Mansfield Park, ch. 27: Crushed

We pick up right as Fanny returns to Mansfield to put away “this doubtful good of a necklace.”

Fanny’s mood lifts when she discovers Ed in her little study, and then again as he reveals that he’s purchased her a necklace on which to wear her cross (OMG the symbolism: he is literally helping her with the cross she must bear! I totally missed that before). Her delight is quashed slightly by the fact that she already has a necklace thanks to Mary Crawford’s manipulations. When Ed hears about this (not the manipulation part, obviously), he is adamant in his response: “Return the necklace! No, my dear Fanny, upon no account. It would be mortifying her severely.” Again, Ed’s first instinct is to see the situation from Mary’s point of view and urge Fanny not to upset her.

The text portrays him as practically swooning. I mean, “he was in a reverie of fond reflection, uttering only now and then a few half–sentences of praise”? Think about that. Can you imagine Ed standing with his head tilted to one side, looking off into the middle distance, babbling incoherent phrases? Is his cravat on too tight?

As Fanny protests against wearing the necklace (this is the most spirited defense she has ever made, and she’s making it to the man she loves), Ed doubles down, relying again on Fanny’s good nature. Here, his focus shifts to Mary and Fanny as a unit:

“‘I would not have the shadow of a coolness between the two whose intimacy I have been observing with the greatest pleasure, and in whose characters there is so much general resemblance in true generosity and natural delicacy as to make the few slight differences, resulting principally from situation, no reasonable hindrance to a perfect friendship. I would not have the shadow of a coolness arise,’ he repeated, his voice sinking a little, ‘between the two dearest objects I have on earth.’”

Thanks again to Leonie Verbrugge.

This beautiful idiot boy.

Both Fanny and the reader know that reality doesn’t support Ed’s observations of this so-called “perfect friendship.” It’s rather ironic that he worries about “the shadow of a coolness arising” due to Fanny’s returning the necklace when we consider why Mary gave it to her in the first place (her emotional detachment and love of manipulation). This is Ed seeing what he wants to see, taking comfort in Mary’s apparent interest in Fanny and whatever implications it may have for himself.

Now, at last, we see Fanny confront reality (more successfully than Ed, it should be pointed out). “To call or to fancy [Edmund’s love] a loss, a disappointment, would be a presumption” on her part, and a pretty unforgivable one at that. She understand that Ed is not an option for her. In order to call herself a true friend, she has to reason her deepest feelings away. Of course, all this momentarily goes out the window when Fanny catches sight of the note that Ed had started to write (“My very dear Fanny, you must do me the favor to accept—”). So of course Fanny prizes it more than the gold chain he gave her. Of course her romantic side pops up like a groundhog feeling a warm breeze on a chilly day. “The enthusiasm of a woman’s love,” the narrator notes, “is even beyond the biographer’s.” Fanny’s depth of feeling remains her largest fault and her saving grace.

But she winds herself back down because she knows she must face reality, which means continuing to keep her big crush a secret until she can reason it away.

Plot-related stuff happens: Henry offers to give William a lift to London, which means that William will be able to meet up with Admiral Crawford. I’ll discuss the timing of this in a future post, when much more will be revealed.

Anyway, we have a ball to get ready for, people! Fanny, as usual, can’t get happy about it thanks to years of low expectations and thinking herself to be “lowest and the last” in any situation. She brightens when she runs into Ed, who just came back from asking Mary to dance with him (dancing the first two dances with a specific partner is significant in a kind of engaged-to-be-engaged way). His doubt as to the likelihood of Mary settling down with him has increased. He maintains that “[s]he does not think evil, but she speaks it, speaks it in playfulness,” and blames this on her aunt and uncle. In order to believe that she is really the good, kind, sensitive woman he wants her to be, Ed has to convince himself that Mary’s words and behavior don’t align. You have to wonder if he thinks this issue might cease once she agrees to marry him, or if he suspects that he’d have to live with it.

Fanny implies that there’s a happier future for Ed and Mary than Ed currently can hope for. Earlier in the chapter, Fanny expresses a wish “to deserve the right of judging of Miss Crawford’s character.” Here is where that comes into play: Fanny thinks she shouldn’t think negative thoughts about Mary until she can get her own shit together. Otherwise, she’s only proving to herself that she’s prejudiced and envious, which in turn would mean ... say it with me ... that she cannot be authentically grateful.

Ed, grateful for her “considerate thought,” expresses himself quite enthusiastically (almost as an admirer). This tests Fanny’s resolution for the second time in two days. Though he has “shake[n] the experience of eighteen,” she isn’t deluded. She reasons that had the conversation continued, “there is no saying that he might not have talked away all Miss Crawford’s faults and his own despondence.” Hm. It almost sounds like Fanny knows Ed better than he knows himself ...

Relieved that, for now, she doesn’t have to worry about Mary’s unworthiness as Ed’s possible wife, Fanny is further rewarded when she finds out that her cross charm fits perfectly on Ed’s gold chain and not at all on Mary’s (and Henry’s) dubious gift. And for a few hours, all is right with the world.

Chapter the next: Fanny cleans up nice, the party don’t start ’til the Crawfords walk in, and Mary is a brat.