As for Maria, she had once sought marriage as a means of escaping her parents, most particularly, her father. But upon finding herself on the brink of motherhood, alone without a husband or loved one to share her joys and burdens, she underwent no small revolution in character. Although her temper was still sometimes ungoverned, she learned to appreciate and truly love her father’s solid worth, to bear with her mother more patiently, and to devote herself to her duties as mistress of Everingham.
Sir Thomas took up the judicious management of Everingham and its estates with a competence and disinterest that swiftly won him the esteem of his neighbours and the gratitude of the tenants. He had heard enough hints from Fanny to be wary of the steward, Mr. Maddison, and indeed, Mr. Maddison was gone within a twelvemonth and the affairs of Everingham prospered as never before.
As for Mrs. Norris, she experienced the indignity of being unceremoniously turned out upon the London streets by Mrs. Edmund Bertram, when that lady arrived from Thornton Lacey. Mrs. Norris was the last of the family to be undeceived as to Mary’s true character, and alas, was much humiliated. She fully expected to accompany her sister and brother-in-law to Everingham, and was further mortified when Maria wrote to her to discourage her removal from Northamptonshire. Maria had discovered that life without her overbearing and overpartial aunt was far more congenial than life with her, and so wrote that ‘she knew her own dear Aunt Norris would be much more content to remain in Mansfield village,’ where she was such a valued and important neighbour. The hint was too broad to ignore, the slight too great to forgive. Mrs. Norris’ curiosity and anxiety over who would be the future occupant of Mansfield Park was in itself almost enough of an inducement for her to remain where she was. She re-installed herself at the White house, to await future events and to act as the custodian of all the memories of the past.
Susan had passed several months as the guest of Lady Bertram; but she rejected an invitation to continue in the unpaid service of her Ladyship—being useful and wanted, assuredly, but only for fetching and carrying, and ministering to her aunt’s trifling pastimes, tasks which could not satisfy Susan’s active nature or her restless mind, and she wondered at the docility of any girl, not excepting her sister Fanny, who could have endured it.
Susan’s half-year’s absence from Portsmouth—and the contrasting misery of having Mrs. Norris with them during the interval—led her mother to finally comprehend how much Susan had contributed to the comfort of them all when at home, and how little thanks she had received in recompense. Susan therefore was welcomed back most affectionately, and enjoyed a greater measure of respect and consequence than she had before. She became the acknowledged manageress of the house and it was remarkable how, even with the same limited means, the family lived in far greater comfort and had better food to eat. It was no longer considered an insurmountable task to wash the windows inside and out with vinegar and water and paper, and the front steps were scrubbed daily. Even her father acquiesced in taking his evening pipe outside when the weather was clement, and her brothers had the dining-room table—cleaned thoroughly every day—for their school work. Sir Thomas sent a good carpet from Mansfield to grace the Price’s parlour, and the old carpet was cut up and made up into portmanteaus, which Susan used when she visited her sister and Mrs. Butters.
The Bertrams heard infrequently from their brother Tom in Virginia, but when he did send them a line, it was to assure them that his affairs prospered in the fresh air and soil of the New World. He professed himself to be content, and he was never heard to regret his decision to leave his old life in England.
Dr. Grant and his wife continued in the parsonage in Mansfield. Edmund Bertram did not shun their company, nor they his; rather, he visited and dined with them frequently and discussed parish business with Dr. Grant, and occasionally Mrs. Grant would tell him, sotto voce, that ‘Mary was thought to be staying with Lord and Lady Delingpole at their country estate in Wales’ or ‘Mary had returned to London but had given up the Wimpole Street house.’
Edmund Bertram devoted himself to his parish and his duties, and found therein some measure of peace. With the death of his brother-in-law and the departure of his wife, he found himself liable for the cost of the extensive alterations which they had thrust upon him, and which would have plunged him into debt for years. He sold his hunters to meet the debt and his father paid off the balance, because, unlike many men of pedigree, they regarded any debt, even a debt to a tradesman, as something to be honoured. Edmund did not resent the fact that the home served as a kind of memorial to the genius and taste of Henry Crawford, a man of many faults but also of many talents, whom he did not cease to regret, or to remember.
As for Julia, she did not wish to live in Norfolk, and her father, for the sake of her reputation, did not wish her to live with Maria. He settled an allowance on Julia, and entrusted Edmund with her supervision. Julia divided her time between acting as a hostess for her brother at Thornton Lacey and accepting invitations to visit the homes of the friends she made during her season in London. And while some assumed that Mrs.
