They set out together, and Fanny feared some new worry must be weighing upon Edmund’s mind, for she did not feel that perfect ease and sympathy, that unspoken connection, which usually arose between them. He was sorry to be parting from her, she knew, but he spoke only of indifferent matters. They exchanged the usual remarks about the summer weather, and compared it to previous summers, and concluded that there was nothing to be done. They discussed the renovations Christopher Jackson had completed for the school, and the necessity of replacing the roof on the stables, and the continual and unexpected expenses which establishing a new school involved.
The conviction grew upon Fanny that Edmund was wishing to speak on some very significant matter indeed. He appeared distracted, abstract, he looked all about but at her, and he had nothing to say above the merest common-place remarks. She grew conscious, and her quickened breathing had nothing to do with keeping up with Edmund’s long legs as he strode restlessly ahead.
As their walk took them within the observation of the East Room, Edmund looked up through the streaming rain and remarked, “the boys are taking their drawing lesson indoors today. It is too bad. Miss Owen intended to take them down to the trout stream to do some sketching there, but it is too wet for such an outing.”
Fanny agreed that it was indeed too wet to sit on the banks of the stream. This remark revived the subject of the weather, and the possibility of a poor hay crop, and the prognostications of the local farmers, but still Fanny sensed that Edmund had something much more particular he wished to say.
She finally ventured to ask him, ‘how did he do?’ Her tone was kind and confiding, that he might understand her to mean she enquired not as an everyday question, but truthfully and sincerely, how was he?
“I think I am as well as can be expected,” answered Edmund after a brief pause. He began to speak, he paused, and the suspense to Fanny was most alarming.
Suddenly, Edmund stopped and turned to look at her earnestly. “Fanny, I have been wondering whether I may say something to you, before you go away.”
“Of course you may, Edmund,” she answered instantly, as she felt her cheeks grow warm, despite the chill weather.
“In the next instant, you may regret giving me leave, and so may I, but I will say it. My dear Fanny, I only learned a fortnight ago, that I have been a widower for five months. We know I ought not to think of marrying again, not at present, not yet. Custom, to say nothing of what I might owe to the memory of my late wife, prohibits it. But have I not suffered long enough? Am I not entitled to look forward to the simple pleasure of living with someone whom I can love and esteem, and who loves and esteems me?”
“No, no, of course you deserve happiness,” exclaimed Fanny. She heard herself speaking tolerably calmly and rationally, but within, her mind was in a whirl of confusion and surprise. “That is, in the eyes of the world, as you say, you must be circumspect, but your friends would rejoice for you if they knew you intended to marry again some day.”
“It is too soon,” he went on hurriedly, “far too soon, to speak or even think of, but Fanny, you are going away tomorrow and I am impelled speak to you now. I must give you something to think about, before you go. I pray I do not alarm or repel you with my precipitancy.”
Fanny wondered if Edmund could hear her heart pounding in her chest. “What I think is not important,” she said. “You must think of securing your own happiness.”
“But your thoughts, your wishes, your feelings on the matter, are exceedingly important to me. Can you not guess why?”
Fanny could not mistake the question in Edmund’s eyes.
She had just received the assurance of that affection of which, in her girlhood days, she had scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope. If her younger self could have chosen the place of his declaration, she would have chosen this very spot, amidst the shrubbery of Mansfield Park.
She felt exceedingly agitated, so discomposed by his appeal that she instinctively turned away, to consult her own feelings. What, indeed, were her feelings? She knew exactly how she would have felt, had this declaration come ten or eight years earlier. She would have been in a delirium of joy, in a transporting state of happiness. Now, after her initial surprise, she could name her feelings as gratitude, obligation, surprise, tenderness—everything but what she once felt, what she ought to feel.
Edmund was watching her intently, searching her face. Evading his gaze, she looked up at the house, up to the windows of the East Room. Someone stood at the window, watching the two of them, watching as they paused in their walk, as they stood sheltered together under their umbrellas.
It was Portia Owen. Portia’s pale face was like a ghost, like an echo of her own past. The East Room was where she used to sit and read and hide from her Aunt Norris and think about Edmund, especially when he was away at school.
Miss Owen abruptly withdrew from sight.
“Fanny?” said Edmund. Fanny reached out and took his hand.
Fanny told herself that the decision was not a difficult one—Edmund needed her, and so she ought to marry him. Yet, she hesitated. She was not certain. Was he?
“Edmund, can you be sure of your feelings at this juncture? You are the last person on earth whom I need caution against making a hasty decision as regards matrimony, yet…”
“Apart from the rashness of my declaration, can you possibly distrust my reasons,
