Lady Bertram told her niece in the evening to write to her soon and often. And Edmund, at a convenient moment, added in a whisper, “And I shall write to you, Fanny, when I have anything worth writing about, anything to say that I think you will like to hear, and that you will not hear so soon from any other quarter.” Had she doubted his meaning while she listened, the glow in his face, when she looked up at him, would have been decisive.

Once more it struck her directly in the heart.

For this letter she must try to arm herself. That a letter from Edmund should be a subject of terror!

Poor Fanny! Though she was going willingly and eagerly, the last evening at Mansfield Park was still wretchedness. She was completely sad at parting, had tears for every room in the house, and more for every beloved inhabitant. She clung to her aunt, because she would miss her; she kissed the hand of her uncle with struggling sobs, because she had displeased him. And as for Edmund, she could neither speak, look, nor think, when the last moment came with him.

And it was not till it was over that she knew he was giving her the affectionate farewell of a brother.

All this passed overnight, for the journey was to begin very early in the morning. When the small, diminished party met at breakfast, William and Fanny were talked of as already gone.

Chapter XXXVIII

The novelty of travelling, and the happiness of being with William, soon produced their natural effect on Fanny’s spirits. When Mansfield Park was far behind and they were to quit Sir Thomas’s carriage, she was able to take leave of the old coachman, and send back proper messages, with cheerful looks.

There was no end of pleasant talk between the brother and sister. Everything supplied an amusement to the high glee of William’s mind. He was full of frolic and joke in the intervals of their higher-toned subjects, all of which ended in praise of the Thrush, conjectures how she would be employed, schemes for military action which was to give himself the next promotion, and speculations upon prize-money: to be generously distributed at home (with only enough set aside for a little comfortable cottage, in which he and Fanny were to pass all the rest of their life together).

William also remembered with extreme delight Fanny’s debut and that ball. “Say, whatever happened to those strange mummified things, Fanny?” he exclaimed. “Did we vanquish them or what? My hand had gotten sore from hacking with the sword and yet they would come! Upon my word, it was a marvel—Sir Thomas, with his wig askew! Lady Bertram all a soggy mess! Those stuffy lords and ladies in their finery, slipping in heaps on the dance floor! And oh! the monkeys, crazy monkeys! Ah! And Baddeley with his musket—”