Mr. Gibson’s accounts of the tragedy at St. Peter’s field were avidly followed throughout the kingdom, and although he was willing to return to prison rather than restrain himself from expressing what he felt and believed, his fame and popularity with the public shielded him from being harassed by Lord Sidmouth. He returned to Huntingdon so soon as he could, where he was welcomed by Mrs. Price as a long-lost son, by Betsey as a brother, and by Fanny as her acknowledged lover.
Certain now of her own mind and inclinations, and being of an age to act upon them, Fanny needed no urging to fix an early day for her marriage to Mr. Gibson. Of his constancy and affection she could have no doubt, long-tested as it had been. Their separation had served to make their natures more compatible, rather than less, to bind them together, rather than estrange them one from the other. She was firmer in knowing her own mind, he had grown more conciliatory, more apt to reflect before acting. She thought she was, indeed, a very different sort of woman than the shy and timid girl Mr. Gibson had met in Bristol so long ago, but, as he often assured her, so far as her inward and outward loveliness was concerned, she had not changed at all.
* * * * * * *
In Mansfield, Edmund had confided to no-one about his intentions toward his cousin Fanny. He therefore had no-one in whom to confide his disappointment when he received her letter. She loved another, and he was tolerably certain he knew who that person was (for Fanny, with her usual delicacy, did not name him.)
That first letter, however, was soon followed by others—to him, to his sisters Maria and Julia, and to all of the numerous Price tribe, when Fanny announced the fact of her engagement—indeed, of her eminent marriage.
Mrs. Norris was in receipt of one such letter, and so Portia Owen first heard the news when she walked down to the White House for tea after concluding her music lessons for the day.
“Miss Owen, do you know anything of the writer, William Gibson?” Mrs. Norris asked her.
“Certainly, ma’am,” replied Miss Owen. “Gibson’s novels are very popular.”
“Well, I shall trust to your assurance on that matter, to that I can say nothing, having scarcely ever picked up a novel in my life, but I do recall seeing his name in the newspapers from time to time. It seems that my niece Fanny is going to be married to him.”
“Oh! Married to Mr. Gibson! I am happy for her,” Miss Owen said, though attempting to conceal with what heart-felt satisfaction she did hear the news. “I wish them very well. I suppose you must have had some hint of it, ma’am, but I had no notion, when Miss Price visited us last July, that she was on the point of marriage.”
Mrs. Norris shook her head. “Fanny always had a little spirit of secrecy about her. She likes to go her own way.” She folded up the letter decisively. “I did meet this Mr. Gibson, now that I think on it, many years ago, and formed a poor opinion of him, as I recall. It was when dear Julia was getting married. I suspected him of courting Fanny back then. I would advise any young person to look about them before they go to get married—but, to hold off for seven years! This Mr. Gibson has taken his time to come to the point. I wonder if the circumstance of Fanny coming in to a bit of money from her late friend has made the difference. I think she has at least five thousand pounds.”
Miss Owen smiled at the thought of the eminent Mr. Gibson wanting to marry a girl for the sake of five thousand pounds. “I trust they are both sincerely attached to one another, ma’am,” she began, but Mrs. Norris broke in with:
“I hope she will be respectable, and conduct herself so as to be a credit to the people who raised her. She ought to be, after all the care and trouble Sir Thomas and I took to bring her up properly. No doubt, this Mr. Gibson would never have looked twice at her, if she had been left to grow up any which-way in Portsmouth. It was I, you know, who first proposed bringing her to Mansfield, where she received a proper education and grew up with her dear cousins. It is because of me, when you come to think of it, that Fanny was able to find a husband of any sort.”
Having talked herself into being the sponsor of the match, the thought suddenly occurred that if everyone came to view the matter in the same light, then an expectation might arise that she come down with some funds for Fanny. She hurried on with— “and I recall, when I first spoke to Sir Thomas about taking her in hand, he was apprehensive that he might be obliged to make some provision for her to live upon. ‘Oh, my dear Sir Thomas,” I told him, “only give her a good education, and introduce her properly into the world, and ten to one she has the means of settling well, without further expense to anybody.’ That is just what I advised, and
