Mansfield Park, ch. 28: Swing-Shift Cinderella

Credit to Sophia Watts for making Fanny and Henry
really pop. Side note: I'm obsessed with those gloves.

The night of the ball has arrived!

With the knowledge that she looks decent, assurances from Ed that he’s no longer thinking about popping the question to Mary C., and her brother William in attendance, our mild-mannered heroine has “hardly ever been in a state so nearly approaching high spirits in her life.” I mean, sure, both Mrs. Norris and Lady Bertram are trying to take credit for Fanny’s beauty, but that’s background noise. Sir Thomas is pleased with her and Ed wants her to save a dance for him, and honestly, who can ask for anything better?

Maybe I wouldn’t mind having Maria and Julia there to see their reactions, but I think we can all imagine that for ourselves. Tom Bertram, you may have noticed, has gone M.I.A. He was mentioned by Ed in the last chapter as en route to London. Miss him? Yeah, me neither.

Anyway, Fanny is called on to act as hostess, a duty that she hadn’t counted on performing because she hasn’t really got the message that this ball is essentially for her (and William, though he just putters around, so he apparently doesn’t have the same responsibility as his sister). Once the Grants and the Crawfords arrive, the stiff politeness wears off and the atmosphere becomes more high-school-prom-like. Henry swoops in to ask Fanny for the first set of dances and to be super obvious with “his eye glancing for a moment at her necklace, with a smile—she thought there was a smile—which made her blush and feel wretched.” Ugh. Keep it G-rated, okay, Henry? This girl is wearing your necklace because of a dirty trick your sister pulled. But with all the blushing going on, it’s easy to see why he might assume that Fanny’s falling for his act. After all, her much more sophisticated (blech) cousins did. Example #546 of characters assuming that Fanny is a pushover.

Fanny runs into Mary to explain her choice in jewelry (she’s wearing both Mary’s necklace and Ed’s chain), but Mary is distracted by Ed’s kindness in procuring a necklace at all. For such a mismatched couple, it’s interesting that they are both impressed with one another’s (seeming) acts of kindness. But as we will see before chapter’s end, Ed’s good impression on Mary doesn’t last long.

Fanny has to be ordered by Sir Thomas to open the dance, meaning that she must “be placed above so many elegant young women.” As she’s dancing with Henry, who’s the life of the party, it’s clear that she’s just going through the motions. “[W]hen she looked back to the state of things in the autumn, to what they had all been to each other when once dancing in that house before, the present arrangement was almost more than she could understand herself.”

Same here, sister.

As the evening wears on, Mary schmoozes the Bertrams to the point where it seems like she’s trolling them. On the one hand, she bases her approaches to Sir Thomas, Lady Bertram, and Mrs. Norris on their separate personalities. This gives Austen a chance to be funny while illustrating the degrees of egocentricity of all three (showing that Sir Thomas is the most generous). But on the other hand, this also shows the duality of Mary’s character: she’s smart enough to know how to play to different people, but she does so at the cost of being sincere. And yet her sincerity is not questioned by any of the three characters. This isn’t to say that this marks her as evil or anything. I think we all do this in our real lives, too—alter our approach when it comes to different people.

But then she teases Fanny about Henry having to do something mysterious while in London, and she misses the mark completely. Mary is blithely unaware of Fanny’s true feelings, refusing to consider that Fanny is “insensible of pleasure in Henry’s attentions.” Her sharp observation skills have failed her once again when it comes to Fanny. I think this is Mary’s own egocentricity coming into play: she’s so used to thinking of her brother as a lady killer that she cannot consider any alternative explanation for Fanny’s cluelessness.

Fanny would rather talk with her brother, who is after all leaving in the morning, and enjoy a dance with an emotionally drained Ed. (The narrator assures us that “any looker–on” would conclude “that Sir Thomas had been bringing up no wife for his younger son,” as if some of the people in attendance are expecting to see otherwise.)

Meanwhile, the Ed-Mary ship (... Medmund?) is falling apart. The main point of contention is the same as it’s always been, only this time Ed is truly wounded. All through the ball, “[t]hey had talked, and they had been silent; he had reasoned, she had ridiculed; and they had parted at last with mutual vexation.” Ed is frustrated because she won’t take his profession or his convictions seriously. Mary is frustrated that she won’t be getting her way. Methinks their priorities aren’t quite lining up. Fanny is happy-sad at this dissolution of Medmund. If I hadn’t already read this book a thousand times, I’d just be happy.

Sir Thomas, however, is busy shipping Fanny with Henry (Hanny? I’m going with Hanny). He believes that the ball has propelled Henry’s feelings from like to love, which seems ridiculous coming from the most sensible character in the novel. Sir Thomas has “a pleasing anticipation of what would be,” an attitude that speaks more to his sense of order and propriety than any sensitivity to his niece’s feelings. I wonder if we’re meant to think he’s correct in his assumption? Sure, we’ll know the truth in a couple of chapters, but in this moment, Sir Thomas doesn’t come across as the most emotionally intelligent guy. It’s more likely that Henry has pulled the wool over the Bertram patriarch’s eyes. I mean, the guy brazenly flirted with his two daughters, and despite a handful of witnesses (Rushworth nearly spilled the tea, remember?), Sir Thomas remains blissfully unaware.

Credit to Nan Cao. 

Fanny is excused to go to bed. Despite the physical and emotional frustrations she’s experienced, feeling “feverish with hopes and fears,” and “restless and agitated,” our girl Fanny decides that “a ball was indeed delightful.” I like how she acknowledges that she had a good time and is able to separate her joy from everything else that’s been going on. Even the Crawford sibs can’t keep her down for long.

Oh, and LOL @ Sir Thomas considering Fanny’s level of “persuadableness.” He has no idea what’s about to hit him.

Next chapter: We say goodbye to William (for now), Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram will make you go “awww,” and a desperate Mary does some recon.