Chapter Eighteen #2
I think your going to see your relations at such a time is the only consolation I have for the pain of your absence.
I trust you will commend me to them a little, if such a thing is possible, that our marriage might take place soon, for these years of waiting have only deepened my regard for you, and my ardent wish to be called your wife.
Two short weeks of our daily intercourse was not enough, dearest Edward.
I remain as steadfast as ever in my affections, and hope to hear word that you are the same, that you have not forgotten me among the company of so many your family would deem superior.
I am sure a man of your eloquence and feeling might convince your mother that I am not so unsuitable; you know I am devoted to your happiness, and have been these five years.
I hope we might meet in London over the winter—Anne and I have thought to write a distant cousin of ours, Mrs. Jennings, who keeps a house in Berkeley square. Her own daughters are long married, and she may take some interest in putting me forward enough that we shall be reunited in Town.
Until then I remain your loving fiancée,
Lucy Steele
Her heart racing, Marianne refolded the letter and clutched it to her chest, tears pricking her eyes.
Edward was engaged—he had been engaged for five years!
He had been secretly bound to another from the moment he had come amongst them in the summer, and yet she was sure that they had not all imagined his attentions to Elinor.
But this was why he had not spoken, why he had not visited them at Barton—why he had left Elinor to wonder, and to lament in private.
Were she not so attached to Edmund already, such a discovery would have broken Elinor’s heart!
Marianne fumed at how badly things might have gone awry, but she could not at all account for what she ought to do now that the worst was confirmed.
Such a revelation might bring about her own greatest wish, and drive Elinor into Edmund’s arms, and yet things between them were progressing so sweetly in their own time that Marianne was loath to interfere any further.
Fearing she had tarried here too long already, Marianne hastened from Edward’s room.
Prudence Rushworth waited at a dignified distance from Edward Ferrars’ bedchamber, and swiftly stepped forward to catch Marianne by the arm as the girl quit the room. There was a letter in Marianne’s hand, and Prudence seized it at once.
“Oh,” Marianne cried, her eyes wide with alarm.
“Hush, my dear, and we shall say no more about it,” Prudence quipped, tucking the letter into her pocket.
She was rather impressed with the initiative Marianne had shown in undertaking the very task Prudence herself had set out to do; she was far more promising than Elinor in that regard, as well as some others.
“Your sister has spoken so highly of you to me,” Prudence said with a smile. “But of course you must have a care for her.”
Marianne nodded, the tears in her eyes precluding any real answer.
Prudence was eager to discover the contents of the letter, for she was certain Fanny Dashwood had summoned her brother to reinforce her position in the face of the inevitable calamity.
Even now, Prudence spied the wretched woman from the corner of her eye, lingering at the end of the corridor, watching her lurk outside Edward’s door. Well, let her wonder!
“You will not tell Elinor what it contains, will you?”
“I must read it first—but if you do not wish it, I will certainly take that under advisement,” Prudence replied.
“We are on the same team, dear one—and I am proud of your courage. Now, off with you before we are both found out—but you must go and attend your cousin James,” she said a little louder, and purely for Fanny Dashwood’s benefit.
Unaware that they were being watched, Marianne nodded in some confusion and scampered away.
Prudence intended to retreat to her own chamber at once, to read this interesting letter in some privacy, but she would be obliged to pass Fanny Dashwood on her way there.
She held her head very high as she moved that way, smiling as she beheld the wild look on the woman’s face—she really appeared quite out of her mind.
“Dear Mrs. Dashwood, I hope you are well—but it appears you are not! I wonder at your being out of your room at all in such a state. Your mother ought to have a greater care for your health, what with the ball less than a week away. I hardly know how it shall move forward at all without a proper hostess, and I am so much looking forward to the evening.”
Prudence walked away from the madwoman without awaiting any reply, but she smiled at the sound of Fanny Dashwood’s shaky breathing. It was all so very gratifying.
There was another letter waiting for her when she returned to her room—she had warned the staff against delivering her any correspondence in the presence of others.
She opened this letter first, for it had come from her attorneys, and its contents were just what she had been waiting for.
They had confirmed the validity of a certain document written by Henry Dashwood just hours before his death; there could be no doubt of her victory now.
Content that her plan was on the brink of fruition, Prudence now began to examine the letter Marianne had pilfered from Edward Ferrars—she found the contents extremely interesting, and quite possibly useful, if she desired to twist the knife once the initial wound was inflicted.
“Stupid boy,” she laughed aloud. “This is just why I take my post privately!”
She rang at once for her maid, a valuable and resourceful assistant of long-standing.
A quarter of an hour later Prudence had procured a sufficient sample of Mrs. Jennings’ writing; she composed and posted a letter to the unsuitable Miss Steele to be delivered with as much haste as money could arrange.
The other matter would have to wait until Margaret’s return.
Prudence was ready to act—to put some notice in the papers, and turn these nasty usurpers out of Norland forever, but she would do her niece the courtesy of waiting, for now.
But Margaret could not detain her forever from enacting her revenge.
Mary Crawford felt her blood boiling as she gaped at Henry and Maria in dismay; she began to pace the library in order to ensure she did not actually strangle her brother. “Am I to understand, then, that you are not at all attached to Fanny Price, Brother?”
“I think well of her,” he began to stammer.
“But your attentions have not been sincere—you have occupied yourself all this past week in leading her on, from nearly the very moment she came out into society? What is the matter with you?” Mary seethed, and actually stepped forward to give him a slap.
Henry went rigid. “I suppose I deserved that.”
Maria burst into tears when Mary struck her brother. “It was my idea,” she wailed. “I did not think any harm could come of it, and I really did want, at first, to spare my father the pain of seeing Henry and I together.”
“I had no notion he would approve of it so very much, or so instantly,” Henry added, rubbing at his cheek. “It all sort of spiraled out of control….”
“And I could bear it no longer,” Maria said, weeping. “I cannot take it, Mary.”
“Then leak it to the papers, blame Mrs. Rushworth, and have done with it,” Mary huffed, throwing her hands up in frustration. “I cannot understand why you must invent such an unnecessary scheme.” Maria looked up with alacrity, but Henry only shook his head; Mary continued to rail at them.
“I cannot tell you how disappointed I am, Henry. I have always hoped you would turn out a better man than our uncle the admiral—I hoped you would learn some lesson from the ghastly example he set raising us. You have been completely irresponsible, and now you would inveigle me in your treachery! You have involved me already. How sad I was, thinking that Sir Thomas merely disapproved of your fortune—I was so worried for you that Colonel Brandon even offered to intercede on your behalf, because he perceived how troubled I was.”
Henry looked ruefully at her. “Mary….”
“Shut up, I am not finished,” she snapped.
“What about poor Fanny Price? How did you expect me to act while you courted Fanny so openly? I began to think she was your choice, since you have been too tight-lipped to confide in me, and I was ready to support you, to encourage her, to befriend her—I have befriended her, and I am sincerely very fond of Fanny. How could you do this to her?”
“I was wrong, Mary,” Henry thundered. “I am sorry for what I have done. There now.”
“I hope you mean it,” Mary quipped. “And you had better not do her any more mischief.”
“Well,” Maria said impatiently, “I rather liked your notion, Mary, of leaking the scandal to the papers and having done with it, but I see you do not like it, Henry. So what are we to do, then?”
Mary began to pace once more, tapping her chin as she did when she was concentrating.
“It is a terrible thing that Sir Thomas has brought this on his family,” she mused aloud.
“Such a thing must be harmful to so many people; you must not add to that, you must be better than he, and do no harm yourselves.”
“I agree,” Henry replied. “We cannot leak it. It would be on our heads forever.”
“Exactly,” Mary agreed. “It is one thing to let nature take its course, so to speak. You are quite sure Mrs. Rushworth will act on her threats?”
“She enjoys watching my father squirm,” Maria said, her posture defiant. “She is only waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger on it.”
“The ball,” Mary cried.
Henry’s eyes went wide. “Of course. She would want an audience, and she would certainly have one.”