Yours ever,my dearest Fanny.
‘I never will-no,I certainly never will wish for a letter again,’was Fanny's secret declaration,as she finished this.‘What do they bring but disappointment and sorrow?-Not till after Easter!-How shall I bear it?-And my poor aunt talking of me every hour!’
Fanny checked the tendency of these thoughts as well as she could,but she was within half a minute of starting the idea,that Sir Thomas was quite unkind,both to her aunt and to herself.-As for the main subject of the letter-there was nothing in that to soothe irritation.She was almost vexed into displeasure,and anger,against Edmund.‘There is no good in this delay,’said she.‘Why is not it settled?-He is blinded,and nothing will open his eyes,nothing can,after having had truths before him so long in vain.-He will marry her,and be poor and miserable.God grant that her influence do not make him cease to be respectable!’-She looked over the letter again.‘“So very fond of me!”'tis nonsense all.She loves nobody but herself and her brother.Her friends leading her astray for years!She is quite as likely to have led them astray.They have all,perhaps,been corrupting one another;but if they are so much fonder of her than she is of them,she is the less likely to have been hurt,except by their flattery.“The only woman in the world，whom he could ever think of as a wife.”I firmly believe it.It is an attachment to govern his whole life.Accepted or refused,his heart is wedded to her for ever.-“The loss of Mary,I must consider as comprehending the loss of Crawford and Fanny.”Edmund,you do not know me.The families would never be connected,if you did not connect them.Oh,write,write.Finish it at once.Let there be an end of this suspense.Fix,commit,condemn yourself.’
Such sensations,however,were too near akin to resentment to be long guiding Fanny's soliloquies.She was soon more softened and sorrowful.-His warm regard,his kind expressions,his confidential treatment touched her strongly.He was only too good to everybody.-It was a letter,in short,which she would not but have had for the world,and which could never be valued enough.This was the end of it.
Everybody at all addicted to letter writing,without having much to say,which will include a large proportion of the female world at least,must feel with Lady Bertram,that she was out of luck in having such a capital piece of Mansfield news,as the certainty of the Grants going to Bath,occur at a time when she could make no advantage of it,and will admit that it must have been very mortifying to her to see it fall to the share of her thankless son,and treated as concisely as possible at the end of a long letter,instead of having it to spread over the largest part of a page of her own.-For though Lady Bertram rather shone in the epistolary line,having early in her marriage,from the want of other employment,and the circumstance of Sir Thomas's being in Parliament,got into the way of making and keeping correspondents,and formed for herself a very creditable,common-place,amplifying style,so that a very little matter was enough for her;she could not do entirely without any;she must have something to write about,even to her niece,and being so soon to lose all the benefit of Dr Grant's gouty symptoms and Mrs Grant's morning calls,it was very hard upon her to be deprived of one of the last epistolary uses she could put them to.
There was a rich amends,however,preparing for her.Lady Bertram's hour of good luck came.Within a few days from the receipt of Edmund's letter,Fanny had one from her aunt,beginning thus:
My dear Fanny-I take up my pen to communicate some very alarming intelligence,which I make no doubt will give you much concern.
This was a great deal better than to have to take up the pen to acquaint her with all the particulars of the Grants'intended journey,for the present intelligence was of a nature to promise occupation for the pen for many days to come,being no less than the dangerous illness of her eldest son,of which they had received notice by express,a few hours before.
Tom had gone from London with a party of young men to Newmarket,where a neglected fall,and a good deal of drinking,had brought on a fever;and when the party broke up,being unable to move,had been left by himself at the house of one of these young men,to the comforts of sickness and solitude,and the attendance only of servants.Instead of being soon well enough to follow his friends,as he had then hoped,his disorder increased considerably,and it was not long before he thought so ill of himself,as to be as ready as his physician to have a letter dispatched to Mansfield.
‘This distressing intelligence,as you may suppose,’observed her Ladyship,after giving the substance of it,‘has agitated us exceedingly,and we cannot prevent ourselves from being greatly alarmed,and apprehensive for the poor invalid,whose state Sir Thomas fears may be very critical;and Edmund kindly proposes attending his brother immediately,but I am happy to add,that Sir Thomas will not leave me on this distressing occasion,as it would be too trying for me.We shall greatly miss Edmund in our small circle,but I trust and hope he will find the poor invalid in a less alarming state than might be apprehended,and that he will be able to bring him to Mansfield shortly,which Sir Thomas proposes should be done,and thinks best on every account,and I flatter myself,the poor sufferer will soon be able to bear the removal without material inconvenience or injury.As I have little doubt of your feeling for us,my dear Fanny,under these distressing circumstances,I will write again very soon.’