Mansfield Park, Jane Austen [ebook reader browser .TXT] 📗

“Indeed I think you may.”

“She always makes tea, you know, when my sister is not here.”

“Your sister, perhaps, may be prevailed on to spend the day with us, and I shall certainly be at home.”

“Very well, then, Fanny may go, Edmund.”

The good news soon followed her. Edmund knocked at her door in his way to his own.

“Well, Fanny, it is all happily settled, and without the smallest hesitation on your uncle’s side. He had but one opinion. You are to go.”

“Thank you, I am so glad,” was Fanny’s instinctive reply; though when she had turned from him and shut the door, she could not help feeling, “And yet why should I be glad? for am I not certain of seeing or hearing something there to pain me?”

In spite of this conviction, however, she was glad. Simple as such an engagement might appear in other eyes, it had novelty and importance in hers, for excepting the day at Sotherton, she had scarcely ever dined out before; and though now going only half a mile, and only to three people, still it was dining out, and all the little interests of preparation were enjoyments in themselves. She had neither sympathy nor assistance from those who ought to have entered into her feelings and directed her taste; for Lady Bertram never thought of being useful to anybody, and Mrs. Norris, when she came on the morrow, in consequence of an early call and invitation from Sir Thomas, was in a very ill humour, and seemed intent only on lessening her niece’s pleasure, both present and future, as much as possible.

“Upon my word, Fanny, you are in high luck to meet with such attention and indulgence! You ought to be very much obliged to Mrs. Grant for thinking of you, and to your aunt for letting you go, and you ought to look upon it as something extraordinary; for I hope you are aware that there is no real occasion for your going into company in this sort of way, or ever dining out at all; and it is what you must not depend upon ever being repeated. Nor must you be fancying that the invitation is meant as any particular compliment to you; the compliment is intended to your uncle and aunt and me. Mrs. Grant thinks it a civility due to us to take a little notice of you, or else it would never have come into her head, and you may be very certain that, if your cousin Julia had been at home, you would not have been asked at all.”

Mrs. Norris had now so ingeniously done away all Mrs. Grant’s part of the favour, that Fanny, who found herself expected to speak, could only say that she was very much obliged to her aunt Bertram for sparing her, and that she was endeavouring to put her aunt’s evening work in such a state as to prevent her being missed.

“Oh! depend upon it, your aunt can do very well without you, or you would not be allowed to go. I shall be here, so you may be quite easy about your aunt. And I hope you will have a very agreeable day, and find it all mighty delightful. But I must observe that five is the very awkwardest of all possible numbers to sit down to table; and I cannot but be surprised that such an elegant lady as Mrs. Grant should not contrive better! And round their enormous great wide table, too, which fills up the room so dreadfully! Had the doctor been contented to take my dining-table when I came away, as anybody in their senses would have done, instead of having that absurd new one of his own, which is wider, literally wider than the dinner-table here, how infinitely better it would have been! and how much more he would have been respected! for people are never respected when they step out of their proper sphere. Remember that, Fanny. Five⁠—only five to be sitting round that table. However, you will have dinner enough on it for ten, I dare say.”

Mrs. Norris fetched breath, and went on again.

“The nonsense and folly of people’s stepping out of their rank and trying to appear above themselves, makes me think it right to give you a hint, Fanny, now that you are going into company without any of us; and I do beseech and entreat you not to be putting yourself forward, and talking and giving your opinion as if you were one of your cousins⁠—as if you were dear Mrs. Rushworth or Julia. That will never do, believe me. Remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last; and though Miss Crawford is in a manner at home at the Parsonage, you are not to be taking place of her. And as to coming away at night, you are to stay just as long as Edmund chooses. Leave him to settle that.”

“Yes, ma’am, I should not think of anything else.”

“And if it should rain, which I think exceedingly likely, for I never saw it more threatening for a wet evening in my life, you must manage as well as you can, and not be expecting the carriage to be sent for you. I certainly do not go home tonight, and, therefore, the carriage will not be out on my account; so you must make up your mind to what may happen, and take your things accordingly.”

Her niece thought it perfectly reasonable. She rated her own claims to comfort as low even as Mrs. Norris could; and when Sir Thomas soon afterwards, just opening the door, said, “Fanny, at what time would you have the carriage come round?” she felt a degree of astonishment which made it impossible for her to speak.

“My dear Sir Thomas!” cried Mrs. Norris, red with anger, “Fanny can walk.”

“Walk!” repeated Sir Thomas, in a tone of most unanswerable dignity, and coming farther into the room. “My niece walk to a dinner engagement at this time of the year! Will twenty minutes after four suit