Mansfield Park Revisited Read Online Free Page A

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    â€œMay I ask, cousin, by what means the tale came to your ears? I was not aware that it had been generally bruited abroad. And I feel most strongly that the less said about this matter, the better.”
    â€œWho could argue with that?” replied Susan calmly. “I can assure you, cousin, that I have not the least intention of bruiting the news abroad. It is indeed of no personal interest to me, never having met my cousin Maria. I merely wished to consult you and Edmund as to whether you think it best that your mother be kept in the dark about it—with the consequent risk that some gossip-loving neighbour who has read a paragraph in the newspaper may come out with a remark or inquiry, under the assumption that Lady Bertram has been fully informed of the matter.”
    â€œThe decision is a difficult one,” replied Edmund, after some deliberation, and seeing that Tom remained silent. “What do you think, Tom? Is it your opinion that our mother would be greatly distressed at having the past reopened? May not these tidings of Maria recall to Mamma the fact that at the time of my sister’s disgrace our father was still living, and so aggravate the wound and increase her grief at our present loss?”
    Tom looked serious.
    â€œOur mother has received the news of his death with considerable fortitude,” said he after a pause.
    Susan reflected that for fortitude might almost be substituted the word insensibility. Already accustomed, after a four-months’ absence from home, to the lack of her husband’s daily appearance at the head of the table, or at the tea-board in the evening, Lady Bertram seemed hardly yet to have assimilated the nevermore comprised in the tidings of his death; she sighed at times and said, “How we need Sir Thomas,” but without any stronger conviction in her voice than if he had merely departed on a somewhat longer voyage than had been anticipated.
    â€œPerhaps we should ask Julia’s opinion,” Tom went on.
    â€œI do not believe.” said Edmund impatiently, “that my sister Julia has a deeper insight, a minuter or juster knowledge of my mother’s state of mind than anybody here present. What do you think yourself, Susan?”
    â€œI should be in favour of telling her the whole,” replied Susan without hesitation. “In that way, the moment of revelation can be chosen with due care and discretion, at a time when my aunt is in calm spirits and not beset by anxieties, when she will have ample leisure for reflection, and can, if she needs, comfort herself by directing her thoughts to other subjects. If that is done, it need not be too much of a shock to her.”
    â€œUpon reflection, I believe you are right,” said Edmund. “My mother’s mind works slowly; it will be best that she should have a period of time in privacy, or with one of the close family circle to advise and talk over the matter; yes, I believe that she should be informed, at a judiciously chosen moment. What do you say, Tom?”
    â€œWhat I should like to know,” said Tom, without answering his brother’s question, “what I should like to know is how Susan ever came by this information?”
    â€œWhy, how do you think? Fanny told me just now when I was helping her pack up her things,” cried out Susan hastily, as if she could hardly believe that he had not the wit to work out such a simple solution for himself. “How in the world else should you imagine I might have heard it, Cousin Tom? By carrier pigeon?”
    On her first arrival at Mansfield, Susan had been much given to such little quicknesses and broadnesses of utterance, freedoms of speech to which she had been accustomed at home in Portsmouth, among her brothers. Awe at the splendour of her new surroundings, and a quick ear, had soon assisted her to a greater elegance and propriety of diction, modelled on the soft, clear gentle speech of her elder sister