Chapter VI: Part 6

An application for information which she made to her Aunt Gardiner confirmed this suspicion. Darcy, it seems, had hurried up to London immediately on hearing of the elopement; and he it was who, thanks to his knowledge of Wickham's previous history, found out where Lydia and he were lodging, and by dint of paying his debts to the tune of a thousand pounds, buying his commission, and settling another thousand pounds on Lydia, persuaded him to make her an honest woman. That is to say, thought Elizabeth, Darcy had met, frequently met, reasoned with, persuaded, and finally bribed the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. Meantime, Bingley, accompanied by Darcy, made his reappearance at Netherfield Park and at the Bennets'; and Elizabeth had the mortification of seeing her mother welcome the former with the greatest effusiveness, and treat the latter coldly and almost resentfully. "Any friend of Mr. Bingley's will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him," said Mrs. Bennet, as she watched the two men approaching the house to pay their first visit.

Despite, however, rather than by reason of, this surfeit of amiability on the part of the mother, the lovers quickly came to an understanding, and this, strangely enough, in the absence of Darcy, who had gone up to town. It was in Darcy's absence, also, that Lady Catherine de Bourgh came over to Longbourn, and helped to bring about what she most ardently wished to prevent by making an unsuccessful demand on Elizabeth that she should promise not to accept Darcy for a husband, and by then reporting to him that Elizabeth had refused to give such a promise. The natural result followed. Elizabeth mustered up courage one day to thank Darcy for all he had done for Lydia; and this subject soon led _him_ to affirm that in that matter he had thought only of Elizabeth, and to renew--and to renew successfully--his former proposals of marriage. When Mrs. Bennet first heard the great news she sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable; and at first even Jane and her father were almost incredulous of the engagement, because they had seen practically nothing of the courtship. But in the end they were all convinced, and Mr. Bennet's decisive comment was: "I admire all my three sons-in-law highly. Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite; but I think I shall like _your_ husband quite as well as Jane's. If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure."

* * * * *

Northanger Abbey

"Northanger Abbey" was written in 1798, revised for the press
in 1803, and sold in the same year for £10 to a Bath
bookseller, who held it in such light esteem that, after
allowing it to remain for many years on his shelves, he was
content to sell it back to the novelist's brother, Henry
Austen, for the exact sum which he had paid for it at the
beginning, not knowing that the writer was already the author
of four popular novels. This story--which is, of course, a
skit on the "terror" novel of Mrs. Radcliffe's school--was not
published till after its author's death, when, in 1818, it was
bound up with her last book, "Persuasion."

_I.--A Heroine in the Making_

No one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy could have supposed her born to be a heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and mother, her own person and disposition, were all equally against her. Her father was a clergyman, without being neglected or poor, and a very respectable man, though his name was Richard, and he had never been handsome. He had a considerable independence, besides two good livings, and he was not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters. Her mother was a woman of useful plain sense, with a good temper, and, what is more remarkable, with a good constitution. She had three sons before Catherine was born; and, instead of dying in bringing the latter into the world, as anybody might expect, she still lived on--lived to have six children more--to see them growing up around her, and to enjoy excellent health herself. Catherine, for many years of her life, was as plain as any member of her family. She had a thin, awkward figure, a sallow skin without colour, dark, lank hair, and strong features. So much for her person; and not less propitious for heroism seemed her mind. She was fond of all boys' sports, and greatly preferred cricket not merely to dolls, but to the more heroic enjoyments of infancy--nursing a dormouse, feeding a canary-bird, or watering a rosebush. Indeed, she had no taste for a garden; and if she gathered flowers at all, it was chiefly for the pleasure of mischief--at least, so it was conjectured from her habit of always preferring those which she was strictly forbidden to take.

Such were her propensities; her abilities were quite as extraordinary. She never could learn or understand anything before she was taught, and sometimes not even then, for she was often inattentive, and occasionally stupid. Her mother wished her to learn music; and Catherine was sure she should like it, for she was very fond of tinkling the keys of the old forlorn spinet; so at eight years old she began. She learnt a year, and could not bear it; and Mrs. Morland, who did not insist on her daughters being accomplished in spite of incapacity or distaste, allowed her to leave off. The day which dismissed the music-master was one of the happiest of Catherine's life. Her taste for drawing was not superior; though, whenever she could obtain the outside of a letter from her mother, or seize upon any other odd piece of paper, she did what she could in that way by drawing houses and trees, hens and chickens, all very much like one another. Writing and accounts she was taught by her father; French by her mother. Her proficiency in either was not remarkable, and she shirked her lessons in both whenever she could.

What a strange, unaccountable character! For with all these symptoms of profligacy at ten years old, she had neither a bad heart nor a bad temper, was seldom stubborn, scarcely ever quarrelsome, and very kind to the little ones, with few interruptions of tyranny. She was noisy and wild, hated confinement and cleanliness, and loved nothing so well in the world as rolling down the green slope at the back of the house.

Such was Catherine Morland at ten. At fifteen, appearances were mending: she began to curl her hair and long for balls, her complexion improved, her features were softened by plumpness and colour, her eyes gained more animation, and her figure more consequence. Her love of dirt gave way to an inclination for finery; she grew clean and she grew smart; and she had now the pleasure of sometimes hearing her father and mother remark on her personal improvement. From fifteen, indeed, to seventeen, she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

So far her improvement was sufficient; and in many other points she came on exceedingly well, for though she could not write sonnets, she brought herself to read them; and though there seemed no chance of her throwing a whole party into raptures by a prelude on the pianoforte of her own composition, she could listen to other people's performances with very little fatigue.

Her greatest deficiency was in the pencil. She had no notion of drawing, not enough even to attempt a sketch of her lover's profile, that she might be detected in the design. There she fell miserably short of the true heroic height. At present she did not know her own poverty, for she had no lover to portray. There was not one lord in the neighbourhood; no, not even a baronet! There was not one family among their acquaintance who had reared and supported a boy accidentally found at their door; no, not one young man whose origin was unknown. Her father had no ward, and the squire of the parish no children. But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her. Something must and will happen to throw a hero in her way.

Mr. Allen, who owned the chief of the property about Fullerton, the village in Wiltshire where the Morland family lived, was ordered to Bath for the benefit of a gouty constitution; and his lady, a good-humoured woman, fond of Miss Morland, and probably aware that if adventures will not befall a young lady in her own village she must seek them abroad, invited her to go with them. Mr. and Mrs. Morland were all compliance, and Catherine all happiness.

_II.--In the Gay City of Bath_

When the hour for departure drew nigh, the maternal anxiety of Mrs. Morland will be naturally supposed to have been most severe. But she knew so little of lords and baronets that she entertained no notion of their general mischievousness, and was wholly unsuspicious of danger to her daughter from their machinations. Her cautions were confined to advising her to wrap up well when she came from the rooms at night, and to try to keep some account of the money she spent.

Sally, or rather Sarah, must, from situation, be at this time the intimate friend and confidante of her sister. It is remarkable, however, that she neither insisted on Catherine's writing by every post, nor exacted her promise of transmitting the character of every new acquaintance nor a detail of every interesting conversation that Bath might produce. Everything, indeed, relative to this important journey was done on the part of the Morlands with a strange degree of moderation and composure. Catherine's father, instead of giving her an unlimited order on his banker, or even putting a hundred pounds bankbill into her hands, gave her only ten guineas, and promised her more when she wanted it. The journey was performed with suitable quietness and uneventful safety. They arrived at Bath, and were soon settled in comfortable lodgings in Pulteney Street.

Mrs. Allen had not beauty, genius, accomplishment, or manner. The air of a gentlewoman, a great deal of quiet, inactive good temper, and a trifling turn of mind, were all that could account for her being the choice of a sensible, intelligent man like Mr. Allen. In one respect she was admirably fitted to introduce a young lady into public, being as fond of going everywhere and seeing everything herself as any young lady could be. Dress was her passion; and our heroine's entrée into life could not take place till after three or four days had been spent in providing her chaperon with a dress of the newest fashion. Catherine, too, made some purchases herself; and when all those matters were arranged, the important evening came which was to usher her into the upper rooms. But nothing happened that evening. Mrs. Allen knew nobody there, and so Catherine was unable to dance.

A day or two later, when they made their appearance in the lower rooms, fortune was more favourable to our heroine. The master of the ceremonies introduced to her a very gentleman-like young man as a partner. His name was Tilney. He was a clergyman, seemed to be about four or five and twenty, was rather tall, had a pleasing countenance, a very intelligent and lively eye, and, if not quite handsome, was very near it. His address was good, he talked with fluency and spirit, and there was an archness and pleasantry in his manner which interested, though it was hardly understood by, her. Catherine felt herself in high luck; and they parted, on the lady's side at least, with a strong inclination for continuing the acquaintance.

But when Catherine hastened to the pump-room the next day, there was no Mr. Tilney to be seen. Instead, Mrs. Allen had the good fortune to meet an acquaintance at last in the person of a Mrs. Thorpe, a former schoolfellow whom she had seen only once since their respective marriages. Their joy on this meeting was very great, as well it might be, since they had been contented to know nothing of each other for the last fifteen years. Mrs. Thorpe had one great advantage as a talker over Mrs. Allen, in a family of children; and when she had expatiated on the talents of her sons and the beauty of her daughters, Mrs. Allen had no similar information to give, no similar triumphs to press on the unwilling and unbelieving ear of her friend. She was forced to sit and to appear to listen to all these maternal effusions, and to be introduced, along with Catherine, to the three Miss Thorpes, who proved to be sisters of a young man who was at the same college as Catherine's brother James. James, indeed, had actually spent the last week of the Christmas vacation with the family near London.

The progress of the friendship thus entered into by Catherine and Isabella, the eldest of the Miss Thorpes, was quick as its beginning was warm; and they passed so rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends and themselves. They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked, pinned up each other's train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up to read novels together. One day, after they had been talking of "Udolpho," of other "horrid" books and of their favourite complexion in a man, they met Catherine's brother James and Isabella's brother John in a gig. On introduction, the latter proved to be a smart young man of middle height, who, with a plain face and ungraceful form, seemed fearful of being too handsome unless he wore the dress of a groom, and too much like a gentleman unless he were easy where he ought to be civil, and impudent where he might be allowed to be easy. James, of course, was attached to Isabella. "She has so much good sense," he said, "and is so thoroughly unaffected and amiable."

At the dance at the upper rooms which took place on the evening of the same day, Mr. Tilney made his reappearance, and introduced his sister to Catherine. Miss Tilney had a good figure, a pretty face, and a very agreeable countenance. Her air, though it had not all the decided pretension, the resolute stylishness, of Miss Thorpe's, had more real elegance; and her manners showed better sense and better breeding. She seemed capable of being young and attractive at a ball, without wanting to fix the attention of every man near her.

_III.--Catherine Morland Among Her Friends_

Unfixed as Catherine's general notions were of a what a man ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt of Mr. John Thorpe's being altogether completely agreeable. A tattler and a swaggerer, having elicited, as he thought, from Catherine that she was the destined heiress of Mr. Allen, he twice endeavoured to detach her, by a glaring lie, from keeping engagements with the Tilneys; and when he did succeed in persuading her to go with him in his gig, she found that the whole of his talk ended with himself and his own concerns. He told her of horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums; of racing matches in which his judgment had infallibly foretold the winner; of shooting-parties in which he had killed more birds (though without having one good shot) than all his companions together; and described to her some famous days spent with the foxhounds, in which his foresight and skill in directing the dogs had repaired the mistakes of the most experienced huntsman, and in which the boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life for a single moment, had been constantly leading others into difficulties which, he calmly concluded, had broken the necks of more than one person.

All this rather wearied Catherine; and not even his relating to her that Mr. Tilney's father, General Tilney--whom he was talking to one night at the theatre--had declared her the finest girl in Bath could reconcile her to the idea that Mr. John Thorpe had the faculty of giving universal pleasure. It was a visit which she paid to Miss Tilney to apologise for not keeping an engagement which Mr. John had caused her to break that first introduced her to the general. A handsome, stately, well-bred man, with a temper that made him a martinet to his own children, he received her with a politeness, and even a deference, that delighted and surprised her. But whereas Catherine's simplicity of character made her growing attachment to Mr. Tilney obvious to that gentleman and to his sister, it was not so clear that he reciprocated her feelings. Generally he amused himself by talking down to her or making fun of her in a good-natured way. One day they were speaking of Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and more particularly of the "Mysteries of Udolpho."

"I have read all of Mrs. Radcliffe's works," said he, "and most of them with great pleasure."

"I am very glad to hear it, indeed," replied Catherine, "and now I shall never be ashamed of liking 'Udolpho' myself. But I really thought that young men despised novels amazingly."

"It is _amazingly_; it may well suggest _amazement_ if they do, for they read nearly as many as women," was Mr. Tilney's answer. "I myself have read hundreds and hundreds. Do not imagine that you can cope with me in a knowledge of Julias and Louisas. Consider how many years I have had the start of you. I had entered on my studies at Oxford while you were probably a good little girl working your sampler at home!"

"Not very good, I am afraid. But now, really, do you not think 'Udolpho' the nicest book in the world?"

"The nicest; by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend on the binding," said he.

"I am sure," cried Catherine hastily, "I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should I not call it so?"

"Very true," said Henry, "and this is a very nice day; and we are taking a very nice walk; and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh, it is a very nice word indeed--it does for everything! Originally perhaps, it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement; people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or in their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word."

Meanwhile, Catherine was required to interest herself in her friend's love affairs. Isabella surprised her one day with the news that she was engaged to her brother James; and, obviously under the impression that her lover was the heir of a wealthy man, seemed to wonder whether his parents would acquiesce in the engagement. But despite her affection for James, she danced with Mr. Tilney's elder brother, Captain Tilney, at a ball which was given while her betrothed was absent on the necessary visit to his parents; and when letters were received from him, announcing their consent to the match and the agreement of Mr. Morland to resign a living of four hundred pounds to his son and to bequeath to him by will an estate of the same value, Isabella looked grave first at the smallness of the income, and then at the fact that it would be nearly three years before James would be old enough to take it.

Meantime, she continued to flirt rather openly with Captain Tilney, much to James' uneasiness and to his sister's distress. But Catherine was to some extent reassured as to the captain's conduct by his brother Henry, and she was so overjoyed by receiving an invitation from General Tilney to pay a visit to Northanger Abbey, his beautiful country seat, that a parting interview with Isabella and James, at which he was in excellent spirits and she most engagingly placid, left her blissfully convinced that the behaviour of the lovers was a model of judicious affection.

_IV.--Romance at Northanger Abbey_

The Tilney party set out for the Abbey in great state, the ladies in the general's chaise and four, with postilions and numerous outriders, and the general and Henry in the latter's curricle. But at the first stage the general proposed that Catherine should take his place in the curricle that she might "see as much of the country as possible;" and, for the rest of the journey she was tête-à-tête with Henry, who amused himself by rallying her upon the sliding panels, ghastly tapestry, funereal beds, vaulted chambers, and kindred uncanny apparatus which, judging from her favourite kind of fiction, she must be expecting to find at the Abbey.

As a matter of fact, Northanger, though it comprised some parts of the old Abbey, turned out to be a building thoroughly modernized and improved. Notwithstanding, Catherine could not restrain her imagination from running riot just a little. A large cedar chest, curiously inlaid and provided with silver handles, first attracted her attention. But this was soon found to contain merely a white cotton counterpane. A high old-fashioned ebony cabinet, which she noticed in her bedroom just before stepping into bed, struck her as offering more promise of romantic interest. Even this, after a most thrilling search, in the midst of which her candle went out, yielded nothing better than an inventory of linen.

Still, Catherine's passion for romance was not easily to be disappointed. Hearing from Eleanor Tilney that her mother's fatal illness had been sudden and short, and had taken place in her absence from home, Catherine's blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions that naturally sprang from these words. Could it be possible? Could Henry's father----? And yet how many were the examples to justify even the blackest suspicions? And when she saw him in the evening, while she worked with her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eye and contracted brow, she felt secure from all possibility of wronging him. It was indeed the air and attitude of a Montoni! What could more plainly speak the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead to every sense of humanity, in its fearful review of past scenes of guilt?

Full, then, of the idea that the general had ill-treated his wife, ready even to believe that she might still be living and a prisoner, our heroine set out one day to explore a certain set of rooms into which the general, in showing her over the house, had not taken her. But she was caught in the act by Henry Tilney, who revealed, with customary openness, what had been in her mind, and received only a very gentle rebuke.

Most grievously was she humbled. Her folly, which now seemed even criminal, was all exposed to him; and he must surely despise her for ever. But he did nothing of the kind. His astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct were such that the only difference he made in his behaviour to her was to pay her somewhat more attention than usual.

But the anxieties of common life began soon to succeed to the alarms of romance. Catherine's desire of hearing from Isabella grew every day greater. For nine successive mornings she wondered over the repetition of disappointment; and then, on the tenth, she got a letter--not from Isabella, but from James, announcing the breaking off of the engagement by mutual consent. At first she was much upset by the news, and burst into tears. But in the end she saw it in a more philosophic light, so that before long Henry was able to rally her on her former bosom friendship with Miss Thorpe without offending her. And when a day or two later a letter arrived from Isabella containing the amazing sentences, "I am quite uneasy about your dear brother, not having heard from him since he went to Oxford, and am fearful of some misunderstanding. Your kind offices will set all right: he is the only man I ever did or could love, and I trust you will convince him of it----" Catherine resolved: "No; whatever would happen, James should never hear Isabella's name mentioned by her again."

Soon afterwards, a bolt fell from the blue. General Tilney, who had paid Catherine the most embarrassing attentions, suddenly and unexpectedly returned from town, where he had gone for a day or two on business, and packed Catherine off home immediately, with hardly an apology, and at scarcely a moment's notice. He had met young Thorpe in town, it seemed; and John had this time under-estimated the wealth and consequence of the Morlands as much as he had over-stated them before when he talked to the general in the theatre at Bath.

The rudeness of the general, however, proved not so very great a disaster to Catherine. The interest and liking which Henry had first felt for her had gradually grown into a warmer feeling, and, roused to a sense of this by his father's tyrannical behaviour, he presented himself to Catherine at Fullerton, proposed to her, and was accepted. It was not long before the general gave his consent. Getting at last to a right understanding of Mr. Morland's circumstances--which, he found, would allow Catherine to have three thousand pounds--and delighted by the recent marriage of his daughter Eleanor to a viscount, he agreed to the union; and so Henry and Catherine were married within a twelvemonth from the first day of their meeting.

* * * * *

Mansfield Park

And then, between 1812 and 1814. "Mansfield Park" was written
at Chawton Cottage, and published in July of the latter year
by the Mr. Egerton who had given to the world its two
predecessors. When the novel reached a second edition, its
publication was taken over by John Murray, who was also
responsible for bringing out its successor, "Emma." As bearing
on the introduction of naval officers into the story, in this
novel and in "Persuasion," it must be remembered that Jane
Austen's two youngest brothers, Francis and Charles, both
served in the Navy during the French wars, and both rose to
the rank of admiral; Jane herself lived at Southampton from
1805 to 1809, and was, therefore, in a position to visit
Portsmouth, and to see the sailor's life ashore.

_I.--Sir Thomas Bertram's Family Connections_

Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and consequences of a handsome house and large income. She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation; and such of their acquaintances as thought Miss Ward and Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria did not scruple to predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty women to deserve them. Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years, found herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of her brother-in-law's, with scarcely any private fortune; and Miss Frances fared yet worse.

Miss Ward's match, indeed, when it came to the point, was not contemptible, Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend, in the living of Mansfield, an income of very little less than a thousand a year. But Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her family, and by fixing on a lieutenant of marines, named Price, without education, fortune, or connections, did it very thoroughly. To escape remonstrance, she never wrote to her family on the subject till actually married.

Lady Bertram, who was a woman of very tranquil feelings, and a temper remarkably easy and indolent, would have contented herself with merely giving up her sister, and thinking no more of the matter; but Mrs. Norris had a spirit of activity which could not be satisfied till she had written a long and angry letter to Fanny. Mrs. Price, in her turn, was injured and angry; and an answer, which comprehended both sisters in its bitterness, and bestowed such very disrespectful reflections on the pride of Sir Thomas, as Mrs. Norris could not possibly keep to herself, put an end to all intercourse between them for a considerable period.

By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs. Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose one connection that might possibly assist her. A very small income, a large and still increasing family, a husband disabled for active service, but not the less equal to company and good liquor, made her eager to regain the friends she had so carelessly sacrificed; and she addressed Lady Bertram a letter which spoke so much contrition and despondence as could not but dispose them all to a reconciliation. The letter re-established peace and kindness. Sir Thomas sent friendly advice and professions, Lady Bertram dispatched money and baby-linen for the expected child, and Mrs. Norris wrote the letters.

Within a twelvemonth a more important advantage to Mrs. Price resulted from her letter. Mrs. Norris, who was often observing to the others that she seemed to be wanting to do more for her poor sister, proposed that the latter should be entirely relieved from the charge and expense of her eldest daughter, Fanny, a girl of ten; and Sir Thomas, after debating the question, assented. The division of gratifying sensations in the consideration of so benevolent a scheme ought not, in strict justice, to have been equal; for, while Sir Thomas was fully resolved to be the real and consistent patron of the selected child, Mrs. Norris had not the least intention of being at any expense whatever in her maintenance. As far as walking, talking and contriving reached, she was thoroughly benevolent, and nobody knows better how to dictate liberality to others; but her love of money was equal to her love of directing, and she knew quite as well how to save her own as to spend that of her friends.

Fanny Price proved to be small for her age, with no glow of complexion or any other striking beauty; exceedingly timid and shy, and shrinking from notice; but her air, though awkward, was not vulgar, her voice was sweet, and when she spoke her countenance was pretty. Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram received her very kindly; and Sir Thomas, seeing how much she needed encouragement, tried to be all that was conciliating. But he had to work against a most untoward gravity of deportment; and Lady Bertram, without taking half so much trouble, by the mere aid of a good-humoured smile, became immediately the less awful character of the two.

The young people were all at home, and sustained their share in the introduction very well, with much good humour and little embarrassment. They were a remarkably fine family; the sons, Tom and Edmund, boys of seventeen and sixteen, very well looking; the daughters, Maria, aged thirteen, and Julia, twelve, decidedly handsome.

But it took a long time to reconcile Fanny to the novelty of Mansfield Park, and to the separation from everybody she had been used to. Nobody meant to be unkind, but nobody put himself out of the way to secure her comfort. She was disheartened by Lady Bertram's silence, awed by Sir Thomas's grave looks, and quite overcome by Mrs. Norris's admonitions. Her elder cousins mortified her by reflections on her size, and abashed her by noticing her shyness; Miss Lee, the governess, wondered at her ignorance; and the maidservants sneered at her clothes. It was not till Edmund found her crying one morning on the attic stairs, and comforted her, that things began to mend for her. He was ever afterwards her true friend, and next to her dear brother William, first in her affections; and from that day she grew more comfortable.

_II.--Cupid at Mansfield Park_

The first event of any importance in the family's affairs was the death of Mr. Norris, which happened when Fanny was about fifteen, and necessarily introduced alterations and novelties. Mrs. Norris, on quitting the parsonage, removed first to the Park, and then arranged to take a small dwelling in the village belonging to Sir Thomas and called the White House. The living had been destined for Edmund, and in ordinary circumstances would have been duly given to some friend to hold till he were old enough to take orders. But Tom's extravagances had been so great as to render a different disposal of the next presentation necessary, and so the reversion was sold to a Dr. Grant, a hearty man of forty-five, fond of good eating, married to a wife about fifteen years his junior, and unprovided with children.

The Grants had scarcely been settled in Mansfield a year, when, for the better settlement of his property in the West Indies, Sir Thomas had found it expedient to go to Antigua, and he took his elder son with him, in the hope of detaching him from some bad connections at home. Neither person was missed.

Lady Bertram did not at all like to have her husband leave her; but she was not disturbed by any alarm for his safety or solicitude for his comfort, being one of those persons who think nothing can be dangerous or difficult or fatiguing to anybody but themselves. Before very long she found that Edmund could quite sufficiently supply his father's place. On this occasion the Miss Bertrams, who were now fully established among the belles of the neighbourhood, were much to be pitied, not for their sorrow, but for their want of it. Their father was no object of love to them; he had never seemed the friend of their pleasures, and his absence was unhappily most welcome.

Fanny's relief, and her consciousness of it, were quite equal to her cousins'; but a more tender nature suggested that her feelings were ungrateful, and she really grieved because she could not grieve.

Meantime, taking advantage of her sister's indolence, Mrs. Norris acted as chaperon to Maria and Julia in their public engagements, and very thoroughly relished the means this afforded her of mixing in society without having horses to hire.

Fanny had no share in the festivities of the season; but she enjoyed being avowedly useful as her aunt's companion, and talked to Lady Bertram, listened to her and read to her with never a thought of envying her cousins their gaieties. About this time Maria, who was now in her twenty-first year, got engaged to a rich but heavy country gentleman called Rushworth, merely because he had an income larger than her father's and could give her a house in town; while Tom returned safely from the West Indies, bringing an excellent account of his father's health, but telling the family that Sir Thomas would be detained in Antigua for several months longer.

Such was the state of affairs in the month of July; and Fanny had just reached her eighteenth year when the society of the village received an addition in the brother and sister of Mrs. Grant, a Mr. and Miss Crawford, the children of her mother by a second marriage. They were young people of fortune, the son having a good estate in Norfolk, the daughter twenty thousand pounds. They had been brought up by their father's brother and his wife, Admiral and Mrs. Crawford; and it was Mrs. Crawford's death, and the consequent installation of the admiral's mistress in the house, that had forced them to find another home. Mary Crawford was remarkably pretty; Henry, though not handsome, had air and countenance; the manners of both were lively and pleasant; and Mrs. Grant gave them credit for everything else.

The young people were pleased with each other from the first. Miss Crawford was most allowably a sweet, pretty girl, while the Miss Bertrams were the finest young women in the country. Mr. Crawford was the most agreeable young man Julia and Maria had ever known. Before he had been at Mansfield a week the former lady was quite ready to be fallen in love with; while as for the latter she did not want to see or to understand. "There could be no harm in her liking an agreeable man--everybody knew her situation--Mr. Crawford must take care of himself."

A young woman, pretty, lively, witty, playing on a harp as elegant as herself, was enough to catch any man's heart. Without studying the business, however, or knowing what he was about, Edmund was beginning, at the end of a week of such intercourse, to be a good deal in love with Mary Crawford; and, to the credit of the lady, it may be added that, without his being a man of the world or an elder brother, without any of the arts of flattery or the gaieties of small-talk, he began to be agreeable to her. He taught her to ride on a horse which he had given to Fanny; he was always going round to see her at the parsonage; and, although he disapproved of the flippancy with which she talked of her relations, of religion, and of his future profession of clergyman, he was never weary of discussing her and of confessing his admiration of her to Fanny.

Harry Crawford was not so constant as his sister. On an expedition to Sotherton Court (Mr. Rushworth's place) he flirted with Julia on the way down, and with Maria when Sotherton was reached, leaving poor Mr. Rushworth no resource but to declare to Fanny his surprise at anyone calling so undersized a man as his rival handsome.

Some rehearsals of a play called "Lovers' Vows," in which Harry left Maria happy and expectant and Julia furious by assigning the parts of the lovers to the elder sister and to himself, made Mr. Rushworth even jealous. But this theatrical scheme, to which even Edmund had been forced to lend a reluctant co-operation--merely with a view of preventing outside actors being introduced--happily came to nothing, thanks to the unexpected arrival of Sir Thomas.

_III.--Fanny in Society_

Maria was now expecting the man she loved to declare himself; but instead of making such a declaration of attachment, Harry Crawford left the neighbourhood almost immediately on the plea of having to meet his uncle at Bath. Maria, wounded and indignant, resolved that, though he had destroyed her happiness, he should not know that he had done so. So when her father, having, in an evening spent at Sotherton, discovered what a very inferior young man Mr. Rushworth was, and having noticed Maria's complete indifference to him, offered to give up the connection if she felt herself unhappy in the prospect of it, she merely thanked him, and said she had not the smallest desire of breaking through her engagement, and was not sensible of any change of opinion or inclination since her forming it. In a few weeks' time she was married to Mr. Rushworth; and after a day or two spent at Sotherton, the wedded pair went off to Brighton, where they were joined by Julia Bertram.

Meantime, Fanny, as the only young lady left at the Park, became of importance. Sir Thomas decided that she was pretty; Miss Crawford cultivated her society; and Mrs. Grant asked her to dinner. This last-mentioned attention disturbed Lady Bertram.

"So strange!" she said. "For Mrs. Grant never used to ask her."

"But it is very natural," observed Edmund, "that Mrs. Grant should wish to procure so agreeable a visitor for her sister."

"Nothing can be more natural," said Sir Thomas, after a short deliberation; "nor, were there no sister in the case, could anything, in my opinion, be more natural. Mrs. Grant's showing civility to Miss Price, to Lady Bertram's niece, could never want explanation. The only surprise I can feel is that this should be the first time of its being paid. Fanny was right in giving only a conditional answer. She appears to feel as she ought. But, as I conclude that she wishes to go, since all young people like to be together, I can see no reason why she should be denied this indulgence."

"Upon my word, Fanny," said Mrs. Norris, "you are in high luck to meet with such attention and indulgence. You ought to be very much obliged to Mrs. Grant for thinking of you, and to your aunt for letting you go, and you ought to look upon it as something extraordinary; for I hope you are aware that there is no real occasion for your going into company in this sort of way, or ever dining out at all; and it is what you must not depend upon ever being repeated. Nor must you be fancying that the invitation is meant as a compliment to you; the compliment is intended to your uncle and aunt and me. Mrs. Grant thinks it a civility due to _us_ to take a little notice of you, or else it would never have come into her head, and you may be certain that if your cousin Julia had been at home you would not have been asked."

Mrs. Norris fetched breath, and went on.

"I think it right to give you a hint, Fanny, now that you are going into company without any of us; and I do beseech and entreat you not to be putting yourself forward, and talking and giving your opinion as if you were one of your cousins--as if you were dear Mrs. Rushworth or Julia. That will never do, believe me. Remember, wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last; and though Miss Crawford is in a manner at home at the Parsonage, you are not to be taking place of her. And as to coming away at night, you are to stay just as long as Edmund chooses."

"Yes, ma'am. I should not think of anything else."

"And if it should rain--which I think likely, for I never saw it more threatening for a wet evening in my life--you must manage as well as you can, and not be expecting the carriage to be sent for you."

"Walk!" said Sir Thomas, in a tone of unanswerable dignity, and, coming further into the room: "My niece walk to an engagement at this time of the year! Fanny, will twenty minutes after four suit you?"

A few weeks later Fanny was made happy by a visit from her brother William, now, through Sir Thomas's influence, a midshipman; and soon the former intercourse between the families at the Park and at the Parsonage was revived, Sir Thomas perceiving, in a careless way, that Mr. Crawford, who was back again at Mansfield, was somewhat distinguishing his niece.

Harry, indeed, was beginning to be rather piqued by Fanny's indifference.

"I do not quite know what to make of Miss Fanny," he said to his sister. "Is she solemn? Is she queer? Is she prudish? I can hardly get her to speak. I never was so long in company with a girl in my life, trying to entertain her, and succeeded so ill! Never met with a girl who looked so grave on me."

"Foolish fellow!" said Mary. "And so this is her attraction after all! This it is--her not caring for you--which gives her such a soft skin and makes her so much taller, and produces all these charms and graces! I do desire that you will not be making her really unhappy. A little love, perhaps, may animate and do her good; but I will not have you plunge her deep, for she is as good a little creature as ever lived, and has a great deal of feeling."

"It can be but for a fortnight," said Harry, "and if a fortnight can kill her she must have a constitution which nothing could save! No, I will not do her any harm. I only want her to look kindly on me, to give me smiles as well as blushes, to keep a chair for me by herself wherever we are, and be all animation when I take it and talk to her; to think as I think, to be interested in all my possessions and pleasures, try to keep me longer at Mansfield, and feel when I go away that she shall never be happy again. I want nothing more."

"Moderation itself!" replied Mary. "I can have no scruples now. Well, you will have opportunities enough of endeavouring to recommend yourself, for we are a great deal together."

Harry was unable to make any impression on Fanny; and though he fell deeply in love with her, got her brother William made lieutenant, and, after a ball given in her honour by Sir Thomas, proposed to her, he was unable to win her favour. She was in love with Edmund; and Edmund was torn between love for Mary, despair of winning her, and disapproval of her principles.

_IV.--Wedding Bells at Mansfield_

Mr. William Price, second lieutenant of H.M.S. Thrush, having obtained a ten days' leave of absence, again went down to see his sister; and Sir Thomas, as a kind of medicinal project on his niece's understanding, just to enable her to contrast with her father's shabby dwelling an abode of wealth and plenty like Mansfield Park, arranged that she should accompany her brother back to Portsmouth, and spend a little time with her own family. Within four days from their arrival William had to sail; and Fanny could not conceal it from herself that the home he had left her in was, in almost every respect, the very reverse of what she could have wished. It was the abode of noise, disorder and impropriety. Nobody was in his right place; nothing was done as it ought to be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped. Her father was more negligent of his family, worse in his habits, coarser in his manners, than she had been prepared for. He did not want abilities; but he had no curiosity, and no information beyond his profession. He read only the newspaper and the Navy List. He talked only of the dockyard, the harbour, Spithead, and the Motherbank. He swore and he drank; he was dirty and gross.

She had never been able to recall anything approaching to tenderness in his former treatment of herself. There had remained only a general impression of roughness, and now he scarcely ever noticed her but to make her the object of a coarse joke.

Her disappointment in her mother was greater. There she had hoped much, and found almost nothing. She discovered, indeed, that her mother was a partial, ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement and discomfort from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; no curiosity to know her better, no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for her company that could lessen her sense of such knowledge.

At the end of the fourth week of her visit Harry Crawford came to see Fanny, made himself very agreeable to her and her family, and then went back to town to see his sister, and to meet such friends as Edmund Bertram and the Rushworths. Fanny heard from Mary of Maria's fine house in Wimpole Street, of the splendours of the first party, and of the attentions paid to Julia by that would-be amateur actor, the Honourable John Yates; while from Edmund she gathered that his hopes of securing Mary were weaker than those he had cherished when he had left Mansfield, and that he was more satisfied with all that he saw and heard of Harry Crawford.

"I cannot give her up, Fanny," Edmund wrote of Mary. "She is the only woman in the world whom I could ever think of as a wife." Mary, on her part, hearing of a serious illness which had prostrated Tom Bertram, could not forbear saying to the same correspondent: "Poor young man! If he is to die, there will be two poor young men less in the world. I put it to your conscience whether 'Sir' Edmund would not do more good with all the Bertram property than any other possible 'sir.'" She also told Fanny that Mrs. Rushworth, in the absence of her husband on a visit to his mother at Bath, had been spending the Easter with some friends at Twickenham, and that her brother Harry had also been passing a few days at Richmond.

The interval of a few days afforded a commentary on this last piece of news. It turned out that Mrs. Rushworth, having succumbed once more to the protestations of Harry Crawford, had left her house in Wimpole Street to live with him, and that her sister Julia had eloped to Scotland to be married to Mr. Yates. On the occurrence of this distressing news, Fanny was summoned back to Mansfield Park, and was escorted down there by Edmund, who described to her his final interview with Mary. It seemed that Mary's distress at her brother's folly was so much more keenly expressed than any sorrow for his sin that Edmund's conscience left him no alternative but to make an end of their acquaintance.

Indeed, before many weeks had passed, he ceased to care about Miss Crawford, and became as anxious to marry Fanny as Fanny herself could desire; and before many months had gone, the cousins were united. Nor was this the only happy event that occurred at Mansfield. Harry Crawford and Mrs. Rushworth having quarrelled and parted, and Sir Thomas having refused to allow his elder daughter to come home, Mrs. Norris cast off the dust of Mansfield from her feet, and went to live with her niece in an establishment arranged for them in another county. While as for Tom, he gradually regained his health, without regaining the thoughtlessness and selfishness of his previous habits, and was, in fact, improved forever by his illness.

* * * * *

Emma

"Emma," one of the author's later novels, had been finished,
when, in the autumn of 1815, Jane Austen came to London to
nurse her brother Henry, who was a clergyman, at his house in
Hans Place, in Chelsea. He was being attended by one of the
Prince Regent's physicians, who seems to have learned in this
way the secret of the authorship of "Mansfield Park" and its
predecessors. The result was that the Prince, who is said to
have been a great admirer of these then anonymous novels, was
graciously pleased to notify Miss Austen, through his
chaplain, Mr. Clarke, that if she had any new novel in hand,
she was at liberty to dedicate it to his Royal Highness.
"Emma" was accordingly dedicated to the Prince. It was
reviewed, along with its author's other novels, in the
"Quarterly," and the anonymous reviewer, who took no notice of
"Mansfield Park," turns out to have been none other than Sir
Walter Scott. In his Diary for March 14, 1826, Sir Walter
further praised Miss Austen's exquisite touch and her gift for
true description and sentiment.

_I.--The Social Amenities of Highbury_

Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and happy disposition, was the younger of the two daughters of a most affectionate and indulgent father, and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of her caresses, and her place had been supplied by Miss Taylor, who for sixteen years had been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as governess than friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly of Emma. For years the two ladies had been living together, mutely attached, Emma doing just what she liked, highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but chiefly directed by her own.

The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself. The danger, however, was at present unperceived, and did not by any means rank as a misfortune with her.