Mansfield Park Revisited by Joan Aiken Page A

themselves into imprudent marriages in their distress and anger at the realisation that his intentions had never been serious towards either of them.
    But then a strange thing had happened: the apparently heartless Henry Crawford had fallen deeply, sincerely, head over heels in love with the Bertram sisters’ unassuming cousin Fanny, so much less handsome, less dowered, so much less accomplished or forthcoming than Julia and Maria, the acknowledged beauties of the neighbourhood. How it could have happened was hardly to be understood, yet so it was: the hitherto unconquerable, untouchable Henry Crawford was found to be pleading, with genuine, unaffected emotion, for the hand of Fanny Price.
    â€œWhy would you not have him, sister?” Susan always asked at this point. For in spite of his bad behaviour towards the Bertram sisters (and Susan, who could not like Julia Bertram, found no particular difficulty in pardoning someone who had used her slightingly) Henry Crawford, even as described by Fanny, who disapproved of him had—apart from the tendency to flirt—been endowed with every quality that could please. His looks were not handsome, but that was of little importance, since air and manner were so agreeable; he could talk entertainingly on every topic, was well educated, and had a great gift for acting, singing, and reading aloud; he was a skilful and intrepid horseman, a conscientious landlord, and was in many ways extremely kind-hearted, would go out of his road to do anybody a good turn.
    â€œSo why would you not have him, sister?” Susan would repeat. And Fanny always replied,
    â€œNeed you ask? Had he been endowed with every perfection of character as well as such superficial good qualities, I would not have had him; for I was deep in love with my cousin Edmund, and had been from a child.—And then, you know, there was the scandal regarding Maria; that, in the end, effectually sundered the two families. Poor Edmund! He felt it very much at the time, because of his attachment to Mary.”
    For that had been another complication. Mary Crawford, the sister, even more delightful than her brother—and without the heedless, vain propensity to flirt which impaired his character—Mary had been very much disposed to favour the suit of Edmund Bertram, although he was only a younger brother, and despite her ambition to marry money. And Edmund—to the unuttered, unutterable wretchedness of Fanny—Edmund had for a time fancied himself in love with the lively London beauty.
    â€œShe could play the harp so well, Susan—and her talk was so amusing—though sometimes, to my way of thinking, it bordered on impropriety. She could never resist making fun of the clergy; such levity used to pain poor Edmund sadly. The fact of his being in Holy Orders, and of having only a younger brother’s portion—these, I think, to her, were decided impediments to the match. Yet I think she did love him—as much as her shallow nature would allow—I think she would, in the end, have accepted him, if it had not been for the disaster of Maria.”
    Maria, now married to her rich and stupid husband, had met Henry Crawford again in London, and, still resentful at the way he had trifled with and then left her, had received him coldly and slightingly. His vanity was stung by this into making an attempt to win back her favour, and before he realised the danger he was courting, she had quitted her unloved husband and fled to him.
    Good heaven! thought Susan at this point in her reflections. And is such a despoiler—such a libertine—to be received again, acknowledged again, within the precincts of Mansfield? Surely not! Tom would never allow it.
    At that point it occurred to Susan that it was perhaps her duty to inform Tom as to the identity of the new tenants that he was, it seemed unwittingly, harbouring at the White House.
    Tom, alone among the Bertram brothers and sisters, had not