Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: Abridged
Page 39
Could Sir Thomas have seen his niece's feelings, he would not have despaired; for despite a good night's rest, the hope of soon seeing William again, and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tom and Charles being gone to school, home still held many drawbacks. Could he have seen only half that she felt before the end of a week, he would have been delighted with his own sagacity.
Before the week ended, it was all disappointment. William was gone. The Thrush had had her orders, and sailed within four days; and during those days she had seen him only twice, in a hurried way. There had been no free conversation, no walk on the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, nothing of all that they had planned. Everything failed, except William's affection. His last words on leaving home were: "Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender, and not used to rough it like the rest of us."
William was gone: and her home was 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. Her father was more negligent of his family, his habits were worse, and his manners coarser, than she had been prepared for. He did not lack abilities, but he had no curiosity; he read only the newspaper and the navy-list; 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; 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. Mrs. Price was not unkind; but her daughter never met with greater kindness from her than on the day of her arrival. Her heart and her time were already full; she had neither leisure nor affection to bestow on Fanny. Her daughters never had been much to her. She was fond of her sons, especially William, but Betsey was the first of her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her she was most injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride; Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charles occupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude. Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; she was busy without getting on; and dissatisfied with her servants, without skill to make them better, or any power of engaging their respect.
Mrs. Price resembled Lady Bertram more than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity, without any of Mrs. Norris's inclination for it. She was naturally indolent, like Lady Bertram; and Mrs. Norris would have been a more respectable mother of nine children on a small income.
Fanny could not but feel this. She might scruple to use the words, but she must feel that her mother was an ill-judging parent, a slattern, who neither taught nor restrained her children, whose house was the scene of mismanagement from beginning to end, and who had no talent, no conversation, no affection towards herself; and no curiosity to know her better.
Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear above her home, and therefore set about working for Sam immediately; and by sewing early and late, did so much that the boy was shipped off at last with more than half his linen ready.
Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regretted when he went, for he was clever and intelligent, and glad to be employed in errands; and though spurning the ill-timed though reasonable remonstrances of Susan, he was beginning to be influenced by Fanny's gentle persuasions. She despaired of making the smallest impression on Tom or Charles; they were quite untameable. Every afternoon brought a return of their riotous games all over the house; and she learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday's constant half-holiday.
Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think the alphabet her greatest enemy, left with the servants, and then encouraged to report any evil of them, she was almost as ready to despair of; and of Susan's temper she had many doubts. Susan’s continual disagreements with her mother, her squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulance with Betsey, were so distressing to Fanny that she feared Susan’s disposition must be far from amiable.
Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out of her head. On the contrary, she could think of nothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways. The elegance, propriety, harmony, and above all, the peace and tranquillity of Mansfield, were brought to her remembrance every hour, by the prevalence of everything opposite to them here.
The incessant noise was, to a delicate temper like Fanny's, the greatest misery of all. At Mansfield, no raised voice, no tread of violence, was ever heard; everybody's feelings were consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting, good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little irritations of aunt Norris, they were trifling, compared with the ceaseless tumult of her present home. Here everybody was noisy, every voice was loud (excepting, perhaps, her mother's). Whatever was wanted was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed 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.
At the end of a week, Fanny was tempted to say, that though Mansfield Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.
CHAPTER 40