Chapter: Seven weeks of the two months were very nearly gone, when the one
letter, the letter from Edmund, so long expected, was put into Fanny's
hands. As she opened, and saw its length, she prepared herself for a
minute detail of happiness and a profusion of love and praise towards
the fortunate creature who was now mistress of his fate. These were the
contents--

"My Dear Fanny,--Excuse me that I have not written before. Crawford told
me that you were wishing to hear from me, but I found it impossible to
write from London, and persuaded myself that you would understand my
silence. Could I have sent a few happy lines, they should not have been
wanting, but nothing of that nature was ever in my power. I am returned
to Mansfield in a less assured state than when I left it. My hopes are
much weaker. You are probably aware of this already. So very fond of you
as Miss Crawford is, it is most natural that she should tell you enough
of her own feelings to furnish a tolerable guess at mine. I will not be
prevented, however, from making my own communication. Our confidences in
you need not clash. I ask no questions. There is something soothing
in the idea that we have the same friend, and that whatever unhappy
differences of opinion may exist between us, we are united in our love
of you. It will be a comfort to me to tell you how things now are, and
what are my present plans, if plans I can be said to have. I have been
returned since Saturday. I was three weeks in London, and saw her (for
London) very often. I had every attention from the Frasers that could be
reasonably expected. I dare say I was not reasonable in carrying with
me hopes of an intercourse at all like that of Mansfield. It was her
manner, however, rather than any unfrequency of meeting. Had she been
different when I did see her, I should have made no complaint, but from
the very first she was altered: my first reception was so unlike what I
had hoped, that I had almost resolved on leaving London again directly.
I need not particularise. You know the weak side of her character, and
may imagine the sentiments and expressions which were torturing me. She
was in high spirits, and surrounded by those who were giving all the
support of their own bad sense to her too lively mind. I do not like
Mrs. Fraser. She is a cold-hearted, vain woman, who has married entirely
from convenience, and though evidently unhappy in her marriage,
places her disappointment not to faults of judgment, or temper, or
disproportion of age, but to her being, after all, less affluent than
many of her acquaintance, especially than her sister, Lady Stornaway,
and is the determined supporter of everything mercenary and ambitious,
provided it be only mercenary and ambitious enough. I look upon her
intimacy with those two sisters as the greatest misfortune of her life
and mine. They have been leading her astray for years. Could she be
detached from them!--and sometimes I do not despair of it, for the
affection appears to me principally on their side. They are very fond of
her; but I am sure she does not love them as she loves you. When I think
of her great attachment to you, indeed, and the whole of her judicious,
upright conduct as a sister, she appears a very different creature,
capable of everything noble, and I am ready to blame myself for a too
harsh construction of a playful manner. I cannot give her up, Fanny. She
is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife. If
I did not believe that she had some regard for me, of course I should
not say this, but I do believe it. I am convinced that she is not
without a decided preference. I have no jealousy of any individual. It
is the influence of the fashionable world altogether that I am jealous
of. It is the habits of wealth that I fear. Her ideas are not higher
than her own fortune may warrant, but they are beyond what our incomes
united could authorise. There is comfort, however, even here. I could
better bear to lose her because not rich enough, than because of my
profession. That would only prove her affection not equal to sacrifices,
which, in fact, I am scarcely justified in asking; and, if I am refused,
that, I think, will be the honest motive. Her prejudices, I trust, are
not so strong as they were. You have my thoughts exactly as they arise,
my dear Fanny; perhaps they are sometimes contradictory, but it will
not be a less faithful picture of my mind. Having once begun, it is a
pleasure to me to tell you all I feel. I cannot give her up. Connected
as we already are, and, I hope, are to be, to give up Mary Crawford
would be to give up the society of some of those most dear to me; to
banish myself from the very houses and friends whom, under any other
distress, I should turn to for consolation. The loss of Mary I must
consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and of Fanny. Were it a
decided thing, an actual refusal, I hope I should know how to bear it,
and how to endeavour to weaken her hold on my heart, and in the course
of a few years--but I am writing nonsense. Were I refused, I must bear
it; and till I am, I can never cease to try for her. This is the truth.
The only question is _how_? What may be the likeliest means? I have
sometimes thought of going to London again after Easter, and sometimes
resolved on doing nothing till she returns to Mansfield. Even now, she
speaks with pleasure of being in Mansfield in June; but June is at
a great distance, and I believe I shall write to her. I have nearly
determined on explaining myself by letter. To be at an early certainty
is a material object. My present state is miserably irksome. Considering
everything, I think a letter will be decidedly the best method of
explanation. I shall be able to write much that I could not say, and
shall be giving her time for reflection before she resolves on her
answer, and I am less afraid of the result of reflection than of an
immediate hasty impulse; I think I am. My greatest danger would lie in
her consulting Mrs. Fraser, and I at a distance unable to help my own
cause. A letter exposes to all the evil of consultation, and where
the mind is anything short of perfect decision, an adviser may, in an
unlucky moment, lead it to do what it may afterwards regret. I must
think this matter over a little. This long letter, full of my own
concerns alone, will be enough to tire even the friendship of a Fanny.
The last time I saw Crawford was at Mrs. Fraser's party. I am more
and more satisfied with all that I see and hear of him. There is not a
shadow of wavering. He thoroughly knows his own mind, and acts up to his
resolutions: an inestimable quality. I could not see him and my eldest
sister in the same room without recollecting what you once told me,
and I acknowledge that they did not meet as friends. There was
marked coolness on her side. They scarcely spoke. I saw him draw back
surprised, and I was sorry that Mrs. Rushworth should resent any former
supposed slight to Miss Bertram. You will wish to hear my opinion
of Maria's degree of comfort as a wife. There is no appearance of
unhappiness. I hope they get on pretty well together. I dined twice in
Wimpole Street, and might have been there oftener, but it is mortifying
to be with Rushworth as a brother. Julia seems to enjoy London
exceedingly. I had little enjoyment there, but have less here. We are
not a lively party. You are very much wanted. I miss you more than I
can express. My mother desires her best love, and hopes to hear from
you soon. She talks of you almost every hour, and I am sorry to find
how many weeks more she is likely to be without you. My father means
to fetch you himself, but it will not be till after Easter, when he has
business in town. You are happy at Portsmouth, I hope, but this must
not be a yearly visit. I want you at home, that I may have your opinion
about Thornton Lacey. I have little heart for extensive improvements
till I know that it will ever have a mistress. I think I shall certainly
write. It is quite settled that the Grants go to Bath; they leave
Mansfield on Monday. I am glad of it. I am not comfortable enough to be
fit for anybody; but your aunt seems to feel out of luck that such an
article of Mansfield news should fall to my pen instead of hers.--Yours
ever, my dearest Fanny."

"I never will, no, I certainly never will wish for a letter again," was
Fanny's secret declaration as she finished this. "What do they bring but
disappointment and sorrow? Not till after Easter! How shall I bear it?
And my poor aunt talking of me every hour!"

Fanny checked the tendency of these thoughts as well as she could, but
she was within half a minute of starting the idea that Sir Thomas was
quite unkind, both to her aunt and to herself. As for the main subject
of the letter, there was nothing in that to soothe irritation. She was
almost vexed into displeasure and anger against Edmund. "There is no
good in this delay," said she. "Why is not it settled? He is blinded,
and nothing will open his eyes; nothing can, after having had truths
before him so long in vain. He will marry her, and be poor and
miserable. God grant that her influence do not make him cease to be
respectable!" She looked over the letter again. "'So very fond of me!'
'tis nonsense all. She loves nobody but herself and her brother. Her
friends leading her astray for years! She is quite as likely to have led
_them_ astray. They have all, perhaps, been corrupting one another; but
if they are so much fonder of her than she is of them, she is the less
likely to have been hurt, except by their flattery. 'The only woman in
the world whom he could ever think of as a wife.' I firmly believe it.
It is an attachment to govern his whole life. Accepted or refused, his
heart is wedded to her for ever. 'The loss of Mary I must consider as
comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny.' Edmund, you do not know
me. The families would never be connected if you did not connect
them! Oh! write, write. Finish it at once. Let there be an end of this
suspense. Fix, commit, condemn yourself."

Such sensations, however, were too near akin to resentment to be long
guiding Fanny's soliloquies. She was soon more softened and sorrowful.
His warm regard, his kind expressions, his confidential treatment,
touched her strongly. He was only too good to everybody. It was a
letter, in short, which she would not but have had for the world, and
which could never be valued enough. This was the end of it.

Everybody at all addicted to letter-writing, without having much to say,
which will include a large proportion of the female world at least, must
feel with Lady Bertram that she was out of luck in having such a capital
piece of Mansfield news as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath,
occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it, and will admit
that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the
share of her thankless son, and treated as concisely as possible at the
end of a long letter, instead of having it to spread over the largest
part of a page of her own. For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the
epistolary line, having early in her marriage, from the want of other
employment, and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being in Parliament,
got into the way of making and keeping correspondents, and formed for
herself a very creditable, common-place, amplifying style, so that a
very little matter was enough for her: she could not do entirely without
any; she must have something to write about, even to her niece; and
being so soon to lose all the benefit of Dr. Grant's gouty symptoms and
Mrs. Grant's morning calls, it was very hard upon her to be deprived of
one of the last epistolary uses she could put them to.

There was a rich amends, however, preparing for her. Lady Bertram's
hour of good luck came. Within a few days from the receipt of Edmund's
letter, Fanny had one from her aunt, beginning thus--

"My Dear Fanny,--I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming
intelligence, which I make no doubt will give you much concern".

This was a great deal better than to have to take up the pen to acquaint
her with all the particulars of the Grants' intended journey, for the
present intelligence was of a nature to promise occupation for the pen
for many days to come, being no less than the dangerous illness of her
eldest son, of which they had received notice by express a few hours
before.

Tom had gone from London with a party of young men to Newmarket, where
a neglected fall and a good deal of drinking had brought on a fever; and
when the party broke up, being unable to move, had been left by himself
at the house of one of these young men to the comforts of sickness and
solitude, and the attendance only of servants. Instead of being soon
well enough to follow his friends, as he had then hoped, his disorder
increased considerably, and it was not long before he thought so ill of
himself as to be as ready as his physician to have a letter despatched
to Mansfield.

"This distressing intelligence, as you may suppose," observed
her ladyship, after giving the substance of it, "has agitated us
exceedingly, and we cannot prevent ourselves from being greatly alarmed
and apprehensive for the poor invalid, whose state Sir Thomas fears
may be very critical; and Edmund kindly proposes attending his brother
immediately, but I am happy to add that Sir Thomas will not leave me on
this distressing occasion, as it would be too trying for me. We shall
greatly miss Edmund in our small circle, but I trust and hope he
will find the poor invalid in a less alarming state than might be
apprehended, and that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly,
which Sir Thomas proposes should be done, and thinks best on every
account, and I flatter myself the poor sufferer will soon be able to
bear the removal without material inconvenience or injury. As I
have little doubt of your feeling for us, my dear Fanny, under these
distressing circumstances, I will write again very soon."

Fanny's feelings on the occasion were indeed considerably more warm and
genuine than her aunt's style of writing. She felt truly for them all.
Tom dangerously ill, Edmund gone to attend him, and the sadly small
party remaining at Mansfield, were cares to shut out every other care,
or almost every other. She could just find selfishness enough to wonder
whether Edmund _had_ written to Miss Crawford before this summons came,
but no sentiment dwelt long with her that was not purely affectionate
and disinterestedly anxious. Her aunt did not neglect her: she wrote
again and again; they were receiving frequent accounts from Edmund,
and these accounts were as regularly transmitted to Fanny, in the same
diffuse style, and the same medley of trusts, hopes, and fears, all
following and producing each other at haphazard. It was a sort of
playing at being frightened. The sufferings which Lady Bertram did not
see had little power over her fancy; and she wrote very comfortably
about agitation, and anxiety, and poor invalids, till Tom was actually
conveyed to Mansfield, and her own eyes had beheld his altered
appearance. Then a letter which she had been previously preparing for
Fanny was finished in a different style, in the language of real feeling
and alarm; then she wrote as she might have spoken. "He is just come, my
dear Fanny, and is taken upstairs; and I am so shocked to see him, that
I do not know what to do. I am sure he has been very ill. Poor Tom! I am
quite grieved for him, and very much frightened, and so is Sir Thomas;
and how glad I should be if you were here to comfort me. But Sir
Thomas hopes he will be better to-morrow, and says we must consider his
journey."

The real solicitude now awakened in the maternal bosom was not
soon over. Tom's extreme impatience to be removed to Mansfield, and
experience those comforts of home and family which had been little
thought of in uninterrupted health, had probably induced his being
conveyed thither too early, as a return of fever came on, and for a week
he was in a more alarming state than ever. They were all very seriously
frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who
might now be said to live upon letters, and pass all her time between
suffering from that of to-day and looking forward to to-morrow's.
Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, her tenderness
of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of
her principles added yet a keener solicitude, when she considered how
little useful, how little self-denying his life had (apparently) been.

Susan was her only companion and listener on this, as on more common
occasions. Susan was always ready to hear and to sympathise. Nobody else
could be interested in so remote an evil as illness in a family above an
hundred miles off; not even Mrs. Price, beyond a brief question or two,
if she saw her daughter with a letter in her hand, and now and then the
quiet observation of, "My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of
trouble."

So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were
little more than nothing. An attachment, originally as tranquil as their
tempers, was now become a mere name. Mrs. Price did quite as much for
Lady Bertram as Lady Bertram would have done for Mrs. Price. Three or
four Prices might have been swept away, any or all except Fanny and
William, and Lady Bertram would have thought little about it; or perhaps
might have caught from Mrs. Norris's lips the cant of its being a very
happy thing and a great blessing to their poor dear sister Price to have
them so well provided for.

 Fanny has been in Portsmouth for seven weeks and finally gets a letter from Edmund. Things are still unsettled between him and Mary. Edmund wasn't happy with what he saw of Mary in London, especially her fashionable friends. He's now especially confused about what to do. He loves Mary and wants to marry her, but he still has problems accepting her London society ways. Edmund decides he just has to go for it and ask her - he remains uncertain whether she'll accept his proposal or not. He also says he risks losing Fanny and Henry if he loses Mary since he sees them as all connected. Edmund notes that he still thinks that Henry is great. He says Maria and Julia seem happy in London and that Henry and Maria barely spoke when they met in London. Edmund adds that Sir Thomas won't be able to come get her until after Easter, so she'll have to hang out in Portsmouth a bit longer. Fanny is very stressed out by this letter because of Edmund's unwavering feelings for Mary. Lady Bertram starts writing Fanny too. She reports that the Grants have gone to Bath for a while and updates her on other Mansfield Park news. Then Lady Bertram sends a distressing letter: Tom has gotten sick and Edmund has had to go get him and bring him back to Mansfield Park. Fanny's worried about Tom and the rest of the family. Lady Bertram updates Fanny continually once Tom arrives home. He is dangerously ill. Fanny longs to go home to Mansfield to help out. Fanny is distressed that the Prices don't really seem to care at all about Tom, except for Susan who always wants to hear about Mansfield and who sympathizes with Fanny.

