Edmund Bertram's Diary

‘As good a chance as anyone else. I have an excellent mount, Imperial Caesar. You have never seen such an animal. Langley is lending him to me.’

‘Have you seen him race before?’

‘No, but Langley assures me the animal is a winner.’

‘And is Langley betting on him or against him?’

‘Stop worrying, little brother!’ he said with a laugh.

He tried to tempt me to go with him, but I refused, and after arguing the matter back and forth for some time, at last he accepted defeat.

‘If you change your mind, you know where I am. I will be here until Saturday,’ he said. ‘After that, I will not be in town for several weeks.’

When I returned, I found an invitation from the Frasers waiting for me, asking me to dine on Friday. So on Friday I will see Mary, and discover if I am to be made happy.

MARCH

Friday 3 March

And so it has been and gone, the best and worst evening of my life. I took a hackney cab to the Frasers’ house and entered it full of apprehension and hope, for although there had been no mistaking Mary’s indulgence the last time I had seen her, I was afraid that in London, with her fashionable friends around her, her feelings might have changed. My eyes ran round the room and when they alighted on her I thought she had never looked more lovely. She was flushed from conversation, and her eyes were bright. Her dress was the whitest silk, and her skin was glowing in the candlelight. I could scarcely wait to greet her, and made my way across the room to where she stood with her friend. She looked up; my heart leapt; I joined her; but as soon as I began to speak to her I felt a sense of foreboding.

‘You were not at your sister’s party,’ she said to me, when we had greeted each other, and though there was something playful in her manner, there was also something accusing there.

‘No.’

‘You were converting some poor old woman in Thornton Lacey, no doubt?’ she asked me in a derisory tone of voice.

Mrs. Fraser positively crowed. ‘See how he avoids the question! It was a young woman, I have no doubt.’

Mary’s lips set in a tight line. She did not seem pleased, and I was no more pleased at the notion that she real y believed me capable of making love to another woman in her absence, as Mrs. Fraser’s remark implied.

‘I was with my brother,’ I said.

Mrs. Fraser gave her a knowing look, and I could see she did not believe me.

‘It is a pity you missed the party, whatever the reason,’ said Mary, ‘for then you would have seen Maria in all her glory, showing us all round the house like a woman who has got her penny’s worth and knows it. It is a wonderful house, is it not, Catherine?’

‘It is indeed,’ assented Mrs. Fraser. ‘It is the best house in Wimpole Street. If Fraser would only apply himself more, we might have a house like that ourselves.’

Fraser, standing at his wife’s elbow, ignored this remark, and escaped into his wine.

‘Have you ever been in the house, Mr. Bertram?’ Mary asked me, playing with her wineglass and turning glittering eyes on me.

‘No, I have not.’

‘I was in it two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle’s, and prefer it to almost any I know in London.’

‘Lady Lascelle made a good marriage. She has moved on to even better things,’ said Mrs. Fraser, in an aggrieved tone of voice. ‘But then, Lascelle knows how to rise in the world. He has ambition.’

‘Ambition! That is what a man needs above all things. Do you not agree, Mr. Bertram?’ asked Mary.

The evening got no better. Every word was a barb. If not for the fact that I was sure she was being led astray by Mrs. Fraser and her sister I would have left the house there and then. But I knew Mary was capable of better things. Her worldliness had dominated her worthier feelings in her early days at Mansfield Park, but since Christmas her more natural feelings had been in evidence. I knew she was not real y the cold, calculating creature I was seeing before me; her true nature was warm and tender and kindhearted. Her generosity to Fanny, her warmth to me, all told their own tale. And so I swallowed her insults and hoped for better things once her friend had left us.

‘And how do you like Mrs. Fraser’s house?’ she asked me, when Mrs. Fraser had moved on.

‘Do you approve?’

‘It is very elegant,’ I said, ‘but very cold.’

‘Then you do not approve.’

‘No, I do not.’

‘A pity. I like it here.’

‘You like the people?’

‘Yes, I do. Do you not?’

I looked around. They were dressed in the finest clothes and wore the finest jewels, but their glitter was allon the surface.

‘I do not believe there is one single happy person here,’ I said. ‘This is not the place for you.’

‘Do you want to save me, Mr. Bertram?’ she asked me in a droll voice. I replied to her seriously, ‘Yes, I do.’

‘But I am not one of your parishioners.’

‘I rather hoped you were more than that.’

‘Did you?’

‘Ah, my dear Mary,’ broke in a voice.