Austen, Jane Mansfield Park

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might wait. The preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and spring, when her
own taste could have fairer play.
The principals being all agreed in this respect, it soon appeared that a very few weeks would be
sufficient for such arrangements as must precede the wedding.
Mrs. Rushworth was quite ready to retire, and make way for the fortunate young woman whom her dear
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son had selected; and very early in November removed herself, her maid, her footman, and her chariot,
with true dowager propriety, to Bath there to parade over the wonders of Sotherton in her
evening-parties enjoying them as thoroughly perhaps in the animation of a card-table as she had ever
done on the spot and before the middle of the same month the ceremony had taken place, which gave
Sotherton another mistress.
It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed the two bridesmaids were duly
inferior her father gave her away her mother stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be
agitated her aunt tried to cry and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant. Nothing could be
objected to when it came under the discussion of the neighborhood, except that the carriage which
conveyed the bride and bridegroom and Julia from the church door to Sotherton, was the same chaise
which Mr. Rushworth had used for a twelvemonth before. In everything else the etiquette of the day
might stand the strictest investigation.
It was done, and they were gone. Sir Thomas felt as an anxious father must feel, and was indeed
experiencing much of the agitation which his wife had been apprehensive of for herself, but had
fortunately escaped. Mrs. Norris, most happy to assist in the duties of the day, by spending it at the Park
to support her sister's spirits, and drinking the health of Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth in a supernumerary
glass or two, was all joyous delight for she had made the match she had done everything and no
one would have supposed, from her confident triumph, that she had ever heard of conjugal infelicity in her
life, or could have the smallest insight into the disposition of the niece who had been brought up under her
eye.
The plan of the young couple was to proceed after a few days to Brighton, and take a house there for
some weeks. Every public place was new to Maria, and Brighton is almost as gay in winter as in summer.
When the novelty of amusement there was over, it would be time for the wider range of London.
Julia was to go with them to Brighton. Since rivalry between the sisters had ceased, they had been
gradually recovering much of their former good understanding; and were at least sufficiently friends to
make each of them exceedingly glad to be with the other at such a time. Some other companion than Mr.
Rushworth was of the first consequence to his lady, and Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure
as Maria, though she might not have struggled through so much to obtain them, and could better bear a
subordinate situation.
Their departure made another material change at Mansfield, a chasm which required some time to fill up.
The family circle became greatly contracted, and though the Miss Bertrams had latterly added little to its
gaiety, they could not but be missed. Even their mother missed them and how much more their
tender-hearted cousin, who wandered about the house, and thought of them, and felt for them, with a
degree of affectionate regret which they had never done much to deserve!
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Chapter 22
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Fanny's consequence increased on the departure of her cousins. Becoming as she then did, the only
young woman in the drawing-room, the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she
had hitherto held so humble a third, it was impossible for her not to be more looked at, more thought of
and attended to, than she had ever been before; and "where is Fanny?" became no uncommon question,
even without her being wanted for any one's convenience.
Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In that house which she had hardly
entered twice a year since Mr. Norris's death, she became a welcome, an invited guest; and in the gloom
and dirt of a November day, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her visits there, beginning by chance,
were continued by solicitation. Mrs. Grant, really eager to get any change for her sister, could by the
easiest self-deceit persuade herself that she was doing the kindest thing by Fanny, and giving her the most
important opportunities of improvement in pressing her frequent calls. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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