I felt the blow deeply. For us to suffer did not seem too terrible, for we were strong enough to bear it, but for Fanny to suffer cast me down, and I resolved to go to her as soon as I could. But it could not be at once, for there was still much to be done. My father suggested next that we go and see Julia, who was staying with her cousins, to reassure her that we were in town, and that we were doing all we could to save her sister. But when we reached the house, another calamity hit us, for the house was in turmoil. My father’s cousin went ashen when he saw us, and invited my father into his study. My father emerged a few minutes later to tell me that Julia had eloped!

I could not take it in. It was too much. At any other time I would have felt it as a terrible blow, but by the side of the other calamities that had befallen us its pain was scarcely felt. I rallied quickly and asked my father, ‘Do we know who with?’

‘Yes. With Yates.’

‘Yates!’

So the legacy of the play was haunting us still.

‘It seems she had another motive for wishing to visit my cousins when she did. Yates lives nearby,’ said my father. ‘What have I done to deserve such daughters?’ he asked, in a moment of distress.

I offered him my sympathy and he quickly recovered himself.

‘Julia has gone to Scotland,’ he said. ‘She left a note for her maid. I cannot go after her tonight. I must find Maria.’

‘I will go.’

‘No. They have too much of a start. You would never catch them. Besides, you are needed here. We must try and find out where Maria has gone, but we can do no more tonight. We must get what rest we can and begin again in the morning.’

And so we retired, but I cannot sleep. It has been a year of calamities. Tom desperately ill; Maria disgraced; Julia run off; and Mary... I cannot think of Mary. My only consolation in all this trouble is Fanny; good, dear, sweet, Fanny, who is everything that everyone else should be, but is not.

Oh, that she should have to suffer, too! If only Maria had run off with someone else, and not Crawford. Then it would have been bad enough. But Fanny must now sustain the double blow, a disgraced cousin and a lost lover; she who has never deserved anything but love and affection in the whole of her life.


Tuesday 9 May

I rose early, unable to sleep, indeed I had not closed my eyes for more than a few minutes all night. I took up the newspaper this morning, hoping for news of the war to divert my thoughts, but I saw to my horror that the story had already reached its pages. Was there ever such shame? The report could scarcely have been worse:

It is with infinite concern that this newspaper has to announce to the world a matrimonial fracas in the family of Mr. R. of Wimpole Street; the beautiful Mrs. R., whose name has not long been enrolled in the lists of Hymen, and who promised to become so brilliant a leader in the fashionable world, has quit her husband’s roof in company with the well-known and captivating Mr. C., the intimate friend and associate of Mr. R. It is not known, even to the editor of this newspaper, whither they are gone.

No sooner had I put the newspaper down than a note was delivered from Lady Stornaway, begging me to call. My heart sank. The note must have been written at the behest of Mary. What feelings of shame and wretchedness she must be enduring! I could scarcely breathe for the pity of it all. Poor Mary! For her to have learned that her brother had disgraced my sister and ruined her forever.

I went at once, in a state of mind so softened and devoted that I believe, if she had cried, I would have proposed to her there and then.

But instead she met me with a serious, even an agitated air. I could not speak, so much did I feel for her, in her state of distress. But her first words shocked me out of all tender feelings, for they were such as I could not believe any woman would utter in such circumstances.

‘I heard you were in town,’ said she. ‘I wanted to see you. Let us talk over this sad business. What can equal the folly of our two relations?’

Folly? I thought. To call such an act nothing but folly, when it would be the ruin of Maria, was incomprehensible to me. And to blame Maria as much as Crawford. I could not answer, but I believe my looks told her what I thought.

Her face fell. With a graver look and voice she said, ‘I do not mean to defend Henry at your sister’s expense.’ I felt relieved. For a moment I thought she had been about to do this very thing. But then she went on. ‘But it was foolish of Henry to be drawn on by a woman he never cared for, particularly as it will lose him the woman he adores. But oh!’ she broke out, ‘how foolish has been Maria, in sacrificing such a situation as she had, married to Mr. Rushworth, protected by his name, with his fortune at her disposal and such a house! The best in Wimpole Street! To give up all that, when a little discretion could have kept the whole thing from Rushworth and his odious mother. And for her to run off with Henry, under the idea of being really loved by him, when he had long ago made his indifference clear,’ she said, shaking her head.

I could not believe it. She did not feel distress at the act, merely at its discovery. And what was she suggesting? That instead of behaving as they ought, Maria and Crawford should have been more cautious, more duplicitous, and gone on with their affair regardless? And even worse, saying that her brother had never cared for my sister; that he had ruined her on nothing more than a whim; that he had cast her into a life where, disowned by her husband, she would endure shame and misery, to satisfy nothing more than his vanity and selfish desire?

I was horrified. For the woman I loved to speak in such a way, regarding the whole thing as nothing more than an indiscretion, and lamenting, not Maria’s reputation, but her house in Wimpole Street! I began to wonder who this woman was, standing in front of me. I thought I knew her, but standing there, looking at her, I realized I did not know her at all. I was so shocked I could not speak. But Mary had no such difficulty, each word making me more and more horrified at her callousness. There was no reluctance to speak of it, no shame, only worldliness and vice.

‘If anyone is to blame, it is Rushworth,’ she said. ‘His want of common discretion, of caution: his going down to Richmond for the whole time of Maria’s being at Twickenham. And then Maria!

Putting herself in the power of a servant by leaving a lover’s note where it could be seen!

Foolish, foolish girl. Without that, they might never have been detected. It was only this that brought things to extremity, and obliged Henry to give up every dearer plan in order to fly with Maria.’

I was like a man stunned, but worse was to come. She began to talk of Fanny, regretting, as well she might, the loss of such a friend and sister.

‘He has thrown away such a woman as he will never see again. She would have fixed him; she would have made him happy for ever,’ she said. ‘Fanny, with all her sweetness and goodness, and all her quiet charm.’

There at least she spoke wisely, and I was almost relenting towards her when she broke the spell forever by bursting out, ‘Why would not she have him? It is all her fault. Simple girl! I shall never forgive her. Had she accepted him as she ought, they might now have been on the point of marriage, and Henry would have been too happy and too busy to want any other object. He would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs. Rushworth again. It would have all ended in a regular standing flirtation, in yearly meetings at Sotherton and Everingham.’

I could not believe it. How could she say such things? To say, to even think, that it was Fanny’s fault! Fanny, who had no faults, unless it was an inability to appreciate her own worth. Fanny, whose goodness was a shining light that brightened the lives of all who met her. And to say, further, that Crawford should have had a standing flirtation with Maria, and this when he was married to Fanny! How could anyone think of using Fanny so ill? Fanny, who had a right to the greatest happiness the world could offer? Whose tender heart could never stand such ill treatment?

The charm was broken. My eyes were opened, and I had only to regret what a fool I had been.

‘I cannot believe what I am hearing,’ I said. ‘I knew you to have been corrupted by your uncle’s influence, and by the influence of those around you here in town, but this... Perhaps it is better for me that you have spoken in this way, since it leaves me so little to regret; though I wish I did not have to think of you as being like this, corrupted and vitiated, lost to all sense and reason save that of expediency.’

She did not listen. She was too busy following her own thoughts.

‘We must persuade Henry to marry her,’ said she; ‘and what with honor, and the certainty of having shut himself out for ever from Fanny, I do not despair of it. Fanny he must give up. I do not think that even he could now hope to succeed with one of her stamp, and therefore I hope we may find no insuperable difficulty. My influence, which is not small, shall all go that way; and when once married, and properly supported by her own family, people of respectability as they are, she may recover her footing in society to a certain degree. In some circles, we know, she will never be admitted, but with good dinners, and large parties, there will always be those who will be glad of her acquaintance; and there is, undoubtedly, more liberality and candor on those points than formerly. What I advise is, that your father be quiet. Do not let him injure his own cause by interference. Persuade him to let things take their course. If, by any officious exertions of his, she is induced to leave Henry’s protection, there will be much less chance of his marrying her than if she remain with him. I know how he is likely to be influenced. Let Sir Thomas trust to his honor and compassion, and it may all end well; but if he gets his daughter away, it will be destroying the chief hold.’

When at last I could command my voice, I said, ‘I had not supposed it possible, coming in such a state of mind into this house as I have done, that anything could occur to make me suffer more, but you have been inflicting deeper wounds on me in almost every sentence.’

She looked surprised.

‘I have often been aware of some differences in our opinions, but I never suspected something like this, that you would make light of your brother’s crime — for crime I call it to seduce a woman and take her away from her home — and all the time with no feelings for her. And to make light of wounding one of the gentlest creatures on earth. And then to suggest we promote a marriage that would lead to nothing but misery, for I would not ever want to see my sister married to such a man as your brother — the man I now know him to be. Inconstant, deceitful, immoral, everything that a man should not be. I see now that I have never understood you; that I have loved an image of you, and not you yourself.’

She did not know how to look. At first she was astonished, then she turned red, and I saw a mixture of many feelings, chief amongst them anger. I saw a great, though short struggle, half a wish of yielding to truths, half a sense of shame, but habit, habit carried it. She would have laughed if she could.

‘A pretty good lecture, upon my word. Was it part of your last sermon?’ she said sarcastically.

‘At this rate you will soon reform everybody at Mansfield and Thornton Lacey; and when I hear of you next, it may be as a celebrated preacher in some great society of Methodists, or as a missionary into foreign parts.’

But her words could no longer wound me. I only said in reply, that from my heart I wished her well, and earnestly hoped that she might soon learn to think more justly, and not owe the most valuable knowledge we could any of us acquire, the knowledge of ourselves, to the lessons of affliction. And then I left the room.

I had gone a few steps when I heard the door open behind me.

‘Mr. Bertram,’ said she. I looked back. ‘Mr. Bertram,’ said she, with a smile; but it was a smile ill suited to the conversation that had passed, a saucy playful smile, seeming to invite me in order to subdue me. I resisted; it was easy; and I walked on.

As I walked out of the house, I was shocked to see that our interview had lasted only twenty-five minutes. Such a short time to change so much!

I met my father soon afterwards, and though I did not tell him of everything that had passed he guessed it had not been good, for he suggested to me that I should write to Fanny and tell her to ready herself, then go to Portsmouth and take her home.