The season and duties which brought Mr Bertram back to Mansfield,took Mr Crawford into Norfolk.Everingham could not do without him in the beginning of September.He went for a fortnight；a fortnight of such dullness to the Miss Bertrams,as ought to have put them both on their guard,and made even Julia admit in her jealousy of her sister,the absolute necessity of distrusting his attentions,and wishing him not to return;and a fortnight of sufficient leisure in the intervals of shooting and sleeping,to have convinced the gentleman that he ought to keep longer away,had he been more in the habit of examining his own motives,and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity was tending;but,thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example,he would not look beyond the present moment.The sisters,handsome,clever,and encouraging,were an amusement to his sated mind;and finding nothing in Norfolk to equal the social pleasures of Mansfield,he gladly returned to it at the time appointed,and was welcomed thither quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with farther.
Maria,with only Mr Rushworth to attend to her,and doomed to the repeated details of his day's sport,good or bad,his boast of his dogs,his jealousy of his neighbours,his doubts of their qualification,and his zeal after poachers,-subjects which will not find their way to female feelings without some talent on one side,or some attachment on the other,had missed Mr Crawford grievously;and Julia,unengaged and unemployed,felt all the right of missing him much more.Each sister believed herself the favourite.Julia might be justified in so doing by the hints of Mrs Grant,inclined to credit what she wished,and Maria by the hints of Mr Crawford himself.Everything returned into the same channel as before his absence;his manners being to each so animated and agreeable,as to lose no ground with either,and just stopping short of the consistence,the steadiness,the solicitude,and the warmth which might excite general notice.
Fanny was the only one of the party who found anything to dislike;but since the day at Sotherton,she could never see Mr Crawford with either sister without observation,and seldom without wonder or censure;and had her confidence in her own judgment been equal to her exercise of it in every other respect,had she been sure that she was seeing clearly,and judging candidly,she would probably have made some important communications to her usual confidant.As it was,however,she only hazarded a hint,and the hint was lost.‘I am rather surprised,’said she,‘that Mr Crawford should come back again so soon,after being here so long before,full seven weeks;for I had understood he was so very fond of change and moving about,that I thought something would certainly occur when he was once gone,to take him elsewhere.He is wed to much gayer places than Mansfield.’
‘It is to his credit,’was Edmund's answer,‘and I dare say it gives his sister pleasure.She does not like his unsettled habits.’
‘What a favourite he is with my cousins!’
‘Yes,his manners to women are such as must please.Mrs Grant,I believe,suspects him of a preference for Julia;I have never seen much symptom of it,but I wish it may be so.He has no faults but what a serious attachment would remove.’
‘If Miss Bertram were not engaged,’said Fanny,cautiously,‘I could sometimes almost think that he admired her more than Julia.’
‘Which is,perhaps,more in favour of his liking Julia best,than you,Fanny,may be aware;for I believe it often happens,that a man,before he has quite made up his own mind,will distinguish the sister or intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of,more than the woman herself.Crawford has too much sense to stay here if he found himself in any danger from Maria;and I am not at all afraid for her,after such a proof as she has given,that her feelings are not strong.’
Fanny supposed she must have been mistaken,and meant to think differently in future;but with all that submission to Edmund could do,and all the help of the coinciding looks and hints which she occasionally noticed in some of the others,and which seemed to say that Julia was Mr Crawford's choice,she knew not always what to think.She was privy,one evening,to the hopes of her aunt Norris on this subject,as well as to her feelings,and the feelings of Mrs Rushworth,on a point of some similarity,and could not help wondering as she listened;and glad would she have been not to be obliged to listen,for it was while all the other young people were dancing,and she sitting,most unwillingly,among the chaperons at the fire,longing for the re-entrance of her elder cousin,on whom all her own hopes of a partner then depended.It was Fanny's first ball,though without the preparation or splendour of many a young lady's first ball,being the thought only of the afternoon,built on the late acquisition of a violin player in the servants'hall,and the possibility of raising five couple with the help of Mrs Grant and a new intimate friend of Mr Bertram's just arrived on a visit.It had,however,been a very happy one to Fanny through four dances,and she was quite grieved to be losing even a quarter of an hour.-While waiting and wishing,looking now at the dancers and now at the door,this dialogue between the two above-mentioned ladies was forced on her.
‘I think,ma'am,’said Mrs Norris-her eyes directed towards Mr Rushworth and Maria,who were partners for the second time-‘we shall see some happy faces again now.’
‘Yes,ma'am,indeed’-replied the other,with a stately simper-‘there will be some satisfaction in looking on now,and I think it was rather a pity they should have been obliged to part.Young folks in their situation should be excused complying with the common forms.-I wonder my son did not propose it.’
