The Grants had scarcely been settled in Mansfield a year, when, for the better settlement of his property in the West Indies, Sir Thomas had found it expedient to go to Antigua, and he took his elder son with him, in the hope of detaching him from some bad connections at home. Neither person was missed.
Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety or solicitude for his comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous or difficult or fatiguing to anybody but themselves. Before very long she found that Edmund could quite sufficiently supply his father's place. On this occasion the Miss Bertrams, who were now fully established among the belles of the neighbourhood, were much to be pitied, not for their sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence was unhappily most welcome.
Fanny's relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her cousins'; but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were ungrateful, and she really grieved because she could not grieve.
Meantime, taking advantage of her sister's indolence, Mrs. Norris acted as chaperon to Maria and Julia in their public engagements, and very thoroughly relished the means this afforded her of mixing in society without having horses to hire.
Fanny had no share in the festivities of the season; but she enjoyed being avowedly useful as her aunt's companion, and talked to Lady Bertram, listened to her and read to her with never a thought of envying her cousins their gaieties. About this time Maria, who was now in her twenty-first year, got engaged to a rich but heavy country gentleman called Rushworth, merely because he had an income larger than her father's and could give her a house in town; while Tom returned safely from the West Indies, bringing an excellent account of his father's health, but telling the family that Sir Thomas would be detained in Antigua for several months longer.
Such was the state of affairs in the month of July; and Fanny had just reached her eighteenth year when the society of the village received an addition in the brother and sister of Mrs. Grant, a Mr. and Miss Crawford, the children of her mother by a second marriage. They were young people of fortune, the son having a good estate in Norfolk, the daughter twenty thousand pounds. They had been brought up by their father's brother and his wife, Admiral and Mrs. Crawford; and it was Mrs. Crawford's death, and the consequent installation of the admiral's mistress in the house, that had forced them to find another home. Mary Crawford was remarkably pretty; Henry, though not handsome, had air and countenance; the manners of both were lively and pleasant; and Mrs. Grant gave them credit for everything else.
The young people were pleased with each other from the first. Miss Crawford was most allowably a sweet, pretty girl, while the Miss Bertrams were the finest young women in the country. Mr. Crawford was the most agreeable young man Julia and Maria had ever known. Before he had been at Mansfield a week the former lady was quite ready to be fallen in love with; while as for the latter she did not want to see or to understand. "There could be no harm in her liking an agreeable man--everybody knew her situation--Mr. Crawford must take care of himself."
A young woman, pretty, lively, witty, playing on a harp as elegant as herself, was enough to catch any man's heart. Without studying the business, however, or knowing what he was about, Edmund was beginning, at the end of a week of such intercourse, to be a good deal in love with Mary Crawford; and, to the credit of the lady, it may be added that, without his being a man of the world or an elder brother, without any of the arts of flattery or the gaieties of small-talk, he began to be agreeable to her. He taught her to ride on a horse which he had given to Fanny; he was always going round to see her at the parsonage; and, although he disapproved of the flippancy with which she talked of her relations, of religion, and of his future profession of clergyman, he was never weary of discussing her and of confessing his admiration of her to Fanny.
Harry Crawford was not so constant as his sister. On an expedition to Sotherton Court (Mr. Rushworth's place) he flirted with Julia on the way down, and with Maria when Sotherton was reached, leaving poor Mr. Rushworth no resource but to declare to Fanny his surprise at anyone calling so undersized a man as his rival handsome.
Some rehearsals of a play called "Lovers' Vows," in which Harry left Maria happy and expectant and Julia furious by assigning the parts of the lovers to the elder sister and to himself, made Mr. Rushworth even jealous. But this theatrical scheme, to which even Edmund had been forced to lend a reluctant co-operation--merely with a view of preventing outside actors being introduced--happily came to nothing, thanks to the unexpected arrival of Sir Thomas.