As for the ball so near at hand, she had too many agitations and fears to have half the enjoyment in anticipation which she ought to have had, or must have been supposed to have, by the many young ladies looking forward to the same event in situations more at ease, but under circumstances of less novelty, less interest, less peculiar gratification than would be attributed to her. Miss Price, known only by name to half the people invited, was now to make her first appearance, and must be regarded as the Queen of the evening. Who could be happier than Miss Price? But Miss Price had not been brought up to the trade of coming out; and had she known in what light this ball was, in general, considered respecting her, it would very much have lessened her comfort by increasing the fears she already had, of doing wrong and being looked at. To dance without much observation or any extraordinary fatigue, to have strength and partners for about half the evening, to dance a little with Edmund, and not a great deal with Mr. Crawford, to see William enjoy himself, and be able to keep away from her aunt Norris, was the height of her ambition, and seemed to comprehend her greatest possibility of happiness. As these were the best of her hopes, they could not always prevail; and in the course of a long morning, spent principally with her two aunts, she was often under the influence of much less sanguine views. William, determined to make this last day a day of thorough enjoyment, was out snipe shooting; Edmund, she had too much reason to suppose, was at the Parsonage; and left alone to bear the worrying of Mrs. Norris, who was cross because the house-keeper would have her own way with the supper, and whom she could not avoid though the house-keeper might, Fanny was worn down at last to think everything an evil belonging to the ball, and when sent off with a parting worry to dress, moved as languidly towards her own room, and felt as incapable of happiness as if she had been allowed no share in it.
As she walked slowly upstairs she thought of yesterday; it had been about the same hour that she had returned from the Parsonage, and found Edmund in the east room.—”Suppose I were to find him there again today!” said she to herself in a fond indulgence of fancy.
“Fanny,” said a voice at that moment near her. Starting and looking up she saw across the lobby she had just reached Edmund himself, standing at the head of a different staircase. He came towards her. “You look tired and fagged, Fanny. You have been walking too far.”
“No, I have not been out at all.”
“Then you have had fatigues within doors, which are worse. You had better have gone out.”
Fanny, not liking to complain, found it easiest to make no answer; and though he looked at her with his usual kindness, she believed he had soon ceased to think of her countenance. He did not appear in spirits; something unconnected with her was probably amiss. They proceeded upstairs together, their rooms being on the same floor above.
“I come from Dr. Grant’s,” said Edmund presently. “You may guess my errand there, Fanny.” And he looked so conscious, that Fanny could think but of one errand, which turned her too sick for speech.—”I wished to engage Miss Crawford for the two first dances,” was the explanation that followed, and brought Fanny to life again, enabling her, as she found she was expected to speak, to utter something like an inquiry as to the result.
“Yes,” he answered, “she is engaged to me; but (with a smile that did not sit easy) she says it is to be the last time that she ever will dance with me. She is not serious. I think, I hope, I am sure she is not serious but I would rather not hear it. She never has danced with a clergyman she says, and she never will. For my own sake, I could wish there had been no ball just at—I mean not this very week, this very day—tomorrow I leave home.”