Mansfield Park | Page 3

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MANSFIELD PARK (1814)
by
Jane Austen


CHAPTER I

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only
seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas
Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be
thereby raised to the rank of a baronet's lady, with all the comforts and
consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon
exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer,
himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any
equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefited by her
elevation; and such of their acquaintance as thought Miss Ward and
Miss Frances quite as handsome as Miss Maria, did not scruple to
predict their marrying with almost equal advantage. But there certainly
are not so many men of large fortune in the world as there are pretty
women to deserve them. Miss Ward, at the end of half a dozen years,
found herself obliged to be attached to the Rev. Mr. Norris, a friend of
her brother-in-law, with scarcely any private fortune, and Miss Frances
fared yet worse. Miss Ward's match, indeed, when it came to the point,
was not contemptible: Sir Thomas being happily able to give his friend
an income in the living of Mansfield; and Mr. and Mrs. Norris began
their career of conjugal felicity with very little less than a thousand a
year. But Miss Frances married, in the common phrase, to disoblige her
family, and by fixing on a lieutenant of marines, without education,
fortune, or connexions, did it very thoroughly. She could hardly have
made a more untoward choice. Sir Thomas Bertram had interest, which,
from principle as well as pride--from a general wish of doing right, and
a desire of seeing all that were connected with him in situations of
respectability, he would have been glad to exert for the advantage of
Lady Bertram's sister; but her husband's profession was such as no
interest could reach; and before he had time to devise any other method
of assisting them, an absolute breach between the sisters had taken
place. It was the natural result of the conduct of each party, and such as
a very imprudent marriage almost always produces. To save herself
from useless remonstrance, Mrs. Price never wrote to her family on the
subject till actually married. Lady Bertram, who was a woman of very
tranquil feelings, and a temper remarkably easy and indolent, would
have contented herself with merely giving up her sister, and thinking no
more of the matter; but Mrs. Norris had a spirit of activity, which could
not be satisfied till she had written a long and angry letter to Fanny, to

point out the folly of her conduct, and threaten her with all its possible
ill consequences. Mrs. Price, in her turn, was injured and angry; and an
answer, which comprehended each sister in its bitterness, and bestowed
such very disrespectful reflections on the pride of Sir Thomas as Mrs.
Norris could not possibly keep to herself, put an end to all intercourse
between them for a considerable period.
Their homes were so distant, and the circles in which they moved so
distinct, as almost to preclude the means of ever hearing of each other's
existence during the eleven following years, or, at least, to make it very
wonderful to Sir Thomas that Mrs. Norris should ever have it in her
power to tell them, as she now and then did, in an angry voice, that
Fanny had got another child. By the end of eleven years, however, Mrs.
Price could no longer afford to cherish pride or resentment, or to lose
one connexion that might possibly assist her. A large and still
increasing family, an husband disabled for active service, but not the
less equal to company and good liquor, and a very small income to