Edmund Bertram's Diary

There was a change of plan this morning, for Mrs. Grant offered to stay behind with Mama, and so I am to go with the others to Sotherton. I could not help my spirits rising at the thought of spending a day with Miss Crawford.

Wednesday 10 August

It was a perfect morning for our journey to Sotherton. Crawford arrived early with his sisters and Mrs. Grant alighted from the carriage, saying, ‘As there are five of you, it will be better that one should sit with Henry, and as you were saying lately, that you wished you could drive, Julia, I think this will be a good opportunity for you to take a lesson.’

Julia mounted the box and sat next to Crawford whilst Maria took her seat within. Fanny and Miss Crawford joined her and I mounted my horse. Mrs. Grant and Mama waved us of, with Pug barking in Mama’s arms, and we were away.

As I rode behind the barouche I could not help but observe Fanny, and take satisfaction from her expression, which spoke of her delight at everything she saw. The road to Sotherton was new to her and her face lit up at each new view. The landscape was pretty with the harvest and there was plenty to see, with the cottages, the cattle and the children all adding to the color.

‘These woods belong to Sotherton,’ said Maria as we reached Rushworth land, and she was rewarded by a look of admiration from Fanny, for indeed, the woods were majestic, and in the heat of the day they delighted us not only with their grandeur but with their ability to provide us with welcome shade. ‘I believe it is all now Mr. Rushworth’s property, on either side of the road.’

The mansion soon came in view. Miss Crawford looked curious, Fanny interested, and Maria proud, and small wonder, for it is a fine property. Julia paid it no heed, for she was attending to Crawford, and he was equal y absorbed in teaching her.

We arrived at last and found Rushworth at the door to receive us. Maria blossomed under his attentions, and the attentions of his mother, and she pointed out all the attractions of the house to Mary Crawford with the consciousness of a young woman who would soon be calling it home.

‘This is very elegant,’ said Miss Crawford as we went into the dining-parlor, where a collation was laid out.

‘It is one of the newer additions to the house,’ said Mrs. Rushworth. She was an attentive hostess and, as we ate, Rushworth returned to the subject of the improvements to the estate. He proposed driving Crawford round it in his curricle when he should have finished his repast, the better to give his opinion.

‘But that would be to deprive ourselves of other eyes and other judgments. Would it not be better to find some carriage that could accommodate us all?’ Crawford asked. The point was still being discussed by the time we finished our repast, and the matter was delayed by Mrs. Rushworth offering to show us around the house before we set out. Fanny was fascinated by the furniture and the rugs; the marble and the damask; and the family portraits which lined the wall s. Miss Crawford, though, was restless, and confided in me that she had seen many such houses.

We went into the chapel, and here Fanny was disappointed.

‘This is not my idea of a chapel. There is nothing awful here, nothing melancholy, nothing grand, no fleur-de-lys, or quatre-geuille, or garlands.’

‘You have been influenced too much by Scott. This is no Melrose Abbey,’ I said with a smile, for Fanny’s reading had prepared her for something far more Gothic.

‘Perhaps I have,’ she returned, and I knew that, in her imagination, she was seeing the Abbey Scott had described, in the eerie light of moonlight. She began to murmur:

‘The darken’d roof rose high aloof

On pillars lofty and light and small;

The key-stone, that lock’d each ribbed aisle,

Was a fleur-de-lys, or a quatre-geuille,

The corbel s were carved grotesque and grim;

And the pillars, with cluster’d shafts so trim,

With base and with capital flourish’d around,

Seem’d bundles of lances which garlands had bound.’

I continued:

‘Full many a scutcheon and banner riven,

Shook to the cold night-wind of heaven,

Around the screenëd altar’s pale;

And there the dying lamps did burn,

Before thy low and lonely urn,

O gallant Chief of Otterburne.’

‘But here are no pillars, no lamps, no inscriptions,’ she said, disappointed.

‘You forget, Fanny, how lately all this has been built, and for how confined a purpose, compared with the old chapels of castles and monasteries. It was only for the private use of the family. They have been buried, I suppose, in the parish church. There you must look for the banners and the achievements.’

‘It was foolish of me not to think of all that; but I am disappointed all the same. I hoped to find banners being blown by the night wind of heaven. Or even,’ she added with a smile, ‘rustling with the current of air, foretelling woe and destruction.’

‘Now that I know,’ said Miss Crawford. ‘It is from Charlotte Smith’s The Old Manor House.’

‘You have read it?’ I asked.