The Horror at Mansfield Park
“I am not going to urge her,” replied Mrs. Norris sharply; “but I shall think her a very obstinate, ungrateful girl, if she does not do what her aunt and cousins wish her—very ungrateful, indeed, considering who and what she is.”
“Who and what she is?” cried Lady Bertram, in a rare moment of raised emotion, “Who are you to talk about the whos and whats of anybody? Why should Tom, Maria, and Julia claim any precedence over Fanny, being what they are.”
Mrs. Norris went white and said, “You will stop now, sister.”
The room had gone quiet and all eyes were turned towards Lady Bertram, red with anger, and Mrs. Norris whose pallor was increasing every moment.
“No, I cannot abide another moment, I have treated your children famously, you shall refrain from any more cruelty towards my favourite niece! She has always been so superior to Maria and Julia.”
“Favourite niece?” Maria screeched and fainted dead away.
Julia ran mad and was out of the room.
Edmund was too shocked to speak.
Tom cried out, “Your children?”
Henry and Mary exchanged amused glances. He started towards Maria, but thought better of it.
The Honourable Mr. John Yates only looked confused.
Fanny wished to sink into the floor.
Mrs. Norris was recovered enough to scream, “You have ruined everything! And for her?”
Lady Bertram only looked mildly at her sister and said placidly, “Ruined what?”
Edmund asked a very vital question, “You said Tom, Maria, and Julia, madam. What do you mean by it?”
Lady Bertram smiled at her son, “They are all Mrs. Norris’s children. We have always been very good at taking children in.”
Tom sputtered, “Mrs. Norris?”
Lady Bertram only nodded.
“How can this be?” Edmund exclaimed.
“What is happening?” Maria mumbled from the floor.
Julia ran back in, stepping on the fallen Maria, and threw herself onto a sofa, breathing heavily.
Mary noted sagely, “Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!”
Lady Bertram only looked at her sister, “I am so tired, might you answer their questions?”
Mrs. Norris glared at Lady Bertram.
Lady Bertram sighed, “If I must, it is a simple tale I suppose. A child was not forthcoming and your father arranged an exchange of sorts with Mr. and Mrs. Norris. She would bear our child, he would get the living at Mansfield, and they would marry. Now you must be satisfied.” She took up her fringe, expecting nothing more from the young adults.
“That does not explain Maria and Julia,” Edmund said.
“Mrs. NORRIS!” Tom shouted.
“Yes, that is a good question,” Maria said, dragging herself beside Julia on the sofa.
Julia gasped for breath.
Henry and Mary were laughing behind their hands, country morals indeed!
The Honourable Mr. John Yates was still not entirely caught up, but he had a notion to write everything down and compose a play himself. Such good rants!
Lady Bertram sighed very deeply and continued with great annoyance, “Tom was born, then I had Edmund myself, then Mrs. Norris wanted more children to raise but not the expense. Your father obliged her.”
Edmund was silent, this was the most cogent statement he had yet heard. Why would Mrs. Norris wish for expense of any kind?
“Then are we Bertrams?” Maria inquired.
“Half Bertrams,” Julia panted,
Lady Bertram nodded.
“Half Bertrams means nothing!” Tom wailed.
“And there is proof of it?” Edmund demanded; Lady Bertram nodded again. Edmund turned to Mary Crawford, who was by now properly composed, “Will you marry me?”
“Of course, Si- (cough) excuse me, of course Edmund.”
Fanny started crying. No one noticed.
Maria gave Henry a dazzling smile.
Henry, with pure feelings by which he was almost entirely governed, said to Maria, “Rushworth is here tomorrow, you had best save your smiles for him.”
Maria’s heart fell to her feet. She fainted and slumped back to the floor.
Julia looked at Henry hopefully.
“Not me,” said he and glanced towards Mr. Yates.
Julia stood, with great difficulty, and sat on Yates’s lap, “Do you understand what is going on?” she asked.
“Not even a little bit,” he replied.
“You know that only a woman can honourably break an engagement?”
“Yes, of course!”
“And I would never break an engagement in my life!”
“Oh, that is very good to know.”
“I feel very much in the mood to get engaged.”
“Do you? Well to whom?”
Julia gave him a significant look.
“Oh to me! Of course, they do say one engagement brings on another, will you marry me?”
“Yes, and you cannot take it back!”
Edmund and Mary were staring dreamily at each other.
Tom was crying in the corner.
Henry was slowing making his way out of the room.
Maria was enjoying the soft carpet on her cheek.
Julia and Yates were engaging in some very dishonourable acts, luckily no one was looking.
Mrs. Norris was trying to calculate just how much it would cost if Tom, Maria, and Julia all moved in to her guest room. She fainted beside her daughter.
Lady Bertram began to feel rather tired.
Fanny, looking up at the scene before her, felt her mind actually break before she screamed, “By G— Maria! Can you not see that Henry was making sport of you? He is a d— loathsome, ugly, scheming, two-faced liar and you were stupid enough to believe him!”
Henry was struck with love.
Maria started weeping.
Julia laughed briefly, but her mouth was otherwise engaged.
Edmund did not hear a thing.
Tom was slightly impressed.
Mary chuckled.
Suddenly, Baddeley came in with an express post. All eyes turned towards him. “Madam, terrible news! The ship is lost, Sir Thomas is no more!”
Mary spasmed and let out a sudden, involuntary cry. Edmund looked to check that she was well; her face was flushed, her hands clenched, and one or two beads of sweat marked her forehead.
“Are you quite alright?” asked he.
“Oh yes,” she assured him, “Never better.” Before sitting placidly on the couch and crossing her legs.
Edmund, in all his years of coming marriage, would never hear that sound from his wife again.
Everyone who was not already crying, tried to look sad.
The next day, Rushworth came to Mansfield and to his great delight, married Maria. She cried the entire ceremony but he did not care one bit. Edmund and Mary and Julia and Yates got married as well. The women resigned themselves to their fates, save for Mary, who was delighted, at least until later that evening.
Fanny cried the whole time but no one figured out why.
Lady Bertram was kind of annoyed she did not have a new gown.
Mrs. Norris died of apoplexy and was buried in a shroud of green baize.
Tom stole his father’s three best hunters and made a career as a highwayman.
Sir Thomas, who was not in fact dead, was blown far off course and shipwrecked in an unknown land. He lived the rest of his life in the Amazon rainforest, in a tribe of former slaves, always hoping they never asked what he was doing in Antigua.
Henry could not help falling completely in love with Fanny on account of her newly acquired ability to swear like a sailor. He expressed his ardour and she accepted him in a heartbeat. They lived very happily in complete moral ambiguity.
FINIS
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