Maria was astonished, but also curious. “Margaret? I cannot imagine to what you are referring. It must be some trifle, over which you have been fretting in vain. Tell me, declare it, and then we can both forget about it. I promise to forgive you instantly.”
Margaret shook her head. “If I unburden myself to you—I am afraid of losing your friendship forever!”
Her friend, more curious than ever, reassured her. Finally, Margaret drew a slow breath, and looking away, said in a trembling voice, “It was I—I was the one who betrayed you.”
“Betrayed! I do not understand you. Betrayed me how?”
“You used to meet with Henry Crawford in secret. I told—I told your brother of it. It was I who told him.”
Instantly Maria understood her. Yes, years ago, when she was under the spell of Henry Crawford’s fatal charm, she had met with him in his hotel room. Edmund somehow learned of their liaisons. She had always supposed it was some prying servant who had done it. “It was you, Margaret!” she exclaimed.
Margaret nodded. “I was so jealous of you. You are so beautiful, so graceful, so elegant, everything that I am not. And Henry used to like me, but then after he met you, he would never even look at me. I was so absurd and miserable.” She began to weep softly.
Maria was indeed taken aback, and sat silently for some moments, examining her feelings. Had this knowledge been revealed to her at the time, she might have pulled Margaret’s hair out. But now she was happy, now she was respectable, and secure. She could afford to forgive. The struggle was brief, but generosity triumphed.
“Margaret,” Maria answered at last. “I see things very differently now, than I did then. I am with child, and I may have a daughter. And the first thing I must tell you, should a daughter of mine ever behave as rashly as I did, I would fall on my knees and thank the person who discovered her folly and reported it to me.”
Smiles mingled with tears on Margaret’s countenance. “Oh, you are kind—too kind!”
“I am sorry, indeed, if this secret has been weighing on your conscience all this time,” Maria added, but Margaret was not done with unburdening herself, and her old schoolgirl stammer returned as she blurted out: “P-perhaps if I had never interfered, perhaps Henry would have m-married you sooner, perhaps he might never have d-d-died, perhaps I ruined everything!”
The supposition was such a grave one that in fact, Maria had to think about it for a few moments, before she could reply with tolerable composure. She had, in fact, struggled with lingering resentment toward her cousin Fanny, who had also played an unwitting part in the tragedy. But in the end, Maria knew, the chief actor in the whole business was Henry Crawford. He had employed all his arts to seduce her, he had then deceived her, claimed he was married, and finally, his reckless actions resulted in his death in a carriage accident.
“I loved Henry,” Maria finally said, “I was entirely besotted with him. But he did not want to marry me—or anyone.”
Margaret wiped her eyes. “B-b-but you will never know what might have happened if I hadn’t been so jealous.”
“Margaret, I know what jealousy is. It was jealousy that drove me to forget all safety, all decorum, all self-respect, and I paid a terrible price for it. Henry played with many girls’ hearts, and in all probability, I am not the only girl whose virtue he stole.”
Margaret looked down at her hands, her cheeks crimson.
Maria spoke with rather more candour than she truly felt, as she added, “There is nothing to forgive, Margaret. I hope you can be content, and we can dismiss from our recollection those actions in our past which we regret today.”
Margaret looked up hopefully. “Because—you are happy now, are you not?”
“Very happy,” Maria agreed. “Mr. Orme is the best of husbands, although I might not have appreciated him so well when I was one-and-twenty and Henry Crawford turned my head.” Maria fell silent again, considering whether she ought to confess in return about her past transgressions, her cruel mockery of Margaret. But, she decided, what purpose would it serve? She smiled at her friend. “And I should be very happy if you could pull that bell-cord and tell someone to bring us a pot of tea.”
* * * * * * *
“How pleased your mother will be to have your company, now that Maria spends most of her time in town!” said William Price. He said it by way of solacing himself, of thinking well of himself for the sacrifice he was making in leaving his wife at Everingham. He would miss his little family intensely when he returned home to their little cottage in Newcastle.
Julia was bending over her husband’s trunk, carefully folding his clothes for his journey, but she paused and stepped over to him, and encircled him with her arms. She looked up at him with a mischievous expression. “So Maria and I have always supposed. My father has always wanted one of us be in attendance on mother, and prescribed it as a duty. But I have come to realize…”
“Realize what, my dear?”
Julia smiled. “When I was young, I really had not considered how fond father was of us all, how important it was to him to have us gathered all around him. I had never understood the depth of his feelings, for his manner, as you know, is so reserved.”
“Oh yes, I do know!” William smiled.
