Mrs. Rushworth had gone, for the Easter holidays, to Twickenham, with a family whom she had just grown intimate with: a family of lively, agreeable manners, and probably of morals and discretion to suit, for to their house Mr. Crawford had constant access at all times. His having been in the same neighbourhood Fanny already knew. Mr. Rushworth had been gone at this time to Bath, to pass a few days with his mother (and to spend the dangerous time of the full moon away from his spouse who had as yet remained remarkably unbitten—but whose non-lupine days were surely numbered), and bring her back to town. And Maria was with these friends without any restraint, without even Julia; for Julia had removed from Wimpole Street two or three weeks before, on a visit to some relations of Sir Thomas—a removal which her father and mother were now disposed to attribute to some view of convenience on Mr. Yates’s account. Very soon after the Rushworths’ return to Wimpole Street, Sir Thomas had received a letter from an old and most particular friend in London, who hearing and witnessing a good deal to alarm him in that quarter, wrote to recommend Sir Thomas’s coming to London himself, and using his influence with his daughter to put an end to the intimacy which was already exposing her to unpleasant remarks, and evidently making Mr. Rushworth uneasy and somewhat dangerous to be in company with.

Sir Thomas was preparing to act upon this letter (without communicating its contents to any creature at Mansfield), when it was followed by another, sent express from the same friend, to break to him the almost desperate situation in which affairs then stood with the young people. Mrs. Rushworth had left her husband’s house: Mr. Rushworth had been in great anger and distress to him (Mr. Harding) for his advice; Mr. Harding feared not only for his personal safety, but feared there had been at least very flagrant indiscretion. The maidservant of Mrs. Rushworth, senior, threatened to go public, alarmingly. He was doing all in his power to quiet everything, with the hope of Mrs. Rushworth’s return, but was so much counteracted in Wimpole Street by the influence of Mr. Rushworth’s mother, that the worst consequences might be apprehended. In addition (Mr. Harding mentioned discreetly), Mr. Rushworth was said to get into such a state that a cage had to be brought around, and he was thus confined for several days while his howls and roars were heard for blocks beyond the premises. . . .