Everything was now in a regular train: theatre, actors, actresses, and dresses, were all getting forward; but though no other great impediments arose, Fanny found, before many days were past, that it was not all uninterrupted enjoyment to the party themselves, and that she had not to witness the continuance of such unanimity and delight as had been almost too much for her at first. Everybody began to have their vexation. Edmund had many. Entirely against _his_ judgment, a scene-painter arrived from town, and was at work, much to the increase of the expenses, and, what was worse, of the eclat of their proceedings; and his brother, instead of being really guided by him as to the privacy of the representation, was giving an invitation to every family who came in his way. Tom himself began to fret over the scene-painter's slow progress, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his part-all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united with the Butler, and began to be impatient to be acting; and every day thus unemployed was tending to increase his sense of the insignificance of all his parts together, and make him more ready to regret that some other play had not been chosen.
Fanny, being always a very courteous listener, and often the only listener at hand, came in for the complaints and the distresses of most of them. _She_ knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that Tom Bertram spoke so quick he would be unintelligible; that Mrs. Grant spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth, who was wanting a prompter through every speech. She knew, also, that poor Mr. Rushworth could seldom get anybody to rehearse with him: _his_ complaint came before her as well as the rest; and so decided to her eye was her cousin Maria's avoidance of him, and so needlessly often the rehearsal of the first scene between her and Mr. Crawford, that she had soon all the terror of other complaints from _him_. So far from being all satisfied and all enjoying, she found everybody requiring something they had not, and giving occasion of discontent to the others. Everybody had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody but the complainer would observe any directions.
Fanny believed herself to derive as much innocent enjoyment from the play as any of them; Henry Crawford acted well, and it was a pleasure to _her_ to creep into the theatre, and attend the rehearsal of the first act, in spite of the feelings it excited in some speeches for Maria. Maria, she also thought, acted well, too well; and after the first rehearsal or two, Fanny began to be their only audience; and sometimes as prompter, sometimes as spectator, was often very useful. As far as she could judge, Mr. Crawford was considerably the best actor of all: he had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and taste than Mr. Yates. She did not like him as a man, but she must admit him to be the best actor, and on this point there were not many who differed from her. Mr. Yates, indeed, exclaimed against his tameness and insipidity; and the day came at last, when Mr. Rushworth turned to her with a black look, and said, "Do you think there is anything so very fine in all this? For the life and soul of me, I cannot admire him; and, between ourselves, to see such an undersized, little, mean-looking man, set up for a fine actor, is very ridiculous in my opinion."
From this moment there was a return of his former jealousy, which Maria, from increasing hopes of Crawford, was at little pains to remove; and the chances of Mr. Rushworth's ever attaining to the knowledge of his two-and-forty speeches became much less. As to his ever making anything _tolerable_ of them, nobody had the smallest idea of that except his mother; _she_, indeed, regretted that his part was not more considerable, and deferred coming over to Mansfield till they were forward enough in their rehearsal to comprehend all his scenes; but the others aspired at nothing beyond his remembering the catchword, and the first line of his speech, and being able to follow the prompter through the rest. Fanny, in her pity and kindheartedness, was at great pains to teach him how to learn, giving him all the helps and directions in her power, trying to make an artificial memory for him, and learning every word of his part herself, but without his being much the forwarder.
Many uncomfortable, anxious, apprehensive feelings she certainly had; but with all these, and other claims on her time and attention, she was as far from finding herself without employment or utility amongst them, as without a companion in uneasiness; quite as far from having no demand on her leisure as on her compassion. The gloom of her first anticipations was proved to have been unfounded. She was occasionally useful to all; she was perhaps as much at peace as any.
There was a great deal of needlework to be done, moreover, in which her help was wanted; and that Mrs. Norris thought her quite as well off as the rest, was evident by the manner in which she claimed it-"Come, Fanny," she cried, "these are fine times for you, but you must not be always walking from one room to the other, and doing the lookings-on at your ease, in this way; I want you here. I have been slaving myself till I can hardly stand, to contrive Mr. Rushworth's cloak without sending for any more satin; and now I think you may give me your help in putting it together. There are but three seams; you may do them in a trice. It would be lucky for me if I had nothing but the executive part to do. _You_ are best off, I can tell you: but if nobody did more than _you_, we should not get on very fast."
Fanny took the work very quietly, without attempting any defence; but her kinder aunt Bertram observed on her behalf-
"One cannot wonder, sister, that Fanny _should_ be delighted: it is all new to her, you know; you and I used to be very fond of a play ourselves, and so am I still; and as soon as I am a little more at leisure, _I_ mean to look in at their rehearsals too. What is the play about, Fanny? you have never told me."
"Oh! sister, pray do not ask her now; for Fanny is not one of those who can talk and work at the same time. It is about Lovers' Vows."
"I believe," said Fanny to her aunt Bertram, "there will be three acts rehearsed to-morrow evening, and that will give you an opportunity of seeing all the actors at once."
"You had better stay till the curtain is hung," interposed Mrs. Norris; "the curtain will be hung in a day or two-there is very little sense in a play without a curtain-and I am much mistaken if you do not find it draw up into very handsome festoons."
Lady Bertram seemed quite resigned to waiting. Fanny did not share her aunt's composure: she thought of the morrow a great deal, for if the three acts were rehearsed, Edmund and Miss Crawford would then be acting together for the first time; the third act would bring a scene between them which interested her most particularly, and which she was longing and dreading to see how they would perform. The whole subject of it was love-a marriage of love was to be described by the gentleman, and very little short of a declaration of love be made by the lady.
She had read and read the scene again with many painful, many wondering emotions, and looked forward to their representation of it as a circumstance almost too interesting. She did not _believe_ they had yet rehearsed it, even in private.
The morrow came, the plan for the evening continued, and Fanny's consideration of it did not become less agitated. She worked very diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence and her silence concealed a very absent, anxious mind; and about noon she made her escape with her work to the East room, that she might have no concern in another, and, as she deemed it, most unnecessary rehearsal of the first act, which Henry Crawford was just proposing, desirous at once of having her time to herself, and of avoiding the sight of Mr. Rushworth. A glimpse, as she passed through the hall, of the two ladies walking up from the Parsonage made no change in her wish of retreat, and she worked and meditated in the East room, undisturbed, for a quarter of an hour, when a gentle tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Miss Crawford.
"Am I right? Yes; this is the East room. My dear Miss Price, I beg your pardon, but I have made my way to you on purpose to entreat your help."
Fanny, quite surprised, endeavoured to shew herself mistress of the room by her civilities, and looked at the bright bars of her empty grate with concern.
"Thank you; I am quite warm, very warm. Allow me to stay here a little while, and do have the goodness to hear me my third act. I have brought my book, and if you would but rehearse it with me, I should be _so_ obliged! I came here to-day intending to rehearse it with Edmund-by ourselves-against the evening, but he is not in the way; and if he _were_, I do not think I could go through it with _him_, till I have hardened myself a little; for really there is a speech or two. You will be so good, won't you?"
Fanny was most civil in her assurances, though she could not give them in a very steady voice.
"Have you ever happened to look at the part I mean?" continued Miss Crawford, opening her book. "Here it is. I did not think much of it at first-but, upon my word. There, look at _that_ speech, and _that_, and _that_. How am I ever to look him in the face and say such things? Could you do it? But then he is your cousin, which makes all the difference. You must rehearse it with me, that I may fancy _you_ him, and get on by degrees. You _have_ a look of _his_ sometimes."
"Have I? I will do my best with the greatest readiness; but I must _read_ the part, for I can say very little of it."
"_None_ of it, I suppose. You are to have the book, of course. Now for it. We must have two chairs at hand for you to bring forward to the front of the stage. There-very good school-room chairs, not made for a theatre, I dare say; much more fitted for little girls to sit and kick their feet against when they are learning a lesson. What would your governess and your uncle say to see them used for such a purpose? Could Sir Thomas look in upon us just now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing all over the house. Yates is storming away in the dining-room. I heard him as I came upstairs, and the theatre is engaged of course by those indefatigable rehearsers, Agatha and Frederick. If _they_ are not perfect, I _shall_ be surprised. By the bye, I looked in upon them five minutes ago, and it happened to be exactly at one of the times when they were trying _not_ to embrace, and Mr. Rushworth was with me. I thought he began to look a little queer, so I turned it off as well as I could, by whispering to him, 'We shall have an excellent Agatha; there is something so _maternal_ in her manner, so completely _maternal_ in her voice and countenance.' Was not that well done of me? He brightened up directly. Now for my soliloquy."
She began, and Fanny joined in with all the modest feeling which the idea of representing Edmund was so strongly calculated to inspire; but with looks and voice so truly feminine as to be no very good picture of a man. With such an Anhalt, however, Miss Crawford had courage enough; and they had got through half the scene, when a tap at the door brought a pause, and the entrance of Edmund, the next moment, suspended it all.
Surprise, consciousness, and pleasure appeared in each of the three on this unexpected meeting; and as Edmund was come on the very same business that had brought Miss Crawford, consciousness and pleasure were likely to be more than momentary in _them_. He too had his book, and was seeking Fanny, to ask her to rehearse with him, and help him to prepare for the evening, without knowing Miss Crawford to be in the house; and great was the joy and animation of being thus thrown together, of comparing schemes, and sympathising in praise of Fanny's kind offices.
_She_ could not equal them in their warmth. _Her_ spirits sank under the glow of theirs, and she felt herself becoming too nearly nothing to both to have any comfort in having been sought by either. They must now rehearse together. Edmund proposed, urged, entreated it, till the lady, not very unwilling at first, could refuse no longer, and Fanny was wanted only to prompt and observe them. She was invested, indeed, with the office of judge and critic, and earnestly desired to exercise it and tell them all their faults; but from doing so every feeling within her shrank-she could not, would not, dared not attempt it: had she been otherwise qualified for criticism, her conscience must have restrained her from venturing at disapprobation. She believed herself to feel too much of it in the aggregate for honesty or safety in particulars. To prompt them must be enough for her; and it was sometimes _more_ than enough; for she could not always pay attention to the book. In watching them she forgot herself; and, agitated by the increasing spirit of Edmund's manner, had once closed the page and turned away exactly as he wanted help. It was imputed to very reasonable weariness, and she was thanked and pitied; but she deserved their pity more than she hoped they would ever surmise. At last the scene was over, and Fanny forced herself to add her praise to the compliments each was giving the other; and when again alone and able to recall the whole, she was inclined to believe their performance would, indeed, have such nature and feeling in it as must ensure their credit, and make it a very suffering exhibition to herself. Whatever might be its effect, however, she must stand the brunt of it again that very day.
The first regular rehearsal of the three first acts was certainly to take place in the evening: Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords were engaged to return for that purpose as soon as they could after dinner; and every one concerned was looking forward with eagerness. There seemed a general diffusion of cheerfulness on the occasion. Tom was enjoying such an advance towards the end; Edmund was in spirits from the morning's rehearsal, and little vexations seemed everywhere smoothed away. All were alert and impatient; the ladies moved soon, the gentlemen soon followed them, and with the exception of Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, everybody was in the theatre at an early hour; and having lighted it up as well as its unfinished state admitted, were waiting only the arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin.
They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant. She could not come. Dr. Grant, professing an indisposition, for which he had little credit with his fair sister-in-law, could not spare his wife.
"Dr. Grant is ill," said she, with mock solemnity. "He has been ill ever since he did not eat any of the pheasant today. He fancied it tough, sent away his plate, and has been suffering ever since".
Here was disappointment! Mrs. Grant's non-attendance was sad indeed. Her pleasant manners and cheerful conformity made her always valuable amongst them; but _now_ she was absolutely necessary. They could not act, they could not rehearse with any satisfaction without her. The comfort of the whole evening was destroyed. What was to be done? Tom, as Cottager, was in despair. After a pause of perplexity, some eyes began to be turned towards Fanny, and a voice or two to say, "If Miss Price would be so good as to _read_ the part." She was immediately surrounded by supplications; everybody asked it; even Edmund said, "Do, Fanny, if it is not _very_ disagreeable to you."
But Fanny still hung back. She could not endure the idea of it. Why was not Miss Crawford to be applied to as well? Or why had not she rather gone to her own room, as she had felt to be safest, instead of attending the rehearsal at all? She had known it would irritate and distress her; she had known it her duty to keep away. She was properly punished.
"You have only to _read_ the part," said Henry Crawford, with renewed entreaty.
"And I do believe she can say every word of it," added Maria, "for she could put Mrs. Grant right the other day in twenty places. Fanny, I am sure you know the part."
Fanny could not say she did _not_; and as they all persevered, as Edmund repeated his wish, and with a look of even fond dependence on her good-nature, she must yield. She would do her best. Everybody was satisfied; and she was left to the tremors of a most palpitating heart, while the others prepared to begin.
They _did_ begin; and being too much engaged in their own noise to be struck by an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded some way when the door of the room was thrown open, and Julia, appearing at it, with a face all aghast, exclaimed, "My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment."

Everything was now in train: theatre, actors, actresses, and dresses, were all getting forward; but Fanny found that it was not all uninterrupted enjoyment to the party. Everybody began to have their vexation. Edmund had many. Against his judgment, a scene-painter arrived from town, and was at work, increasing the expenses; and his brother was giving an invitation to every family who came in his way. Tom himself began to fret, and to feel the miseries of waiting. He had learned his part-all his parts, for he took every trifling one that could be united with the Butler, and was impatient to be acting.
Fanny, being a very courteous listener, came in for the complaints of most of them. She knew that Mr. Yates was in general thought to rant dreadfully; that Mr. Yates was disappointed in Henry Crawford; that Tom Bertram spoke too quick; that Mrs. Grant spoiled everything by laughing; that Edmund was behindhand with his part, and that it was misery to have anything to do with Mr. Rushworth, who needed a prompter through every speech. She knew, also, that poor Mr. Rushworth could seldom get anybody to rehearse with him: and so decidedly did her cousin Maria avoid him, and so needlessly often did she rehearse the first scene with Mr. Crawford, that Fanny was soon terrified of other complaints from him.
So far from being all satisfied, everybody required something they had not. Everybody had a part either too long or too short; nobody would attend as they ought; nobody would remember on which side they were to come in; nobody but the complainer would observe any directions.
Fanny derived much innocent enjoyment from the play. Henry Crawford acted well, and it was a pleasure to her to creep into the theatre, and attend the rehearsal of the first act, in spite of the feelings it excited in some speeches for Maria. Maria also acted well, too well. Fanny began to be their only audience, sometimes as prompter, sometimes as spectator.
As far as she could judge, Mr. Crawford was the best actor of all: he had more confidence than Edmund, more judgment than Tom, more talent and taste than Mr. Yates. She did not like him, but she must admit him to be the best actor. The day came at last, when Mr. Rushworth turned to her with a black look, and said, "Do you think there is anything so very fine in all this? For the life and soul of me, I cannot admire him. To see such an undersized man set up for a fine actor, is ridiculous in my opinion."
From this moment there was a return of his jealousy, which Maria, from increasing hopes of Crawford, was at little pains to remove; and the chances of Mr. Rushworth's ever learning his two-and-forty speeches became much less. As to his ever making anything tolerable of them, nobody had the smallest idea of that; they aspired at nothing beyond his remembering the first line of his speech, and being able to follow the prompter through the rest. Fanny, in her pity and kindheartedness, was at great pains to teach him how to learn, trying to make an artificial memory for him, and learning every word of his part herself, but without his being much the forwarder.
Many apprehensive feelings she certainly had; but with these claims on her attention, she was far from finding herself without employment. She was occasionally useful to all; she was perhaps as much at peace as any.
There was a great deal of needlework to be done, moreover, in which her help was wanted; and Mrs. Norris thought her quite as well off as the rest-"Come, Fanny," she cried, "these are fine times for you, but you must not be always looking on at your ease; I want you here. I have been slaving till I can hardly stand, to contrive Mr. Rushworth's cloak without sending for more satin; now you may help me in putting it together. There are but three seams; you may do them in a trice. If nobody did more than you, we should not get on very fast."
Fanny took the work very quietly, but her kinder aunt Bertram observed-
"One cannot wonder, sister, that Fanny should be delighted: it is all new to her, you know; I used to be very fond of a play, and when I am a little more at leisure, I mean to look in at their rehearsals. What is the play about, Fanny? you have never told me."
"Oh! sister, pray do not ask her now; for Fanny cannot talk and work at the same time. It is about Lovers' Vows."
"I believe," said Fanny to her aunt Bertram, "there will be three acts rehearsed to-morrow evening, when you may see all the actors."
"You had better stay till the curtain is hung," interposed Mrs. Norris; "the curtain will be hung in a day or two, and you will find it draws up into very handsome festoons."
Lady Bertram seemed quite resigned to waiting. Fanny did not share her aunt's composure: she thought of the morrow a great deal, for if the three acts were rehearsed, Edmund and Miss Crawford would then be acting together for the first time. The third act would bring a scene between them which interested her particularly, and which she was longing and dreading to see how they would perform. The whole subject of it was love-a marriage of love was to be described by the gentleman, and little short of a declaration of love made by the lady.
She had read and read the scene again with many painful, wondering emotions. She did not believe they had yet rehearsed it, even in private.
The morrow came, and Fanny worked diligently under her aunt's directions, but her diligence concealed a very absent, anxious mind. About noon she made her escape with her work to the East room, to avoid another unnecessary rehearsal of the first act, which Henry Crawford was proposing. She worked and meditated in the East room, undisturbed, for a quarter of an hour, when a gentle tap at the door was followed by the entrance of Miss Crawford.
"Am I right? Yes; this is the East room. My dear Miss Price, I beg your pardon, but I have come to entreat your help."
Fanny, surprised, answered civilly, and looked at the bars of her empty grate with concern.
"Thank you; I am quite warm. Allow me to stay a little while, and have the goodness to hear me my third act. I have brought my book, and if you would but rehearse it with me, I should be so obliged! I came to-day intending to rehearse it with Edmund, but he is not here; and if he were, I do not think I could go through it with him, till I have hardened myself a little; for really there is a speech or two. You will be so good, won't you?"
Fanny was most civil in her assurances, though she could not give them in a very steady voice.
"Have you ever happened to look at the part I mean?" continued Miss Crawford, opening her book. "I did not think much of it at first-but, upon my word. There, look at that speech, and that. How am I to look him in the face and say such things? Could you do it? But he is your cousin, which makes all the difference. You must rehearse it with me, that I may fancy you him, and get on by degrees. You have a look of his sometimes."
"Have I? I will do my best; but I must read the part, for I can say very little of it."
"None of it, I suppose. We must have two chairs for the front of the stage. There-very good school-room chairs, fitted for little girls to sit and kick their feet against. What would your governess and your uncle say to see them used for such a purpose? If Sir Thomas could see us now, he would bless himself, for we are rehearsing all over the house. Yates is storming away in the dining-room, and the theatre is engaged of course by Agatha and Frederick. By the bye, I looked in upon them five minutes ago, at exactly one of the times when they were trying not to embrace, and Mr. Rushworth was with me. I thought he began to look a little queer, so I whispered to him, 'We shall have an excellent Agatha; there is something so completely maternal in her manner.' Was not that well done of me? He brightened up directly. Now for my soliloquy."
She began, and Fanny joined in, but with looks and voice so feminine as to be no very good picture of a man. With such an Anhalt, however, Miss Crawford had courage enough; and they had got through half the scene, when a tap at the door, and the entrance of Edmund, suspended it.
Surprise, consciousness, and pleasure appeared in each on this unexpected meeting. Edmund was come on the very same business that had brought Miss Crawford. He too had his book, and was seeking Fanny to ask her to rehearse with him, without knowing Miss Crawford was in the house. Great was the joy of being thus thrown together, and sympathising in praise of Fanny's kind offices.
She could not equal them in their warmth. Her spirits sank under the glow of theirs, and she felt herself becoming too nearly nothing to both to have any comfort in having been sought by either.
They must now rehearse together. Edmund entreated it, till the lady, not very unwilling, could refuse no longer, and Fanny was wanted only to prompt and observe them. She was earnestly desired to tell them all their faults; but shrank from the task. To prompt them must be enough; and it was sometimes more than enough; for in watching them she forgot herself; and, agitated by the increasing spirit of Edmund's manner, closed the page and turned away exactly as he wanted help. It was imputed to very reasonable weariness, and she was thanked and pitied; but she deserved their pity more than she hoped they would ever guess.
At last the scene was over, and Fanny forced herself to add her praise to the compliments each was giving the other. When again alone, she was inclined to believe their performance would, indeed, have such feeling in it as must ensure their credit, and make it very painful to herself. However, she must bear the brunt of it again that very day.
The rehearsal of the three first acts was to take place in the evening; and everyone concerned was looking forward with eagerness. With the exception of Lady Bertram, Mrs. Norris, and Julia, everybody was in the theatre early, waiting only the arrival of Mrs. Grant and the Crawfords to begin.
They did not wait long for the Crawfords, but there was no Mrs. Grant. She could not come. Dr. Grant, who was ill, could not spare his wife.
Here was disappointment! They could not rehearse without her. What was to be done? After a pause, some eyes were turned towards Fanny, and a voice said, "If Miss Price would be so good as to read the part." She was immediately surrounded by supplications; even Edmund said, "Do, Fanny, if it is not very disagreeable to you."
Fanny could not endure the idea of it. Why had not she gone safely to her room, instead of attending the rehearsal? She had known it her duty to keep away. She was properly punished.
"You have only to read the part," said Henry Crawford.
"I do believe she can say every word of it," added Maria. "Fanny, I am sure you know the part."
As they all persevered, as Edmund repeated his wish, she must yield. She would do her best. Everybody was satisfied; and she was left to the tremors of a palpitating heart, while the others prepared to begin.
They did begin; and being too much engaged in their own noise to notice an unusual noise in the other part of the house, had proceeded some way when the door of the room was thrown open. Julia, appearing at it, her face aghast, exclaimed, "My father is come! He is in the hall at this moment."


Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through the village as he rode into it. He had concluded-he had meant them to be far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight purposely to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield with spirits ready to feed on melancholy remembrances, and tender associations, when her own fair self was before him, leaning on her brother's arm, and he found himself receiving a welcome, unquestionably friendly, from the woman whom, two moments before, he had been thinking of as seventy miles off, and as farther, much farther, from him in inclination than any distance could express.
Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped for, had he expected to see her. Coming as he did from such a purport fulfilled as had taken him away, he would have expected anything rather than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning. It was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the properest state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises at hand.
William's promotion, with all its particulars, he was soon master of; and with such a secret provision of comfort within his own breast to help the joy, he found in it a source of most gratifying sensation and unvarying cheerfulness all dinner-time.
After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny's history; and then all the great events of the last fortnight, and the present situation of matters at Mansfield were known to him.
Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual in the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her; and when tea at last brought them away, and she was to be seen by Edmund again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He came to her, sat down by her, took her hand, and pressed it kindly; and at that moment she thought that, but for the occupation and the scene which the tea-things afforded, she must have betrayed her emotion in some unpardonable excess.
He was not intending, however, by such action, to be conveying to her that unqualified approbation and encouragement which her hopes drew from it. It was designed only to express his participation in all that interested her, and to tell her that he had been hearing what quickened every feeling of affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father's side of the question. His surprise was not so great as his father's at her refusing Crawford, because, so far from supposing her to consider him with anything like a preference, he had always believed it to be rather the reverse, and could imagine her to be taken perfectly unprepared, but Sir Thomas could not regard the connexion as more desirable than he did. It had every recommendation to him; and while honouring her for what she had done under the influence of her present indifference, honouring her in rather stronger terms than Sir Thomas could quite echo, he was most earnest in hoping, and sanguine in believing, that it would be a match at last, and that, united by mutual affection, it would appear that their dispositions were as exactly fitted to make them blessed in each other, as he was now beginning seriously to consider them. Crawford had been too precipitate. He had not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end. With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers, Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion. Meanwhile, he saw enough of Fanny's embarrassment to make him scrupulously guard against exciting it a second time, by any word, or look, or movement.
Crawford called the next day, and on the score of Edmund's return, Sir Thomas felt himself more than licensed to ask him to stay dinner; it was really a necessary compliment. He staid of course, and Edmund had then ample opportunity for observing how he sped with Fanny, and what degree of immediate encouragement for him might be extracted from her manners; and it was so little, so very, very little-every chance, every possibility of it, resting upon her embarrassment only; if there was not hope in her confusion, there was hope in nothing else-that he was almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, every exertion of mind, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage than his eyes could discern in hers. He was very willing to hope that Crawford saw clearer, and this was the most comfortable conclusion for his friend that he could come to from all that he observed to pass before, and at, and after dinner.
In the evening a few circumstances occurred which he thought more promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother and Fanny were sitting as intently and silently at work as if there were nothing else to care for. Edmund could not help noticing their apparently deep tranquillity.
"We have not been so silent all the time," replied his mother. "Fanny has been reading to me, and only put the book down upon hearing you coming." And sure enough there was a book on the table which had the air of being very recently closed: a volume of Shakespeare. "She often reads to me out of those books; and she was in the middle of a very fine speech of that man's-what's his name, Fanny?-when we heard your footsteps."
Crawford took the volume. "Let me have the pleasure of finishing that speech to your ladyship," said he. "I shall find it immediately." And by carefully giving way to the inclination of the leaves, he did find it, or within a page or two, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny given; not a syllable for or against. All her attention was for her work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else. But taste was too strong in her. She could not abstract her mind five minutes: she was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good reading extreme. To _good_ reading, however, she had been long used: her uncle read well, her cousins all, Edmund very well, but in Mr. Crawford's reading there was a variety of excellence beyond what she had ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, the happiest power of jumping and guessing, he could always alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches of each; and whether it were dignity, or pride, or tenderness, or remorse, or whatever were to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty. It was truly dramatic. His acting had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his reading brought all his acting before her again; nay, perhaps with greater enjoyment, for it came unexpectedly, and with no such drawback as she had been used to suffer in seeing him on the stage with Miss Bertram.
Edmund watched the progress of her attention, and was amused and gratified by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework, which at the beginning seemed to occupy her totally: how it fell from her hand while she sat motionless over it, and at last, how the eyes which had appeared so studiously to avoid him throughout the day were turned and fixed on Crawford-fixed on him for minutes, fixed on him, in short, till the attraction drew Crawford's upon her, and the book was closed, and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into herself, and blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been enough to give Edmund encouragement for his friend, and as he cordially thanked him, he hoped to be expressing Fanny's secret feelings too.
"That play must be a favourite with you," said he; "you read as if you knew it well."
"It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour," replied Crawford; "but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand before since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I have heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution. His thoughts and beauties are so spread abroad that one touches them everywhere; one is intimate with him by instinct. No man of any brain can open at a good part of one of his plays without falling into the flow of his meaning immediately."
"No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree," said Edmund, "from one's earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; they are in half the books we open, and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions; but this is totally distinct from giving his sense as you gave it. To know him in bits and scraps is common enough; to know him pretty thoroughly is, perhaps, not uncommon; but to read him well aloud is no everyday talent."
"Sir, you do me honour," was Crawford's answer, with a bow of mock gravity.
Both gentlemen had a glance at Fanny, to see if a word of accordant praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not be. Her praise had been given in her attention; _that_ must content them.
Lady Bertram's admiration was expressed, and strongly too. "It was really like being at a play," said she. "I wish Sir Thomas had been here."
Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her incompetency and languor, could feel this, the inference of what her niece, alive and enlightened as she was, must feel, was elevating.
"You have a great turn for acting, I am sure, Mr. Crawford," said her ladyship soon afterwards; "and I will tell you what, I think you will have a theatre, some time or other, at your house in Norfolk. I mean when you are settled there. I do indeed. I think you will fit up a theatre at your house in Norfolk."
"Do you, ma'am?" cried he, with quickness. "No, no, that will never be. Your ladyship is quite mistaken. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!" And he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant, "That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham."
Edmund saw it all, and saw Fanny so determined _not_ to see it, as to make it clear that the voice was enough to convey the full meaning of the protestation; and such a quick consciousness of compliment, such a ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than not.
The subject of reading aloud was farther discussed. The two young men were the only talkers, but they, standing by the fire, talked over the too common neglect of the qualification, the total inattention to it, in the ordinary school-system for boys, the consequently natural, yet in some instances almost unnatural, degree of ignorance and uncouthness of men, of sensible and well-informed men, when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud, which had fallen within their notice, giving instances of blunders, and failures with their secondary causes, the want of management of the voice, of proper modulation and emphasis, of foresight and judgment, all proceeding from the first cause: want of early attention and habit; and Fanny was listening again with great entertainment.
"Even in my profession," said Edmund, with a smile, "how little the art of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however, than the present. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad; but among those who were ordained twenty, thirty, forty years ago, the larger number, to judge by their performance, must have thought reading was reading, and preaching was preaching. It is different now. The subject is more justly considered. It is felt that distinctness and energy may have weight in recommending the most solid truths; and besides, there is more general observation and taste, a more critical knowledge diffused than formerly; in every congregation there is a larger proportion who know a little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise."
Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination; and upon this being understood, he had a variety of questions from Crawford as to his feelings and success; questions, which being made, though with the vivacity of friendly interest and quick taste, without any touch of that spirit of banter or air of levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny, he had true pleasure in satisfying; and when Crawford proceeded to ask his opinion and give his own as to the properest manner in which particular passages in the service should be delivered, shewing it to be a subject on which he had thought before, and thought with judgment, Edmund was still more and more pleased. This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by all that gallantry and wit and good-nature together could do; or, at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects.
"Our liturgy," observed Crawford, "has beauties, which not even a careless, slovenly style of reading can destroy; but it has also redundancies and repetitions which require good reading not to be felt. For myself, at least, I must confess being not always so attentive as I ought to be" (here was a glance at Fanny); "that nineteen times out of twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to have it to read myself. Did you speak?" stepping eagerly to Fanny, and addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying "No," he added, "Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not _allow_ my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?"
"No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to-even supposing-"
She stopt, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be prevailed on to add another word, not by dint of several minutes of supplication and waiting. He then returned to his former station, and went on as if there had been no such tender interruption.
"A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well read. A sermon, good in itself, is no rare thing. It is more difficult to speak well than to compose well; that is, the rules and trick of composition are oftener an object of study. A thoroughly good sermon, thoroughly well delivered, is a capital gratification. I can never hear such a one without the greatest admiration and respect, and more than half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit, when it is really eloquence, which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch and affect such an heterogeneous mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or striking, anything that rouses the attention without offending the taste, or wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not, in his public capacity, honour enough. I should like to be such a man."
Edmund laughed.
"I should indeed. I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without a sort of envy. But then, I must have a London audience. I could not preach but to the educated; to those who were capable of estimating my composition. And I do not know that I should be fond of preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring, after being anxiously expected for half a dozen Sundays together; but not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy."
Here Fanny, who could not but listen, involuntarily shook her head, and Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her meaning; and as Edmund perceived, by his drawing in a chair, and sitting down close by her, that it was to be a very thorough attack, that looks and undertones were to be well tried, he sank as quietly as possible into a corner, turned his back, and took up a newspaper, very sincerely wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into explaining away that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her ardent lover; and as earnestly trying to bury every sound of the business from himself in murmurs of his own, over the various advertisements of "A most desirable Estate in South Wales"; "To Parents and Guardians"; and a "Capital season'd Hunter."
Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself for not having been as motionless as she was speechless, and grieved to the heart to see Edmund's arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest, gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both.
"What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was it meant to express? Disapprobation, I fear. But of what? What had I been saying to displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly, irreverently on the subject? Only tell me if I was. Only tell me if I was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?"
In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford," repeated twice over; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager voice, and the same close neighbourhood, he went on, reurging the same questions as before. She grew more agitated and displeased.
"How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can-"
"Do I astonish you?" said he. "Do you wonder? Is there anything in my present entreaty that you do not understand? I will explain to you instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me an interest in what you look and do, and excites my present curiosity. I will not leave you to wonder long."
In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said nothing.
"You shook your head at my acknowledging that I should not like to engage in the duties of a clergyman always for a constancy. Yes, that was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I would spell it, read it, write it with anybody. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did you think I ought?"
"Perhaps, sir," said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking-"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment."
Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined to keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such an extremity of reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was only a change from one object of curiosity and one set of words to another. He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The opportunity was too fair. None such had occurred since his seeing her in her uncle's room, none such might occur again before his leaving Mansfield. Lady Bertram's being just on the other side of the table was a trifle, for she might always be considered as only half-awake, and Edmund's advertisements were still of the first utility.
"Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment, easily tempted, easily put aside. With such an opinion, no wonder that-But we shall see.-It is not by protestations that I shall endeavour to convince you I am wronged; it is not by telling you that my affections are steady. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. _They_ shall prove that, as far as you can be deserved by anybody, I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit; all _that_ I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you beyond what-not merely beyond what one sees, because one never sees anything like it-but beyond what one fancies might be. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. That is out of the question. It is he who sees and worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. There I build my confidence. By that right I do and will deserve you; and when once convinced that my attachment is what I declare it, I know you too well not to entertain the warmest hopes. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay" (seeing her draw back displeased), "forgive me. Perhaps I have as yet no right; but by what other name can I call you? Do you suppose you are ever present to my imagination under any other? No, it is 'Fanny' that I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such reality of sweetness, that nothing else can now be descriptive of you."
Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, or have refrained from at least trying to get away in spite of all the too public opposition she foresaw to it, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief, the very sound which she had been long watching for, and long thinking strangely delayed.
The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her from a grievous imprisonment of body and mind. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected.
Edmund was not sorry to be admitted again among the number of those who might speak and hear. But though the conference had seemed full long to him, and though on looking at Fanny he saw rather a flush of vexation, he inclined to hope that so much could not have been said and listened to without some profit to the speaker.

Edmund had great things to hear on his return. Many surprises were awaiting him. The first that occurred was not least in interest: the appearance of Henry Crawford and his sister walking together through the village as he rode into it. He had thought them to be far distant. His absence had been extended beyond a fortnight purposely to avoid Miss Crawford. He was returning to Mansfield ready to feed on melancholy remembrances, when her own fair self was before him, leaning on her brother's arm, and he found himself receiving a friendly welcome from the woman whom, two moments before, he had been thinking of as seventy miles off.
Her reception of him was of a sort which he could not have hoped for. Coming as he did from his ordainment, he would have expected anything rather than a look of satisfaction, and words of simple, pleasant meaning. It was enough to set his heart in a glow, and to bring him home in the right state for feeling the full value of the other joyful surprises at hand.
In William's promotion he found a source of cheerfulness all dinner-time. After dinner, when he and his father were alone, he had Fanny's history; and then all the great events of the last fortnight were known to him.
Fanny suspected what was going on. They sat so much longer than usual in the dining-parlour, that she was sure they must be talking of her; and when she saw Edmund again, she felt dreadfully guilty. He sat down by her, took her hand, and pressed it kindly; and she thought that, but for the occupation which the tea-things afforded, she must have betrayed her emotion.
He was not intending, however, to convey to her his unqualified encouragement. He wished only to express his interest and affection. He was, in fact, entirely on his father's side of the question. He was not so surprised as his father at her refusing Crawford, because he had never believed her to have a preference for him-rather the reverse; and he believed she had been completely unprepared; but the connexion had every recommendation to him. He earnestly hoped and believed that it would be a match at last, and that their dispositions were exactly fitted to make them blessed in each other. Crawford had been too hasty. He had not given her time to attach herself. He had begun at the wrong end. With such powers as his, however, and such a disposition as hers, Edmund trusted that everything would work out a happy conclusion. Meanwhile, he scrupulously guarded against saying anything to give Fanny further embarrassment.
Crawford called the next day, and Sir Thomas asked him to stay to dinner. Edmund had then ample opportunity for observing how much encouragement he received from Fanny's manner; and it was so little, so very, very little, that he was almost ready to wonder at his friend's perseverance. Fanny was worth it all; he held her to be worth every effort of patience, but he did not think he could have gone on himself with any woman breathing, without something more to warm his courage.
In the evening, circumstances occurred which he thought more promising. When he and Crawford walked into the drawing-room, his mother and Fanny were sitting silently at work, in apparently deep tranquillity.
"Fanny has been reading to me," said his mother. There was a volume of Shakespeare on the table. "She often reads to me; and she was in the middle of a very fine speech when we heard your footsteps."
Crawford took up the volume. "Let me have the pleasure of finishing that speech to your ladyship," said he. "I shall find it immediately." And he did find it, quite near enough to satisfy Lady Bertram, who assured him, as soon as he mentioned the name of Cardinal Wolsey, that he had got the very speech. Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny given. All her attention was for her work. She seemed determined to be interested by nothing else.
But taste was too strong in her. She was forced to listen; his reading was capital, and her pleasure in good reading extreme. Her uncle read well, Edmund very well, but in Mr. Crawford's reading there was excellence beyond what she had ever met with. The King, the Queen, Buckingham, Wolsey, Cromwell, all were given in turn; for with the happiest knack, he could alight at will on the best scene, or the best speeches; and whether it were dignity, or tenderness, or remorse to be expressed, he could do it with equal beauty. His acting had first taught Fanny what pleasure a play might give, and his reading brought all his acting before her again; nay, perhaps with greater enjoyment, for it came with no such drawback as she had suffered in seeing him on the stage with Miss Bertram.
Edmund watched, and was amused by seeing how she gradually slackened in the needlework: how it fell from her hand while she sat motionless, and at last, how her eyes were turned and fixed on Crawford-fixed on him, in short, till the attraction drew Crawford's eyes upon her, and the book was closed, and the charm was broken. Then she was shrinking again into herself, blushing and working as hard as ever; but it had been enough to give Edmund encouragement for his friend.
"That play must be a favourite with you," said he.
"It will be a favourite, I believe, from this hour," replied Crawford; "but I do not think I have had a volume of Shakespeare in my hand since I was fifteen. I once saw Henry the Eighth acted, or I heard of it from somebody who did, I am not certain which. But Shakespeare one gets acquainted with without knowing how. It is a part of an Englishman's constitution; one is intimate with him by instinct."
"No doubt one is familiar with Shakespeare in a degree," said Edmund, "from one's earliest years. His celebrated passages are quoted by everybody; and we all talk Shakespeare, use his similes, and describe with his descriptions. To know him in bits and scraps is common enough; but to read him well aloud is no everyday talent."
"Sir, you do me honour," was Crawford's answer, with a bow of mock gravity.
Both gentlemen glanced at Fanny, to see if a word of praise could be extorted from her; yet both feeling that it could not be. Her praise had been given in her attention; that must content them.
"It was really like being at a play," said Lady Bertram. "I wish Sir Thomas had been here."
Crawford was excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her languor, could feel this, her niece must feel much more.
"I will tell you what, Mr Crawford," said her ladyship, "I think you will have a theatre at your house in Norfolk, when you are settled there. I do indeed."
"Do you, ma'am?" cried he quickly. "No, that will never be. No theatre at Everingham! Oh no!" And he looked at Fanny with an expressive smile, which evidently meant, "That lady will never allow a theatre at Everingham."
Edmund saw it, and saw Fanny determined not to see it. Such a ready comprehension of a hint, he thought, was rather favourable than not.
The two young men, standing by the fire, talked over the too common neglect of reading aloud in the school-system, and the consequent ignorance of men when suddenly called to the necessity of reading aloud; giving instances of blunders and failures, the lack of management of the voice, of proper emphasis, all proceeding from the want of early attention and habit. Fanny was listening again with great entertainment.
"Even in my profession," said Edmund, with a smile, "how little the art of reading has been studied! how little a clear manner, and good delivery, have been attended to! I speak rather of the past, however. There is now a spirit of improvement abroad. It is felt that distinctness and energy may help to convey the most solid truths; and besides, knowledge of good reading is more widespread than formerly; in every congregation there are more who know a little of the matter, and who can judge and criticise."
Edmund had already gone through the service once since his ordination; and upon this being understood, Crawford asked him many questions with the vivacity of friendly interest, and none of that levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny. When Crawford asked his opinion as to the befitting manner in which particular passages in the service should be delivered, showing it to be a subject on which he had thought, Edmund was still more pleased. This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to be won by gallantry and wit; or, at least, she would not be won by them so soon, without the assistance of seriousness on serious subjects.
"Our liturgy," observed Crawford, "has beauties which not even a careless style of reading can destroy; but it has also redundancies which require good reading not to be felt. I must confess to being not always so attentive as I ought to be" (here was a glance at Fanny); "nineteen times out of twenty I am thinking how such a prayer ought to be read, and longing to read it myself. Did you speak?" stepping eagerly to Fanny, and addressing her in a softened voice; and upon her saying "No," he added, "Are you sure you did not speak? I saw your lips move. I fancied you might be going to tell me I ought to be more attentive, and not allow my thoughts to wander. Are not you going to tell me so?"
"No, indeed, you know your duty too well for me to-even supposing-"
She stopped, felt herself getting into a puzzle, and could not be prevailed on to add another word. He returned to his former place, and went on.
"A sermon, well delivered, is more uncommon even than prayers well read. A thoroughly good sermon, thoroughly well delivered, is a capital pleasure. I can never hear such a one without the greatest admiration, and more than half a mind to take orders and preach myself. There is something in the eloquence of the pulpit which is entitled to the highest praise and honour. The preacher who can touch such a mass of hearers, on subjects limited, and long worn threadbare in all common hands; who can say anything new or striking, anything that rouses the attention without wearing out the feelings of his hearers, is a man whom one could not honour enough. I should like to be such a man."
Edmund laughed.
"I should indeed," said Crawford. "I never listened to a distinguished preacher in my life without envy. But I must have a London audience. I could only preach to the educated. And I should not be fond of preaching often; now and then, perhaps once or twice in the spring; but not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy."
Here Fanny involuntarily shook her head, and Crawford was instantly by her side again, entreating to know her meaning; and as Edmund perceived that it was to be a very thorough attack, he sank as quietly as possible into a corner and took up a newspaper, sincerely wishing that dear little Fanny might be persuaded into explaining away that shake of the head to the satisfaction of her ardent lover; and he tried to bury every sound of the business in murmurs of his own, over the advertisements of "A most desirable Estate in South Wales" and a "Capital season'd Hunter."
Fanny, meanwhile, vexed with herself, and grieved to see Edmund's arrangements, was trying by everything in the power of her modest, gentle nature, to repulse Mr. Crawford, and avoid both his looks and inquiries; and he, unrepulsable, was persisting in both.
"What did that shake of the head mean?" said he. "What was it meant to express? Disapprobation, I fear. What had I been saying to displease you? Did you think me speaking improperly, lightly on the subject? Only tell me if I was wrong. I want to be set right. Nay, nay, I entreat you; for one moment put down your work. What did that shake of the head mean?"
In vain was her "Pray, sir, don't; pray, Mr. Crawford," repeated; and in vain did she try to move away. In the same low, eager voice, he went on, reurging the same questions. She grew more agitated and displeased.
"How can you, sir? You quite astonish me; I wonder how you can-"
"Do I astonish you?" said he. "Do you wonder? I will explain to you instantly all that makes me urge you in this manner, all that gives me an interest in what you look and do. I will not leave you to wonder long."
In spite of herself, she could not help half a smile, but she said nothing.
"You shook your head at my saying that I should not like the duties of a clergyman for a constancy. Yes, that was the word. Constancy: I am not afraid of the word. I see nothing alarming in the word. Did you think I ought?"
"Perhaps, sir," said Fanny, wearied at last into speaking-"perhaps, sir, I thought it was a pity you did not always know yourself as well as you seemed to do at that moment."
Crawford, delighted to get her to speak at any rate, was determined to keep it up; and poor Fanny, who had hoped to silence him by such extreme reproof, found herself sadly mistaken, and that it was only a change from one set of words to another. He had always something to entreat the explanation of. The opportunity was too fair. None such might occur again before his leaving Mansfield. Lady Bertram's being just on the other side of the table was a trifle, for she was only half-awake, and Edmund's advertisements were still proving most useful.
"Well," said Crawford, after a course of rapid questions and reluctant answers; "I am happier than I was, because I now understand more clearly your opinion of me. You think me unsteady: easily swayed by the whim of the moment. But we shall see. My conduct shall speak for me; absence, distance, time shall speak for me. They shall prove that I do deserve you. You are infinitely my superior in merit, I know. You have qualities which I had not before supposed to exist in such a degree in any human creature. You have some touches of the angel in you. But still I am not frightened. It is not by equality of merit that you can be won. It is he who worships your merit the strongest, who loves you most devotedly, that has the best right to a return. There I build my confidence. By that right I do and will deserve you. Yes, dearest, sweetest Fanny. Nay" (seeing her draw back displeased), "forgive me; but by what other name can I call you? It is 'Fanny' that I think of all day, and dream of all night. You have given the name such sweetness, that nothing else can be descriptive of you."
Fanny could hardly have kept her seat any longer, had it not been for the sound of approaching relief, the sound which she had been long waiting for, and thinking strangely delayed.
The solemn procession, headed by Baddeley, of tea-board, urn, and cake-bearers, made its appearance, and delivered her. Mr. Crawford was obliged to move. She was at liberty, she was busy, she was protected.
Edmund was not sorry to be again able to speak and hear. On looking at Fanny he saw a flush of vexation; yet he hoped that so much could not have been said without some profit to the speaker.


The Honourable John Yates, this new friend, had not much to recommend him beyond habits of fashion and expense, and being the younger son of a lord with a tolerable independence; and Sir Thomas would probably have thought his introduction at Mansfield by no means desirable. Mr. Bertram's acquaintance with him had begun at Weymouth, where they had spent ten days together in the same society, and the friendship, if friendship it might be called, had been proved and perfected by Mr. Yates's being invited to take Mansfield in his way, whenever he could, and by his promising to come; and he did come rather earlier than had been expected, in consequence of the sudden breaking-up of a large party assembled for gaiety at the house of another friend, which he had left Weymouth to join. He came on the wings of disappointment, and with his head full of acting, for it had been a theatrical party; and the play in which he had borne a part was within two days of representation, when the sudden death of one of the nearest connexions of the family had destroyed the scheme and dispersed the performers. To be so near happiness, so near fame, so near the long paragraph in praise of the private theatricals at Ecclesford, the seat of the Right Hon. Lord Ravenshaw, in Cornwall, which would of course have immortalised the whole party for at least a twelvemonth! and being so near, to lose it all, was an injury to be keenly felt, and Mr. Yates could talk of nothing else. Ecclesford and its theatre, with its arrangements and dresses, rehearsals and jokes, was his never-failing subject, and to boast of the past his only consolation.
Happily for him, a love of the theatre is so general, an itch for acting so strong among young people, that he could hardly out-talk the interest of his hearers. From the first casting of the parts to the epilogue it was all bewitching, and there were few who did not wish to have been a party concerned, or would have hesitated to try their skill. The play had been Lovers' Vows, and Mr. Yates was to have been Count Cassel. "A trifling part," said he, "and not at all to my taste, and such a one as I certainly would not accept again; but I was determined to make no difficulties. Lord Ravenshaw and the duke had appropriated the only two characters worth playing before I reached Ecclesford; and though Lord Ravenshaw offered to resign his to me, it was impossible to take it, you know. I was sorry for _him_ that he should have so mistaken his powers, for he was no more equal to the Baron-a little man with a weak voice, always hoarse after the first ten minutes. It must have injured the piece materially; but _I_ was resolved to make no difficulties. Sir Henry thought the duke not equal to Frederick, but that was because Sir Henry wanted the part himself; whereas it was certainly in the best hands of the two. I was surprised to see Sir Henry such a stick. Luckily the strength of the piece did not depend upon him. Our Agatha was inimitable, and the duke was thought very great by many. And upon the whole, it would certainly have gone off wonderfully."
"It was a hard case, upon my word"; and, "I do think you were very much to be pitied," were the kind responses of listening sympathy.
"It is not worth complaining about; but to be sure the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time; and it is impossible to help wishing that the news could have been suppressed for just the three days we wanted. It was but three days; and being only a grandmother, and all happening two hundred miles off, I think there would have been no great harm, and it was suggested, I know; but Lord Ravenshaw, who I suppose is one of the most correct men in England, would not hear of it."
"An afterpiece instead of a comedy," said Mr. Bertram. "Lovers' Vows were at an end, and Lord and Lady Ravenshaw left to act My Grandmother by themselves. Well, the jointure may comfort _him_; and perhaps, between friends, he began to tremble for his credit and his lungs in the Baron, and was not sorry to withdraw; and to make _you_ amends, Yates, I think we must raise a little theatre at Mansfield, and ask you to be our manager."
This, though the thought of the moment, did not end with the moment; for the inclination to act was awakened, and in no one more strongly than in him who was now master of the house; and who, having so much leisure as to make almost any novelty a certain good, had likewise such a degree of lively talents and comic taste, as were exactly adapted to the novelty of acting. The thought returned again and again. "Oh for the Ecclesford theatre and scenery to try something with." Each sister could echo the wish; and Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications it was yet an untasted pleasure, was quite alive at the idea. "I really believe," said he, "I could be fool enough at this moment to undertake any character that ever was written, from Shylock or Richard III down to the singing hero of a farce in his scarlet coat and cocked hat. I feel as if I could be anything or everything; as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any tragedy or comedy in the English language. Let us be doing something. Be it only half a play, an act, a scene; what should prevent us? Not these countenances, I am sure," looking towards the Miss Bertrams; "and for a theatre, what signifies a theatre? We shall be only amusing ourselves. Any room in this house might suffice."
"We must have a curtain," said Tom Bertram; "a few yards of green baize for a curtain, and perhaps that may be enough."
"Oh, quite enough," cried Mr. Yates, "with only just a side wing or two run up, doors in flat, and three or four scenes to be let down; nothing more would be necessary on such a plan as this. For mere amusement among ourselves we should want nothing more."
"I believe we must be satisfied with _less_," said Maria. "There would not be time, and other difficulties would arise. We must rather adopt Mr. Crawford's views, and make the _performance_, not the _theatre_, our object. Many parts of our best plays are independent of scenery."
"Nay," said Edmund, who began to listen with alarm. "Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in a theatre completely fitted up with pit, boxes, and gallery, and let us have a play entire from beginning to end; so as it be a German play, no matter what, with a good tricking, shifting afterpiece, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe, and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford, we do nothing."
"Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia. "Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone much farther to see one."
"True, to see real acting, good hardened real acting; but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who have not been bred to the trade: a set of gentlemen and ladies, who have all the disadvantages of education and decorum to struggle through."
After a short pause, however, the subject still continued, and was discussed with unabated eagerness, every one's inclination increasing by the discussion, and a knowledge of the inclination of the rest; and though nothing was settled but that Tom Bertram would prefer a comedy, and his sisters and Henry Crawford a tragedy, and that nothing in the world could be easier than to find a piece which would please them all, the resolution to act something or other seemed so decided as to make Edmund quite uncomfortable. He was determined to prevent it, if possible, though his mother, who equally heard the conversation which passed at table, did not evince the least disapprobation.
The same evening afforded him an opportunity of trying his strength. Maria, Julia, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates were in the billiard-room. Tom, returning from them into the drawing-room, where Edmund was standing thoughtfully by the fire, while Lady Bertram was on the sofa at a little distance, and Fanny close beside her arranging her work, thus began as he entered-"Such a horribly vile billiard-table as ours is not to be met with, I believe, above ground. I can stand it no longer, and I think, I may say, that nothing shall ever tempt me to it again; but one good thing I have just ascertained: it is the very room for a theatre, precisely the shape and length for it; and the doors at the farther end, communicating with each other, as they may be made to do in five minutes, by merely moving the bookcase in my father's room, is the very thing we could have desired, if we had sat down to wish for it; and my father's room will be an excellent greenroom. It seems to join the billiard-room on purpose."
"You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?" said Edmund, in a low voice, as his brother approached the fire.
"Not serious! never more so, I assure you. What is there to surprise you in it?"
"I think it would be very wrong. In a _general_ light, private theatricals are open to some objections, but as _we_ are circumstanced, I must think it would be highly injudicious, and more than injudicious to attempt anything of the kind. It would shew great want of feeling on my father's account, absent as he is, and in some degree of constant danger; and it would be imprudent, I think, with regard to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one, considering everything, extremely delicate."
"You take up a thing so seriously! as if we were going to act three times a week till my father's return, and invite all the country. But it is not to be a display of that sort. We mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves, just to vary the scene, and exercise our powers in something new. We want no audience, no publicity. We may be trusted, I think, in chusing some play most perfectly unexceptionable; and I can conceive no greater harm or danger to any of us in conversing in the elegant written language of some respectable author than in chattering in words of our own. I have no fears and no scruples. And as to my father's being absent, it is so far from an objection, that I consider it rather as a motive; for the expectation of his return must be a very anxious period to my mother; and if we can be the means of amusing that anxiety, and keeping up her spirits for the next few weeks, I shall think our time very well spent, and so, I am sure, will he. It is a _very_ anxious period for her."
As he said this, each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk back in one corner of the sofa, the picture of health, wealth, ease, and tranquillity, was just falling into a gentle doze, while Fanny was getting through the few difficulties of her work for her.
Edmund smiled and shook his head.
"By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, throwing himself into a chair with a hearty laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother, your anxiety-I was unlucky there."
"What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, in the heavy tone of one half-roused; "I was not asleep."
"Oh dear, no, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund," he continued, returning to the former subject, posture, and voice, as soon as Lady Bertram began to nod again, "but _this_ I _will_ maintain, that we shall be doing no harm."
"I cannot agree with you; I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it."
"And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people, or promotes it more, than my father, and for anything of the acting, spouting, reciting kind, I think he has always a decided taste. I am sure he encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Julius Caesar, and to _be'd_ and not _to_ _be'd_, in this very room, for his amusement? And I am sure, _my_ _name_ _was_ _Norval_, every evening of my life through one Christmas holidays."
"It was a very different thing. You must see the difference yourself. My father wished us, as schoolboys, to speak well, but he would never wish his grown-up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is strict."
"I know all that," said Tom, displeased. "I know my father as well as you do; and I'll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I'll take care of the rest of the family."
"If you are resolved on acting," replied the persevering Edmund, "I must hope it will be in a very small and quiet way; and I think a theatre ought not to be attempted. It would be taking liberties with my father's house in his absence which could not be justified."
"For everything of that nature I will be answerable," said Tom, in a decided tone. "His house shall not be hurt. I have quite as great an interest in being careful of his house as you can have; and as to such alterations as I was suggesting just now, such as moving a bookcase, or unlocking a door, or even as using the billiard-room for the space of a week without playing at billiards in it, you might just as well suppose he would object to our sitting more in this room, and less in the breakfast-room, than we did before he went away, or to my sister's pianoforte being moved from one side of the room to the other. Absolute nonsense!"
"The innovation, if not wrong as an innovation, will be wrong as an expense."
"Yes, the expense of such an undertaking would be prodigious! Perhaps it might cost a whole twenty pounds. Something of a theatre we must have undoubtedly, but it will be on the simplest plan: a green curtain and a little carpenter's work, and that's all; and as the carpenter's work may be all done at home by Christopher Jackson himself, it will be too absurd to talk of expense; and as long as Jackson is employed, everything will be right with Sir Thomas. Don't imagine that nobody in this house can see or judge but yourself. Don't act yourself, if you do not like it, but don't expect to govern everybody else."
"No, as to acting myself," said Edmund, "_that_ I absolutely protest against."
Tom walked out of the room as he said it, and Edmund was left to sit down and stir the fire in thoughtful vexation.
Fanny, who had heard it all, and borne Edmund company in every feeling throughout the whole, now ventured to say, in her anxiety to suggest some comfort, "Perhaps they may not be able to find any play to suit them. Your brother's taste and your sisters' seem very different."
"I have no hope there, Fanny. If they persist in the scheme, they will find something. I shall speak to my sisters and try to dissuade _them_, and that is all I can do."
"I should think my aunt Norris would be on your side."
"I dare say she would, but she has no influence with either Tom or my sisters that could be of any use; and if I cannot convince them myself, I shall let things take their course, without attempting it through her. Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all, and we had better do anything than be altogether by the ears."
His sisters, to whom he had an opportunity of speaking the next morning, were quite as impatient of his advice, quite as unyielding to his representation, quite as determined in the cause of pleasure, as Tom. Their mother had no objection to the plan, and they were not in the least afraid of their father's disapprobation. There could be no harm in what had been done in so many respectable families, and by so many women of the first consideration; and it must be scrupulousness run mad that could see anything to censure in a plan like theirs, comprehending only brothers and sisters and intimate friends, and which would never be heard of beyond themselves. Julia _did_ seem inclined to admit that Maria's situation might require particular caution and delicacy-but that could not extend to _her_-she was at liberty; and Maria evidently considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above restraint, and leaving her less occasion than Julia to consult either father or mother. Edmund had little to hope, but he was still urging the subject when Henry Crawford entered the room, fresh from the Parsonage, calling out, "No want of hands in our theatre, Miss Bertram. No want of understrappers: my sister desires her love, and hopes to be admitted into the company, and will be happy to take the part of any old duenna or tame confidante, that you may not like to do yourselves."
Maria gave Edmund a glance, which meant, "What say you now? Can we be wrong if Mary Crawford feels the same?" And Edmund, silenced, was obliged to acknowledge that the charm of acting might well carry fascination to the mind of genius; and with the ingenuity of love, to dwell more on the obliging, accommodating purport of the message than on anything else.
The scheme advanced. Opposition was vain; and as to Mrs. Norris, he was mistaken in supposing she would wish to make any. She started no difficulties that were not talked down in five minutes by her eldest nephew and niece, who were all-powerful with her; and as the whole arrangement was to bring very little expense to anybody, and none at all to herself, as she foresaw in it all the comforts of hurry, bustle, and importance, and derived the immediate advantage of fancying herself obliged to leave her own house, where she had been living a month at her own cost, and take up her abode in theirs, that every hour might be spent in their service, she was, in fact, exceedingly delighted with the project.

The Honourable John Yates, this new friend of Tom's, had not much to recommend him beyond being the younger son of a lord; and Sir Thomas would probably have thought his introduction at Mansfield undesirable. Mr. Bertram's acquaintance with him had begun at Weymouth, where they had spent ten days in the same society. Mr. Yates was invited to visit Mansfield, and came rather earlier than expected, in consequence of the sudden breaking-up of a large party at the house of another friend.
He came on the wings of disappointment, and with his head full of acting, for it had been a theatrical party; the sudden death of a connexion of the family had dispersed the performers two days before the performance. To be so near happiness, so near fame, so near the long paragraph in praise of the private theatricals at Ecclesford, the seat of Lord Ravenshaw, which would have immortalised the whole party for a twelvemonth! to lose it all, was an injury keenly felt, and Mr. Yates could talk of nothing else. Ecclesford and its theatre, its dresses, rehearsals and jokes, was his never-failing subject.
Happily for him, a love of the theatre is so general, an itch for acting so strong among young people, that he could hardly out-talk the interest of his hearers. It was all bewitching. The play had been Lovers' Vows, and Mr. Yates was to have been Count Cassel.
"A trifling part," said he, "and not to my taste; but I was determined to make no difficulties. Lord Ravenshaw and the duke had taken the only two characters worth playing. I was sorry that Lord Ravenshaw should have so mistaken his powers, for he was not equal to the Baron-a little man with a weak voice, always hoarse after ten minutes. Sir Henry thought the duke not equal to Frederick, but that was because Sir Henry wanted the part himself. Our Agatha was inimitable, and the duke was thought very great by many. It would certainly have gone off wonderfully."
"I do think you were very much to be pitied," was the kind response.
"To be sure, the poor old dowager could not have died at a worse time; and I wish the news could have been suppressed for just three days. I think there would have been no great harm, and it was suggested, I know; but Lord Ravenshaw would not hear of it."
"To make you amends, Yates," said Mr Bertram, "I think we must raise a little theatre at Mansfield, and ask you to be our manager."
The desire to act was awakened in Tom, who was now master of the house; and who had such lively talents and comic taste as were exactly adapted to the novelty of acting. Each sister echoed the wish; and Henry Crawford, to whom, in all the riot of his gratifications it was an untasted pleasure, was quite alive at the idea.
"I really believe," said he, "I could at this moment undertake any character that ever was written. I feel as if I could rant and storm, or sigh or cut capers, in any play in the English language. Let us be doing something. As for a theatre, any room in this house might suffice."
"We must have a curtain," said Tom Bertram; "a few yards of green baize for a curtain may be enough."
"Oh, quite enough," cried Mr. Yates, "with only just a side wing or two run up, doors in flat, and three or four scenes to be let down. We should want nothing more."
"I believe we must be satisfied with less," said Maria. "We must make the performance, not the theatre, our object."
"Nay," said Edmund, listening with alarm. "Let us do nothing by halves. If we are to act, let it be in a theatre completely fitted up with pit, boxes, and gallery, and let us have a play entire, with a good tricking, and a figure-dance, and a hornpipe, and a song between the acts. If we do not outdo Ecclesford, we do nothing."
"Now, Edmund, do not be disagreeable," said Julia. "Nobody loves a play better than you do, or can have gone farther to see one."
"True, to see real acting; but I would hardly walk from this room to the next to look at the raw efforts of those who have not been bred to the trade."
However, the subject continued to be discussed with eagerness; and though nothing was settled but that Tom Bertram would prefer a comedy, and his sisters and Henry Crawford a tragedy, and that nothing could be easier than to find a piece which would please them all, their resolution to act seemed so decided as to make Edmund quite uncomfortable. He was determined to prevent it, if possible, though his mother did not show the least disapprobation.
The same evening gave him an opportunity of trying his strength. Maria, Julia, Henry Crawford, and Mr. Yates were in the billiard-room. Tom, returning from them into the drawing-room, found Edmund standing thoughtfully by the fire, while Lady Bertram and Fanny were on the sofa. Tom began as he entered-"Such a horribly vile billiard-table as ours is not to be met with. I can stand it no longer, but I have just ascertained one good thing: the room is precisely the shape for a theatre; and with the doors at the end communicating with each other, as they may be made to do by merely moving the bookcase in my father's room, is the very thing we could have desired."
"You are not serious, Tom, in meaning to act?" said Edmund.
"Never more so, I assure you."
"I think it would be very wrong. It would be highly injudicious. It would show great lack of feeling on my father's account, absent as he is, and in constant danger; and it would be imprudent with regard to Maria, whose situation is a very delicate one."
"You take it so seriously! as if we were going to act three times a week, and invite all the country. But we mean nothing but a little amusement among ourselves. We want no audience, no publicity. As to my father's absence, I consider it a motive; for this must be a very anxious period to my mother; and if we can keep up her spirits for the next few weeks, I shall think our time well spent."
Each looked towards their mother. Lady Bertram, sunk in one corner of the sofa, the picture of ease and tranquillity, was just falling into a gentle doze.
Edmund smiled and shook his head.
"By Jove! this won't do," cried Tom, with a laugh. "To be sure, my dear mother-I was unlucky there."
"What is the matter?" asked her ladyship, half-roused; "I was not asleep."
"No, ma'am, nobody suspected you! Well, Edmund," he continued, as Lady Bertram began to nod again, "I maintain that we shall be doing no harm."
"I cannot agree; I am convinced that my father would totally disapprove it."
"And I am convinced to the contrary. Nobody is fonder of the exercise of talent in young people than my father, and I think he has a decided taste for acting. He encouraged it in us as boys. How many a time have we mourned over the dead body of Caesar, and to be'd and not to be'd, for his amusement?"
"It was a very different thing. My father wished us, as schoolboys, to speak well, but he would never wish his grown-up daughters to be acting plays. His sense of decorum is strict."
"I know that," said Tom, displeased. "I know my father as well as you do; and I'll take care that his daughters do nothing to distress him. Manage your own concerns, Edmund, and I'll take care of the rest of the family."
"If you are resolved on acting," replied the persevering Edmund, "I hope it will be in a very quiet way; and I think a theatre ought not to be attempted. It would be taking liberties with my father's house."
"I will be answerable," said Tom. "His house shall not be hurt. I have quite as great an interest in his house as you; and as to such alterations as moving a bookcase, or unlocking a door, or using the billiard-room for the space of a week, you might as well suppose he would object to my sister's pianoforte being moved from one side of the room to the other. Absolute nonsense!"
"The innovation will be wrong as an expense."
"Yes, the expense would be prodigious! Perhaps it might cost a whole twenty pounds. It will be a green curtain and a little carpenter's work, that's all; and as the carpenter's work may be done by Christopher Jackson, it will be absurd to talk of expense. As long as Jackson is employed, everything will be right with Sir Thomas. Don't imagine that nobody in this house can see or judge but yourself. Don't act yourself, if you do not like it, but don't expect to govern everybody else."
"No, as to acting myself," said Edmund, "that I absolutely protest against."
Tom walked out of the room, and Edmund was left to stir the fire in thoughtful vexation.
Fanny said, anxious to suggest some comfort, "Perhaps they may not find any play to suit them. Your brother's taste and your sisters' seem very different."
"I have no hope there, Fanny. They will find something. I shall try to dissuade my sisters, and that is all I can do."
"I should think my aunt Norris would be on your side."
"I dare say she would, but she has no influence with either Tom or my sisters; and if I cannot convince them myself, I shall let things take their course. Family squabbling is the greatest evil of all."
His sisters, to whom he spoke the next morning, were quite as impatient of his advice as Tom. Their mother had no objection to the plan, and they were not afraid of their father's disapprobation. There could be no harm in what had been done in so many respectable families. Julia did admit that Maria's situation might require particular caution-but that could not extend to her-she was at liberty; and Maria evidently considered her engagement as only raising her so much more above restraint.
Edmund was still urging them when Henry Crawford entered the room, calling out, "No lack of hands in our theatre, Miss Bertram. My sister hopes to be admitted into the company, and will be happy to take the part of any old duenna that you may not like yourselves."
Maria gave Edmund a glance, which meant, "What say you now? Can we be wrong if Mary Crawford feels the same?" And Edmund, silenced, acknowledged that the charm of acting might well carry fascination to the mind of genius.
As to Mrs. Norris, he was mistaken in supposing she would wish to oppose the scheme. She was talked down in five minutes by her eldest nephew and niece, who were all-powerful with her. The arrangement was to bring very little expense to anybody, and none at all to herself. She foresaw in it all the comforts of bustle and importance, and fancied herself obliged to leave her own house, where she had been living at her own cost, and stay in theirs, so that every hour might be spent in their service. She was, in fact, delighted with the project.