Jane Austen

by Catherine Reef

  Darcy learns of Elizabeth’s spirited reply to his aunt, and it gives him hope. When he next meets Elizabeth and she thanks him for helping her family, he replies that he thought only of her happiness. “My affections and wishes are unchanged,” he confesses.

  Throughout most of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen closely followed Elizabeth’s thoughts and related everything that she and Darcy said to each other. But at this crucial moment, she did something curious; she chose to be brief. Elizabeth, she wrote,

  gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure, his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on this occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do.

  Some readers have felt cheated by this description. They looked forward to a great love scene, and Austen gave them a summary. They have accused the author of losing interest in her story once the characters solve their problems, and rushing its conclusion. A few critics have even said that a spinster like Jane Austen would have had no inkling what people in love might say at a time like this, so she could not possibly have written it.

  Maybe Austen knew what she was doing, though. By describing the meeting between Elizabeth and Darcy in this way, she stressed the universal nature of their experience. She wrote about two young people in England in the late 1700s, but they are the same as lovers in any place and time. This is why readers everywhere can hear in their minds the words Elizabeth uses to receive Darcy’s assurance of his love. They know exactly how sensibly and warmly a man in love behaves.

  Elizabeth accepts Darcy this time, of course. She puts up with the comments of her astonished family, who thought he was the last man she would ever choose. “We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man,” Mr. Bennet tells Elizabeth, speaking of Darcy; “but this would be nothing if you really liked him.”

  Pride and Prejudice, “By the Author of Sense and Sensibility, “was an instant hit. One reviewer called it “very far superior to almost all the publications of the kind which have lately come before us.” Another critic praised Austen’s characters, insisting that every member of the Bennet family “excites the interest.” Still, Elizabeth stood out, because her “sense and conduct are of a superior order to those of the common heroines of novels.”

  “The work is rather too light & bright & sparkling,” Jane Austen wrote, pretending to find fault with her novel. “It wants to be stretched out here & there with a long Chapter,” she continued, “about something unconnected with the story; an Essay on Writing, a critique on Walter Scott, or the history of Buonaparte.” After a long, boring digression, the reader would return “with increased delight to the playfulness ... of the general stile.”

  The Austens all liked Pride and Prejudice. Jane read the book aloud to her niece Fanny Knight, who was often at Chawton. “[Aunt Jane] & I had a delicious morning together,” Fanny noted in her diary. Charles Austen reported that some of his fellow naval officers had read and enjoyed it. Jane tried to confine knowledge of her authorship to her family and close friends, but word was getting out. “The Secret has spread so far as to be scarcely the Shadow of a secret now,” she wrote to Frank Austen. Their brother Henry had the toughest time keeping mum. More than once, Jane continued, Henry has heard people praise Pride and Prejudice, “& what does he do in the warmth of his Brotherly vanity & Love, but immediately tell them who wrote it!” Jane tried to harden herself to the fact that her name was becoming known.

  A great book brings forth strong opinions, and Austens second published novel has had its detractors. Mary Russell Mitford, a novelist and playwright of Austen’s day, thought Elizabeth Bennet was too smart-alecky to appeal to a man like Darcy. “Wickham is equally bad,” she wrote. “Oh! They were just fit for each other, and I cannot forgive that delightful Darcy for parting them.” Not only Pride and Prejudice, but all Jane Austen’s books annoyed a writer from a later era, the popular American author and humorist Mark Twain. “Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone,” he ranted. Twain acknowledged that Austen’s novels have value, but “the thing involved is purely a matter of taste,” he wrote. Everyone finds “that there are fine things, great things, admirable things, which others can perceive and they can’t,” he noted. For him, Jane Austen’s genius fell into this category.

  That spring, Jane broke away from enjoyment of her literary success to go to London, escorted by Edward’s oldest son. Henry had summoned her to nurse his wife, her much-loved cousin and sister-in-law, Eliza, through the final days of a fatal illness. Eliza is thought to have had breast cancer, the disease that killed her mother. Eliza died on April 25, 1813, at age fifty, and was buried beside her son and mother. Her epitaph, composed by the grieving Henry, praised her as “a woman of brilliant generous and cultivated mind,” one who was just and charitable. Her death was “much regretted by the wise and good and deeply lamented by the poor.”

  This commercial section of London bustled with life In 1805. By 1800, London was a city of a million people and a center of trade, finance, and diplomacy. “London possesses those grand features which characterized ancient Rome: it is the seat of liberty, the mart of intellect, and the envy of nations,” noted a writer of the time.

  Jane left her bereaved brother on May 1, but Henry brought her back to London before the month ended. Together they toured art exhibitions, and Jane had fun searching for her characters’ portraits among the paintings she saw. She quickly spotted one that could have been Jane Bingley: “exactly herself, size, shaped face, features & sweetness.... She is dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed, that green was a favourite colour with her.” She hunted in vain for Elizabeth Darcy’s likeness. “I can only imagine that Mr. D. prizes any Picture of her too much to like it should be exposed to the public eye,” she concluded. Then she went home again, and, despite a mysterious pain in her face, she spent two months completing Mansfield Park, her first novel written after leaving Steventon.

  The years were outrunning the wind. Austen’s oldest nieces, Anna Austen and Fanny Knight, turned twenty in 1813. Both reached out to their aunt Jane for advice. Jane counseled Anna, who was writing a novel, to be sure her characters’ behavior was consistent with their nature. She explained, for example, that “Mrs. F. is not careful enough of Susan’s health;—Susan ought not to be walking out so soon after Heavy rains, taking long walks in the dirt. An anxious Mother would not suffer it.” She encouraged Anna to keep writing. “You are but now coming to the heart & beauty of your book; till the heroine grows up, the fun must be imperfect.... One does not care for girls till they are grown up.”

  Jane advised Fanny on matters of the heart. When Fanny was expecting a marriage proposal from a modest, sensible young man of good character, Austen urged her “not to think of accepting him unless you really do like him. Anything is to be preferred or endured rather than marrying without Affection.” Fanny heeded her aunt’s advice. If the gentleman proposed, she turned him down.

  Henry visited Chawton in the summer of 1813, and so did Charles, the baby of the family, who in 1807 had married his love, seventeen-year-old Frances Palmer. Frances was an English girl with no fortune who was raised in Bermuda. By 1813, Charles and Frances had three little daughters. A year later, Frances would become the next Austen bride to die of complications from childbirth.

  seven

  VICE AND VIRTUE

  What strange creatures we are!

  —Letter to Fanny Knight, November 18, 1814

  JANE AUSTEN’S characters courted and married between the covers of books, sheltered from the world outside. Yet here and there, Austen hinted that war and politics sometimes drew people’s attention away from love. The army regiment that appears in Pride and Prejudice
reminds readers that Britain and France were at war.

  From the 1790s through 1815, the British were either fighting the French or expecting them to invade. Proclaiming it their duty to free other oppressed people of Europe, the French had expanded their control into the Netherlands, Italy, and several German states. Great Britain and other nations hoped to halt seven Frances conquest of its neighbors, because it threatened European stability. The warring intensified after 1799, when a power-hungry army officer named Napoleon Bonaparte seized control in France. In 1812, the British and their allies thwarted Napoleon in his attempt to invade Russia. A year later, they won a major conflict with his forces at Leipzig, in Germany. They finally defeated him in the Battle of Waterloo, fought in present-day Belgium, in June 1815.

  As part of its wartime strategy, Britain tried to block U.S. ships from trading with France. The crews of British ships also seized sailors from American vessels and forced them into service for the Crown. These practices infuriated the Americans, and in 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain. This conflict, known as the War of 1812, lasted three years and had no clear winner.

  While their soldiers and sailors clashed with enemies on land and sea, the British royalty behaved shamefully. The Prince Regent was notoriously corrupt. He had married his cousin Caroline of Brunswick only because he had run up huge debts. He knew that Parliament would raise his allowance if he had a wife. The prince was in love with his mistress, hated his wife, and spent no more than one night with her—just long enough to father Princess Charlotte. Caroline was no better. She slept with a string of lovers before and after her marriage, and is thought to have had an illegitimate son. Still, when her husband declared her an unfit mother and decreed that the princess was not to see her, she had Jane Austen’s sympathy. “Poor Woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman, & because I hate her Husband,” Austen declared.

  King George IV, the former Prince Regent, kisses his mistress in this political cartoon from 1822. Meanwhile, he ignores his government and family responsibilities.

  In 1811, the Duke of Clarence caused another stir. The duke, who was the prince’s brother William and a future king of England, kicked his mistress and their ten children out of the home they shared and began chasing after rich young women. “Heaven defend any poor girl from marrying him,” wrote Princess Charlotte to her friend Miss Elphinstone.

  Such dreadful goings-on! Many Britons worried that the upper classes were setting a bad example for the nations youth. The heroine of Austen’s next novel, Mansfield Park, meets some of these misguided young people.

  Fanny Price is nine years old when she leaves her large, struggling family in Portsmouth and goes to live at Mansfield Park. The estate is home to her uncle and aunt, Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram, and their four children. The Bertrams treat Fanny well enough, but she is reminded often of her humble background. She is told by another aunt, the conniving, selfish Mrs. Norris, “Wherever you are, you must be the lowest and last.”

  Years pass, and Fanny grows into a virtuous teenager. Her cousin Tom, in contrast, is an extravagant youth who runs up debts. Tom’s sisters, Maria and Julia, are proud and womanly, but their moral education has been neglected. Their mother cares chiefly about her needlework and her little dog, and their father is satisfied so long as they appear outwardly accomplished. Only Fanny’s cousin Edmund, who plans to be a clergyman, resembles her in spirit. For Fanny, feelings of friendship for Edmund develop into love that she keeps secret from him and everyone else.

  Into the neighborhood come two “young people of fortune.” Henry and Mary Crawford are a brother and sister who have been exposed to the “vicious conduct”—the vices—prevailing in high society. Mary toys with the idea of falling in love with Tom Bertram, who is in line to inherit his father’s estate. But when Tom sails to the West Indies with his father, she turns her attention to Edmund, causing Fanny much worry. Mary tries to persuade Edmund to give up the idea of a career in the church, and not only because it pays so little. Mary has been taught that clergymen are lazy and lacking in ambition. “Be honest and poor, by all means—but I shall not envy you,” Mary says. “I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.” Mary’s brother boldly flirts with both Bertram sisters, even though Maria is engaged to rich, empty-headed Mr. Rushworth. Breaking hearts feeds Henry Crawford’s vanity.

  Tom returns from overseas before his father and invites to Mansfield Park a friend, Mr. Yates. This gentleman has one thing on his mind: the theater. He suggests that they all stage a play, as the Austen brothers did at Steventon. The idea excites the young people—everyone but Fanny and Edmund. While the others learn lines and practice scenes, the pious pair fuss and fret. It seems the chosen play, Lovers’ Vows, is all wrong for youthful actors. The title means nothing today, but readers in Jane Austen’s time knew that Lovers’ Vows dealt with sex outside of marriage and an illegitimate birth. Edmund finally gives in to Mary Crawford’s pressure and takes a part, but Fanny remains firm. Soon, as Fanny feared, rehearsals lead to flirting and jealousy among the performers at Mansfield Park.

  Sir Thomas comes home, putting an end to the theatrics, and Maria Bertram marries Mr. Rushworth. Fanny then enjoys a visit from her favorite brother, William, who has embarked on a naval career. “Children of the same family, the same blood, with the same first associations and habits, have some means of enjoyment in their power, which no subsequent connections can supply,” wrote Austen. As someone from a large family, Austen knew this kind of enjoyment well. Happy in William’s company, Fanny has no idea that she is about to face another test of character. Henry Crawford tells his sister that he has decided to make Fanny fall in love with him. “Fanny Price! Nonsense! No, no. You ought to be satisfied with her two cousins,” Mary says. “But I cannot be satisfied without Fanny Price,” Henry insists, “without making a small hole in Fanny Prices heart.”

  Henry Crawford may have outsmarted himself, though. As he pays special attention to Fanny—and she staunchly resists—he is the one who falls in love. Crawford proposes marriage, which horrifies Fanny but delights Sir Thomas, who sees a fine opportunity for his niece. The conflict between her duty to her uncle and her distaste for the values that Crawford represents is too much for Fanny to bear. She understands “how wretched, and how unpardonable” it is “to marry without affection,” and she breaks down. Sir Thomas wisely sends her away, to visit her family in Portsmouth for the first time since coming to Mansfield Park.

  Sir Thomas Bertram shows displeasure when Fanny Price declines Henry Crawford’s proposal in the 1999 film Mansfield Park. Harold Pinter and Frances O’Connor portray Sir Thomas and Fanny.

  Fanny has forgotten much about her early years in Portsmouth. Her family’s house is smaller and dirtier than she remembers. Her father drinks, and her overworked mother lets the children run wild. Fanny misses Mansfield Park as the months pass, but the Bertrams make no effort to bring her back. Fanny, like Jane Austen for much of her life, is a single woman without money whose ability to travel depends on the whims of others.

  At least new surroundings can cause a person to learn and grow, and this is what happens to Fanny in Portsmouth. Amid the filth and confusion of her family’s home, she examines her life from a fresh point of view. Her opinion of Henry Crawford, in particular, starts to change. Henry advances William’s naval career by introducing him to his uncle, an admiral. Then he comes to Portsmouth to see Fanny and treats her family with respect. The story is getting interesting, because Fanny seems to be breaking free from the moral cage that has kept her from seeing that people are neither all good nor all bad. Will she learn to like Henry Crawford, and possibly to love him?

  Not a chance. Letters reach Portsmouth, one after another, bringing all kinds of terrible news that can hardly be believed. First, Fanny learns that Tom Bertram is ill—so ill, in fact, that the family doubts he will recover. More than Tom’s life is in the balance, because if he dies, Edmund becomes t
heir fathers heir. Having a fortune to inherit would make Edmund more attractive to Mary Crawford. Fanny next learns that after quitting Portsmouth, Henry Crawford chased after her cousin Maria; he has persuaded Maria to leave her husband and run off with him. Also, Julia has eloped with stage-struck Mr. Yates. But at last her aunt and uncle summon Fanny home.

  The story ends happily for some characters and not so well for others. Tom Bertram recovers and mends his free-spending ways. Julia marries Yates. Crawford abandons Maria, who goes to live with her mean-spirited aunt, Mrs. Norris, having disgraced herself and her family. Mary Crawford, meanwhile, sees nothing more than “folly” in her brothers elopement with Maria. The only thing to regret, she says, is that the public learned of the affair. Edmund’s eyes have been opened to Mary’s moral shallowness and he sees that Fanny would be his ideal wife. Life goes on at Mansfield Park, with Fanny’s sister Susan taking her place as the adopted niece.