Mansfield Park 5 - The End (Chapters 43 - end)

 RATING: VERY GOOD

SPOILERS!!!

I really loved the end of the novel as well as the rest of it.

Fanny was supposed to be in Portsmouth two months, but the time comes and goes, and she still remains there. Then she gets a letter from her aunt Bertram to tell her that Tom is in a critical condition. He fell from his horse, which, combined with his drinking, made him very sick. Edmund and Sir Thomas go to look after him, and when he is better, he is brought home. Yet, at home he comes down with something similar to consumption, so he is still recovering. 

When Tom is on his way to recovery, Fanny gets a letter from Mary, saying that rumours may come her way and she mustn't believe a word of it and her brother loves her dearly. A day or two later she reads in the newspaper that her cousin Maria has left her husband and eloped with Henry Crawford. Then her aunt writes to tell her that Maria has put the family to shame, and she also tells her that Julia has eloped with Mr Yates.

Edmund goes to collect Fanny from Portsmouth, and Susan is to travel with them as she is invited to stay at Mansfield Park for some time. The journey is a silent one, and it is a few days after their arrival that Edmund talks to Fanny. He tells her that he went to talk to Mary Crawford, and he proved to be a disappointment. Mary talked about her brother and Marie disparingly, but her anger was about their being discovered and not about the fact itself. That is something that Edmund can't accept. Mary even dared to say that if Fanny had accepted Henry's marriage proposal, he wouldn't have done something so stupid. Edmund left Mary with a heavy heart but realising that she was not the woman for him.

In the last chapter of the book we learn from the narrator that Henry and Maria's liaison didn't last, and when she asked to be allowed to return to Mansfield Park, her father refused. Aunt Norris came to live with her. Julia was a different case, and she and Yates eventually married and were accepted back in Mansfield Park. And Edmund realised that he loved Fanny and they married. Susan then became Lady Bertram's companion, and years later when Dr Grant died, Edmund and Fanny went to live to the vicarage.

I really enjoyed the book, but it is not an easy book to read.