Lord Eastwind continued looking at her, and this time Henry Crawford noticed. He, like his sister (and indeed like Mrs. Norris and all others of the different flavors of the unholy and cursed and dark persuasion currently residing in Mansfield Park), had no trouble being aware of Lord Eastwind’s presence.

William had long since forgotten and looked away in a daze, after answering Eastwind’s direct address. But Henry was sharply aware. And suddenly he was intrigued and alarmed by the undercurrent he sensed.

Here before him was a potential serious rival. . . .

While the general conversation continued alongside naval subjects, Henry Crawford slipped into a daydream. Spurred on by the sudden awareness of another possible subject of Fanny’s affections (oh, little did he know of the true subject, Edmund!), energized and primed into competition even more than ever, he longed to have been at sea, and seen and done and suffered as much as William. For surely, William was more precious to Fanny that Lord Easwind ever could be!

Henry’s heart was warmed, his fancy fired, and he felt the highest respect for a lad who, before he was twenty, had gone through such bodily hardships. The glory of heroism, of usefulness, of exertion, of endurance, made his own habits of selfish indulgence appear in shameful contrast. He wished he had been a William Price, distinguishing himself and working his way to fortune and consequence with so much self-respect and happy ardour, instead of what he was! A William Price—or his heroic equivalent—he thought, alone stood a chance in Fanny’s romantic affections.

The wish was rather eager than lasting. He was roused from the reverie of retrospection and regret produced by it, by some inquiry from Edmund as to his plans for the next day’s hunting. And he found it was as well to be a man of fortune at once with horses and grooms at his command.

In one respect it was better, as it gave him the means of conferring a kindness where he wished to oblige. William expressed an inclination to hunt. And Crawford could mount him[20] without the slightest inconvenience to himself, and with only some scruples to obviate in Sir Thomas, who knew better than his nephew the value of such a loan, and some alarms to reason away in Fanny. She feared for William; by no means convinced of his own horsemanship in various countries—the rough mounts he had ridden, or his many narrow escapes from dreadful falls—that he was at all equal to the management of a high-fed hunter in an English fox-chase. Not till he returned safe without accident, could she be reconciled to the risk, or feel any of that obligation to Mr. Crawford for lending the horse to William.

Then only could she allow it to be a kindness, and even reward the owner with a smile.

Chapter XXV