Chapter XXXIX

by Jane Austen

　　Could Sir Thomas have seen all his niece's feelings,when she wrote her first letter to her aunt, he wouldnot have despaired; for though a good night's rest,a pleasant morning, the hope of soon seeing William again,and the comparatively quiet state of the house, from Tomand Charles being gone to school, Sam on some project ofhis own, and her father on his usual lounges, enabled herto express herself cheerfully on the subject of home,there were still, to her own perfect consciousness,many drawbacks suppressed. Could he have seen only halfthat she felt before the end of a week, he would havethought Mr. Crawford sure of her, and been delighted withhis own sagacity.Before the week ended, it was all disappointment.In the first place, William was gone. The Thrushhad had her orders, the wind had changed, and he wassailed within four days from their reaching Portsmouth;and during those days she had seen him only twice,in a short and hurried way, when he had come ashoreon duty. There had been no free conversation, no walkon the ramparts, no visit to the dockyard, no acquaintancewith the Thrush, nothing of all that they had plannedand depended on. Everything in that quarter failed her,except William's affection. His last thought on leavinghome was for her. He stepped back again to the doorto say, "Take care of Fanny, mother. She is tender,and not used to rough it like the rest of us. I charge you,take care of Fanny."William was gone: and the home he had left her in was,Fanny could not conceal it from herself, in almost everyrespect 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 oughtto be. She could not respect her parents as she had hoped.On her father, her confidence had not been sanguine, but hewas more negligent of his family, his habits were worse,and his manners coarser, than she had been prepared for.He did not want abilities but he had no curiosity,and no information beyond his profession; he read onlythe newspaper and the navy-list; he talked only ofthe 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 approachingto tenderness in his former treatment of herself.There had remained only a general impression of roughnessand loudness; 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.Every flattering scheme of being of consequence to hersoon fell to the ground. Mrs. Price was not unkind;but, instead of gaining on her affection and confidence,and becoming more and more dear, her daughter never metwith greater kindness from her than on the first day ofher 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 daughters never had been much to her. She was fondof her sons, especially of William, but Betsey was the firstof her girls whom she had ever much regarded. To her shewas most injudiciously indulgent. William was her pride;Betsey her darling; and John, Richard, Sam, Tom, and Charlesoccupied all the rest of her maternal solicitude, alternatelyher worries and her comforts. These shared her heart:her time was given chiefly to her house and her servants.Her days were spent in a kind of slow bustle; all was busywithout getting on, always behindhand and lamenting it,without altering her ways; wishing to be an economist,without contrivance or regularity; dissatisfied withher servants, without skill to make them better,and whether helping, or reprimanding, or indulging them,without any power of engaging their respect.Of her two sisters, Mrs. Price very much more resembled LadyBertram than Mrs. Norris. She was a manager by necessity,without any of Mrs. Norris's inclination for it, or anyof her activity. Her disposition was naturally easyand indolent, like Lady Bertram's; and a situation of similaraffluence and do-nothingness would have been much moresuited to her capacity than the exertions and self-denialsof the one which her imprudent marriage had placed her in.She might have made just as good a woman of consequenceas Lady Bertram, but Mrs. Norris would have been a morerespectable mother of nine children on a small income.Much of all this Fanny could not but be sensible of.She might scruple to make use of the words, but shemust and did feel that her mother was a partial,ill-judging parent, a dawdle, a slattern, who neither taughtnor restrained her children, whose house was the sceneof mismanagement and discomfort from beginning to end,and who had no talent, no conversation, no affectiontowards herself; no curiosity to know her better,no desire of her friendship, and no inclination for hercompany that could lessen her sense of such feelings.Fanny was very anxious to be useful, and not to appear aboveher home, or in any way disqualified or disinclined, by herforeign education, from contributing her help to its comforts,and therefore set about working for Sam immediately;and by working early and late, with perseverance andgreat despatch, did so much that the boy was shippedoff at last, with more than half his linen ready.She had great pleasure in feeling her usefulness, but couldnot conceive how they would have managed without her.Sam, loud and overbearing as he was, she rather regrettedwhen he went, for he was clever and intelligent, and gladto be employed in any errand in the town; and thoughspurning the remonstrances of Susan, given as they were,though very reasonable in themselves, with ill-timedand powerless warmth, was beginning to be influencedby Fanny's services and gentle persuasions; and she foundthat the best of the three younger ones was gone in him:Tom and Charles being at least as many years as they werehis juniors distant from that age of feeling and reason,which might suggest the expediency of making friends,and of endeavouring to be less disagreeable. Their sistersoon despaired of making the smallest impression on _them_;they were quite untameable by any means of address which shehad spirits or time to attempt. Every afternoon broughta return of their riotous games all over the house; and shevery early learned to sigh at the approach of Saturday'sconstant half-holiday.Betsey, too, a spoiled child, trained up to think thealphabet her greatest enemy, left to be with the servantsat her pleasure, and then encouraged to report any evilof them, she was almost as ready to despair of beingable to love or assist; and of Susan's temper she hadmany doubts. Her continual disagreements with her mother,her rash squabbles with Tom and Charles, and petulancewith Betsey, were at least so distressing to Fanny that,though admitting they were by no means without provocation,she feared the disposition that could push them to suchlength must be far from amiable, and from affordingany repose to herself.Such was the home which was to put Mansfield out ofher head, and teach her to think of her cousin Edmund withmoderated feelings. On the contrary, she could think ofnothing but Mansfield, its beloved inmates, its happy ways.Everything where she now was in full contrast to it.The elegance, propriety, regularity, harmony, and perhaps,above all, the peace and tranquillity of Mansfield,were brought to her remembrance every hour of the day,by the prevalence of everything opposite to them _here_.The living in incessant noise was, to a frame and temperdelicate and nervous like Fanny's, an evil which nosuperadded elegance or harmony could have entirelyatoned for. It was the greatest misery of all.At Mansfield, no sounds of contention, no raised voice,no abrupt bursts, no tread of violence, was ever heard;all proceeded in a regular course of cheerful orderliness;everybody had their due importance; everybody's feelingswere consulted. If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting,good sense and good breeding supplied its place; and as tothe little irritations sometimes introduced by aunt Norris,they were short, they were trifling, they were as a dropof water to the ocean, compared with the ceaselesstumult of her present abode. Here everybody 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 washallooed for, and the servants hallooed out their excusesfrom the kitchen. The doors were in constant banging,the stairs were never at rest, nothing was done withouta clatter, nobody sat still, and nobody could commandattention when they spoke.In a review of the two houses, as they appeared to herbefore the end of a week, Fanny was tempted to applyto them Dr. Johnson's celebrated judgment as to matrimonyand celibacy, and say, that though Mansfield Park mighthave some pains, Portsmouth could have no pleasures.