Mrs Norris was quite at his service;and though she perfectly agreed with him as to its being a most difficult thing,encouraged him to hope that between them it would be easily managed.
It will be readily believed that Mrs Norris did not write to her sister in vain.Mrs Price seemed rather surprised that a girl should be fixed on,when she had so many fine boys,but accepted the offer most thankfully,assuring them of her daughter's being a very well-disposed,good-humoured girl,and trusting they would never have cause to throw her off.She spoke of her farther as somewhat delicate and puny,but was sanguine in the hope of her being materially better for change of air.Poor woman!she probably thought change of air might agree with many of her children.
Chapter 2
The little girl performed her long journey in safety,and at Northampton was met by Mrs Norris,who thus regaled in the credit of being foremost to welcome her,and in the importance of leading her in to the others,and recommending her to their kindness.
Fanny Price was at this time just ten years old,and though there might not be much in her first appearance to captivate,there was,at least,nothing to disgust her relations.She was small of her age,with no glow of complexion,nor any other striking beauty;exceedingly timid and shy,and shrinking from notice;but her air,though awkward,was not vulgar,her voice was sweet,and when she spoke,her countenance was pretty.Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly,and Sir Thomas seeing how much she needed encouragement,tried to be all that was conciliating;but he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment-and Lady Bertram,without taking half so much trouble,or speaking one word where he spoke ten,by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile,became immediately the less awful character of the two.
The young people were all at home,and sustained their share in the introduction very well,with much good humour,and no embarrassment,at least on the part of the sons,who at seventeen and sixteen,and tall of their age,had all the grandeur of men in the eyes of their little cousin.The two girls were more at a loss from being younger and in greater awe of their father,who addressed them on the occasion with rather an injudicious particularity.But they were too much used to company and praise,to have anything like natural shyness,and their confidence increasing from their cousin's total want of it,they were soon able to take a full survey of her face and her frock in easy indifference.
They were a remarkably fine family,the sons very well-looking,the daughters decidedly handsome,and all of them well-grown and forward of their age,which produced as striking a difference between the cousins in person,as education had given to their address;and no one would have supposed the girls so nearly of an age as they really were.There was in fact but two years between the youngest and Fanny.Julia Bertram was only twelve,and Maria but a year older.The little visitor meanwhile was as unhappy as possible.Afraid of everybody,ashamed of herself,and longing for the home she had left,she knew not how to look up,and could scarcely speak to be heard,or without crying.Mrs Norris had been talking to her the whole way from Northampton of her wonderful good fortune,and the extraordinary degree of gratitude and good behaviour which it ought to produce,and her consciousness of misery was therefore increased by the idea of its being a wicked thing for her not to be happy.The fatigue too,of so long a journey,became soon no trifling evil.In vain were the well-meant condescensions of Sir Thomas,and all the officious prognostications of Mrs Norris that she would be a good girl;in vain did Lady Bertram smile and make her sit on the sofa with herself and pug,and vain was even the sight of a gooseberry tart towards giving her comfort;she could scarcely swallow two mouthfuls before tears interrupted her,and sleep seeming to be her likeliest friend,she was taken to finish her sorrows in bed.
‘This is not a very promising beginning,’said Mrs Norris when Fanny had left the room.-‘After all that I said to her as we came along,I thought she would have behaved better;I told her how much might depend upon her acquitting herself well at first.I wish there may not be a little sulkiness of temper-her poor mother had a good deal;but we must make allowances for such a child-and I do not know that her being sorry to leave her home is really against her,for,with all its faults,it was her home,and she cannot as yet understand how much she has changed for the better;but then there is moderation in all things.’
It required a longer time,however,than Mrs Norris was inclined to allow,to reconcile Fanny to the novelty of Mansfield Park,and the separation from everybody she had been used to.Her feelings were very acute,and too little understood to be properly attended to.Nobody meant to be unkind,but nobody put themselves out of their way to secure her comfort.
The holiday allowed to the Miss Bertrams the next day on purpose to afford leisure for getting acquainted with,and entertaining their young cousin,produced little union.They could not but hold her cheap on finding that she had but two sashes,and had never learnt French;and when they perceived her to be little struck with the duet they were so good as to play,they could do no more than make her a generous present of some of their least valued toys,and leave her to herself,while they adjourned to whatever might be the favourite holiday sport of the moment,making artificial flowers or wasting gold paper.
