Jane Austen (14 page)

Edmund writes to Fanny again saying that his sister Julia has eloped with their brother Tom’s friend John Yates. It is also rumoured, and finally confirmed, that the Bertrams’ elder daughter Maria has left her husband Mr Rushworth for Henry Crawford. In her judgement of Henry, Fanny is therefore completely vindicated. She is then summoned back to Mansfield Park, at Sir Thomas’s behest, in order that she might comfort his wife Lady Bertram in all her family troubles.

Fanny learns from Edmund that Mary blames
her
for the debacle, in that had she accepted Henry’s proposal of marriage he ‘would have been too happy and too busy to want any other
object’, and ‘would have taken no pains to be on terms with Mrs [Maria] Rushworth again’. Fanny calls this behaviour on Mary’s part cruel. Edmund’s eyes are now, at last, fully opened to Mary’s character. ‘How I have been deceived!’ he says.

Jane Austen concludes
Mansfield Park
by saying that Fanny, in spite of everything, was a happy creature in that ‘she had sources of delight that must force their way’. Not only that, but when she returned to Mansfield Park, ‘she was useful, she was beloved; she was safe from Mr Crawford’. Also, Sir Thomas, even in his melancholy state of mind, was able to give her his ‘perfect approbation and increased regard’. Most importantly of all, Edmund was ‘no longer the dupe of Miss Crawford’. In fact, he admitted, ‘even in the midst of his late infatuation’, to Fanny’s mental superiority. In other words, Fanny had been able to discern the truth about Mary Crawford, whereas he had not. Edmund and Fanny marry and, on Dr Grant’s death, move into the parsonage at Mansfield Park.

So what is the message of
Mansfield Park
? It is the story of a young woman who starts life in a lower middle-class family in Portsmouth and becomes, to all intents and purposes, the mistress of Mansfield Park. How does she achieve this? By a steadfastness of character; by an unwillingness to condone or become involved in the schemes of others with which she disapproves, and by refusing an offer of matrimony from someone who may be rich, but whom she knows can never make her happy. Even when she feels ‘deserted by everybody’ she does not abandon her principles. Her happiness is something which comes from within; it is not dependant on the wealth or patronage of others. Fortunately for Fanny, her strengths are
recognised by Sir Thomas Bertram and latterly, by his younger son Edmund.

Fanny, a beacon of light in an often dark world, has many tribulations to bear: the spitefulness of Aunt Norris; the indifference of her parents when she returns to Portsmouth; the duplicity of Henry and Mary Crawford and the naivety of the love-struck Edmund. Nevertheless, she behaves unselfishly even when all hope of a union between herself and Edmund appears to have vanished: always making his happiness her primary consideration.

Also, although Fanny’s parents have little time for her, there are strong indications in the novel of the importance Fanny places on her loving relationship with her brother William, and latterly with her sister Susan; such relationships being regarded by her as uniquely to be treasured.

In January 1813, a few days before the publication of her novel
Pride and Prejudice
, Jane’s sister Cassandra left Chawton to visit Steventon, a journey of 14 miles. She was therefore absent when the author’s copy of the novel arrived from the publishers, and all Jane could do was write to her: ‘I want to tell you that I have got my own darling child [i.e. the novel] from London’.
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Jane’s letters indicate that her mother’s health was particularly bad during that year. For example, in the February:

Jane’s cousin Eliza, Henry’s wife, had also been ill for almost a year, and she was now fading fast. Henry sent for Jane to come to London, to Sloane Street where they now lived, to comfort her. She died on 25 April 1813, aged 50.

In June 1813, Charles’s two eldest daughters Cassandra and Harriet came to stay with their Aunts Jane and Cassandra in Hampshire. From mid-September to November of that year, it was Jane’s turn to stay at Godmersham Park.

Jane sent her brother Francis a long letter in early July. In it, she said that the previous January she had learnt, from the newspaper, that the Revd Samuel Blackall had married Susannah, ‘eldest daughter of James Lewis Esq. of Clifton, late of Jamaica’.
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The previous year Blackall had achieved his wish of becoming Rector of North Cadbury, Somerset and could therefore now afford a wife.

Jane had previously described Blackall as ‘a peice of Perfection’ and someone whom she would ‘always recollect with regard’. Now, in respect of his new wife, she stated as follows:

This smacks of sour grapes on Jane’s part. She knew that Blackall was a lively and intelligent man, so if she had had his best interests at heart, she would naturally have wished for his partner to be of a similar nature. Instead, she expresses the hope that Susannah Lewis will prove to be dull and staid. In other words, Jane hopes that Blackall will be punished for not choosing her instead; she who had all the requisite qualities.

So why had he not married Jane? After all, she was still a single woman and in good health. Was it, as has already been suggested, because of intervention by Cassandra?

Despite receiving this piece of portentous news about Blackall, Jane still found it possible to think of her brother. She wrote to Francis:

At about this time, Jane’s niece Frances (‘Fanny’) Knight observed that her Aunt Jane ‘suffered sadly with her face’.
6
Years later, Fanny’s sister Elizabeth (‘Lizzy’) recalled seeing Jane walk

What the Knight sisters were observing in Jane were attacks of trigeminal neuralgia, caused by a dysfunction of the trigeminal (or 5th cranial) nerve which supplies the face. The pain is severe and comes in paroxysms, and the disorder is believed to be due to compression of the nerve in the bony canal between the brain and the face, in which it lies.

Jane told Cassandra that their mother had improved and was ‘no more in need of Leeches’. (A leech is a large aquatic blood-sucking worm used by the medical profession for the
purpose of blood-letting, which was considered to be beneficial.) Nevertheless, James E. Austen-Leigh declares that during the last years of her life, Mrs Austen ‘endured continual pain, not only patiently but with characteristic cheerfulness’. (In fact, she lived on until 1827).
8

In September 1813 Jane sent Francis an even longer letter, packed with news and addressed to: ‘Captain Austen, HMS
Elephant
, Baltic.’
9

The following month gave Jane the opportunity of seeing her youngest brother, Charles, when he and his wife Frances arrived at Godmersham Park, where she was staying. She said warmly:

In a letter to her niece Anna Austen, written in mid-September 1814, Jane gave a clue as to how she obtained ideas for the characters of her novels when she said, ‘3 or 4 Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on’.
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Jane had many reasons to be grateful to her cousin Eliza: for encouraging her in her music, her singing, her manners and deportment, and not least, her writing. However, there were aspects of Eliza’s character with which Jane would have neither empathised, nor approved.

For example, when Eliza enlightened her about the goings on at the French Court – and at the English Court also – Jane may not have been particularly impressed. This was because her heart was firmly rooted at Steventon, in the depths of her beloved Hampshire countryside, and amidst those familiar faces with which she came into contact on a day-to-day basis, as one of her poems indicates:

Eliza wrote many letters to her cousin Phylly Walter, and although Jane was clearly not privy to the content of these letters, they provide a useful guide as to her character, opinions and beliefs. They indicate that Eliza may not always have behaved in a manner which Jane, as the daughter of a clergyman and a devout Christian herself, would have condoned. For instance, when Eliza tells Phylly that she has been invited to the Coronation Ball (held to commemorate the coronation of King George III, which had taken place on 22 September 1761), she (Eliza)

Amusing as this comment may be, there may have been more than a grain of truth in it, and not just in regard to coronation balls.

Eliza tells Phylly that she hopes to have

This begs the question, was Eliza herself a flirt? An (unnamed) daughter of Anna Lefroy supports the notion that yes, she was, when she states:

On the other hand, the whole tenor of Jane’s novels indicates that she herself would hardly have approved of flirting, and least of all with a gentleman of the cloth. Eliza, however, did have certain scruples. She said:

She makes another comment to Phylly that Jane would undoubtedly have considered vulgar and in poor taste had she heard it:

In marrying the Comte de Feuillide it is evident that Eliza’s main concerns were for money and status. With the Comte, she said she was

When it came to assessing Henry as a prospective second husband, Eliza used the same criteria. She commented to Phylly:

Clearly, Eliza could not imagine anyone wishing to marry a clergyman who depended solely on his income, as this comment to Phylly indicates:

Did Eliza marry the Comte for love, also? Hardly, for as Phylly confirms:

In fact, Eliza could not even envisage falling in love. Do not imagine, she tells Phylly, referring to Germany, Flanders and France, which she had previously visited,

As for the marriage ceremony itself, Eliza declared: ‘I never was but at one wedding in my life and that appeared a very stupid Business to me’.
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Did Eliza marry
Henry
for love? Indeed, there is no mention of the word in the following statement to Phylly, in which she
appears to view Jane’s brother with a scarcely veiled contempt. Eliza described

In other words, everything must be on her terms. To Jane, of course, for someone to marry a person with whom they were not in love would have been absolutely anathema.

Phylly stated that, despite everything, Eliza’s religion [i.e. the Christian faith] ‘is not changed’.
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However, the latter evidently paid the price for her ‘dissipated life’ for, as she remarked regretfully:

Leaving aside their common interest in music and poetry, it is difficult to imagine two people whose views were so deeply contrasting than Jane and Eliza, and not surprisingly, Jane could not resist making her cousin a character – albeit thinly disguised – in one of her novels: that novel being
Mansfield Park
.