Free Jane Austen by Andrew Norman Page B

ways.
    Mary declares that, ‘A large income, is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of’. And Fanny Price says of Mary, ‘She had only learnt to think nothing of consequence but money’. The obvious way to achieve wealth was, of course, to marry and this was exactly what Mary had in mind. ‘Matrimony was her object, provided she could marry well’. Her advice was that ‘every body should marry as soon as they can do it to advantage’. However, Mary warns that for those like herself, who marry for money, there are pitfalls. She says:
    [marriage] is, of all transactions, one in which people expect the most from others, and are least honest themselves … It is a manoeuvring business. I know so many who have married in the full expectation and confidence of some one particular advantage in the connection, or accomplishment of good quality in the person, who have found themselves entirely deceived, and been obliged to put up with exactly the reverse!
    Is this Jane telling us that Eliza (Mary) was disappointed in her marriage to the Comte? After all, Jean-François Capot was not a genuine count. He was
    [the] son of a provincial lawyer who had risen to become mayor of Nérac, a town in the province of Guinne, in the south-west of France, where the family owned a small estate.
    For Mary, there are certain classes of people who it would be folly to marry. For example, she is dismissive of Edmund’s intention to become a clergyman and declares, ‘A clergymanis nothing’, by which she meant that a man of the cloth, by virtue of his position in life, cannot aspire to wealth. When Mary declares to Edmund her intention to become very rich, he in turn declares that his intentions are only ‘not to be poor’. To this, Mary replies:
    Be honest and poor by all means – but I shall not envy you; I do not much think I shall even respect you. I have a much greater respect for those that are honest and rich.
    Mary also demonstrates her disdain for the clergy by expressing the opinion that, in former times, ‘parsons were very inferior even to what they are now’.
    According to Mary, Edmund’s salvation would be if his brother Tom were to die, thereby leaving him to inherit Mansfield Park. Edmund would then be a much more attractive proposition as a husband. At this, the horrified Fanny remarks dryly, ‘Edmund would be forgiven for being a clergyman, it seemed, under certain conditions of wealth’.
    Was Mary Crawford a flirt, as Eliza was alleged to be? No, because for Jane this would have been a step too far, as she would have risked offending both Eliza, who would certainly have recognised herself in the novel, and her husband Henry. Instead, she makes Mary’s brother Henry the flirt. As previously quoted, Mary says:
    He [Henry] is the most horrible flirt that can be imagined. If your Miss Bertrams do not like to have their hearts broke, let them avoid Henry.
    So who is there, in Mansfield Park, to counteract the influence of Mary? Why, Fanny Price, of course, who in turn is undoubtedly a vehicle for Jane’s own thoughts and feelings.When Mary played the harp to Fanny (as Eliza undoubtedly did to Jane), the latter is described as being ‘so full of wonder at the performance’.
    In a similar way, Jane’s youngest brother Charles is represented by Fanny’s older brother William, who is a sailor in the Royal Navy and who makes his sister the present of an amber cross.
    Referring to Mary, Fanny says, ‘She might love, but she did not deserve Edmund by any other sentiment’. Fanny believed there was scarcely a second feeling in common between them [which she follows up with the words]: ‘She loves nobody but herself and her brother’.
    In Mansfield Park Jane mirrors the Stevenson amateur theatrical performances which Eliza enjoyed so much. When the Honourable John Yates, a friend of Tom Bertram, arrives on the scene and suggests that they ‘raise a little theatre’ – i.e. put on a play, Edmund has reservations,