The high spirit and strong passions of Mrs Rushworth especially,were made known to him only in their sad result.She was not to be prevailed on to leave Mr Crawford.She hoped to marry him,and they continued together till she was obliged to be convinced that such hope was vain,and till the disappointment and wretchedness arising from the conviction,rendered her temper so bad,and her feelings for him so like hatred,as to make them for a while each other's punishment,and then induce a voluntary separation.
She had lived with him to be reproached as the ruin of all his happiness in Fanny,and carried away no better consolation in leaving him,than that she had divided them.What can exceed the misery of such a mind in such a situation?
Mr Rushworth had no difficulty in procuring a divorce;and so ended a marriage contracted under such circumstances as to make any better end,the effect of good luck,not to be reckoned on.She had despised him,and loved another-and he had been very much aware that it was so.The indignities of stupidity,and the disappointments of selfish passion,can excite little pity.His punishment,followed his conduct,as did a deeper punishment,the deeper guilt of his wife.He was released from the engagement to be mortified and unhappy,till some other pretty girl could attract him into matrimony again,and he might set forward on a second,and it is to be hoped,more prosperous trial of the state-if duped,to be duped at least with good humour and good luck;while she must withdraw with infinitely stronger feelings to a retirement and reproach,which could allow no second spring of hope or character.
Where she could be placed,became a subject of most melancholy and momentous consultation.Mrs Norris,whose attachment seemed to augment with the demerits of her niece,would have had her received at home,and countenanced by them all.Sir Thomas would not hear of it,and Mrs Norris's anger against Fanny was so much the greater,from considering her residence there as the motive.She persisted in placing his scruples to her account,though Sir Thomas very solemnly assured her,that had there been no young woman in question,had there been no young person of either sex belonging to him,to be endangered by the society,or hurt by the character of Mrs Rushworth,he would never have offered so great an insult to the neighbourhood,as to expect it to notice her.As a daughter-he hoped a penitent one-she should be protected by him,and secured in every comfort,and supported by every encouragement to do right,which their relative situations admitted;but farther than that,he would not go.Maria had destroyed her own character,and he would not by a vain attempt to restore what never could be restored,by affording his sanction to vice,or in seeking to lessen its disgrace,be anywise accessory to introducing such misery in another man's family,as he had known himself.
It ended in Mrs Norris's resolving to quit Mansfield,and devote herself to her unfortunate Maria,and in an establishment being formed for them in another country-remote and private,where,shut up together with little society,on one side no affection,on the other,no judgment,it may be reasonably supposed that their tempers became their mutual punishment.
Mrs Norris's removal from Mansfield was the great supplementary comfort of Sir Thomas's life.His opinion of her had been sinking from the day of his return from Antigua;in every transaction together from that period,in their daily intercourse,in business,or in chat,she had been regularly losing ground in his esteem,and convincing him that either time had done her much disservice,or that he had considerably overrated her sense,and wonderfully borne with her manners before.He had felt her as an hourly evil,which was so much the worse,as there seemed no chance of its ceasing but with life;she seemed a part of himself,that must be borne for ever.To be relieved from her,therefore,was so great a felicity,that had she not left bitter remembrances behind her,there might have been danger of his learning almost to approve the evil which produced such a good.
She was regretted by no one at Mansfield.She had never been able to attach even those she loved best,and since Mrs Rushworth's elopement,her temper had been in a state of such irritation,as to make her everywhere tormenting.Not even Fanny had tears for aunt Norris-not even when she was gone for ever.
That Julia escaped better than Maria was owing,in some measure,to a favourable difference of disposition and circumstance,but in a greater to her having been less the darling of that very aunt,less flattered,and less spoilt.Her beauty and acquirements had held but a second place.She had been always used to think herself a little inferior to Maria.Her temper was naturally the easiest of the two,her feelings,though quick,were more controllable;and education had not given her so very hurtful a degree of self-consequence.
