The ball is again an event that brings out the characteristic features of the people in the book: coarse and fussy Mrs. Norris whom we glimpse being "entirely taken up in fresh arranging and injuring the noble fire which the butler had prepared." Austen's style is at its best in this word injure, incidentally the one really original metaphor in the book. Then there are Lady Bertram, who placidly maintains that Fanny's good looks are due to the fact that her maid, Mrs. Chapman, has helped Fanny to dress (actually Chapman had been sent up too late, for Fanny had already dressed herself); Sir Thomas being his dignified, restrained, slow-speaking self; and the young people all playing their parts. It never occurs to Miss Crawford that Fanny is really in love with Edmund and does not care for Henry. She blunders by archly inquiring if Fanny can imagine why Henry is taking William up to London with him the next day in his carriage, for the time has come for William to return to his ship. Miss Crawford "meant to be giving her little heart a happy flutter, and filling her with sensations of delightful self-consequence"; but when Fanny protests ignorance: " 'Well, then,' replied Miss Crawford, laughing, I must suppose it to be purely for the pleasure of conveying your brother and talking of you by the way.' " Instead, Fanny is confused and displeased, "while Miss Crawford wondered she did not smile, and thought her over-anxious, or thought her odd, or thought her any thing rather than insensible of pleasure in Henry's attentions." Edmund receives little pleasure from the ball. He and Miss Crawford have got into another argument about his ordination and "she had absolutely pained him by her manner of speaking of the profession to which he was now on the point of belonging. They had talked—and they had been silent—he had reasoned—she had ridiculed—and they had parted at last with mutual vexation."
Sir Thomas, noticing Henry's attentions to Fanny, begins to think that such a match could be advantageous. Before the journey to London that is to take place the morning after the ball, "After a short consideration, Sir Thomas asked Crawford to join the early breakfast party in that house instead of eating alone; he should himself be of it; and the readiness with which his invitation was accepted, convinced him that the suspicions whence, he must confess to himself, this very ball had in great measure sprung, were well founded. Mr. Crawford was in love with Fanny. He had a pleasing anticipation of what would be. His niece, meanwhile, did not thank him for what he had just done. She had hoped to have William all to herself, the last morning. It would have been an unspeakable indulgence. But though her wishes were overthrown there was no spirit of murmuring within her. On the contrary, she was so totally unused to have her pleasure consulted, or to have any thing take place at all in the way she could desire, that she was more disposed to wonder and rejoice in having carried her point so far [that she would breakfast with them instead of sleeping], than to repine at the counteraction which followed." Sir Thomas sends her to bed, it being three in the morning, although the ball continues with a few determined couples. "In thus sending her away, Sir Thomas perhaps might not be thinking merely of her health. It might occur to him, that Mr. Crawford had been sitting by her long enough, or he might mean to recommend her as a wife by shewing her persuadableness." A nice note to end on!
Edmund leaves to visit a friend in Peterborough for a week. His absence provokes Miss Crawford, who regrets her actions at the ball and pumps Fanny for an indication of Edmund's sentiments. Henry returns from London with a surprise for his sister. He has decided that he is firmly in love with Fanny, not trifling with her any longer, and he wants to marry her. He also brings a surprise for Fanny in the shape of letters confirming that his uncle Admiral Crawford's influence, which Henry has engaged, has been felt and William is to receive his long-despaired-of promotion to lieutenant. On top of this he immediately proposes marriage, an action that is so entirely unexpected and unwelcome that Fanny can only retreat in confusion. Miss Crawford sends a note on the subject; "My dear Fanny, for so I may now always call you, to the infinite relief of a tongue that has been stumbling at Miss Price for at least the last six weeks—I cannot let my brother go without sending you a few lines of general congratulation, and giving my most joyful consent and approval.—Go on, my dear Fanny, and without fear; there can be no difficulties worth naming. I chuse to suppose that the assurance of my consent will be something; so, you may smile upon him with your sweetest smiles this afternoon, and send him back to me even happier than he goes. Yours affectionately, M.C." Miss Crawford's style is superficially elegant but trite and trivial if studied closely. It is full of graceful clichés, like the hope for Fanny's "sweetest smiles," for Fanny was not that type. When Henry calls that evening, he puts pressure on Fanny to respond to his sister; and in haste, "with only one decided feeling, that of wishing not to appear to think any thing really intended, [Fanny] wrote thus, in great trembling both of spirits and hand.
" I am very much obliged to you, my dear Miss Crawford, for your kind congratulations, as far as they relate to my dearest William. The rest of your note I know means nothing; but I am so unequal to anything of the sort, that I hope you will excuse my begging you to take no further notice. I have seen too much of Mr. Crawford not to understand his manners; if he understood me as well, he would, I dare say, behave differently. I do not know what I write, but it would be a great favour of you never to mention the subject again. With thanks for the honour of your note, I remain, dear Miss Crawford, &c., &c.' "
In contrast, her general style has elements of force, purity, and precision. With this letter the second volume ends.
A new structural impetus is given to the story at this point by Sir Thomas, the heavy uncle, using all his power and weight to make frail Fanny marry Crawford: "He who had married a daughter to Mr. Rushworth. Romantic delicacy was certainly not to be expected from him." The whole scene, Sir Thomas's talk with Fanny in the East room, chapter 32, is admirable, one of the best in the novel. Sir Thomas is extremely displeased and shows his displeasure to Fanny's acute distress, but he cannot secure an agreement from her. She is far from certain of the seriousness of Crawford's intentions and tries to cling to the illusion that his proposal is a mere piece of gallantry. Moreover, she is firm that their different characters would make a marriage disastrous. Sir Thomas has a fleeting concern that perhaps a special feeling for Edmund is holding Fanny back, but he dismisses it. Still, Fanny feels the full force of his disapproval. "He ceased. Fanny was by this time crying so bitterly, that angry as he was, he would not press that article farther. Her heart was almost broke by such a picture of what she appeared to him; by such accusations, so heavy, so multiplied, so rising in dreadful gradation! Self-willed, obstinate, selfish, and ungrateful. He thought her all this. She had deceived his expectations; she had lost his good opinion. What was to become of her?"
She continues to be subject to Crawford's pressure and frequent attendance, encouraged by Sir Thomas. When Edmund returns one night there is a kind of continuation and elevation of the play theme when Crawford reads passages from Henry VIII, of course one of the poorest of Shakespeare's plays. But in 1808 it would be natural for the average reader to prefer Shakespeare's historical plays to the divine poetry of his fantastically great tragedies like King Lear or Hamlet. The play theme is nicely linked up with the ordination theme (now that Edmund is ordained) by the discussion between the two men about the art of fading and also the art of delivering sermons. Edmund discusses with Crawford the conduct of his first service and "he had a variety of questions from Crawford as to his feelings and success; questions which being made—though with the vivacity of friendly interest and quick taste—without any touch of that spirit of banter or air of levity which Edmund knew to be most offensive to Fanny, he had true pleasure in satisfying; and when Crawford proceeded to ask his opinion and give his own as to the properest manner in which particular passages in the service should be delivered, shewing it to be a subject on which [Crawford] had thought before, and thought with judgment, Edmund was still more and more pleased. This would be the way to Fanny's heart. She was not to
be won by all that gallantry and wit, and good-nature together, could do; or at least, she would not be won by them nearly so soon, without the assistance of sentiment and feeling, and seriousness on serious subjects."[*]
With his usual volatility, Crawford imagines himself a popular London preacher. "A thoroughly good sermon, thoroughly well delivered, is a capital gratification. I can never hear such a one without the greatest admiration and respect, and more than half a mind to take orders and preach myself.... But then, I must have a London audience. I could not preach but to the educated; to those who are capable of estimating my composition. And I do not know that I should be fond of preaching often; now and then, perhaps, once or twice in the spring, after being anxiously expected for half a dozen Sundays together; but not for a constancy; it would not do for a constancy." This theatrical interpretation somehow does not offend Edmund, since Crawford is Mary's brother, but Fanny shakes her head.
Heavy Sir Thomas now has heavyish Edmund talk to Fanny about Henry Crawford. Edmund begins by admitting that Fanny does not now love Crawford, but the theme of his argument is that if she will permit his addresses, she will learn to value and to love him and will gradually loosen the ties that bind her to Mansfield and that prevent her from contemplating a departure. The interview soon lapses into a paean of praise for Mary Crawford from the infatuated Edmund, who fancies being her brother-in-law. It ends with what is to be the theme of watchful waiting: the proposal was too unexpected and therefore unwelcome. " 'I told [the Grants and the Crawfords], that you were of all human creatures the one, over whom habit had most power, and novelty least: and that the very circumstance of the novelty of Crawford's addresses was against him. Their being so new and so recent was all in their disfavour; that you could tolerate nothing that you were not used to; and a great deal more to the same purpose to give them a knowledge of your character. Miss Crawford made us laugh by her plans of encouragement for her brother. She meant to urge him to persevere in the hope of being loved in time, and of having his addresses most kindly received at the end of about ten years' happy marriage.'
"Fanny could with difficulty give the smile that was here asked for. Her feelings were all in revolt. She feared she had been doing wrong, saying too much, overacting the caution which she had been fancying necessary, in guarding against one evil [the revelation of her love for Edmund], laying herself open to another, and to have Miss Crawford's liveliness repeated to her at such a moment, and on such a subject, was a bitter aggravation."
Edmund's conviction that the only reason Fanny has rejected Crawford was the novelty of the whole situation is a matter of structure, for the further development of the novel necessitates one thing, that Crawford remain hanging around, that he be allowed to persevere in his courting. Thus the easy explanation makes it permissible for him to go on with his wooing with the full consent of Sir Thomas and Edmund. Many readers, especially feminine readers, can never forgive subtle and sensitive Fanny for loving such a dull fellow as Edmund, but I can only repeat that the worst way to read a book is childishly to mix with the characters in it as if they were living people. Actually, of course, we often hear of sensitive girls faithfully in love with bores and prigs. Yet it must be said that Edmund, after all, is a good, honest, well-mannered, kind person. So much for the human interest of the thing.
Among those who try to convert poor Fanny, Mary Crawford appeals to her pride. Henry is a most marvelous catch and has been sighed after by many women. Mary's insensibility is such that she does not realize she has given the whole show away when, after confessing that Henry does have a fault in "liking to make girls a little in love with him" she adds: "I do seriously and truly believe that he is attached to you in a way that he never was to any woman before; that he loves you with all his heart, and will love you as nearly for ever as possible. If any man ever loved a woman for ever, I think Henry will do as much for you." Fanny cannot avoid a faint smile and does not respond.
It is not quite clear psychologically why Edmund has not yet made his declaration to Miss Crawford—but there again the structure of the novel requires a certain slowness of progress in Edmund's courtship. At any rate, both Crawfords leave for London on previously arranged visits to friends with no satisfaction from Fanny or Edmund.
It occurs to Sir Thomas in one of his "dignified musings" that it might be a good plan to have Fanny visit her family at Portsmouth for a couple of months. We are in February 1809, and she has not seen her parents for almost nine years. The old man is certainly a schemer: "He certainly wished her to go willingly, but he as certainly wished her to be heartily sick of home before her visit ended; and that a little abstinence from the elegancies and luxuries of Mansfield Park, would bring her mind into a sober state, and incline her to a juster estimate of the value of that home of greater permanence, and equal comfort, of which she had the offer." That is, Crawford's place, Everingham in Norfolk. There is an amusing bit about Mrs. Norris, who thinks that the conveyance and the travel expenses that Sir Thomas is defraying might be utilized since she has not seen her sister Price for twenty years. But "it ended to the infinite joy of [William and Fanny], in the recollection that she could not possibly be spared from Mansfield Park at present....
"It had, in fact, occurred to her, that, though taken to Portsmouth for nothing, it would be hardly possible for her to avoid paying her own expenses back again. So her poor dear sister Price was left to all the disappointment of her missing such an opportunity; and another twenty years' absence, perhaps, begun."
A rather lame paragraph treats Edmund: "Edmund's plans were affected by this Portsmouth journey, this absence of Fanny's. He too had a sacrifice to make to Mansfield Park as well as his aunt. He had intended, about this time, to be going to London, but he could not leave his father and mother just when every body else of most importance to their comfort, was leaving them; and with an effort, felt but not boasted of, he delayed for a week or two longer a journey which he was looking forward to, with the hope of its fixing his happiness for ever." So his courtship of Miss Crawford is once more delayed for the purposes of the story.
Jane Austen, after having poor Fanny talked to about Henry by Sir Thomas, then Edmund, then Mary Crawford, wisely eliminates any conversation on the subject during Fanny's trip to Portsmouth with her brother William. Fanny and William leave Mansfield Park on Monday, 6 February 1809, and the next day reach Portsmouth, a naval base in the south of England. Fanny will return to Mansfield not in two months, as planned, but three months later, on Thursday, 4 May 1809, when she is nineteen. Immediately on arrival William is ordered to sea, leaving Fanny alone with her family. "Could Sir Thomas have seen all his niece's feelings, when she wrote her first letter to her aunt, he would not have despaired....
"William was gone;—and the home he had left her in was—Fanny could not conceal it from herself—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 their right place, nothing was done as it ought to be. She could not respect her parents, as she had hoped. On her father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but he was more negligent of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser than she had been prepared for ... he swore and he drank, he was dirty and gross ... 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.... Mrs. Price was not unkind—but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence, and becoming more and more dear, her daughter never met with greater kindness from her, than on the first day of her arrival. The instinct of nature was soon satisfied, and Mrs. Price's attachment had no other source. Her heart and her time were already quite full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on Fanny.... her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; always busy without getting on, always behind hand and lamenting it, without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist, without contrivance or regularity;
dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them, without any power of engaging their respect."
Fanny's head aches from the noise and smallness of the house, the dirt, the ill-cooked meals, the slatternly maid, her mother's constant complaints. "The living in incessant noise was to a frame and temper, delicate and nervous like Fanny's, an evil.... Here, every body was noisy, every voice was loud, (excepting, perhaps, her mother's, which resembled the soft monotony of Lady Bertram's, only worn into fretfulness.)—Whatever was wanted was halloo'd for, and the servants halloo'd out their excuses from the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging, the stairs were never at rest, nothing was done without a clatter, nobody sat still, and nobody could command attention when they spoke." Only in her sister Susan, aged eleven, does Fanny find any promise for the future, and she devotes herself to teaching Susan manners and the habit of reading. Susan is a quick study and comes to love her.
Lectures on Literature Page 8