CHAPTER XI

The day at Sotherton, with all its imperfections, afforded the Miss

Bertrams much more agreeable feelings than were derived from the letters

from Antigua, which soon afterwards reached Mansfield. It was much

pleasanter to think of Henry Crawford than of their father; and to think

of their father in England again within a certain period, which these

letters obliged them to do, was a most unwelcome exercise.

November was the black month fixed for his return. Sir Thomas wrote of

it with as much decision as experience and anxiety could authorise. His

business was so nearly concluded as to justify him in proposing to take

his passage in the September packet, and he consequently looked forward

with the hope of being with his beloved family again early in November.

Maria was more to be pitied than Julia; for to her the father brought a

husband, and the return of the friend most solicitous for her happiness

would unite her to the lover, on whom she had chosen that happiness

should depend. It was a gloomy prospect, and all she could do was to

throw a mist over it, and hope when the mist cleared away she should

see something else. It would hardly be _early_ in November, there

were generally delays, a bad passage or _something_; that favouring

_something_ which everybody who shuts their eyes while they look, or

their understandings while they reason, feels the comfort of. It would

probably be the middle of November at least; the middle of November

was three months off. Three months comprised thirteen weeks. Much might

happen in thirteen weeks.

Sir Thomas would have been deeply mortified by a suspicion of half that

his daughters felt on the subject of his return, and would hardly have

found consolation in a knowledge of the interest it excited in the

breast of another young lady. Miss Crawford, on walking up with her

brother to spend the evening at Mansfield Park, heard the good news; and

though seeming to have no concern in the affair beyond politeness, and

to have vented all her feelings in a quiet congratulation, heard it with

an attention not so easily satisfied. Mrs. Norris gave the particulars

of the letters, and the subject was dropt; but after tea, as Miss

Crawford was standing at an open window with Edmund and Fanny looking

out on a twilight scene, while the Miss Bertrams, Mr. Rushworth,

and Henry Crawford were all busy with candles at the pianoforte, she

suddenly revived it by turning round towards the group, and saying, "How

happy Mr. Rushworth looks! He is thinking of November."

Edmund looked round at Mr. Rushworth too, but had nothing to say.

"Your father's return will be a very interesting event."

"It will, indeed, after such an absence; an absence not only long, but

including so many dangers."

"It will be the forerunner also of other interesting events: your

sister's marriage, and your taking orders."

"Yes."

"Don't be affronted," said she, laughing, "but it does put me in mind of

some of the old heathen heroes, who, after performing great exploits in

a foreign land, offered sacrifices to the gods on their safe return."

"There is no sacrifice in the case," replied Edmund, with a serious

smile, and glancing at the pianoforte again; "it is entirely her own

doing."

"Oh yes I know it is. I was merely joking. She has done no more than

what every young woman would do; and I have no doubt of her being

extremely happy. My other sacrifice, of course, you do not understand."

"My taking orders, I assure you, is quite as voluntary as Maria's

marrying."

"It is fortunate that your inclination and your father's convenience

should accord so well. There is a very good living kept for you, I

understand, hereabouts."

"Which you suppose has biassed me?"

"But _that_ I am sure it has not," cried Fanny.

"Thank you for your good word, Fanny, but it is more than I would affirm

myself. On the contrary, the knowing that there was such a provision for

me probably did bias me. Nor can I think it wrong that it should. There

was no natural disinclination to be overcome, and I see no reason why

a man should make a worse clergyman for knowing that he will have a

competence early in life. I was in safe hands. I hope I should not have

been influenced myself in a wrong way, and I am sure my father was too

conscientious to have allowed it. I have no doubt that I was biased, but

I think it was blamelessly."

"It is the same sort of thing," said Fanny, after a short pause, "as for

the son of an admiral to go into the navy, or the son of a general to be

in the army, and nobody sees anything wrong in that. Nobody wonders that

they should prefer the line where their friends can serve them best, or

suspects them to be less in earnest in it than they appear."

"No, my dear Miss Price, and for reasons good. The profession, either

navy or army, is its own justification. It has everything in its favour:

heroism, danger, bustle, fashion. Soldiers and sailors are always

acceptable in society. Nobody can wonder that men are soldiers and

sailors."

"But the motives of a man who takes orders with the certainty of

preferment may be fairly suspected, you think?" said Edmund. "To be

justified in your eyes, he must do it in the most complete uncertainty

of any provision."

"What! take orders without a living! No; that is madness indeed;

absolute madness."

"Shall I ask you how the church is to be filled, if a man is neither to

take orders with a living nor without? No; for you certainly would not

know what to say. But I must beg some advantage to the clergyman from

your own argument. As he cannot be influenced by those feelings which

you rank highly as temptation and reward to the soldier and sailor in

their choice of a profession, as heroism, and noise, and fashion, are

all against him, he ought to be less liable to the suspicion of wanting

sincerity or good intentions in the choice of his."

"Oh! no doubt he is very sincere in preferring an income ready made,

to the trouble of working for one; and has the best intentions of doing

nothing all the rest of his days but eat, drink, and grow fat. It is

indolence, Mr. Bertram, indeed. Indolence and love of ease; a want of

all laudable ambition, of taste for good company, or of inclination

to take the trouble of being agreeable, which make men clergymen.

A clergyman has nothing to do but be slovenly and selfish--read the

newspaper, watch the weather, and quarrel with his wife. His curate does

all the work, and the business of his own life is to dine."

"There are such clergymen, no doubt, but I think they are not so common

as to justify Miss Crawford in esteeming it their general character. I

suspect that in this comprehensive and (may I say) commonplace censure,

you are not judging from yourself, but from prejudiced persons, whose

opinions you have been in the habit of hearing. It is impossible that

your own observation can have given you much knowledge of the clergy.

You can have been personally acquainted with very few of a set of men

you condemn so conclusively. You are speaking what you have been told at

your uncle's table."

"I speak what appears to me the general opinion; and where an opinion

is general, it is usually correct. Though _I_ have not seen much of

the domestic lives of clergymen, it is seen by too many to leave any

deficiency of information."

"Where any one body of educated men, of whatever denomination, are

condemned indiscriminately, there must be a deficiency of information,

or (smiling) of something else. Your uncle, and his brother admirals,

perhaps knew little of clergymen beyond the chaplains whom, good or bad,

they were always wishing away."

"Poor William! He has met with great kindness from the chaplain of the

Antwerp," was a tender apostrophe of Fanny's, very much to the purpose

of her own feelings if not of the conversation.

"I have been so little addicted to take my opinions from my uncle,"

said Miss Crawford, "that I can hardly suppose--and since you push me so

hard, I must observe, that I am not entirely without the means of seeing

what clergymen are, being at this present time the guest of my own

brother, Dr. Grant. And though Dr. Grant is most kind and obliging to

me, and though he is really a gentleman, and, I dare say, a good scholar

and clever, and often preaches good sermons, and is very respectable,

_I_ see him to be an indolent, selfish _bon_ _vivant_, who must have

his palate consulted in everything; who will not stir a finger for the

convenience of any one; and who, moreover, if the cook makes a blunder,

is out of humour with his excellent wife. To own the truth, Henry and

I were partly driven out this very evening by a disappointment about a

green goose, which he could not get the better of. My poor sister was

forced to stay and bear it."

"I do not wonder at your disapprobation, upon my word. It is a great

defect of temper, made worse by a very faulty habit of self-indulgence;

and to see your sister suffering from it must be exceedingly painful to

such feelings as yours. Fanny, it goes against us. We cannot attempt to

defend Dr. Grant."

"No," replied Fanny, "but we need not give up his profession for all

that; because, whatever profession Dr. Grant had chosen, he would have

taken a--not a good temper into it; and as he must, either in the navy

or army, have had a great many more people under his command than he

has now, I think more would have been made unhappy by him as a sailor or

soldier than as a clergyman. Besides, I cannot but suppose that whatever

there may be to wish otherwise in Dr. Grant would have been in a greater

danger of becoming worse in a more active and worldly profession, where

he would have had less time and obligation--where he might have escaped

that knowledge of himself, the _frequency_, at least, of that knowledge

which it is impossible he should escape as he is now. A man--a sensible

man like Dr. Grant, cannot be in the habit of teaching others their duty

every week, cannot go to church twice every Sunday, and preach such very

good sermons in so good a manner as he does, without being the better

for it himself. It must make him think; and I have no doubt that he

oftener endeavours to restrain himself than he would if he had been

anything but a clergyman."

"We cannot prove to the contrary, to be sure; but I wish you a better

fate, Miss Price, than to be the wife of a man whose amiableness

depends upon his own sermons; for though he may preach himself into a

good-humour every Sunday, it will be bad enough to have him quarrelling

about green geese from Monday morning till Saturday night."

"I think the man who could often quarrel with Fanny," said Edmund

affectionately, "must be beyond the reach of any sermons."

Fanny turned farther into the window; and Miss Crawford had only time

to say, in a pleasant manner, "I fancy Miss Price has been more used to

deserve praise than to hear it"; when, being earnestly invited by the

Miss Bertrams to join in a glee, she tripped off to the instrument,

leaving Edmund looking after her in an ecstasy of admiration of all her

many virtues, from her obliging manners down to her light and graceful

tread.

"There goes good-humour, I am sure," said he presently. "There goes a

temper which would never give pain! How well she walks! and how readily

she falls in with the inclination of others! joining them the moment she

is asked. What a pity," he added, after an instant's reflection, "that

she should have been in such hands!"

Fanny agreed to it, and had the pleasure of seeing him continue at the

window with her, in spite of the expected glee; and of having his eyes

soon turned, like hers, towards the scene without, where all that was

solemn, and soothing, and lovely, appeared in the brilliancy of an

unclouded night, and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods. Fanny

spoke her feelings. "Here's harmony!" said she; "here's repose! Here's

what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only

can attempt to describe! Here's what may tranquillise every care, and

lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I

feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world;

and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature

were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by

contemplating such a scene."

"I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny. It is a lovely night, and they

are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree,

as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in

early life. They lose a great deal."

"_You_ taught me to think and feel on the subject, cousin."

"I had a very apt scholar. There's Arcturus looking very bright."

"Yes, and the Bear. I wish I could see Cassiopeia."

"We must go out on the lawn for that. Should you be afraid?"

"Not in the least. It is a great while since we have had any

star-gazing."

"Yes; I do not know how it has happened." The glee began. "We will stay

till this is finished, Fanny," said he, turning his back on the window;

and as it advanced, she had the mortification of seeing him advance too,

moving forward by gentle degrees towards the instrument, and when it

ceased, he was close by the singers, among the most urgent in requesting

to hear the glee again.

Fanny sighed alone at the window till scolded away by Mrs. Norris's

threats of catching cold.