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Cinderella's Slipper

A Mansfield Park fanfiction

One shot

"I confess, I don't understand it," admitted Mr. Yates, his brow lowered.

John Yates' lack of comprehension shouldn't have been all that great of a surprise to Tom Bertram, who had been acquainted with the gentleman long enough to expect no genius nor wit, nor even a tendency to be especially quick about absorbing new information, from his former friend turned brother-in-law, and indeed, it wasn't, not particularly; but he couldn't help blowing out his cheeks in aggravation.

It seemed he would be obliged to go over the whole scheme – which he had only just explained, at no inconsiderable length – again.

There passed an awkward few seconds as Mr. Yates stood blinking his blank eyes at him, before Tom – inhaling sharply, causing one nostril to whistle – released a heaving sigh of weariness and tried once more to explain.

Mr. Yates, to his credit, appeared to be giving his full attention to the task at hand, and yet – when Tom had finished for the second time – he only blinked afresh.

"So," tried Mr. Yates, straining, "you met a stranger at the ball last night" – it had been a splendid ball, he couldn't resist recollecting, even as his present mental energy was tied up elsewhere, thrown by Sir Thomas for the occasion of Susan Price's seventeenth birthday, and he and Julia had danced almost till three in the morning – "and you've decided you want to marry her – and jolly good for you, I say! So, erm, you are going to ask Susan for the lady's address... Have I got the right of it thus far?"

"No, no, no – Yates, you blockhead – it was Susan I danced with last night."

"Then why the deuce are you going to ask her for another lady's address?" He cleared his throat and straightened to his – rather considerable – height, a touch of self-righteousness in the gesture; he was every inch The Baron. "That strikes me as pretty shoddy, and no mistake, old bean."

"I'm not asking her for anyone's address!" Tom snapped, throwing up a hand – his other arm held a small, satin object close to his ribcage. "I'm going to ask Susan Price to marry me! For pity's sake, my good man, d'you need me to paint you a portrait on canvass?"

"B-but," stammered Yates, beyond merely lost now, "did you not say you never saw your dancing partner's face? Wasn't she wearing a mask?"

"Everyone was wearing a mask, Yates – including Julia! – it was a masquerade!"

"To be sure, only – such being the case – oh, dash it; how...? That is, you told me you were going to tell Susan – and no mistake, my friend, these were your exact words – you were utterly enchanted by your mysterious masked partner last night and wanted to spend the rest of your life with her."

"That is just something I was going to say – by way of flirting with her – it does not mean I literally couldn't recognise my own cousin's face because barely a fourth of it was covered!"

"Oh, I see," said a bemused Yates, not as if he really did. "But where does the shoe come in?" And he gestured, with unconcealed bewilderment, at the object lodged within the crook of Tom's arm. "I believe the whole slipper ordeal is where you lost me."

"I'm going," said Tom, slowly, over enunciating, "to bring the slipper to Susan, and say to her that I want to marry the young lady who fits it." He withdrew the slipper and set it in the middle of his hand with a flourish. "Then I'm going to put it on her foot."

"But Susan's feet are not remarkable," noted Mr. Yates, frowning. "That shoe could fit the foot of several women in this county alone."

"I know that!" Tom pressed the base of his thumb deep into his brow. "I am not gadding about Northamptonshire trying it on every woman I come across – I'm only putting it on Susan."

"Whatever for?"

"It is meant to be romantic," groaned Tom, feeling the whole scheme quite spoiled by Yates' dull logic well before he could attempt to put it into practice.

This was painfully typical; ever since he had first realised he fancied Susan, first discovered his admiration for her went beyond that of a protector and cousin, next to nothing had gone right.

She was, at seventeen, quite a different creature from the gawking fourteen-year-old girl Fanny had brought home when she returned from Portsmouth; she had been affable and he had liked her, to be sure, but she seemed quite a child. Sometime around when she'd turned sixteen, however, she had changed; the babyish look of face became less like a sphere and more like a heart, and she began to wear her hair in a way which struck Tom as very feminine and womanly. For the better part of six months, as he came to understand his feelings, Tom had blundered endlessly about the house, the new object of his affections being a permanent fixture his mother could not do without, trying vainly to think of some manner of impressing her. She was more difficult to inspire awe in than her sister – poor Fanny, bless her, could be overcome by simply being looked at too long; but stare at Susan directly for any extended length of time, and she, for her part, only stared right back for several minutes before asking, very sweetly, what it was you'd needed.

Which wouldn't have been a problem, if only Tom had an answer to that question prepared ahead of time. He could hardly reply, "You," when such a question was put to him, even though it was the truth.

Then last night happened – she and he had shared a total of five dances. The extreme partiality was overlooked, no doubt, by most of their guests, on account of their being in the same household – they were not really so much brother and sister as to make it improper, but their being cousins, and the difference of age and rank between them, a gap rather wider than that which had been between Edmund and Fanny, made Northamptonshire gossips fairly lenient in their case – but Tom himself felt it must be affirmation of a real regard for him. He himself could not have kept it up so long as he did, and in such high spirits, if he had not been in love.

This morning, waking as one still dreaming, he'd invented a brilliant scheme for asking her to be his wife. He planned to take her slipper into the drawing-room, when his mother inevitably fell into a doze, and make a grand production of being smitten with his former dancing partner. He imagined Susan's smile at such a gesture and convinced himself she would be so charmed she must surely say yes.

He didn't know what he should do if she said no – it would be dashed unpleasant for them both, given they were both needed here at Mansfield and should never be spared and granted leave to be out of the range of the other.

He had quite convinced himself she must say yes, there was no chance of it going otherwise, but Yates' dithering was dimming his certainty.

Although he had not been at home when Henry Crawford – a fellow he still preferred not to recollect, if it could be helped, as the despoiler of his eldest and, once upon a time, favourite sister – proposed to Fanny, he'd certainly heard enough of the story, been told enough about how badly it had gone, to know if Susan proved to be as insensible to his feelings as Fanny had been to Mr. Crawford's, he would long to simply curl in a corner somewhere in this vast house and be left, mercifully, to die of mortification. He had not Mr. Crawford's dogged belief every female he happened to like was his for the asking; being aware he was handsome as well as rich (and that was one more point in his favour than Crawford had had with Fanny) was not quite enough to buoy him up out of his sinking fears of rejection.

"Did she...?" Yates pursed his lips. "Did she lose the shoe?"

This snapped Tom back to the present moment. "I beg your pardon?"

"The shoe – did she lose it at the ball last night?"

"Oh. Right." Tom coloured slightly. "No, not precisely – and, you know, if she had, I daresay she would have simply come downstairs to fetch it. Hem. No, indeed."

"Then how did you end up with it?"

"I took it from her room – this time of year, it's the little white attic, you know, where Fanny used to sleep – while she breakfasted." Tom was far prouder of this fact than he probably should have been. "Jolly clever, wasn't it?"

"I didn't know the current fashion in romantic gestures was to steal a lady's personal belonging and walk brazenly into the drawing-room with the pilfered item in hand a few hours later." From anyone else, this would have been unmistakable sarcasm; Mr. Yates, though, was perfectly earnest. Tom was expecting, quite soon, a visit from a very cross Julia demanding to know why he'd told her husband stealing her shoes and then giving them back loudly and in front of company was romantic and that women liked 'all that sort of thing'.

Digging his thumbnail against the front of Susan's shoe, Tom was beginning to wish he'd described his plan to Edmund instead – true, Edmund would most likely have told him he was out of his senses and talked him into quietly putting the shoe back in the attic room before Susan realised she was shy a dancing slipper, but he would at least have understood what Tom was aiming at in all this.

Suddenly there was a resounding plink and a glittering object, breaking off from the shoe, went flying across the billiard-room; the shoe rose, previously attached to the front of the shoe, fell soundlessly to the carpet.

Tom let out an oath and was, in the following few seconds, down upon his hands and knees, crawling across the length of the room and of the carpet, groping uselessly, trying to gather up the lost clip and the dropped shoe rose.

"For mercy's sake, Yates, help me find the dashed thing!"

After they recovered the clip and the rose, neither gentleman knew anything about how one fastened it back into place – both Yates and Tom sat stupefied on the carpet, legs sprawled and jaws slack, trying to work it out as if it were the most advanced of oriental puzzle-boxes.

This ordeal was only made worse by Lady Bertram's pug coming, yapping its head off, into the room, and charging straight for Susan's slipper. She gripped the shoe in her mouth, sinking her teeth deep into the delicate satin, and shook as if she were killing a rat.

The shoe rose was safe – seeing the danger, Yates had tucked it along with the gold clip into his breast pocket while Tom tackled the dog and tried to recover what was left of the slipper – but the shoe itself was a lost cause.

Susan Price was gently taking the fallen embroidery hoop from her aunt's slackened hands when, to her great astonishment, Tom entered the drawing-room, dishevelled and holding out – for her inspection, it would seem – what looked, perhaps, like one of her own satin dancing slippers from last night, if a burglar had stolen her shoe rose and gold clip (both birthday gifts from her uncle) off it and then let a litter of Pointer bitches play with the pitiful remains afterwards...

He stammered out something long-winded about wanting to spend the rest of his life with her – and masks – and dashed Pug spoiling everything – and stupid Mr. Yates – and the sorry state of romance these days – and Mr. Crawford and Fanny – and masks not concealing faces – and how he ardently wished himself dead and buried, and fancied he should never be able to enter the vile billiard-room again without blushing for shame; they should have to brick up the entrance, he supposed – and was, gone scarlet from chin to hairline, entirely on the point of quitting the room, prepared to leave her with the damaged shoe in her hand and a look of wonderment upon her face and flee, when, Susan, giving him chase, snagged his arm.

"Mr. Bertram," she whispered, both from trying not to laugh and trying not to wake her sleeping aunt, "am I right in surmising you are making me an offer of marriage?"

He nodded sheepishly, inordinately glad she at least was quicker on the uptake, however garbled his speech and gesture had gotten, how far from his original plan it had all strayed, than Mr. Yates.

Her hand slid down his arm and she entwined her fingers with his. "Very well" – she grinned up at him – "I accept."

Finis