In that house, which she had hardly entered twice... In that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year since Mr
Norris’s death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the
gloom and dirt of a November day, most acceptable to Mary
CrawfordHer visits there, beginning by chance, were continued
by solicitationGrant, really eager to get any change for her
sister, could, by the easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was
doing the kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important
opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls
Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her
aunt Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage;
and being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to
find shelter under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just
beyond their premises, was forced, though not without some modest
reluctance on her part, to come inA civil servant she had withstood;
but when DrGrant himself went out with an umbrella, there
was nothing to be done but to be very much ashamed, and to get
into the house as fast as possible; and to poor Miss Crawford, who
had just been contemplating the dismal rain in a very desponding
state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all her plan of exercise for
that morning, and of every chance of seeing a single creature be179
Jane Austen
yond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the sound of a
little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price dripping
with wet in the vestibule, was delightfulThe value of an event on a
wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before herShe
was all alive again directly, and among the most active in being useful
to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at first
allow, and providing her with dry clothes; and Fanny, after being
obliged to submit to all this attention, and to being assisted and
waited on by mistresses and maids, being also obliged, on returning
downstairs,
chanel cambon handbag to be fixed in their drawing-room for an hour while the
rain continued, the blessing of something fresh to see and think of
was thus extended to Miss Crawford, and might carry on her spirits
to the period of dressing and dinner
The two sisters were so kind to her, and so pleasant, that Fanny
might have enjoyed her visit could she have believed herself not in the
way, and could she have foreseen that the weather would certainly
clear at the end of the hour, and save her from the shame of having
DrGrant’s carriage and horses out to take her home, with which she
was threatenedAs to anxiety for any alarm that her absence in such
weather might occasion at home, she had nothing to suffer on that
score; for as her being out was known only to her two aunts, she was
perfectly aware that none would be felt, and that in whatever cottage
aunt Norris might chuse to establish her during the rain, her being in
such cottage would be indubitable to aunt Bertram
It was beginning to look brighter, when Fanny, observing a harp
in the room, asked some questions about it, which soon led to an
acknowledgment of her wishing very much to hear it, and a confession,
which could hardly be believed, of her having never yet heard
it since its being in MansfieldTo Fanny herself it appeared a very
simple and natural circumstanceShe had scarcely ever been at the
Parsonage since the instrument’s arrival, there had been no reason
that she should; but Miss Crawford, calling to mind an early expressed
wish on the subject, was concerned at her own neglect; and
“Shall I play to you now?” and “What will you have?” were questions
immediately following with the readiest good-humour
She played accordingly; happy to have a new listener, and a listener
who seemed so much obliged, so full of wonder at the perfor180
Mansfield Park
mance, and who shewed herself not wanting in tasteShe played till
Fanny’s eyes, straying to the window on the
classic chanel handbag weather’s being evidently
fair, spoke what she felt must be done
“Another quarter of an hour,” said Miss Crawford, “and we shall
see how it will beDo not run away the first moment of its holding
upThose clouds look alarming
“But they are passed over,” said Fanny“I have been watching
themThis weather is all from the south
“South or north, I know a black cloud when I see it; and you
must not set forward while it is so threateningAnd besides, I want
to play something more to you—a very pretty piece—and your
cousin Edmund’s prime favouriteYou must stay and hear your
cousin’s favourite
Fanny felt that she must; and though she had not waited for that
sentence to be thinking of Edmund, such a memento made her
particularly awake to his idea, and she fancied him sitting in that
room again and again, perhaps in the very spot where she sat now,
listening with constant delight to the favourite air, played, as it appeared
to her, with superior tone and expression; and though pleased
with it herself, and glad to like whatever was liked by him, she was
more sincerely impatient to go away at the conclusion of it than she
had been before; and on this being evident, she was so kindly asked
to call again, to take them in her walk whenever she could, to come
and hear more of the harp, that she felt it necessary to be done, if no
objection arose at home
Such was the origin of the sort of intimacy which took place between
them within the first fortnight after the Miss Bertrams’ going
away—an intimacy resulting principally from Miss Crawford’s desire
of something new, and which had little reality in Fanny’s feelings
Fanny went to her every two or three days: it seemed a kind of
fascination: she could not be easy without going, and yet it was
without loving her, without ever thinking like her, without any sense
of obligation for being sought after now when nobody else was to
be had; and deriving no higher pleasure
white chanel purse from her conversation than
occasional amusement, and that often at the expense of her judgment,
when it was raised by pleasantry on people or subjects which
she wished to be respectedShe went, however, and they sauntered
181
Jane Austen
about together many an half-hour in MrsGrant’s shrubbery, the
weather being unusually mild for the time of year, and venturing
sometimes even to sit down on one of the benches now comparatively
unsheltered, remaining there perhaps till, in the midst of some
tender ejaculation of Fanny’s on the sweets of so protracted an autumn,
they were forced, by the sudden swell of a cold gust shaking
down the last few yellow leaves about them, to jump up and walk
for warmth
“This is pretty, very pretty,” said Fanny, looking around her as
they were thus sitting together one day; “every time I come into this
shrubbery I am more struck with its growth and beautyThree years
ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of
the field, never thought of as anything, or capable of becoming anything;
and now it is converted into a walk, and it would be difficult
to say whether most valuable as a convenience or an ornament; and
perhaps, in another three years, we may be forgetting—almost forgetting
what it was beforeHow wonderful, how very wonderful
the operations of time, and the changes of the human mind!” And
following the latter train of thought, she soon afterwards added: “If
any one faculty of our nature may be called more wonderful than
the rest, I do think it is memoryThere seems something more
speakingly incomprehensible in the powers, the failures, the inequalities
of memory, than in any other of our intelligencesThe memory
is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient; at others, so
bewildered and so weak; and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond
control! We are, to be sure, a miracle every way; but our powers of
recollecting and of forgetting
replica fendi spy do seem peculiarly past finding out
Miss Crawford, untouched and inattentive, had nothing to say;
and Fanny, perceiving it, brought back her own mind to what she
thought must interest
“It may seem impertinent in me to praise, but I must admire the
taste MrsGrant has shewn in all thisThere is such a quiet simplicity
in the plan of the walk! Not too much attempted!”
“Yes,” replied Miss Crawford carelessly, “it does very well for a
place of this sortOne does not think of extent here; and between
ourselves, till I came to Mansfield, I had not imagined a country
parson ever aspired to a shrubbery, or anything of the kind
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Mansfield Park
“I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!” said Fanny, in reply
“My uncle’s gardener always says the soil here is better than his own,
and so it appears from the growth of the laurels and evergreens in
generalThe evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful
the evergreen! When one thinks of it, how astonishing a variety
of nature! In some countries we know the tree that sheds its leaf
is the variety, but that does not make it less amazing that the same
soil and the same sun should nurture plants differing in the first
rule and law of their existenceYou will think me rhapsodising; but
when I am out of doors, especially when I am sitting out of doors, I
am very apt to get into this sort of wondering strainOne cannot fix
one’s eyes on the commonest natural production without finding
food for a rambling fancy
“To say the truth,” replied Miss Crawford, “I am something like
the famous Doge at the court of Lewis XIV and may declare that I
see no wonder in this shrubbery equal to seeing myself in itIf anybody
had told me a year ago that this place would be my home, that
I should be spending month after month here, as I have done, I
certainly should not have believed themI have now been here nearly
five months; and, moreover, the quietest five months I ever
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