Easter came particularly late this year, as Fanny had most sorrowfully considered, on first learning that she had no chance of leaving Portsmouth till after it.
It came, and she had yet heard nothing of her return - nothing even of the going to London, which was to precede her return.
Her aunt often expressed a wish for her, but there was no notice, no message from the uncle on whom all depended.
She supposed he could not yet leave his son, but it was a cruel, a terrible delay to her.
The end of April was coming on; it would soon be almost three months, instead of two, that she had been absent from them all, and that her days had been passing in a state of penance, which she loved them too well to hope they would thoroughly understand; and who could yet say when there might be leisure to think of or fetch her?
Her eagerness, her impatience, her longings to be with them, were such as to bring a line or two of Cowper's Tirocinium for ever before her.
"With what intense desire she wants her home," was continually on her tongue, as the truest description of a yearning which she could not suppose any schoolboy's bosom to feel more keenly.
When she had been coming to Portsmouth, she had loved to call it her home, had been fond of saying that she was going home; the word had been very dear to her, and so it still was, but it must be applied to Mansfield.
That was now the home.
Portsmouth was Portsmouth; Mansfield was home.
They had been long so arranged in the indulgence of her secret meditations, and nothing was more consolatory to her than to find her aunt using the same language:
"I cannot but say I much regret your being from home at this distressing time, so very trying to my spirits.
I trust and hope, and sincerely wish you may never be absent from home so long again," were most delightful sentences to her.
Still, however, it was her private regale.
Delicacy to her parents made her careful not to betray such a preference of her uncle's house. It was always: "When I go back into Northamptonshire, or when I return to Mansfield, I shall do so and so."
For a great while it was so, but at last the longing grew stronger, it overthrew caution, and she found herself talking of what she should do when she went home before she was aware.
She reproached herself, coloured, and looked fearfully towards her father and mother.
She need not have been uneasy.
There was no sign of displeasure, or even of hearing her.
They were perfectly free from any jealousy of Mansfield.
She was as welcome to wish herself there as to be there.
It was sad to Fanny to lose all the pleasures of spring.
She had not known before what pleasures she had to lose in passing March and April in a town.
She had not known before how much the beginnings and progress of vegetation had delighted her.
What animation, both of body and mind, she had derived from watching the advance of that season which cannot, in spite of its capriciousness, be unlovely, and seeing its increasing beauties from the earliest flowers in the warmest divisions of her aunt's garden, to the opening of leaves of her uncle's plantations, and the glory of his woods.
To be losing such pleasures was no trifle; to be losing them, because she was in the midst of closeness and noise, to have confinement, bad air, bad smells, substituted for liberty, freshness, fragrance, and verdure, was infinitely worse: but even these incitements to regret were feeble, compared with what arose from the conviction of being missed by her best friends, and the longing to be useful to those who were wanting her!
Could she have been at home, she might have been of service to every creature in the house.
She felt that she must have been of use to all.
To all she must have saved some trouble of head or hand; and were it only in supporting the spirits of her aunt Bertram, keeping her from the evil of solitude, or the still greater evil of a restless, officious companion, too apt to be heightening danger in order to enhance her own importance, her being there would have been a general good.
She loved to fancy how she could have read to her aunt, how she could have talked to her, and tried at once to make her feel the blessing of what was, and prepare her mind for what might be; and how many walks up and down stairs she might have saved her, and how many messages she might have carried.
It astonished her that Tom's sisters could be satisfied with remaining in London at such a time, through an illness which had now, under different degrees of danger, lasted several weeks.
They might return to Mansfield when they chose; travelling could be no difficulty to them, and she could not comprehend how both could still keep away.
If Mrs. Rushworth could imagine any interfering obligations, Julia was certainly able to quit London whenever she chose.
It appeared from one of her aunt's letters that Julia had offered to return if wanted, but this was all.
It was evident that she would rather remain where she was.
Fanny was disposed to think the influence of London very much at war with all respectable attachments.
She saw the proof of it in Miss Crawford, as well as in her cousins; her attachment to Edmund had been respectable, the most respectable part of her character; her friendship for herself had at least been blameless.
Where was either sentiment now?
It was so long since Fanny had had any letter from her, that she had some reason to think lightly of the friendship which had been so dwelt on.
It was weeks since she had heard anything of Miss Crawford or of her other connexions in town, except through Mansfield, and she was beginning to suppose that she might never know whether Mr. Crawford had gone into Norfolk again or not till they met, and might never hear from his sister any more this spring, when the following letter was received to revive old and create some new sensations -
"Forgive me, my dear Fanny, as soon as you can, for my long silence, and behave as if you could forgive me directly.
This is my modest request and expectation, for you are so good, that I depend upon being treated better than I deserve, and I write now to beg an immediate answer.
I want to know the state of things at Mansfield Park, and you, no doubt, are perfectly able to give it.
One should be a brute not to feel for the distress they are in; and from what I hear, poor Mr. Bertram has a bad chance of ultimate recovery.
I thought little of his illness at first.
I looked upon him as the sort of person to be made a fuss with, and to make a fuss himself in any trifling disorder, and was chiefly concerned for those who had to nurse him; but now it is confidently asserted that he is really in a decline, that the symptoms are most alarming, and that part of the family, at least, are aware of it.
If it be so, I am sure you must be included in that part, that discerning part, and therefore entreat you to let me know how far I have been rightly informed.
I need not say how rejoiced I shall be to hear there has been any mistake, but the report is so prevalent that I confess I cannot help trembling.
To have such a fine young man cut off in the flower of his days is most melancholy.
Poor Sir Thomas will feel it dreadfully.