Bab Bab 19 · Chapter XIX

How is the consternation of the party to be described? To the greater

number it was a moment of absolute horror. Sir Thomas in the house! All

felt the instantaneous conviction. Not a hope of imposition or mistake

was harboured anywhere. Julia’s looks were an evidence of the fact that

made it indisputable; and after the first starts and exclamations, not

a word was spoken for half a minute: each with an altered countenance

was looking at some other, and almost each was feeling it a stroke the

most unwelcome, most ill-timed, most appalling! Mr. Yates might

consider it only as a vexatious interruption for the evening, and Mr.

Rushworth might imagine it a blessing; but every other heart was

sinking under some degree of self-condemnation or undefined alarm,

every other heart was suggesting, “What will become of us? what is to

be done now?” It was a terrible pause; and terrible to every ear were

the corroborating sounds of opening doors and passing footsteps.

Julia was the first to move and speak again. Jealousy and bitterness

had been suspended: selfishness was lost in the common cause; but at

the moment of her appearance, Frederick was listening with looks of

devotion to Agatha’s narrative, and pressing her hand to his heart; and

as soon as she could notice this, and see that, in spite of the shock

of her words, he still kept his station and retained her sister’s hand,

her wounded heart swelled again with injury, and looking as red as she

had been white before, she turned out of the room, saying, “_I_ need

not be afraid of appearing before him.”

Her going roused the rest; and at the same moment the two brothers

stepped forward, feeling the necessity of doing something. A very few

words between them were sufficient. The case admitted no difference of

opinion: they must go to the drawing-room directly. Maria joined them

with the same intent, just then the stoutest of the three; for the very

circumstance which had driven Julia away was to her the sweetest

support. Henry Crawford’s retaining her hand at such a moment, a moment

of such peculiar proof and importance, was worth ages of doubt and

anxiety. She hailed it as an earnest of the most serious determination,

and was equal even to encounter her father. They walked off, utterly

heedless of Mr. Rushworth’s repeated question of, “Shall I go too? Had

not I better go too? Will not it be right for me to go too?” but they

were no sooner through the door than Henry Crawford undertook to answer

the anxious inquiry, and, encouraging him by all means to pay his

respects to Sir Thomas without delay, sent him after the others with

delighted haste.

Fanny was left with only the Crawfords and Mr. Yates. She had been

quite overlooked by her cousins; and as her own opinion of her claims

on Sir Thomas’s affection was much too humble to give her any idea of

classing herself with his children, she was glad to remain behind and

gain a little breathing-time. Her agitation and alarm exceeded all that

was endured by the rest, by the right of a disposition which not even

innocence could keep from suffering. She was nearly fainting: all her

former habitual dread of her uncle was returning, and with it

compassion for him and for almost every one of the party on the

development before him, with solicitude on Edmund’s account

indescribable. She had found a seat, where in excessive trembling she

was enduring all these fearful thoughts, while the other three, no

longer under any restraint, were giving vent to their feelings of

vexation, lamenting over such an unlooked-for premature arrival as a

most untoward event, and without mercy wishing poor Sir Thomas had been

twice as long on his passage, or were still in Antigua.

The Crawfords were more warm on the subject than Mr. Yates, from better

understanding the family, and judging more clearly of the mischief that

must ensue. The ruin of the play was to them a certainty: they felt the

total destruction of the scheme to be inevitably at hand; while Mr.

Yates considered it only as a temporary interruption, a disaster for

the evening, and could even suggest the possibility of the rehearsal

being renewed after tea, when the bustle of receiving Sir Thomas were

over, and he might be at leisure to be amused by it. The Crawfords

laughed at the idea; and having soon agreed on the propriety of their

walking quietly home and leaving the family to themselves, proposed Mr.

Yates’s accompanying them and spending the evening at the Parsonage.

But Mr. Yates, having never been with those who thought much of

parental claims, or family confidence, could not perceive that anything

of the kind was necessary; and therefore, thanking them, said, “he

preferred remaining where he was, that he might pay his respects to the

old gentleman handsomely since he _was_ come; and besides, he did not

think it would be fair by the others to have everybody run away.”

Fanny was just beginning to collect herself, and to feel that if she

staid longer behind it might seem disrespectful, when this point was

settled, and being commissioned with the brother and sister’s apology,

saw them preparing to go as she quitted the room herself to perform the

dreadful duty of appearing before her uncle.

Too soon did she find herself at the drawing-room door; and after

pausing a moment for what she knew would not come, for a courage which

the outside of no door had ever supplied to her, she turned the lock in

desperation, and the lights of the drawing-room, and all the collected

family, were before her. As she entered, her own name caught her ear.

Sir Thomas was at that moment looking round him, and saying, “But where

is Fanny? Why do not I see my little Fanny?”—and on perceiving her,

came forward with a kindness which astonished and penetrated her,

calling her his dear Fanny, kissing her affectionately, and observing

with decided pleasure how much she was grown! Fanny knew not how to

feel, nor where to look. She was quite oppressed. He had never been so

kind, so _very_ kind to her in his life. His manner seemed changed, his

voice was quick from the agitation of joy; and all that had been awful

in his dignity seemed lost in tenderness. He led her nearer the light

and looked at her again—inquired particularly after her health, and

then, correcting himself, observed that he need not inquire, for her

appearance spoke sufficiently on that point. A fine blush having

succeeded the previous paleness of her face, he was justified in his

belief of her equal improvement in health and beauty. He inquired next

after her family, especially William: and his kindness altogether was

such as made her reproach herself for loving him so little, and

thinking his return a misfortune; and when, on having courage to lift

her eyes to his face, she saw that he was grown thinner, and had the

burnt, fagged, worn look of fatigue and a hot climate, every tender

feeling was increased, and she was miserable in considering how much

unsuspected vexation was probably ready to burst on him.

Sir Thomas was indeed the life of the party, who at his suggestion now

seated themselves round the fire. He had the best right to be the

talker; and the delight of his sensations in being again in his own

house, in the centre of his family, after such a separation, made him

communicative and chatty in a very unusual degree; and he was ready to

give every information as to his voyage, and answer every question of

his two sons almost before it was put. His business in Antigua had

latterly been prosperously rapid, and he came directly from Liverpool,

having had an opportunity of making his passage thither in a private

vessel, instead of waiting for the packet; and all the little

particulars of his proceedings and events, his arrivals and departures,

were most promptly delivered, as he sat by Lady Bertram and looked with

heartfelt satisfaction on the faces around him—interrupting himself

more than once, however, to remark on his good fortune in finding them

all at home—coming unexpectedly as he did—all collected together

exactly as he could have wished, but dared not depend on. Mr. Rushworth

was not forgotten: a most friendly reception and warmth of hand-shaking

had already met him, and with pointed attention he was now included in

the objects most intimately connected with Mansfield. There was nothing

disagreeable in Mr. Rushworth’s appearance, and Sir Thomas was liking

him already.

By not one of the circle was he listened to with such unbroken,

unalloyed enjoyment as by his wife, who was really extremely happy to

see him, and whose feelings were so warmed by his sudden arrival as to

place her nearer agitation than she had been for the last twenty years.

She had been _almost_ fluttered for a few minutes, and still remained

so sensibly animated as to put away her work, move Pug from her side,

and give all her attention and all the rest of her sofa to her husband.

She had no anxieties for anybody to cloud _her_ pleasure: her own time

had been irreproachably spent during his absence: she had done a great

deal of carpet-work, and made many yards of fringe; and she would have

answered as freely for the good conduct and useful pursuits of all the

young people as for her own. It was so agreeable to her to see him

again, and hear him talk, to have her ear amused and her whole

comprehension filled by his narratives, that she began particularly to

feel how dreadfully she must have missed him, and how impossible it

would have been for her to bear a lengthened absence.

Mrs. Norris was by no means to be compared in happiness to her sister.

Not that _she_ was incommoded by many fears of Sir Thomas’s

disapprobation when the present state of his house should be known, for

her judgment had been so blinded that, except by the instinctive

caution with which she had whisked away Mr. Rushworth’s pink satin

cloak as her brother-in-law entered, she could hardly be said to shew

any sign of alarm; but she was vexed by the _manner_ of his return. It

had left her nothing to do. Instead of being sent for out of the room,

and seeing him first, and having to spread the happy news through the

house, Sir Thomas, with a very reasonable dependence, perhaps, on the

nerves of his wife and children, had sought no confidant but the

butler, and had been following him almost instantaneously into the

drawing-room. Mrs. Norris felt herself defrauded of an office on which

she had always depended, whether his arrival or his death were to be

the thing unfolded; and was now trying to be in a bustle without having

anything to bustle about, and labouring to be important where nothing

was wanted but tranquillity and silence. Would Sir Thomas have

consented to eat, she might have gone to the housekeeper with

troublesome directions, and insulted the footmen with injunctions of

despatch; but Sir Thomas resolutely declined all dinner: he would take

nothing, nothing till tea came—he would rather wait for tea. Still Mrs.

Norris was at intervals urging something different; and in the most

interesting moment of his passage to England, when the alarm of a

French privateer was at the height, she burst through his recital with

the proposal of soup. “Sure, my dear Sir Thomas, a basin of soup would

be a much better thing for you than tea. Do have a basin of soup.”

Sir Thomas could not be provoked. “Still the same anxiety for

everybody’s comfort, my dear Mrs. Norris,” was his answer. “But indeed

I would rather have nothing but tea.”

“Well, then, Lady Bertram, suppose you speak for tea directly; suppose

you hurry Baddeley a little; he seems behindhand to-night.” She carried

this point, and Sir Thomas’s narrative proceeded.

At length there was a pause. His immediate communications were

exhausted, and it seemed enough to be looking joyfully around him, now

at one, now at another of the beloved circle; but the pause was not

long: in the elation of her spirits Lady Bertram became talkative, and

what were the sensations of her children upon hearing her say, “How do

you think the young people have been amusing themselves lately, Sir

Thomas? They have been acting. We have been all alive with acting.”

“Indeed! and what have you been acting?”

“Oh! they’ll tell you all about it.”

“The _all_ will soon be told,” cried Tom hastily, and with affected

unconcern; “but it is not worth while to bore my father with it now.

You will hear enough of it to-morrow, sir. We have just been trying, by

way of doing something, and amusing my mother, just within the last

week, to get up a few scenes, a mere trifle. We have had such incessant

rains almost since October began, that we have been nearly confined to

the house for days together. I have hardly taken out a gun since the

3rd. Tolerable sport the first three days, but there has been no

attempting anything since. The first day I went over Mansfield Wood,

and Edmund took the copses beyond Easton, and we brought home six brace

between us, and might each have killed six times as many, but we

respect your pheasants, sir, I assure you, as much as you could desire.

I do not think you will find your woods by any means worse stocked than

they were. _I_ never saw Mansfield Wood so full of pheasants in my life

as this year. I hope you will take a day’s sport there yourself, sir,

soon.”

For the present the danger was over, and Fanny’s sick feelings

subsided; but when tea was soon afterwards brought in, and Sir Thomas,

getting up, said that he found that he could not be any longer in the

house without just looking into his own dear room, every agitation was

returning. He was gone before anything had been said to prepare him for

the change he must find there; and a pause of alarm followed his

disappearance. Edmund was the first to speak—

“Something must be done,” said he.

“It is time to think of our visitors,” said Maria, still feeling her

hand pressed to Henry Crawford’s heart, and caring little for anything

else. “Where did you leave Miss Crawford, Fanny?”

Fanny told of their departure, and delivered their message.

“Then poor Yates is all alone,” cried Tom. “I will go and fetch him. He

will be no bad assistant when it all comes out.”

To the theatre he went, and reached it just in time to witness the

first meeting of his father and his friend. Sir Thomas had been a good

deal surprised to find candles burning in his room; and on casting his

eye round it, to see other symptoms of recent habitation and a general

air of confusion in the furniture. The removal of the bookcase from

before the billiard-room door struck him especially, but he had

scarcely more than time to feel astonished at all this, before there

were sounds from the billiard-room to astonish him still farther. Some

one was talking there in a very loud accent; he did not know the

voice—more than talking—almost hallooing. He stepped to the door,

rejoicing at that moment in having the means of immediate

communication, and, opening it, found himself on the stage of a

theatre, and opposed to a ranting young man, who appeared likely to

knock him down backwards. At the very moment of Yates perceiving Sir

Thomas, and giving perhaps the very best start he had ever given in the

whole course of his rehearsals, Tom Bertram entered at the other end of

the room; and never had he found greater difficulty in keeping his

countenance. His father’s looks of solemnity and amazement on this his

first appearance on any stage, and the gradual metamorphosis of the

impassioned Baron Wildenheim into the well-bred and easy Mr. Yates,

making his bow and apology to Sir Thomas Bertram, was such an

exhibition, such a piece of true acting, as he would not have lost upon

any account. It would be the last—in all probability—the last scene on

that stage; but he was sure there could not be a finer. The house would

close with the greatest eclat.

There was little time, however, for the indulgence of any images of

merriment. It was necessary for him to step forward, too, and assist

the introduction, and with many awkward sensations he did his best. Sir

Thomas received Mr. Yates with all the appearance of cordiality which

was due to his own character, but was really as far from pleased with

the necessity of the acquaintance as with the manner of its

commencement. Mr. Yates’s family and connexions were sufficiently known

to him to render his introduction as the “particular friend,” another

of the hundred particular friends of his son, exceedingly unwelcome;

and it needed all the felicity of being again at home, and all the

forbearance it could supply, to save Sir Thomas from anger on finding

himself thus bewildered in his own house, making part of a ridiculous

exhibition in the midst of theatrical nonsense, and forced in so

untoward a moment to admit the acquaintance of a young man whom he felt

sure of disapproving, and whose easy indifference and volubility in the

course of the first five minutes seemed to mark him the most at home of

the two.

Tom understood his father’s thoughts, and heartily wishing he might be

always as well disposed to give them but partial expression, began to

see, more clearly than he had ever done before, that there might be

some ground of offence, that there might be some reason for the glance

his father gave towards the ceiling and stucco of the room; and that

when he inquired with mild gravity after the fate of the

billiard-table, he was not proceeding beyond a very allowable

curiosity. A few minutes were enough for such unsatisfactory sensations

on each side; and Sir Thomas having exerted himself so far as to speak

a few words of calm approbation in reply to an eager appeal of Mr.

Yates, as to the happiness of the arrangement, the three gentlemen

returned to the drawing-room together, Sir Thomas with an increase of

gravity which was not lost on all.

“I come from your theatre,” said he composedly, as he sat down; “I

found myself in it rather unexpectedly. Its vicinity to my own room—but

in every respect, indeed, it took me by surprise, as I had not the

smallest suspicion of your acting having assumed so serious a

character. It appears a neat job, however, as far as I could judge by

candlelight, and does my friend Christopher Jackson credit.” And then

he would have changed the subject, and sipped his coffee in peace over

domestic matters of a calmer hue; but Mr. Yates, without discernment to

catch Sir Thomas’s meaning, or diffidence, or delicacy, or discretion

enough to allow him to lead the discourse while he mingled among the

others with the least obtrusiveness himself, would keep him on the

topic of the theatre, would torment him with questions and remarks

relative to it, and finally would make him hear the whole history of

his disappointment at Ecclesford. Sir Thomas listened most politely,

but found much to offend his ideas of decorum, and confirm his

ill-opinion of Mr. Yates’s habits of thinking, from the beginning to

the end of the story; and when it was over, could give him no other

assurance of sympathy than what a slight bow conveyed.

“This was, in fact, the origin of _our_ acting,” said Tom, after a

moment’s thought. “My friend Yates brought the infection from

Ecclesford, and it spread—as those things always spread, you know,

sir—the faster, probably, from _your_ having so often encouraged the

sort of thing in us formerly. It was like treading old ground again.”

Mr. Yates took the subject from his friend as soon as possible, and

immediately gave Sir Thomas an account of what they had done and were

doing: told him of the gradual increase of their views, the happy

conclusion of their first difficulties, and present promising state of

affairs; relating everything with so blind an interest as made him not

only totally unconscious of the uneasy movements of many of his friends

as they sat, the change of countenance, the fidget, the hem! of

unquietness, but prevented him even from seeing the expression of the

face on which his own eyes were fixed—from seeing Sir Thomas’s dark

brow contract as he looked with inquiring earnestness at his daughters

and Edmund, dwelling particularly on the latter, and speaking a

language, a remonstrance, a reproof, which _he_ felt at his heart. Not

less acutely was it felt by Fanny, who had edged back her chair behind

her aunt’s end of the sofa, and, screened from notice herself, saw all

that was passing before her. Such a look of reproach at Edmund from his

father she could never have expected to witness; and to feel that it

was in any degree deserved was an aggravation indeed. Sir Thomas’s look

implied, “On your judgment, Edmund, I depended; what have you been

about?” She knelt in spirit to her uncle, and her bosom swelled to

utter, “Oh, not to _him_! Look so to all the others, but not to _him_!”

Mr. Yates was still talking. “To own the truth, Sir Thomas, we were in

the middle of a rehearsal when you arrived this evening. We were going

through the three first acts, and not unsuccessfully upon the whole.

Our company is now so dispersed, from the Crawfords being gone home,

that nothing more can be done to-night; but if you will give us the

honour of your company to-morrow evening, I should not be afraid of the

result. We bespeak your indulgence, you understand, as young

performers; we bespeak your indulgence.”

“My indulgence shall be given, sir,” replied Sir Thomas gravely, “but

without any other rehearsal.” And with a relenting smile, he added, “I

come home to be happy and indulgent.” Then turning away towards any or

all of the rest, he tranquilly said, “Mr. and Miss Crawford were

mentioned in my last letters from Mansfield. Do you find them agreeable

acquaintance?”

Tom was the only one at all ready with an answer, but he being entirely

without particular regard for either, without jealousy either in love

or acting, could speak very handsomely of both. “Mr. Crawford was a

most pleasant, gentleman-like man; his sister a sweet, pretty, elegant,

lively girl.”

Mr. Rushworth could be silent no longer. “I do not say he is not

gentleman-like, considering; but you should tell your father he is not

above five feet eight, or he will be expecting a well-looking man.”

Sir Thomas did not quite understand this, and looked with some surprise

at the speaker.

“If I must say what I think,” continued Mr. Rushworth, “in my opinion

it is very disagreeable to be always rehearsing. It is having too much

of a good thing. I am not so fond of acting as I was at first. I think

we are a great deal better employed, sitting comfortably here among

ourselves, and doing nothing.”

Sir Thomas looked again, and then replied with an approving smile, “I

am happy to find our sentiments on this subject so much the same. It

gives me sincere satisfaction. That I should be cautious and

quick-sighted, and feel many scruples which my children do _not_ feel,

is perfectly natural; and equally so that my value for domestic

tranquillity, for a home which shuts out noisy pleasures, should much

exceed theirs. But at your time of life to feel all this, is a most

favourable circumstance for yourself, and for everybody connected with

you; and I am sensible of the importance of having an ally of such

weight.”

Sir Thomas meant to be giving Mr. Rushworth’s opinion in better words

than he could find himself. He was aware that he must not expect a

genius in Mr. Rushworth; but as a well-judging, steady young man, with

better notions than his elocution would do justice to, he intended to

value him very highly. It was impossible for many of the others not to

smile. Mr. Rushworth hardly knew what to do with so much meaning; but

by looking, as he really felt, most exceedingly pleased with Sir

Thomas’s good opinion, and saying scarcely anything, he did his best

towards preserving that good opinion a little longer.