Sir Thomas had been quite indifferent to Mr. Crawford’s going or staying: but his good wishes for Mr. Yates’s having a pleasant journey, as he walked with him to the hall-door, were given with genuine satisfaction.
...Sir Thomas hoped, in seeing him out of [the house], to be rid of the worst object connected with the scheme, and the last that must be inevitably reminding him of its existence.
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, Chapter 20, emphasis mine
Re-reading Mansfield Park is hilarious. Poor Sir Thomas happily thought he had seen the last of Mr. Yates and any reminder of the Lover's Vows play his children had attempted, until Mr. Yates shows up again at the end of the novel. Surprise!
So you know how in Mansfield Park Sir Thomas accuses Fanny of having designs on Edmund when she rejects Henry’s proposal? What do you think his actual reaction would be when he hears of Edmund’s intentions to marry her afterwards?
I imagine that having learned of Fanny’s superior nature (compared to his own children’s follies), he’d support the match, but I can’t help but think he’d feel a little resentful that his precious Edmund should marry Fanny of all people. I think toward the end of the novel he gains a better appreciation of her qualities, but while reading it, I felt that he was more relieved that his efforts in supporting her education had paid off and that his sentiment toward her good character was more self-congratulatory in nature rather than genuinely appreciative.
At the very least, if Sir Thomas is genuinely happy about Edmund and Fanny’s engagement and marriage, how do you think Mrs. Norris would feel if she received the announcement or invitation to the wedding in the mail?
We are told how Sir Thomas reacted:
Their own inclinations ascertained, there were no difficulties behind, no drawback of poverty or parent. It was a match which Sir Thomas’s wishes had even forestalled. Sick of ambitious and mercenary connexions, prizing more and more the sterling good of principle and temper, and chiefly anxious to bind by the strongest securities all that remained to him of domestic felicity, he had pondered with genuine satisfaction on the more than possibility of the two young friends finding their natural consolation in each other for all that had occurred of disappointment to either; and the joyful consent which met Edmund’s application, the high sense of having realised a great acquisition in the promise of Fanny for a daughter, formed just such a contrast with his early opinion on the subject when the poor little girl’s coming had been first agitated, as time is for ever producing between the plans and decisions of mortals, for their own instruction, and their neighbours’ entertainment.
Fanny was indeed the daughter that he wanted. His charitable kindness had been rearing a prime comfort for himself. His liberality had a rich repayment, and the general goodness of his intentions by her deserved it. He might have made her childhood happier; but it had been an error of judgment only which had given him the appearance of harshness, and deprived him of her early love; and now, on really knowing each other, their mutual attachment became very strong. After settling her at Thornton Lacey with every kind attention to her comfort, the object of almost every day was to see her there, or to get her away from it.
As for Mrs. Norris, I doubt she recieved a wedding invitation since she kind of burned her bridge with the family, but I imagine she was very angry that Fanny Price got something she didn't deserve (in her opinion).
It bothers me a little bit that Austen does a lot of heavy lifting to redeem the Bertrams, but leaves the Crawfords in the mire. Tom's reformation seems just as dramatic as Henry's would have been, to me at least. But that's how she wrote it.
Wretchedly did he feel, that with all the cost and care of an anxious and expensive education, he had brought up his daughters without their understanding their first duties, or his being acquainted with their character and temper.
BIG THANK YOU to @liridi for this beautiful commission of my boy Sir Thomas (Paladin of devotion) and @im-not-the-one-youre-looking-for's Xalia (phantom rogue)!
