Shortly afterwards,Sir Thomas was again interfering a little with her inclination,by advising her to go immediately to bed.‘Advise’was his word,but it was the advice of absolute power,and she had only to rise and,with Mr Crawford's very cordial adieus,pass quietly away;stopping at the entrance door,like the Lady of Branxholm Hall,‘one moment and no more,’to view the happy scene,and take a last look at the five or six determined couples,who were still hard at work-and then,creeping slowly up the principal staircase,pursued by the ceaseless country-dance,feverish with hopes and fears,soup and negus,sore-footed and fatigued,restless and agitated,yet feeling,in spite of everything,that a ball was indeed delightful.
In thus sending her away,Sir Thomas perhaps might not be thinking merely of her health.It might occur to him,that Mr Crawford had been sitting by her long enough,or he might mean to recommend her as a wife by showing her persuadableness.
Chapter 29
The ball was over-and the breakfast was soon over too;the last kiss was given,and William was gone.Mr Crawford had,as he foretold,been very punctual,and short and pleasant had been the meal.
After seeing William to the last moment,Fanny walked back into the breakfast-room with a very saddened heart to grieve over the melancholy change;and there her uncle kindly left her to cry in peace,conceiving perhaps that the deserted chair of each young man might exercise her tender enthusiasm,and that the remaining cold pork bones and mustard in William's plate,might but divide her feelings with the broken egg-shells in Mr Crawford's.She sat and cried con amore as her uncle intended,but it was con amore fraternal and no other.William was gone,and she now felt as if she had wasted half his visit in idle cares and selfish solicitudes unconnected with him.
Fanny's disposition was such that she could never even think of her aunt Norris in the meagreness and cheerlessness of her own small house,without reproaching herself for some little want of attention to her when they had been last together;much less could her feelings acquit her of having done and said and thought everything by William,that was due to him for a whole fortnight.
It was a heavy,melancholy day.-Soon after the second breakfast,Edmund bad them goodbye for a week,and mounted his horse for Peterborough,and then all were gone.Nothing remained of last night but remembrances,which she had nobody to share in.She talked to her aunt Bertram-she must talk to somebody of the ball,but her aunt had seen so little of what passed,and had so little curiosity,that it was heavy work.Lady Bertram was not certain of anybody's dress,or anybody's place at supper,but her own.‘She could not recollect what it was that she had heard about one of the Miss Maddoxes,or what it was that Lady Prescott had noticed in Fanny;she was not sure whether Colonel Harrison had been talking of Mr Crawford or of William,when he said he was the finest young man in the room;somebody had whispered something to her,she had forgot to ask Sir Thomas what it could be.’And these were her longest speeches and clearest communications;the rest was only a languid ‘Yes-yes very well-did you?Did he?-I did not see that-I should not know one from the other.’This was very bad.It was only better than Mrs Norris's sharp answers would have been;but she being gone home with all the supernumerary jellies to nurse a sick maid,there was peace and good humour in their little party,though it could not boast much beside.
The evening was heavy like the day-‘I cannot think what is the matter with me!’said Lady Bertram,when the tea-things were removed.‘I feel quite stupid.It must be sitting up so late last night.Fanny,you must do something to keep me awake.I cannot work.Fetch the cards,-I feel so very stupid.’
The cards were brought,and Fanny played at cribbage with her aunt till bedtime;and as Sir Thomas was reading to himself,no sounds were heard in the room for the next two hours beyond the reckonings of the game-‘And that makes thirty-one;-four in hand and eight in crib.-You are to deal,ma'am;shall I deal for you?’Fanny thought and thought again of the difference which twenty-four hours had made in that room,and all that part of the house.Last night it had been hope and smiles,bustle and motion,noise and brilliancy in the drawing-room,and out of the drawing-room,and everywhere.Now it was languor,and all but solitude.
A good night's rest improved her spirits.She could think of William the next day more cheerfully,and as the morning afforded her an opportunity of talking over Thursday night with Mrs Grant and Miss Crawford,in a very handsome style,with all the heightenings of imagination and all the laughs of playfulness which are so essential to the shade of a departed ball,she could afterwards bring her mind without much effort into its everyday state,and easily conform to the tranquillity of the present quiet week.
They were indeed a smaller party than she had ever known there for a whole day together,and he was gone on whom the comfort and cheerfulness of every family-meeting and every meal chiefly depended.But this must be learned to be endured.He would soon be always gone;and she was thankful that she could now sit in the same room with her uncle,hear his voice,receive his questions,and even answer them without such wretched feelings as she had formerly known.