselled him to secure his own happiness.
“Our father would not have seen any impediment, I am certain, William,” Fanny told him. “Sailors cannot be bound by the same rules as the rest of us, especially in a time of war. I know he would have said as much.”
Our sentiments cannot always be vanquished by reasoning with them. Fanny resolved to make an offering of her service, a sacrifice to the altar of convention and duty. She would pay her respects to her father in every way prescribed by custom—she would wear mourning, then half-mourning; she would buy him a handsome gravestone, she would stay in Portsmouth and assist her mother and her sister Susan.
She did so, knowing that some months would necessarily have to elapse before an engagement with Mr. Gibson could be contemplated, let alone announced. She could not feel comfortable or at ease in doing otherwise; Duty must be propitiated, to protect the happiness of her brother and her cousin Julia.
This was her first impulse, her chief motive and aim; there was a secondary one as well. Fanny also hoped her strict adherence to the prescribed forms of mourning might awaken what she ought to feel at the death of a man who bore the name ‘father.’ She was reluctant to examine her own heart, to enquire how sincerely she mourned a man she hardly knew, and that little known, had not truly respected. The tears she shed were for her mother, and her brothers and sisters.
Coming into a household preoccupied both with a death and an upcoming marriage, she did not think it appropriate to speak of her attachment to William Gibson. She hoped that, on some not-distant day, her mother might compose herself long enough to look at her first-born daughter and say, “Thank you, Fanny, for everything—and how have you been?” She wondered if there might come a moment when her mother’s attention lighted fully on her, and no-one else. The moment never came.
As the days went by she concluded that, even if her mother had not been recently widowed, she would have evinced not the least inclination to ask Fanny about her life in London. Mrs. Price’s solicitude was reserved for herself, William, and Betsey, her favourite children. Fanny was not called upon to explain why she was no longer at her position at the academy, and her twenty-first birthday came and went without acknowledgement.
This utter lack of curiousity in the doings of a long-lost daughter, more than the cramped quarters and the privations of Portsmouth,
