‘It is a very long way,’ said Mama.

‘Nonsense!’

The subject was discussed back and forth, but nothing was decided on by the end of the visit, and Miss Crawford promised to think of it more overnight so that we could resume the discussion tomorrow.


Saturday 16 July

The weather being fine we walked out this morning and the subject of making a party to attend the races was again raised, but the difficulties of finding enough carriages and arranging accommodation made it clear that the matter would only do to be talked of, for realizing it was beyond our reach.

Fanny was soon tired and I offered her my arm, but Crawford was too quick for me, saying that he would escort her back to the house. Maria and Julia went with them, though I believe Julia would have stayed if Maria had not made a very pointed remark about needing her, leaving Tom, Miss Crawford and me to continue our walk.

‘I begin now to understand you all, except Miss Price,’ said Miss Crawford to me, as we wandered through the shrubbery. ‘Pray, is she out, or is she not? I am puzzled. She dined at the Parsonage, with the rest of you, which seemed like being out; and yet she says so little, that I can hardly suppose she is.’

‘I believe I know what you mean, but I will not undertake to answer the question. My cousin is grown-up. She has the age and sense of a woman, but the outs and not outs are beyond me,’ I replied.

‘And yet, in general, nothing can be more easily ascertained. The distinction is so broad. Manners as well as appearance are, generally speaking, so totally different. Till now, I could not have supposed it possible to be mistaken as to a girl’s being out or not. A girl not out has always the same sort of dress: a close bonnet, for instance; looks very demure, and never says a word. You may smile, but it is so, I assure you; and except that it is sometimes carried a little too far, it is all very proper. Girls should be quiet and modest. The most objectionable part is, that the alteration of manners on being introduced into company is frequently too sudden. They sometimes pass in such very little time from reserve to quite the opposite — to confidence! That is the faulty part of the present system. One does not like to see a girl of eighteen or nineteen so immediately up to everything — and perhaps when one has seen her hardly able to speak the year before. Mr. Bertram, I dare say you have sometimes met with such changes.’

‘I believe I have, but this is hardly fair; I see what you are at. You are quizzing me about Miss Anderson,’ said Tom.

‘No, indeed. Miss Anderson! I do not know who or what you mean. I am quite in the dark. But I will quiz you with a great deal of pleasure, if you will tell me what about.’

‘Ah! you carry it off very well, but I cannot be quite so far imposed on. You must have had Miss Anderson in your eye, in describing an altered young lady. You paint too accurately for mistake. It was exactly so. The Andersons of Baker Street. We were speaking of them the other day, you know. Edmund, you have heard me mention Charles Anderson. The circumstance was precisely as this lady has represented it. When Anderson first introduced me to his family, about two years ago, his sister was not out, and I could not get her to speak to me. I sat there an hour one morning waiting for Anderson, with only her and a little girl or two in the room, the governess being sick or run away, and the mother in and out every moment with letters of business, and I could hardly get a word or a look from the young lady — nothing like a civil answer — she screwed up her mouth, and turned from me with such an air! I did not see her again for a twelvemonth. She was then out. I met her at Mrs. Holford’s, and did not recollect her. She came up to me, claimed me as an acquaintance, stared me out of countenance; and talked and laughed till I did not know which way to look. I felt that I must be the jest of the room at the time, and Miss Crawford, it is plain, has heard the story.’

‘And a very pretty story it is, and with more truth in it, I dare say, than does credit to Miss Anderson. It is too common a fault. Mothers certainly have not yet got quite the right way of managing their daughters. I do not know where the error lies. I do not pretend to set people right, but I do see that they are often wrong.’

‘Those who are showing the world what female manners should be, are doing a great deal to set them right,’ said Tom gallantly.

‘The error is plain enough, such girls are ill brought up. They are given wrong notions from the beginning. They are always acting upon motives of vanity, and there is no more real modesty in their behavior before they appear in public than afterwards,’ I said, for the business seemed clear to me.

‘I do not know, I cannot agree with you there,’ said Miss Crawford. Turning back to Tom, she said, ‘It is much worse to have girls not out give themselves the same airs and take the same liberties as if they were, which I have seen done. That is worse than anything — quite disgusting!’

‘Yes, that is very inconvenient indeed,’ agreed Tom. ‘It leads one astray; one does not know what to do. The close bonnet and demure air you describe so well (and nothing was ever juster) tell one what is expected; but I got into a dreadful scrape last year from the want of them. I went down to Rams-gate for a week with a friend...’

And he embarked on another anecdote, which entertained Miss Crawford no less than the first. I searched my memory for something light and amusing with which to entertain her, but my years spent looking after the estate had given me no such diverting moments, and I was pleased when at last the conversation returned to Fanny.

‘But now I must be satisfied about Miss Price,’ said Miss Crawford. ‘Does she go to balls? Does she dine out everywhere, as well as at my sister’s?’

‘I do not think she has ever been to a ball,’ I said.

‘Oh, then the point is clear. Miss Price is not out.’

I could not help thinking about the matter further, though, when Miss Crawford left us. Fanny is eighteen, and my sisters were both attending balls by that age, schooled in what was expected of them by Mama and my aunt. But for some reason Fanny had been overlooked. I raised the point with my aunt, who said only that she was sure Fanny had no notion of being brought out, and Mama, who said that Fanny was too young, for she was not strong and so it was unsuitable for her to be brought out as early as my sisters.

‘Besides,’ she said, ‘I need Fanny to stay with me when you all go to a ball. I could not do without Fanny.’

I think, for the time being, I will say no more, but I will not have her neglected, and once my father returns I mean to broach the subject with him. Fanny must have her share of the pleasures as well as everyone else, and as Mama will no longer be lonely when Papa returns it will then be the time for Fanny to start going into society.


Monday 18 July

Tom left for Brighton this morning. He went early, saying to me, ‘Never fear, I have promised Papa not to gamble, and I mean to keep my word. I am a reformed character!’

I gave him a look, but he only laughed, and then he was on his way. He showed no regret at leaving Miss Crawford, and as he had never once talked of abandoning his trip so that he might spend more time with her, I believe he is not serious in his feelings for her.

To my relief, Miss Crawford does not seem to be serious in her feelings for him, either. I thought she would be in low spirits at his departure, but when she and her brother called on us this afternoon she was ‘bright as the day, and like the morning, fair’.

‘And are you missing your brother?’ Miss Crawford asked Julia, as we walked out in the grounds.

‘Not in the least,’ said Julia.

‘And you, Mr. Bertram?’ she asked me. ‘How well that sounds,’ she mused, ‘for now that your brother is away, you are no longer Mr. Edmund Bertram, but Mr. Bertram. will you miss your brother?’

‘I will not have time, for he will be home again in a few weeks,’ I said.

‘Very true. I should not miss my brother if he were to go away, as he talks of doing, to look after his estate, but perhaps others here would.’

Maria said politely that of course he must be missed if he went, whereupon Crawford said that his going was by no means certain, and that as he had only himself to please, and as Mrs. Grant pressed him to stay, he believed his estate could do without him a little longer. I was pleased for Miss Crawford’s sake. She and her brother are close, and I know she enjoys his company, for all her teasing: small wonder, when she has neither mother nor father, and only a half sister in Mrs. Grant.

We soon parted company, too soon for my liking, but we are to meet again tomorrow. Miss Crawford’s person and appearance grow on me daily and I find myself thinking that any day in which I do not see her is a day ill spent.


Thursday 21 July

We were joined for dinner by Rushworth, for he had returned from visiting his friend. Maria seemed pleased to see him and introduced him proudly, which did much to allay my fears about her feelings for him, and Rushworth seemed very pleased to be with us. Before long he began talking about the improvements his friend was making to his estate.

‘I mean to improve my own place in the same way,’ he said as we went into dinner. ‘Smith’s place is the admiration of all the country; and it was a mere nothing before Repton took it in hand. I think I shall have Repton.’

‘If I were you, I would have a very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine weather,’ said Mama.