الفصل الفصل 9 · Chapter IX

Mr. Rushworth was at the door to receive his fair lady; and the whole

party were welcomed by him with due attention. In the drawing-room they

were met with equal cordiality by the mother, and Miss Bertram had all

the distinction with each that she could wish. After the business of

arriving was over, it was first necessary to eat, and the doors were

thrown open to admit them through one or two intermediate rooms into

the appointed dining-parlour, where a collation was prepared with

abundance and elegance. Much was said, and much was ate, and all went

well. The particular object of the day was then considered. How would

Mr. Crawford like, in what manner would he chuse, to take a survey of

the grounds? Mr. Rushworth mentioned his curricle. Mr. Crawford

suggested the greater desirableness of some carriage which might convey

more than two. “To be depriving themselves of the advantage of other

eyes and other judgments, might be an evil even beyond the loss of

present pleasure.”

Mrs. Rushworth proposed that the chaise should be taken also; but this

was scarcely received as an amendment: the young ladies neither smiled

nor spoke. Her next proposition, of shewing the house to such of them

as had not been there before, was more acceptable, for Miss Bertram was

pleased to have its size displayed, and all were glad to be doing

something.

The whole party rose accordingly, and under Mrs. Rushworth’s guidance

were shewn through a number of rooms, all lofty, and many large, and

amply furnished in the taste of fifty years back, with shining floors,

solid mahogany, rich damask, marble, gilding, and carving, each

handsome in its way. Of pictures there were abundance, and some few

good, but the larger part were family portraits, no longer anything to

anybody but Mrs. Rushworth, who had been at great pains to learn all

that the housekeeper could teach, and was now almost equally well

qualified to shew the house. On the present occasion she addressed

herself chiefly to Miss Crawford and Fanny, but there was no comparison

in the willingness of their attention; for Miss Crawford, who had seen

scores of great houses, and cared for none of them, had only the

appearance of civilly listening, while Fanny, to whom everything was

almost as interesting as it was new, attended with unaffected

earnestness to all that Mrs. Rushworth could relate of the family in

former times, its rise and grandeur, regal visits and loyal efforts,

delighted to connect anything with history already known, or warm her

imagination with scenes of the past.

The situation of the house excluded the possibility of much prospect

from any of the rooms; and while Fanny and some of the others were

attending Mrs. Rushworth, Henry Crawford was looking grave and shaking

his head at the windows. Every room on the west front looked across a

lawn to the beginning of the avenue immediately beyond tall iron

palisades and gates.

Having visited many more rooms than could be supposed to be of any

other use than to contribute to the window-tax, and find employment for

housemaids, “Now,” said Mrs. Rushworth, “we are coming to the chapel,

which properly we ought to enter from above, and look down upon; but as

we are quite among friends, I will take you in this way, if you will

excuse me.”

They entered. Fanny’s imagination had prepared her for something

grander than a mere spacious, oblong room, fitted up for the purpose of

devotion: with nothing more striking or more solemn than the profusion

of mahogany, and the crimson velvet cushions appearing over the ledge

of the family gallery above. “I am disappointed,” said she, in a low

voice, to Edmund. “This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing

awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand. Here are no aisles, no

arches, no inscriptions, no banners. No banners, cousin, to be ‘blown

by the night wind of heaven.’ No signs that a ‘Scottish monarch sleeps

below.’”

“You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how

confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and

monasteries. It was only for the private use of the family. They have

been buried, I suppose, in the parish church. _There_ you must look for

the banners and the achievements.”

“It was foolish of me not to think of all that; but I am disappointed.”

Mrs. Rushworth began her relation. “This chapel was fitted up as you

see it, in James the Second’s time. Before that period, as I

understand, the pews were only wainscot; and there is some reason to

think that the linings and cushions of the pulpit and family seat were

only purple cloth; but this is not quite certain. It is a handsome

chapel, and was formerly in constant use both morning and evening.

Prayers were always read in it by the domestic chaplain, within the

memory of many; but the late Mr. Rushworth left it off.”

“Every generation has its improvements,” said Miss Crawford, with a

smile, to Edmund.

Mrs. Rushworth was gone to repeat her lesson to Mr. Crawford; and

Edmund, Fanny, and Miss Crawford remained in a cluster together.

“It is a pity,” cried Fanny, “that the custom should have been

discontinued. It was a valuable part of former times. There is

something in a chapel and chaplain so much in character with a great

house, with one’s ideas of what such a household should be! A whole

family assembling regularly for the purpose of prayer is fine!”

“Very fine indeed,” said Miss Crawford, laughing. “It must do the heads

of the family a great deal of good to force all the poor housemaids and

footmen to leave business and pleasure, and say their prayers here

twice a day, while they are inventing excuses themselves for staying

away.”

“_That_ is hardly Fanny’s idea of a family assembling,” said Edmund.

“If the master and mistress do _not_ attend themselves, there must be

more harm than good in the custom.”

“At any rate, it is safer to leave people to their own devices on such

subjects. Everybody likes to go their own way—to chuse their own time

and manner of devotion. The obligation of attendance, the formality,

the restraint, the length of time—altogether it is a formidable thing,

and what nobody likes; and if the good people who used to kneel and

gape in that gallery could have foreseen that the time would ever come

when men and women might lie another ten minutes in bed, when they woke

with a headache, without danger of reprobation, because chapel was

missed, they would have jumped with joy and envy. Cannot you imagine

with what unwilling feelings the former belles of the house of

Rushworth did many a time repair to this chapel? The young Mrs.

Eleanors and Mrs. Bridgets—starched up into seeming piety, but with

heads full of something very different—especially if the poor chaplain

were not worth looking at—and, in those days, I fancy parsons were very

inferior even to what they are now.”

For a few moments she was unanswered. Fanny coloured and looked at

Edmund, but felt too angry for speech; and he needed a little

recollection before he could say, “Your lively mind can hardly be

serious even on serious subjects. You have given us an amusing sketch,

and human nature cannot say it was not so. We must all feel _at_

_times_ the difficulty of fixing our thoughts as we could wish; but if

you are supposing it a frequent thing, that is to say, a weakness grown

into a habit from neglect, what could be expected from the _private_

devotions of such persons? Do you think the minds which are suffered,

which are indulged in wanderings in a chapel, would be more collected

in a closet?”

“Yes, very likely. They would have two chances at least in their

favour. There would be less to distract the attention from without, and

it would not be tried so long.”

“The mind which does not struggle against itself under _one_

circumstance, would find objects to distract it in the _other_, I

believe; and the influence of the place and of example may often rouse

better feelings than are begun with. The greater length of the service,

however, I admit to be sometimes too hard a stretch upon the mind. One

wishes it were not so; but I have not yet left Oxford long enough to

forget what chapel prayers are.”

While this was passing, the rest of the party being scattered about the

chapel, Julia called Mr. Crawford’s attention to her sister, by saying,

“Do look at Mr. Rushworth and Maria, standing side by side, exactly as

if the ceremony were going to be performed. Have not they completely

the air of it?”

Mr. Crawford smiled his acquiescence, and stepping forward to Maria,

said, in a voice which she only could hear, “I do not like to see Miss

Bertram so near the altar.”

Starting, the lady instinctively moved a step or two, but recovering

herself in a moment, affected to laugh, and asked him, in a tone not

much louder, “If he would give her away?”

“I am afraid I should do it very awkwardly,” was his reply, with a look

of meaning.

Julia, joining them at the moment, carried on the joke.

“Upon my word, it is really a pity that it should not take place

directly, if we had but a proper licence, for here we are altogether,

and nothing in the world could be more snug and pleasant.” And she

talked and laughed about it with so little caution as to catch the

comprehension of Mr. Rushworth and his mother, and expose her sister to

the whispered gallantries of her lover, while Mrs. Rushworth spoke with

proper smiles and dignity of its being a most happy event to her

whenever it took place.

“If Edmund were but in orders!” cried Julia, and running to where he

stood with Miss Crawford and Fanny: “My dear Edmund, if you were but in

orders now, you might perform the ceremony directly. How unlucky that

you are not ordained; Mr. Rushworth and Maria are quite ready.”

Miss Crawford’s countenance, as Julia spoke, might have amused a

disinterested observer. She looked almost aghast under the new idea she

was receiving. Fanny pitied her. “How distressed she will be at what

she said just now,” passed across her mind.

“Ordained!” said Miss Crawford; “what, are you to be a clergyman?”

“Yes; I shall take orders soon after my father’s return—probably at

Christmas.”

Miss Crawford, rallying her spirits, and recovering her complexion,

replied only, “If I had known this before, I would have spoken of the

cloth with more respect,” and turned the subject.

The chapel was soon afterwards left to the silence and stillness which

reigned in it, with few interruptions, throughout the year. Miss

Bertram, displeased with her sister, led the way, and all seemed to

feel that they had been there long enough.

The lower part of the house had been now entirely shewn, and Mrs.

Rushworth, never weary in the cause, would have proceeded towards the

principal staircase, and taken them through all the rooms above, if her

son had not interposed with a doubt of there being time enough. “For

if,” said he, with the sort of self-evident proposition which many a

clearer head does not always avoid, “we are _too_ long going over the

house, we shall not have time for what is to be done out of doors. It

is past two, and we are to dine at five.”

Mrs. Rushworth submitted; and the question of surveying the grounds,

with the who and the how, was likely to be more fully agitated, and

Mrs. Norris was beginning to arrange by what junction of carriages and

horses most could be done, when the young people, meeting with an

outward door, temptingly open on a flight of steps which led

immediately to turf and shrubs, and all the sweets of pleasure-grounds,

as by one impulse, one wish for air and liberty, all walked out.

“Suppose we turn down here for the present,” said Mrs. Rushworth,

civilly taking the hint and following them. “Here are the greatest

number of our plants, and here are the curious pheasants.”

“Query,” said Mr. Crawford, looking round him, “whether we may not find

something to employ us here before we go farther? I see walls of great

promise. Mr. Rushworth, shall we summon a council on this lawn?”

“James,” said Mrs. Rushworth to her son, “I believe the wilderness will

be new to all the party. The Miss Bertrams have never seen the

wilderness yet.”

No objection was made, but for some time there seemed no inclination to

move in any plan, or to any distance. All were attracted at first by

the plants or the pheasants, and all dispersed about in happy

independence. Mr. Crawford was the first to move forward to examine the

capabilities of that end of the house. The lawn, bounded on each side

by a high wall, contained beyond the first planted area a

bowling-green, and beyond the bowling-green a long terrace walk, backed

by iron palisades, and commanding a view over them into the tops of the

trees of the wilderness immediately adjoining. It was a good spot for

fault-finding. Mr. Crawford was soon followed by Miss Bertram and Mr.

Rushworth; and when, after a little time, the others began to form into

parties, these three were found in busy consultation on the terrace by

Edmund, Miss Crawford, and Fanny, who seemed as naturally to unite, and

who, after a short participation of their regrets and difficulties,

left them and walked on. The remaining three, Mrs. Rushworth, Mrs.

Norris, and Julia, were still far behind; for Julia, whose happy star

no longer prevailed, was obliged to keep by the side of Mrs. Rushworth,

and restrain her impatient feet to that lady’s slow pace, while her

aunt, having fallen in with the housekeeper, who was come out to feed

the pheasants, was lingering behind in gossip with her. Poor Julia, the

only one out of the nine not tolerably satisfied with their lot, was

now in a state of complete penance, and as different from the Julia of

the barouche-box as could well be imagined. The politeness which she

had been brought up to practise as a duty made it impossible for her to

escape; while the want of that higher species of self-command, that

just consideration of others, that knowledge of her own heart, that

principle of right, which had not formed any essential part of her

education, made her miserable under it.

“This is insufferably hot,” said Miss Crawford, when they had taken one

turn on the terrace, and were drawing a second time to the door in the

middle which opened to the wilderness. “Shall any of us object to being

comfortable? Here is a nice little wood, if one can but get into it.

What happiness if the door should not be locked! but of course it is;

for in these great places the gardeners are the only people who can go

where they like.”

The door, however, proved not to be locked, and they were all agreed in

turning joyfully through it, and leaving the unmitigated glare of day

behind. A considerable flight of steps landed them in the wilderness,

which was a planted wood of about two acres, and though chiefly of

larch and laurel, and beech cut down, and though laid out with too much

regularity, was darkness and shade, and natural beauty, compared with

the bowling-green and the terrace. They all felt the refreshment of it,

and for some time could only walk and admire. At length, after a short

pause, Miss Crawford began with, “So you are to be a clergyman, Mr.

Bertram. This is rather a surprise to me.”

“Why should it surprise you? You must suppose me designed for some

profession, and might perceive that I am neither a lawyer, nor a

soldier, nor a sailor.”

“Very true; but, in short, it had not occurred to me. And you know

there is generally an uncle or a grandfather to leave a fortune to the

second son.”

“A very praiseworthy practice,” said Edmund, “but not quite universal.

I am one of the exceptions, and _being_ one, must do something for

myself.”

“But why are you to be a clergyman? I thought _that_ was always the lot

of the youngest, where there were many to chuse before him.”

“Do you think the church itself never chosen, then?”

“_Never_ is a black word. But yes, in the _never_ of conversation,

which means _not_ _very_ _often_, I do think it. For what is to be done

in the church? Men love to distinguish themselves, and in either of the

other lines distinction may be gained, but not in the church. A

clergyman is nothing.”

“The _nothing_ of conversation has its gradations, I hope, as well as

the _never_. A clergyman cannot be high in state or fashion. He must

not head mobs, or set the ton in dress. But I cannot call that

situation nothing which has the charge of all that is of the first

importance to mankind, individually or collectively considered,

temporally and eternally, which has the guardianship of religion and

morals, and consequently of the manners which result from their

influence. No one here can call the _office_ nothing. If the man who

holds it is so, it is by the neglect of his duty, by foregoing its just

importance, and stepping out of his place to appear what he ought not

to appear.”

“_You_ assign greater consequence to the clergyman than one has been

used to hear given, or than I can quite comprehend. One does not see

much of this influence and importance in society, and how can it be

acquired where they are so seldom seen themselves? How can two sermons

a week, even supposing them worth hearing, supposing the preacher to

have the sense to prefer Blair’s to his own, do all that you speak of?

govern the conduct and fashion the manners of a large congregation for

the rest of the week? One scarcely sees a clergyman out of his pulpit.”

“_You_ are speaking of London, _I_ am speaking of the nation at large.”

“The metropolis, I imagine, is a pretty fair sample of the rest.”

“Not, I should hope, of the proportion of virtue to vice throughout the

kingdom. We do not look in great cities for our best morality. It is

not there that respectable people of any denomination can do most good;

and it certainly is not there that the influence of the clergy can be

most felt. A fine preacher is followed and admired; but it is not in

fine preaching only that a good clergyman will be useful in his parish

and his neighbourhood, where the parish and neighbourhood are of a size

capable of knowing his private character, and observing his general

conduct, which in London can rarely be the case. The clergy are lost

there in the crowds of their parishioners. They are known to the

largest part only as preachers. And with regard to their influencing

public manners, Miss Crawford must not misunderstand me, or suppose I

mean to call them the arbiters of good-breeding, the regulators of

refinement and courtesy, the masters of the ceremonies of life. The

_manners_ I speak of might rather be called _conduct_, perhaps, the

result of good principles; the effect, in short, of those doctrines

which it is their duty to teach and recommend; and it will, I believe,

be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought

to be, so are the rest of the nation.”

“Certainly,” said Fanny, with gentle earnestness.

“There,” cried Miss Crawford, “you have quite convinced Miss Price

already.”

“I wish I could convince Miss Crawford too.”

“I do not think you ever will,” said she, with an arch smile; “I am

just as much surprised now as I was at first that you should intend to

take orders. You really are fit for something better. Come, do change

your mind. It is not too late. Go into the law.”

“Go into the law! With as much ease as I was told to go into this

wilderness.”

“Now you are going to say something about law being the worst

wilderness of the two, but I forestall you; remember, I have

forestalled you.”

“You need not hurry when the object is only to prevent my saying a

_bon_ _mot_, for there is not the least wit in my nature. I am a very

matter-of-fact, plain-spoken being, and may blunder on the borders of a

repartee for half an hour together without striking it out.”

A general silence succeeded. Each was thoughtful. Fanny made the first

interruption by saying, “I wonder that I should be tired with only

walking in this sweet wood; but the next time we come to a seat, if it

is not disagreeable to you, I should be glad to sit down for a little

while.”

“My dear Fanny,” cried Edmund, immediately drawing her arm within his,

“how thoughtless I have been! I hope you are not very tired. Perhaps,”

turning to Miss Crawford, “my other companion may do me the honour of

taking an arm.”

“Thank you, but I am not at all tired.” She took it, however, as she

spoke, and the gratification of having her do so, of feeling such a

connexion for the first time, made him a little forgetful of Fanny.

“You scarcely touch me,” said he. “You do not make me of any use. What

a difference in the weight of a woman’s arm from that of a man! At

Oxford I have been a good deal used to have a man lean on me for the

length of a street, and you are only a fly in the comparison.”

“I am really not tired, which I almost wonder at; for we must have

walked at least a mile in this wood. Do not you think we have?”

“Not half a mile,” was his sturdy answer; for he was not yet so much in

love as to measure distance, or reckon time, with feminine lawlessness.

“Oh! you do not consider how much we have wound about. We have taken

such a very serpentine course, and the wood itself must be half a mile

long in a straight line, for we have never seen the end of it yet since

we left the first great path.”

“But if you remember, before we left that first great path, we saw

directly to the end of it. We looked down the whole vista, and saw it

closed by iron gates, and it could not have been more than a furlong in

length.”

“Oh! I know nothing of your furlongs, but I am sure it is a very long

wood, and that we have been winding in and out ever since we came into

it; and therefore, when I say that we have walked a mile in it, I must

speak within compass.”

“We have been exactly a quarter of an hour here,” said Edmund, taking

out his watch. “Do you think we are walking four miles an hour?”

“Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or

too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.”

A few steps farther brought them out at the bottom of the very walk

they had been talking of; and standing back, well shaded and sheltered,

and looking over a ha-ha into the park, was a comfortable-sized bench,

on which they all sat down.

“I am afraid you are very tired, Fanny,” said Edmund, observing her;

“why would not you speak sooner? This will be a bad day’s amusement for

you if you are to be knocked up. Every sort of exercise fatigues her so

soon, Miss Crawford, except riding.”

“How abominable in you, then, to let me engross her horse as I did all

last week! I am ashamed of you and of myself, but it shall never happen

again.”

“_Your_ attentiveness and consideration makes me more sensible of my

own neglect. Fanny’s interest seems in safer hands with you than with

me.”

“That she should be tired now, however, gives me no surprise; for there

is nothing in the course of one’s duties so fatiguing as what we have

been doing this morning: seeing a great house, dawdling from one room

to another, straining one’s eyes and one’s attention, hearing what one

does not understand, admiring what one does not care for. It is

generally allowed to be the greatest bore in the world, and Miss Price

has found it so, though she did not know it.”

“I shall soon be rested,” said Fanny; “to sit in the shade on a fine

day, and look upon verdure, is the most perfect refreshment.”

After sitting a little while Miss Crawford was up again. “I must move,”

said she; “resting fatigues me. I have looked across the ha-ha till I

am weary. I must go and look through that iron gate at the same view,

without being able to see it so well.”

Edmund left the seat likewise. “Now, Miss Crawford, if you will look up

the walk, you will convince yourself that it cannot be half a mile

long, or half half a mile.”

“It is an immense distance,” said she; “I see _that_ with a glance.”

He still reasoned with her, but in vain. She would not calculate, she

would not compare. She would only smile and assert. The greatest degree

of rational consistency could not have been more engaging, and they

talked with mutual satisfaction. At last it was agreed that they should

endeavour to determine the dimensions of the wood by walking a little

more about it. They would go to one end of it, in the line they were

then in—for there was a straight green walk along the bottom by the

side of the ha-ha—and perhaps turn a little way in some other

direction, if it seemed likely to assist them, and be back in a few

minutes. Fanny said she was rested, and would have moved too, but this

was not suffered. Edmund urged her remaining where she was with an

earnestness which she could not resist, and she was left on the bench

to think with pleasure of her cousin’s care, but with great regret that

she was not stronger. She watched them till they had turned the corner,

and listened till all sound of them had ceased.