In the clamour immediately following his declaration, amid the gasps of surprise, cries of wonder, the smiles mingled with tears, Fanny retreated to the staircase and listened, until a sob clutched at her throat, and she turned and ran up to her bedchamber.
Her room was directly above the low-ceilinged parlour, and of course Fanny heard everything passing below. Mrs. Price gave her blessing to the match, and congratulated Jacob on marrying a girl with such excellent connections— “niece to a baronet, mind!”
“I am most excessively obliged to him!” the young man answered with feeling.
“Oh, as to being obliged,” said Mrs. Price, “I will write him and send him your best compliments and service, and I shall be sure to tell him of my very good opinion of you, so I think you need not be under any fear as to how he will answer.”
“But has he not already written his approval?” Fanny heard Jacob say. “Miss Price came to tell us—”
“Ah! Yes, Fanny writes to her uncle and aunt very regularly, and she must have told them of it. Sadly, I am too taken up with the cares of my household, and seldom find a quiet moment to write to my sister Bertram. But Fanny has done it.”
Susan came upstairs an hour later, and the sisters embraced. Susan, ever more direct in her manner, took Fanny’s face in both her hands and said earnestly, “Fanny? You have given up Mr. Gibson? Was it for my sake?”
It was no great falsehood, so Fanny told herself, to assure Susan that, even had there been no Jacob Miller in the case—had there been no infamously tyrannical Mr. Miller—she would still have ended her attachment to Mr. Gibson. She was convinced, she told Susan, of their unsuitability as to temperament—she could neither meet him in his bold disregard for the consequences of his actions, nor would she demand that he change, restrain, pinion himself, for her sake. “Susan, while I esteem Mr. Gibson and I always will, I am unequal to encountering the uncertainties attendant upon tying my life to his. Indeed, I would rather remain as I am, than attempt it.”
Fanny stressed this aspect of the difficulty, trusting Susan would believe that Fanny’s private misgivings were the only reason for her decision. The fairest, happiest prospects were opening for Susan and Fanny did not want her to feel—now or ever—the slightest degree of obligation.
Susan had every reason to wish to believe it, and she wept softly and clung to her sister. Fanny comforted and reassured her, that it was all for the best, and Susan had nothing to do now but to be happy.
There could be no turning back now. The monies which came to her by Henry Crawford were attached to a scandalous chapter in her past which she blushed to recollect—sharing those funds with a worthy young couple offered a form of atonement. Perhaps in the future she might assist Betsey in some fashion as well. Just as her friend Mrs. Butters, whose fortune derived from the slave trade, had employed her wealth in the cause of abolition, so Fanny would use her ill-gotten monies to help her family. And no action could better testify to the earnestness of her resolution to put her family before herself.
For most of her life, Fanny had supposed she would never marry. As a child, she had held herself too insignificant, too plain, to be capable of attaching anyone; from a very early age she gave her heart to her cousin Edmund, without the expectation or even the hope of a return. Brief, very brief indeed was the season in which fairer prospects had bloomed; these now must be laid aside.
She recalled a time, early in their acquaintance, when she was recovering from a grave illness, when Mr. Gibson had called upon her.
“And as for you being weak, what nonsense,” he had said. “You must be stronger than you know, stronger than you ever imagined.”
Fanny would have work for her hands, occupation for her mind and objects for her affection. Her regrets must—surely would—abate in time. She had always been considered as sickly and weak. But this decision to sacrifice her own happiness and, at least for a time, Mr. Gibson’s as well, demanded all her strength and resolution. She must deaden the pain within, fight down her remorse, and urge her heart to turn to stone. She must forget the feel of Mr. Gibson’s hand on hers, the feel of his arm around her waist, his lips brushing her cheek, his voice murmuring in her ear. The inner strength Mr. Gibson once praised would be turned against him.
* * * * * * *
The Millers paid a visit of ceremony to Mrs. Price, who received them graciously, and Fanny nodded and smiled while many allusions were made to a future happy day. Mr. Miller, understandably, supposed that Susan owed her dowry to the benevolence and approbation of Sir Thomas, and Fanny did not disabuse him on that score. The baker had set aside larger sums for his own daughters, but the fact of Susan’s having anything, when he had been led to expect nothing, was a very great surprise which operated agreeably in Susan’s favour. The happiness of the lovers, and the confidence with which they projected their future together, was a balm to Fanny’s wounded soul.
Fanny privately informed her mother of her resolution to give half her money to Susan, and the offer was accepted on Susan’s behalf, with the calm reflection that “no doubt Sir Thomas will settle something on you. He obliged himself to support you, after all,
