They were all very seriously frightened. Lady Bertram wrote her daily terrors to her niece, who might now be said to live upon letters, and pass all her time between suffering from that of to-day and looking forward to to-morrow’s. Without any particular affection for her eldest cousin, Fanny’s tenderness of heart made her feel that she could not spare him, and the purity of her principles added yet a keener solicitude. She considered how little useful, how little self-denying his life had been.

Susan was her only companion and listener in this—always ready to hear and sympathise. Nobody else could be interested in so remote an evil as illness in relations many miles away. Seeing her daughter with a letter, Mrs. Price might ask a brief question, followed by the quiet observation of, “My poor sister Bertram must be in a great deal of trouble.”

So long divided and so differently situated, the ties of blood were little more than nothing. An attachment, originally as tranquil as their tempers, was now become a mere name. Mrs. Price did quite as much for Lady Bertram as Lady Bertram would have done for Mrs. Price.

Three or four Prices might have been swept away in the oceans, consumed by mummies, or by the likes of a Mr. Rushworth at the height of a full moon—any or all except Fanny and William, that is—and Lady Bertram would have thought little about it.

Or, perhaps she might have caught from Mrs. Norris’s lips the cant of its being a very happy thing—a great blessing to their poor dear sister Price to have them so well provided for.

Chapter XLV

About a week after his return to Mansfield, Tom’s immediate danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother perfectly easy. Being now used to the sight of him in his suffering, helpless state, and hearing only the best, and never thinking beyond what she heard, with no disposition for alarm and no aptitude at a hint, Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical imposition.

The fever was subdued; the fever had been his complaint; of course he would soon be well again. Lady Bertram could think nothing less, and Fanny shared her aunt’s security, till she received a few frightening lines from Edmund, written purposely to give her a clearer idea of his brother’s situation, and acquaint her with the apprehensions which he and his father had imbibed from the physician with respect to some strong hectic symptoms, which seemed to seize the frame on the departure of the fever. They judged it best that Lady Bertram should not be alarmed; worries would hopefully prove unfounded. But there was no reason why Fanny should not know the truth. They were apprehensive for his lungs.