Chapter: Fanny was right enough in not expecting to hear from Miss Crawford now
at the rapid rate in which their correspondence had begun; Mary's next
letter was after a decidedly longer interval than the last, but she
was not right in supposing that such an interval would be felt a great
relief to herself. Here was another strange revolution of mind! She was
really glad to receive the letter when it did come. In her present exile
from good society, and distance from everything that had been wont to
interest her, a letter from one belonging to the set where her heart
lived, written with affection, and some degree of elegance, was
thoroughly acceptable. The usual plea of increasing engagements was made
in excuse for not having written to her earlier; "And now that I have
begun," she continued, "my letter will not be worth your reading, for
there will be no little offering of love at the end, no three or four
lines _passionnees_ from the most devoted H. C. in the world, for
Henry is in Norfolk; business called him to Everingham ten days ago, or
perhaps he only pretended to call, for the sake of being travelling
at the same time that you were. But there he is, and, by the bye, his
absence may sufficiently account for any remissness of his sister's in
writing, for there has been no 'Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny?
Is not it time for you to write to Fanny?' to spur me on. At last, after
various attempts at meeting, I have seen your cousins, 'dear Julia and
dearest Mrs. Rushworth'; they found me at home yesterday, and we were
glad to see each other again. We _seemed_ _very_ glad to see each other,
and I do really think we were a little. We had a vast deal to say. Shall
I tell you how Mrs. Rushworth looked when your name was mentioned? I did
not use to think her wanting in self-possession, but she had not quite
enough for the demands of yesterday. Upon the whole, Julia was in the
best looks of the two, at least after you were spoken of. There was no
recovering the complexion from the moment that I spoke of 'Fanny,' and
spoke of her as a sister should. But Mrs. Rushworth's day of good looks
will come; we have cards for her first party on the 28th. Then she
will be in beauty, for she will open one of the best houses in Wimpole
Street. I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle's, and
prefer it to almost any I know in London, and certainly she will then
feel, to use a vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her
penny. Henry could not have afforded her such a house. I hope she will
recollect it, and be satisfied, as well as she may, with moving the
queen of a palace, though the king may appear best in the background;
and as I have no desire to tease her, I shall never _force_ your name
upon her again. She will grow sober by degrees. From all that I hear
and guess, Baron Wildenheim's attentions to Julia continue, but I do not
know that he has any serious encouragement. She ought to do better.
A poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine any liking in the
case, for take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothing. What a
difference a vowel makes! If his rents were but equal to his rants! Your
cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish duties. There
may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be converted. I am unwilling
to fancy myself neglected for a _young_ one. Adieu! my dear sweet Fanny,
this is a long letter from London: write me a pretty one in reply to
gladden Henry's eyes, when he comes back, and send me an account of all
the dashing young captains whom you disdain for his sake."

There was great food for meditation in this letter, and chiefly for
unpleasant meditation; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied, it
connected her with the absent, it told her of people and things about
whom she had never felt so much curiosity as now, and she would
have been glad to have been sure of such a letter every week. Her
correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only concern of higher
interest.

As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends for
deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her father's
and mother's acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction: she
saw nobody in whose favour she could wish to overcome her own shyness
and reserve. The men appeared to her all coarse, the women all pert,
everybody underbred; and she gave as little contentment as she received
from introductions either to old or new acquaintance. The young ladies
who approached her at first with some respect, in consideration of her
coming from a baronet's family, were soon offended by what they termed
"airs"; for, as she neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine
pelisses, they could, on farther observation, admit no right of
superiority.

The first solid consolation which Fanny received for the evils of home,
the first which her judgment could entirely approve, and which gave any
promise of durability, was in a better knowledge of Susan, and a hope of
being of service to her. Susan had always behaved pleasantly to herself,
but the determined character of her general manners had astonished
and alarmed her, and it was at least a fortnight before she began to
understand a disposition so totally different from her own. Susan saw
that much was wrong at home, and wanted to set it right. That a girl of
fourteen, acting only on her own unassisted reason, should err in the
method of reform, was not wonderful; and Fanny soon became more disposed
to admire the natural light of the mind which could so early distinguish
justly, than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it led.
Susan was only acting on the same truths, and pursuing the same system,
which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine and
yielding temper would have shrunk from asserting. Susan tried to be
useful, where _she_ could only have gone away and cried; and that Susan
was useful she could perceive; that things, bad as they were, would
have been worse but for such interposition, and that both her mother and
Betsey were restrained from some excesses of very offensive indulgence
and vulgarity.

In every argument with her mother, Susan had in point of reason the
advantage, and never was there any maternal tenderness to buy her off.
The blind fondness which was for ever producing evil around her she had
never known. There was no gratitude for affection past or present to
make her better bear with its excesses to the others.

All this became gradually evident, and gradually placed Susan before her
sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect. That her manner
was wrong, however, at times very wrong, her measures often ill-chosen
and ill-timed, and her looks and language very often indefensible, Fanny
could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they might be rectified.
Susan, she found, looked up to her and wished for her good opinion; and
new as anything like an office of authority was to Fanny, new as it
was to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one, she did
resolve to give occasional hints to Susan, and endeavour to exercise for
her advantage the juster notions of what was due to everybody, and what
would be wisest for herself, which her own more favoured education had
fixed in her.

Her influence, or at least the consciousness and use of it, originated
in an act of kindness by Susan, which, after many hesitations of
delicacy, she at last worked herself up to. It had very early occurred
to her that a small sum of money might, perhaps, restore peace for
ever on the sore subject of the silver knife, canvassed as it now was
continually, and the riches which she was in possession of herself,
her uncle having given her 10 pounds at parting, made her as able as she was
willing to be generous. But she was so wholly unused to confer favours,
except on the very poor, so unpractised in removing evils, or bestowing
kindnesses among her equals, and so fearful of appearing to elevate
herself as a great lady at home, that it took some time to determine
that it would not be unbecoming in her to make such a present. It
was made, however, at last: a silver knife was bought for Betsey, and
accepted with great delight, its newness giving it every advantage
over the other that could be desired; Susan was established in the full
possession of her own, Betsey handsomely declaring that now she had got
one so much prettier herself, she should never want _that_ again; and
no reproach seemed conveyed to the equally satisfied mother, which Fanny
had almost feared to be impossible. The deed thoroughly answered: a
source of domestic altercation was entirely done away, and it was the
means of opening Susan's heart to her, and giving her something more to
love and be interested in. Susan shewed that she had delicacy: pleased
as she was to be mistress of property which she had been struggling for
at least two years, she yet feared that her sister's judgment had been
against her, and that a reproof was designed her for having so struggled
as to make the purchase necessary for the tranquillity of the house.

Her temper was open. She acknowledged her fears, blamed herself for
having contended so warmly; and from that hour Fanny, understanding the
worth of her disposition and perceiving how fully she was inclined to
seek her good opinion and refer to her judgment, began to feel again the
blessing of affection, and to entertain the hope of being useful to a
mind so much in need of help, and so much deserving it. She gave advice,
advice too sound to be resisted by a good understanding, and given so
mildly and considerately as not to irritate an imperfect temper, and she
had the happiness of observing its good effects not unfrequently.
More was not expected by one who, while seeing all the obligation and
expediency of submission and forbearance, saw also with sympathetic
acuteness of feeling all that must be hourly grating to a girl like
Susan. Her greatest wonder on the subject soon became--not that Susan
should have been provoked into disrespect and impatience against her
better knowledge--but that so much better knowledge, so many good
notions should have been hers at all; and that, brought up in the midst
of negligence and error, she should have formed such proper opinions
of what ought to be; she, who had had no cousin Edmund to direct her
thoughts or fix her principles.

The intimacy thus begun between them was a material advantage to
each. By sitting together upstairs, they avoided a great deal of the
disturbance of the house; Fanny had peace, and Susan learned to think it
no misfortune to be quietly employed. They sat without a fire; but
that was a privation familiar even to Fanny, and she suffered the
less because reminded by it of the East room. It was the only point of
resemblance. In space, light, furniture, and prospect, there was
nothing alike in the two apartments; and she often heaved a sigh at the
remembrance of all her books and boxes, and various comforts there. By
degrees the girls came to spend the chief of the morning upstairs, at
first only in working and talking, but after a few days, the remembrance
of the said books grew so potent and stimulative that Fanny found it
impossible not to try for books again. There were none in her father's
house; but wealth is luxurious and daring, and some of hers found its
way to a circulating library. She became a subscriber; amazed at being
anything _in propria persona_, amazed at her own doings in every way, to
be a renter, a chuser of books! And to be having any one's improvement
in view in her choice! But so it was. Susan had read nothing, and Fanny
longed to give her a share in her own first pleasures, and inspire a
taste for the biography and poetry which she delighted in herself.

In this occupation she hoped, moreover, to bury some of the
recollections of Mansfield, which were too apt to seize her mind if her
fingers only were busy; and, especially at this time, hoped it might
be useful in diverting her thoughts from pursuing Edmund to London,
whither, on the authority of her aunt's last letter, she knew he was
gone. She had no doubt of what would ensue. The promised notification
was hanging over her head. The postman's knock within the neighbourhood
was beginning to bring its daily terrors, and if reading could banish
the idea for even half an hour, it was something gained.

 Fanny finally gets a letter from Mary Crawford. She's actually glad to hear from her because she's desperate for any news of Mansfield Park and all the people she's left behind. Mary gossips about the friends she is visiting, drops hints about Henry and his undying love for Fanny, and is very witty in general. She fills her in on the Rushworths, too. Julia is still with the newlyweds and they're all in London. Mary filled them in on Henry proposing to Fanny and Julia took the news better than Maria did. Maria is very fashionable now and is hosting balls at her townhouse. Julia is still flirting with Mr. Yates, apparently. Edmund's still hanging around at Thornton Lacey and Mary complains that he's moving at a snail's pace. Fanny, meanwhile, has met no one new in Portsmouth and is too shy to try to meet people anyway. Fanny begins to bond with Susan, though, and slowly decides that Susan could use a mentor. Susan is only fourteen years old and needs guidance, and Fanny gradually decides that she fits the bill. Susan could teach Fanny some things, too, especially along the lines of being bold and acting, but Fanny doesn't really pick up on that. First off, Fanny solves the knife issue with Betsey and Susan by buying Betsey her own knife so she'll leave Susan's treasured one alone. Susan is grateful and warms up to Fanny. The two start reading together and Susan begins to mimic Fanny and to act with more restraint.

