Mansfield Park, ch. 12: Matchmaker, Matchmaker

Credit to Fernando Vicente for this perfect
encapsulation of Fanny Price's isolation at her
first dance

When we last left, the Bertram siblings were making music with the Crawfords as Edmund was falling harder for the sophisticated Mary C.

Tom Bertram finally comes home to roost—just in time for hunting season—and this makes Mary all frowny face. She was supposed to (in accordance with her personal values) attract the eldest brother into marriage so that she’ll end up a rich wife. But not only is he super not into her, she went and got a crush on the guy’s brother, who wants to be an icky clergyman. Major bummer. What’s a girl to do?

Listen, I’m trying not to come down on Mary too hard in this reading, but her dating/marriage philosophy leaves little room for sympathy.

Meanwhile, Henry C. has left the building—for two weeks. The narrator shakes her finger at Henry, Julia, and Maria for not taking that time to think about the weird, awkward, and even harmful situation they’ve got themselves into. Far from blaming the victims (if that’s the label you want to attribute to the Bertram sisters), Austen really lays into Henry, stating that “had he been more in the habit of examining his own motives, and of reflecting to what the indulgence of his idle vanity was tending,” he would have known to not return to Mansfield. The “cautious temper” he claims to possess (way back in chapter 3) is nowhere to be found.

“[B]ut, thoughtless and selfish from prosperity and bad example, he would not look beyond the present moment,” the narrator laments, and thus Henry returns with more plans to “trifle” with the sisters’ dueling affections. It’s funny re-reading all this after years of obsessing over the latter part of the novel, when Henry becomes more intense and seems to be taking things seriously. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The main point here is that Henry is a douche who’s having too much fun playing footsie with two women—one of which is engaged to another man—at the same time.

Interestingly, Fanny is the only one who has taken notice of Henry’s behavior regarding her cousins. She mentions it to Edmund, hoping that he can see that Henry acts like he’s into Maria. But Edmund brushes it off with the out-of-nowhere suggestion that Henry is probably into Julia, but feels more comfortable giving Maria attention because … he’s shy? This is very puzzling logic coming from Edmund,* and I think it’s meant to show his lack of knowledge about his sisters, flirtation, and perhaps his own heart. After all, when did Edmund, who took a long time to make up his mind about whether he liked Mary, give her half-sister Mrs. Grant any special attention? Do you see the weird twists in logic here?

Fanny comes back from this conversation thinking that she made a mistake in her observations. But as time passes, she begins to doubt Edmund’s assurances. It’s not until the next ball (her first one ever) that she gets a chance to hear what Mrs. Norris, a huge proponent of Julia/Henry Crawford, has to say on the subject.

(I hope you enjoyed that break from Mrs. Norris, by the way. It’s going to get bumpy from here on out.)

This illustration conveys the slap-dash nature of the ball the Bertrams
decide to put on at the last minute. I imagine the woman at the far left is
Maria, holding a dance card and hoping to see Henry Crawford's name.

Anyway, Mrs. Norris’s first order of business is to congratulate Mrs. Rushworth on the impending marriage of Maria and Rushworth, Jr. The talk about “complying with the common forms,” I found out, actually means that dancers should have a variety of partners and not stick to just one, in order to be diplomatic. Mrs. Rushworth is a little put-out that Maria and Rushworth can’t be partners permanently throughout the night, but Mrs. Norris praises Maria’s “strict sense of propriety” in “avoiding particularity” in her partners. Fanny observes in the moment when Maria looks “happy” that Henry just so happens to be close by.

Then Mrs. Norris gabs about how Julia and Henry are basically engaged to be engaged and Mrs. Rushworth gets in a dig about Henry’s £4,000 a year. For modern audiences, that equates to just under $400,000. For contrast, Rushworth brings in roughly $1 million, give or take a couple hundred-thousand. But, you know. Henry's doing all right for himself.

Then Fanny decides to raise her hopes as Tom enters the ballroom. She has been the only young person unable to dance due to an uneven number of partners (and the fact that Edmund is the only one who bothers to dance with her). Her expectation that Tom will ask her to dance seems a little out-of-character for her, though she does “feel it would be a great honour.” I think this is Jane Austen creeping into Fanny’s voice here. Austen saw it as a duty for men and women to dance at a ball or assembly, because that was what balls were for: to promote socialization among young and unmarried people. And because dancing is the polite thing to do.** Fanny would have learned this from Edmund and/or from the dozens of books on etiquette and propriety that young ladies were encouraged to read (and that Austen herself read).

So here’s her oldest cousin Tom in a position to practice good breeding by engaging in basic societal expectations. And what does he do? Picks up a newspaper, talks about his horse, and only asks her to dance once it’s clear that he’s bored with reading. Fanny, ashamed, politely declines. Even someone with a soupçon of self-esteem would rather sit in silence than be treated like an afterthought.

He complains about all the monogamous heterosexuality going on around them (I’m not saying … I’m just saying) and gets in a jab at the Grants’ sex life, which, gross, man. But once Mrs. Norris invites him to play cards with the boring adults, he jumps up and grabs Fanny’s hand, all whoops, sorry, love to talk, too busy right now, ttyl. As they’re dancing, Tom complains about how unfair it is to “[be] given a choice, and at the same time addressed in such a way as to oblige one to do the very thing, whatever it be!” Notably, he does not consider the irony of the situation, as he just put Fanny in the same position as Mrs. Norris put him in moments before.

Truly, Fanny’s first experience at a ball was not the Cinderella-like transformation that we might have expected. But Austen likes to make her readers wait for a happy ending.

Next time: the arrival of Mr. Yates results in almost all of Mansfield Park getting bit by the acting bug, Tom decides to act like he’s the head of the family, and the art of set design.

*Especially since none of Austen’s other novels show this phenomenon in action. The male characters who do act this way—“distinguish[ing] the sister or intimate friend of the woman he is really thinking of more than the woman herself”—are usually portrayed as duplicitous or clueless. Frank Churchill from Emma is the most notorious example.

**Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Elton from Emma are shown refusing to dance—one because of his haughtiness, the other in order to insult an innocent woman. In Austen’s unfinished novel The Watsons, the female protagonist offers to dance with a younger boy after he’s been rejected by a snob who originally promised to dance with him.