Posted on Thursday, 14 February 2008
Mansfield Park was in chaos. Tom had recovered from his illness but had become accustomed to constant care and attention. He demanded his brother to provide him entertainments day and night. Since coming home from Portsmouth, Fanny was no earthly use at all, spending most of her time crying in her east room. Luckily her sister Susan was picking up the slack, being at Mrs Norris' and Lady Bertram's beck and call. Sir Thomas was spending the majority of his time between sessions at Sotherton, trying to get Rushworth to agree to take Maria back, and sending express notes off to Maria in Paris, where she was gallivanting with Henry Crawford, trying to convince her to return home to her husband and behave as a loyal wife should. A daunting task in both respects, this exertion made Sir Thomas as irritable as a bear awoken from hibernation, and not exactly the best of company. To top this off, Julia and her new husband, Yates, had no where else to live, so they had set themselves up in the west wing. Julia was fond of referring to their rooms as The Bridal Suite.
Edmund was having a difficult time of it all. Everyone was lamenting Maria's disgrace, Fanny's embarrassing loss of her suitor, and Julia's hasty marriage. No one considered his feelings at all. Had he not suffered to as great or even a greater extent? He no longer had a chance with the lady of his dreams. Tom had not obliged him by dying, which had been Mary Crawford's fondest hope, and Henry had turned everyone against an alliance of any sort with the Crawfords. Not that Mary would have accepted his offer under the present circumstances anyway. Not only was he merely a second son, but he was a clergyman. All her finer feelings rebelled against such a union, and Edmund was left heartbroken, without any means of solace.
The obvious solution to his troubles was to go to Bath.
Edmund moped about the streets of Bath his first day there. He was afraid his expectations would never be answered because, as he stood in a shop in Bond Street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, one after another, without there being a tolerable face among them. Edmund had not come to Bath to look at frights, but to fill the void Mary Crawford had left in his heart. And only a lady of particularly fine beauty could fill a void of the style Mary Crawford had left. He hoped that when he attended the Lower Rooms that evening he would have better luck.
Every lady that came within Edmund's view he compared to Mary Crawford. None could match her beauty -- her petite, but well-proportioned frame, her dark, sparkling eyes, her caramel complexion, her raven curls, her luscious ruby lips. None had her poise, her elegance of dress. And none could match her conversation. Oh how he missed her wit, her irreverence, her indefatigable selfishness! She was unrivalled! After numerous dances with ladies of all manner of description, each pretty and entertaining in her own way, but none Mary, Edmund had a revelation. If he could not have what he considered the very best, he would have to settle for the next best.
He cast his eyes about the room, and as luck would have it, that was the exact moment that Catherine Moreland and Isabella Thorpe walked in, escorted by their brothers. What he saw was a lady quite the opposite of Mary Crawford in her beauty. While Mary was small and dark, this lady had a tall, lithesome figure and honey-blonde hair. Her complexion was rosy; her smile inviting. She certainly fit the bill of ‘next best' more than any other lady he had noticed that evening.
Edmund immediately set about making enquiries. What he discovered pleased him greatly. The lady was not rich but she had high pretensions. She had recently become engaged to young Mr Morland, a newly made clergyman, and her friend, her betrothed's sister, was expected to make a match with her own brother, John Thorpe. The Morlands were not rich themselves, but stood to gain a fortune through their intimate friends, the Allens, who had no children of their own. It appeared Miss Thorpe was just the sort of girl who would suit Edmund to a T. He didn't see her betrothal as an impediment at all, rather it was most encouraging. It is not as if he had learned nothing from his close acquaintance with Mary Crawford. The prospect of his prevailing upon a lady who had already once engaged herself to a clergyman was much more promising than the prospect of prevailing upon one who held all men of the cloth in total disdain, previously engaged or not.
Edmund sought an introduction as soon as he was able and solicited a dance from the fair Isabella Thorpe.
She fluttered her eyelashes at him. "Ought I?" she asked in a seductive whisper and shot a glance from the corners of her eyes towards Mr Morland. "That gentleman might get the wrong impression."
"Does it matter?" asked Edmund.
"It depends," she responded coyly. "I know nothing at all about you, sir. You may not be safe."
Catherine Moreland was close enough to hear the conversation. "If you think it not safe to dance with Mr Bertram, then perhaps you ought to refuse him and sit this set out with my brother," she advised.
"Oh, Catherine! Be a dear and sit with him yourself. It would be positively impolite of me to deny Mr Bertram the pleasure of a dance, even though I haven't the smallest inclination for dancing with him myself. Be certain to assure your brother of that fact."
And so Edmund led Isabella out onto the floor.
"Am I indeed safe with you, Mr Bertram?" she asked as soon as the set began.
"I promise not to tread on your toes," answered Edmund in all seriousness.
"Mr Bertram! I was speaking of my virtue, and not my feet," giggled Isabella.
Edmund gave the matter some further thought. "I am a clergyman," he finally responded, "and while that does not necessarily mean I am dull or uninteresting, it does mean that I will always respect your person and treat you with the deference that is due a young lady of your disposition."
"Oh la! You say the sweetest things!" said Isabella. "But do I not detect some double entendre in your little speech?"
"I had not intended . . . but if you prefer it that way . . ."
"Sly, sly man!" Isabella twirled through the routine and when she was close enough again, resumed speaking. "You do know that I have an understanding with that gentleman you saw me with earlier."
"Indeed," said Edmund, "but I had hoped . . ."
"Hope! Yes, you gentlemen do nothing but hope! Mr Morland hoped and I took pity on him and accepted his offer. Now I am beginning to wonder if I were not a trifle hasty. Do you believe in love at first sight, Mr Bertram?"
Edmund thought of Mary Crawford -- had the first sight of her caused him to lose his heart? No. It was her spirit, her conversation, and knowing her longer that made her attractions work their way under his skin. A week, maybe two, in her company had done the trick. "I once knew what it was to love," he answered thoughtfully, as he considered the whole of his unfortunate relationship with the lady he had lost his heart to. "But now I know not if love is possible for me again, though I want nothing more than to find myself a wife."
His expression held such sadness that it warmed Isabella Thorpe's heart.
"A broken heart!" she cried triumphantly. There is no more appealing challenge to a young lady than that of capturing a heart lost irrevocably to another undeserving beauty. "Tell me more about yourself, Mr Bertram."
"I have an older brother, Tom," he said. "My family resides in Mansfield Park, but I have the living of Thornton Lacey."
"You already have a living and do not need to wait?" asked Isabella meditatively. "That is good. And your father is quite the gentleman, is he? Not a parson himself with ten children to provide for?"
"He is Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield!" said Edmund, as if everyone should know of his family.
"Of course he is," said Isabella, calmingly. "Then you must be well provided for, though you are but a second son." Her eyes gleamed with renewed interest.
"Do not tell me you have an aversion to second sons too," said Edmund.
"I delight in second sons!" cried Isabella. "The eldest I find so standoffish. They expect everything and give nothing in return."
"My brother to a turn," Edmund admitted.
"And am I to understand that you are all set to marry, but for the all-important item of a willing bride?"
Edmund nodded. Isabella appeared to be most astute. He felt he had chosen well. Now all he had to do was convince her to change her allegiance from one unknown clergyman to another. "I am also to get the living of Mansfield when the present incumbent leaves this mortal coil."
"Is the gentleman very old?" asked Isabella.
"Not at all, but he keeps too good a table for the state of his health," said Edmund.
Isabella smiled sweetly. "Poor soul."
The set finished and Edmund led Isabella from the floor.
"Love is such an intemperate beast," said Isabella, "so difficult to appease. Sometimes it is better to dispense with love and go straight to the heart of the matter -- lust!" She fluttered her eyelashes alluringly again and sauntered away to where Jams Moreland was sitting with her brother John.
Edmund stood gazing after her, much affected by her parting words. He ought not approve of the lady -- he could imagine the shocked look that would come to his cousin Fanny's face. Sweet, pious Fanny, how well he had brought her up. He had always thought he was moulding her for his own, to be his future wife, but the lady he had created: pure, sweet, and noble, was not of the stamp that fascinated him and caused his will to melt. No -- he was attracted to a racier sort. Isabella would certainly fulfil his needs, and then some. He had tried love and it had not worked. Next best was looking very favourable at this juncture.
"Why are you gazing so lasciviously at my friend?"
Edmund dropped from his reverie and saw an innocent, childlike creature positively glaring at him. "I plan to marry her," he answered, because he held honesty to be the best policy.
"But she is engaged to my brother!" cried the girl, and she slapped Edmund upside the head. Her hand had quite a sting to it.
"What was that for?" asked Edmund. "I cannot help it if she prefers me."
He felt the sting of Catherine's hand again. "The first," she said, "was for trying to come between Isabella and my brother. The second was because you are so selfish and thick-headed, I just could not help myself!"
"I would hardly call your behaviour nice," said Edmund, rubbing his cheek.
"There are some social niceties you would do well to learn," said Catherine, and she stalked off.
She was met at the doorway by one Henry Tilney, also a clergyman, though to his credit he did not give the appearance of being one. "Nicely done, Miss Morland," he said. "Very nicely done indeed."
When Isabella returned to James Morland, he gave her a hard stare.
"I trust you enjoyed your dance?"
"It was a positive bore," she sighed. "My dear James, Bath is so deathly dull and so are all the people in it. I long for the countryside and a lovely, snug parsonage to hole up in."
"You know I will not get my living for two years," said James.
"Yes, your father has been most ungenerous."
"And the Allens too, by gad!" put in John.
"I am beginning to think they have no intentions by you," pouted Isabella.
"Why on earth should they?" asked James. "Do your nearest neighbours plan on giving you a dowry?"
"You resent my lack of dowry!" cried Isabella. "You know I would be happy with you in a cottage with a dirt floor, yet you -- you will never be happy no matter how many riches are thrown our way. It is my belief you regret our engagement."
John Thorpe was up like a shot. "I will call you out!" he cried. "How dare you treat my sister so? And to think I almost fell into the trap of offering for yours, despite her mousy appearance and disturbing predilection for gothic horror."
"Indeed I regret our engagement!" cried James. "But it is not because we have to wait and will not be rich. It is because I've made a foolish mistake thinking myself in love with a money-grasping flirt like you. You may have your fill of your Captain Tilneys and your Mr Bertrams, I am done with you!"
"Does that mean I may break the engagement off?" asked Isabella, brightening up.
"As that is the convention, and I cannot do so without being considered a brute," said James, "I accept your terms most readily. I am certain we shall both be the happier for it."
"Well I certainly shall be," said Isabella as she gaily pranced off. "And richer too!"
Edmund was sitting by the side of the dance floor, sipping an insipid glass of lemonade, when Isabella sidled up and took the seat beside him. "It is done," she said.
"What, already?" asked Edmund. "I am relieved. Your friend slaps very hard."
"You poor dear darling!" cried Isabella. "Shall we go out on the terrace?"
"Whatever for?" asked Edmund.
Isabella could see that her future husband would probably need a deal of slapping throughout their marriage, but now it would not be expedient to give in to the craving. "This is not quite a romantic enough location for the type of proposal I had in mind for you to make," she hissed into his ear.
Edmund might not have been the most brilliant crystal in the chandelier, but he perfectly understood the come-hither look that shone from Isabella's eyes like a beacon. "Miss Thorpe," he said, his heart beginning to race. "Would you join me on the terrace for a breath of fresh air?"
"Oh, la! Mr Bertram! You take me quite by surprise," she said, readily accepting his arm. "But as the rooms are so very close and I am beginning to feel rather faint, I will comply. I dare swear I shall be safe with you, as you are a clergyman and all."
But her very expression, the way she held her body, and the quickness of her breath, gave Edmund to believe that she had no interest in safety at all. And he found he was much of the same mind.