In the evening it was found, according to the predetermination of Mrs. Grant and her sister, that after making up the Whist table there would remain sufficient for a round game, and everybody being as perfectly complying, and without a choice as on such occasions they always are, Speculation22 was decided on almost as soon as Whist; and Lady Bertram soon found herself in the critical situation of being applied to for her own choice between the games, and being required either to draw a card for Whist or not. She hesitated. Luckily Sir Thomas was at hand.
“What shall I do, Sir Thomas?—Whist and Speculation; which will amuse me most?”
Sir Thomas, after a moment’s thought, recommended Speculation. He was a Whist player himself, and perhaps might feel that it would not much amuse him to have her for a partner.
“Very well,” was her ladyship’s contented answer—”then Speculation if you please, Mrs. Grant. I know nothing about it, but Fanny must teach me.”
Here Fanny interposed however with anxious protestations of her own equal ignorance; she had never played the game nor seen it played in her life; and Lady Bertram felt a moment’s indecision again—but upon everybody’s assuring her that nothing could be so easy, that it was the easiest game on the cards, and Henry Crawford’s stepping forward with a most earnest request to be allowed to sit between her ladyship and Miss Price, and teach them both, it was so settled; and Sir Thomas, Mrs. Norris, and Dr. and Mrs. Grant, being seated at the table of prime intellectual state and dignity, the remaining six, under Miss Crawford’s direction, were arranged round the other. It was a fine arrangement for Henry Crawford, who was close to Fanny, and with his hands full of business, having two persons’ cards to manage as well as his own—for though it was impossible for Fanny not to feel herself mistress of the rules of the game in three minutes, he had yet to inspirit her play, sharpen her avarice, and harden her heart, which, especially in any competition with William, was a work of some difficulty; and as for Lady Bertram, he must continue in charge of all her fame and fortune through the whole evening; and if quick enough to keep her from looking at her cards when the deal began, must direct her in whatever was to be done with them to the end of it.
He was in high spirits, doing everything with happy ease, and pre-eminent in all the lively turns, quick resources, and playful impudence that could do honor to the game; and the round table was altogether a very comfortable contrast to the steady sobriety and orderly silence of the other.
Twice had Sir Thomas inquired into the enjoyment and success of his lady, but in vain; no pause was long enough for the time his measured manner needed, and very little of her state could be known till Mrs. Grant was able, at the end of the first rubber, to go to her and pay her compliments.
“I hope your ladyship is pleased with the game.”
“Oh! dear, yes.—Very entertaining indeed. A very odd game. I do not know what it is all about. I am never to see my cards; and Mr. Crawford does all the rest.”
“Bertram,” said Crawford some time afterwards, taking the opportunity of a little languor in the game, “I have never told you what happened to me yesterday in my ride home.” They had been hunting together, and were in the midst of a good run, and at some distance from Mansfield, when his horse being found to have flung a shoe, Henry Crawford had been obliged to give up, and make the best of his way back. “I told you I lost my way after passing that old farm house, with the yew trees, because I can never bear to ask; but I have not told you that with my usual luck—for I never do wrong without gaining by it—I found myself in due time in the very place which I had a curiosity to see. I was suddenly, upon turning the corner of a steepish downy field, in the midst of a retired little village between gently rising hills; a small stream before me to be forded, a church standing on a sort of knoll to my right— which church was strikingly large and handsome for the place, and not a gentleman or half a gentleman’s house to be seen excepting one—to be presumed the Parsonage, within a stone’s throw of the said knoll and church. I found myself in short in Thornton Lacey.”