The affliction of the Bertrams was little felt in the family. Mrs. Price talked of her poor sister for a few minutes—but how to find any thing to hold Susan’s clothes, because Rebecca took away all the boxes and spoiled them, was much more in her thoughts, and as for Susan, now unexpectedly gratified in the first wish of her heart, and knowing nothing personally of those who had sinned, or of those who were sorrowing—if she could help rejoicing from beginning to end, it was as much as ought to be expected from human virtue at fourteen.
As nothing was really left for the decision of Mrs. Price, or the good offices of Rebecca, everything was rationally and duly accomplished, and the girls were ready for the morrow. The advantage of much sleep to prepare them for their journey, was impossible. The cousin who was traveling towards them, could hardly have less than visited their agitated spirits, one all happiness, the other all varying and indescribable perturbation.
By eight in the morning, Edmund was in the house. The girls heard his entrance from above, and Fanny went down. The idea of immediately seeing him, with the knowledge of what he must be suffering, brought back all her own first feelings. He so near her, and in misery. She was ready to sink, as she entered the parlor. He was alone, and met her instantly; and she found herself pressed to his heart with only these words, just articulate, “My Fanny—my only sister—my only comfort now.” She could say nothing; nor for some minutes could he say more.
He turned away to recover himself, and when he spoke again, though his voice still faltered, his manner showed the wish of self-command, and the resolution of avoiding any farther allusion. “Have you breakfasted?—When shall you be ready?—Does Susan go?”—were questions following each other rapidly. His great object was to be off as soon as possible. When Mansfield was considered, time was precious; and the state of his own mind made him find relief only in motion. It was settled that he should order the carriage to the door in half an hour; Fanny answered for their having breakfasted, and being quite ready in half an hour. He had already ate, and declined staying for their meal. He would walk round the ramparts, and join them with the carriage. He was gone again, glad to get away even from Fanny.
He looked very ill; evidently suffering under violent emotions, which he was determined to suppress. She knew it must be so, but it was terrible to her.
The carriage came; and he entered the house again at the same moment, just in time to spend a few minutes with the family, and be a witness—but that he saw nothing—of the tranquil manner in which the daughters were parted with, and just in time to prevent their sitting down to the breakfast table, which by dint of much unusual activity, was quite and completely ready as the carriage drove from the door. Fanny’s last meal in her father’s house was in character with her first; she was dismissed from it as hospitably as she had been welcomed.
How her heart swelled with joy and gratitude, as she passed the barriers of Portsmouth, and how Susan’s face wore its broadest smiles, may be easily conceived. Sitting forwards, however, and screened by her bonnet, those smiles were unseen.
The journey was likely to be a silent one. Edmund’s deep sighs often reached Fanny. Had he been alone with her, his heart must have opened in spite of every resolution; but Susan’s presence drove him quite into himself, and his attempts to talk on indifferent subjects could never be long supported.
Fanny watched him with never-failing solicitude, and sometimes catching his eye, received an affectionate smile, which comforted her; but the first day’s journey passed without her hearing a word from him on the subjects that were weighing him down. The next morning produced a little more. Just before their setting out from Oxford, while Susan was stationed at a window, in eager observation of the departure of a large family from the inn, the other two were standing by the fire; and Edmund, particularly struck by the alteration in Fanny’s looks, and from his ignorance of the daily evils of her father’s house, attributing an undue share of the change, attributing all to the recent event, took her hand, and said in a low, but very expressive tone, “No wonder—you must feel it—you must suffer. How a man who had once loved, could desert you! But yours—your regard was new compared with—Fanny, think of me!”