| 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 temper delicate
and nervous like Fanny?s, an evil which no superadded elegance or
harmony could have entirely atoned forIt was the greatest misery
of allAt 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 feelings were consultedIf tenderness could
be ever supposed wanting, good sense and good breeding supplied
its place; and as to the little irritations sometimes introduced by
aunt Norris, they were short, they were trifling, they were as a drop
of water to the ocean, compared with the ceaseless tumult of her
present abodeHere 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
was hallooed for, and the servants hallooed out their excuses from
the kitchenThe 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
In a review of the two houses, as they appeared to her before the
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end of a week, Fanny was tempted to apply to them DrJohnson?s
celebrated judgment as to matrimony and celibacy, and say, chanel handbags that
though Mansfield Park might have some pains, Portsmouth could
have no pleasures
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CHAPTER XL
FANNY WAS RIGHT enough in not expecting to hear from Miss
Crawford now at the rapid rate in which their correspondence had
begun; Mary?s next letter was after a decidedly longer interval than
the last, but she was not right in supposing that such an interval
would be felt a great relief to herselfHere was another strange revolution
of mind! She was really glad to receive the letter when it did
comeIn her present exile from good society, and distance from
everything that had been wont to interest her, a letter from one
belonging to the set where her heart lived, written with affection,
and some degree of elegance, was thoroughly acceptableThe usual
plea of increasing engagements was made in excuse for not having
written to her earlier; ?And now that I have begun,? she continued,
?my letter will not be worth your reading, for there will be no little
offering of love at the end, no three or four lines passionnees from
the most devoted Hin the world, for Henry is in Norfolk; business
called him to Everingham ten days ago, or perhaps he only
pretended to call, for the sake of being travelling at the same time
that you wereBut there he is, and, by the bye, his absence may
sufficiently account for any remissness of his sister?s in writing, for
there has been no ?Well, Mary, when do you write to Fanny? Is not
it time for you to write to Fanny?? to spur me onAt last, after
various attempts at meeting, I have seen your cousins, ?dear Julia
and dearest MrsRushworth?; they hermes replica found me at home yesterday,
and we were glad to see each other againWe seemed very glad to see
each other, and I do really think we were a littleWe had a vast deal
to sayShall I tell you how MrsRushworth looked when your name
was mentioned? I did not use to think her wanting in self-possession,
but she had not quite enough for the demands of yesterday
Upon the whole, Julia was in the best looks of the two, at least after
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you were spoken ofThere was no recovering the complexion from
the moment that I spoke of ?Fanny,? and spoke of her as a sister
shouldRushworth?s day of good looks will come; we have
cards for her first party on the 28thThen she will be in beauty, for
she will open one of the best houses in Wimpole StreetI was in it
two years ago, when it was Lady Lascelle?s, and prefer it to almost
any I know in London, and certainly she will then feel, to use a
vulgar phrase, that she has got her pennyworth for her pennyHenry
could not have afforded her such a houseI hope she will recollect
it, and be satisfied, as well as she may, with moving the queen of a
palace, though the king may appear best in the background; and as
I have no desire to tease her, I shall never force your name upon her
againShe will grow sober by degreesFrom all that I hear and guess,
Baron Wildenheim?s attentions to Julia continue, but I do not know
that he has any serious encouragementShe ought to do betterA
poor honourable is no catch, and I cannot imagine any liking in the
case, for take away his rants, and the poor baron has nothingWhat
a difference a vowel makes! If his rents were chanel necklace but equal to his rants!
Your cousin Edmund moves slowly; detained, perchance, by parish
dutiesThere may be some old woman at Thornton Lacey to be
convertedI am unwilling to fancy myself neglected for a young
oneAdieu! my dear sweet Fanny, this is a long letter from London:
write me a pretty one in reply to gladden Henry?s eyes, when he
comes back, and send me an account of all the dashing young captains
whom you disdain for his sake
There was great food for meditation in this letter, and chiefly for
unpleasant meditation; and yet, with all the uneasiness it supplied,
it connected her with the absent, it told her of people and things
about whom she had never felt so much curiosity as now, and she
would have been glad to have been sure of such a letter every week
Her correspondence with her aunt Bertram was her only concern of
higher interest
As for any society in Portsmouth, that could at all make amends
for deficiencies at home, there were none within the circle of her
father?s and mother?s acquaintance to afford her the smallest satisfaction:
she saw nobody in whose favour she could wish to overcome
her own shyness and reserveThe men appeared to her all
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coarse, the women all pert, everybody underbred; and she gave as
little contentment as she received from introductions either to old
or new acquaintanceThe young ladies who approached her at first
with some respect, in consideration of her coming from a baronet?s
family, were soon offended by what they termed ?airs?; for, as she
neither played on the pianoforte nor wore fine pelisses, they could,
on farther silver rolex daytona watches observation, admit no right of superiority
The first solid consolation which Fanny received for the evils of
home, the first which her judgment could entirely approve, and
which gave any promise of durability, was in a better knowledge of
Susan, and a hope of being of service to herSusan had always behaved
pleasantly to herself, but the determined character of her general
manners had astonished and alarmed her, and it was at least a
fortnight before she began to understand a disposition so totally
different from her ownSusan saw that much was wrong at home,
and wanted to set it rightThat a girl of fourteen, acting only on her
own unassisted reason, should err in the method of reform, was not
wonderful; and Fanny soon became more disposed to admire the
natural light of the mind which could so early distinguish justly,
than to censure severely the faults of conduct to which it ledSusan
was only acting on the same truths, and pursuing the same system,
which her own judgment acknowledged, but which her more supine
and yielding temper would have shrunk from assertingSusan
tried to be useful, where she could only have gone away and cried;
and that Susan was useful she could perceive; that things, bad as
they were, would have been worse but for such interposition, and
that both her mother and Betsey were restrained from some excesses
of very offensive indulgence and vulgarity
In every argument with her mother, Susan had in point of reason
the advantage, and never was there any maternal tenderness to buy
her offThe blind fondness which was for ever producing evil around
her she had never newest dior bag k |