ime their first stage was ended, and
they were to quit Sir Thomas's carriage, she was able to take leave of
the old coachman, and send back proper messages, with cheerful looks.
Of pleasant talk between the brother and sister there was no end.
Everything supplied an amusement to the high glee of William's mind, and
he was full of frolic and joke in the intervals of their higher-toned
subjects, all of which ended, if they did not begin, in praise of the
Thrush, conjectures how she would be employed, schemes for an action
with some superior force, which (supposing the first lieutenant out of
the way, and William was not very merciful to the first lieutenant) was
to give himself the next step as soon as possible, or speculations upon
prize-money, which was to be generously distributed at home, with only
the reservation of enough to make the little cottage comfortable,
in which he and Fanny were to pass all their middle and later life
together.
Fanny's immediate concerns, as far as they involved Mr. Crawford, made
no part of their conversation. William knew what had passed, and from
his heart lamented that his sister's feelings should be so cold towards
a man whom he must consider as the first of human characters; but he was
of an age to be all for love, and therefore unable to blame; and knowing
her wish on the subject, he would not distress her by the slightest
allusion.
She had reason to suppose herself not yet forgotten by Mr. Crawford. She
had heard repeatedly from his sister within the three weeks which had
passed since their leaving Mansfield, and in each letter there had been
a few lines from himself, warm and determined like his speeches. It
was a correspondence which Fanny found quite as unpleasant as she had
feared. Miss Crawford's style of writing, lively and affectionate, was
itself an evil, independent of what she was thus forced into reading
from the brother's pen, for Edmund would never rest till she had read
the chief of the letter to him; and then she had to listen to his
admiration of her language, and the warmth of her attachments. There
had, in fact, been so much of message, of allusion, of recollection, so
much of Mansfield in every letter, that Fanny could not but suppose it
meant for him to hear; and to find herself forced into a purpose of
that kind, compelled into a correspondence which was bringing her the
addresses of the man she did not love, and obliging her to administer
to the adverse p
|