showed rather conscious superiority than any solicitude to oblige him, the mention of Sotherton Court, and the ideas attached to it, gave her a feeling of complacency, which prevented her from being very ungracious.
‘I wish you could see Compton,’ said he, ‘it is the most complete thing! I never saw a place so altered in my life. I told Smith I did not know where I was. The approach, now, is one of the finest things in the country: you see the house in the most surprising manner. I declare, when I got back to Sotherton yesterday, it looked like a prison—quite a dismal old prison.’
‘Oh, for shame!’ cried Mrs Norris. ‘A prison, indeed? Sotherton Court is the noblest old place in the world.’
‘It wants improvement, ma’am, beyond anything. I never saw a place that wanted so much improvement in my life: and it is so forlorn, that I do not know what can be done with it.’
‘No wonder that Mr Rushworth should think so at present,’ said Mrs Grant to Mrs Norris, with a smile; ‘but depend upon it, Sotherton will have every improvement in time which his heart can desire.’
‘I must try to do something with it,’ said Mr Rushworth, ‘but I do not know what. I hope I shall have some good friend to help me.’
‘Your best friend upon such an occasion,’ said Miss Bertram calmly, ‘would be Mr Repton, I imagine.’
‘That is what I was thinking of. As he has done so well by Smith, I think I had better have him at once. His terms are five guineas a day.’
‘Well, and if they were ten,’ cried Mrs Norris, ‘I am sure you need not regard it. The expense need not be any impediment. If I were you, I should not think of the expense. I would have everything done in the best style, and made as nice as possible. Such a place as Sotherton Court deserves everything that taste and money can do. You have space to work upon there, and grounds that will well reward you. For my own part, if I had anything within the fiftieth part of the size of Sotherton, I should be always planting and improving, for, naturally, I am excessively fond of it. It would be too ridiculous for me to attempt anything where I am now, with my little half acre. It would be quite a burlesque. But if I had more room, I should take a prodigious delight in improving and planting. We did a vast deal in that way at the Parsonage: we made it quite a different place from what it was when we first had it. You young ones do not remember much about it, perhaps; but if dear Sir Thomas were here, he could tell you what improvements we made: and a great deal more would have been done, but for poor Mr Norris’s sad state of health. He could hardly ever get out, poor man, to enjoy anything, and that disheartened me from doing several things that Sir Thomas and I used to talk of. If it had not been for that, we should have carried on the garden wall, and made the plantation to shut out the churchyard, just as Dr Grant has done. We were always doing something as it was. It was only the spring twelvemonth before Mr Norris’s death, that we put in the apricot against the stable wall, which is now grown such a noble tree, and getting to such perfection, sir,’ addressing herself then to Dr Grant.
‘The tree thrives well, beyond a doubt, madam,’ replied Dr Grant. ‘The soil is good; and I never pass it without regretting that the fruit should be so little worth the trouble of gathering.’
‘Sir, it is a Moor Park, we bought it as a Moor Park, and it cost us—that is, it was a present from Sir Thomas, but I saw the bill—and I know it cost seven shillings, and was charged as a Moor Park.’
‘You were imposed on, ma’am,’ replied Dr Grant: ‘these potatoes have as much the flavour of a Moor Park apricot as the fruit from that tree. It is an insipid fruit at the best; but a good apricot is eatable, which none from my garden are.’
‘The truth is, ma’am,’ said Mrs Grant, pretending to whisper across the table to Mrs Norris, ‘that Dr Grant hardly knows what the natural taste of our apricot is: he is scarcely ever indulged with one, for it is so valuable a fruit; with a little assistance, and ours is such a remarkably large, fair sort, that what with early tarts and preserves, my cook contrives to get them all.’
Mrs Norris, who had begun to redden, was appeased; and, for a little while, other subjects took place of the improvements of Sotherton. Dr Grant and Mrs Norris were seldom good friends; their acquaintance had begun in dilapidations, and their habits were totally dissimilar.
After a short interruption, Mr Rushworth began again. ‘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.’
‘Mr Rushworth,’ said Lady Bertram, ‘if I were you, I would have a very pretty shrubbery. One likes to get out into a shrubbery in fine weather.’
Mr Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of his acquiescence, and tried to make out something complimentary; but, between his submission to her taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies in general, and of insinuating that there was one only whom he was anxious to please, he grew puzzled, and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine. Mr Rushworth, however, though not usually a great talker, had still more to say on the subject next his heart. ‘Smith has not much above a hundred acres altogether, in his grounds, which is little enough, and makes it more surprising that the place can have been so improved. Now, at Sotherton, we have a good seven hundred, without reckoning the water meadows; so that I think, if so much could be done at Compton, we need not despair. There have been two or three fine old trees cut down, that grew too near the house, and it opens the prospect amazingly, which makes me think that Repton, or anybody of that sort, would certainly have the avenue at Sotherton down; the avenue that leads from the west front to the top of the hill, you know,’ turning to Miss Bertram particularly as he spoke. But Miss Bertram thought it most becoming to reply—
‘The avenue! Oh! I do not recollect it. I really know very little of Sotherton.’
Fanny, who was sitting on the other side of Edmund, exactly opposite Miss Crawford, and who had been attentively listening, now looked at him, and said, in a low voice—
‘Cut down an avenue! What a pity! Does it not make you think of Cowper? “Ye fallen avenues, once more I mourn your fate unmerited.”’
He smiled as he answered, ‘I am afraid the avenue stands a bad chance, Fanny.’
‘I should like to see Sotherton before it is cut down, to see the place as it is now, in its old state; but I do not suppose I shall.’
‘Have you never been there? No, you never can; and, unluckily, it is out of distance for a ride. I wish we could contrive it.’
‘Oh! it does not signify. Whenever I do see it, you will tell me how it has been altered.’
‘I collect,’ said Miss Crawford, ‘that Sotherton is an old place, and a place of some grandeur. In any particular style of building?’
‘The house was built in Elizabeth’s time, and is a large, regular, brick building; heavy, but respectable looking, and has many good rooms. It is ill placed. It stands in one of the lowest spots of the park; in that respect, unfavourable for improvement. But the woods are fine, and there is a stream, which, I dare say, might be made a good deal of. Mr Rushworth is quite right, I think, in meaning to give it a modern dress, and I have no doubt that it will be all done extremely well.’
Miss Crawford listened with submission, and said to herself, ‘He is a well-bred man; he makes the best of it.’
‘I do not wish to influence Mr Rushworth,’
