Birth (Sleeping Beauty)
A baronet and his wife (even one who had married far above her prospects) may live in the grandest fashion, with ease and plenty to spare; the elder sister and the rector might, through careful frugality, manage well enough on a modest salary. But what could the youngest and her poor marine do, with so many gasping mouths to care for?
Yes, Mrs. Norris decided upon careful consideration, it would be a great kindness that threw a little girl into the merciful bounty of Mansfield.
Sharp Peppermint (Hansel and Gretel)
The gentlemen remaining behind, Fanny was shut in the coach with only her aunts for the ride back to Mansfield.
"I am astonished what a sluggard you can be," Mrs. Norris continued the harangue begun at the parsonage, "to idle by the card table, and make everyone wait! Then to expect more from your uncle, with him nearby, for a brother already given so much. A wonder Sir Thomas tolerates any Price at all: I should not be so generous with someone so determinedly ungrateful."
Fanny took all the blame at once: she would not have William's cause harmed for the world.
Chagrin (Frog Prince)
At Mansfield Park it was easy enough to forget Edmund Bertram meant to inhabit a parsonage, far harder when he dined with the Grants in the very house once intended for him. Mary Crawford thought London might dampen this disposition. He looked very well by her side, far superior to all the other gentlemen present.
Yet even at a fashionable tea he could be drawn into moralizing! It was quite heartless for an otherwise affectionate man to discuss the poor over bread and butter. Mary would happily have fed toast to all the town's beggars if only to stop his croaking.
Charity Is Not Easily Provoked (Six Swans)
"We can be grateful she has made such a public spectacle of herself," Mrs. Rushworth consoled her son. "There can be no question of a divorce now."
"Of course mother."
The wonder of it was that he felt so much more betrayed by Crawford than his own wife. The former (and soon to be again) Miss Bertram had behaved outrageously prior to marrying. Crawford had too, of course, but he was a flirt and a fellow, and once he began speaking seriously about Miss Price, Rushworth thought all previously conquests might have been surrendered, if not forgotten.
He ought to burn with fury.
Instead, it was as if the whole thing were happening on the stage, and he watching. Rather like that quiet Miss Price, actually. He wondered, for half a minute, what she made of the whole sorry affair. Lovers' Vows indeed.
Damsel (Thumbelina)
Her cousins' house was become as much a prison for Julia Bertram as that from which she had fled. At least they only hinted their displeasure at her sister's scandal. At Mansfield Park there would be no such delicacy, and all pleasures would be gone.
"And I do not mean playing at acting," she expressed to the one sympathetic ear in reach, "I mean even the ordinary comforts, everything will be curtailed. We will have no company at all. And if Tom is to die, oh!" Her better feelings provoked her and she broke off, shamed by her tears.
Only after she had sufficiently mastered herself did Mr. Yates speak. "I should have been with him. As a friend, as a companion; I might have been useful." Then with an air of former gaiety, "My dear Julia, we may neither of us deserve happiness at this hour, but I can not stand by and do nothing. Let us leave this mournful country and fly to greener pastures. My horses can be ready within the hour." He looked foolish, nervous as a sparrow, attempting greatness and unsure how to wear it properly.
Even in her present distress, she saw his frailties and understood her own. It was a desperate move. But Julia determined not to scorn this opportunity to escape. At least she had the consolation that his offer must be disinterested: it was novel to be courted merely for her own pitiful sake.
Onyx Troll (Toads and Diamonds)
The establishment of Mrs. Norris and her niece was not a place the local vicar visited more than necessity required. As neither lady required wedding, christening, or burying, no need had been found outside the call paid on their first arriving, and the time his horse went lame by their gate.
"Well, Maria, here is the vicar come to pay his addresses to you," were the glittering words Mrs. Norris chose to put into the poor man's mouth as he settled in the shadowy parlour.
"I should think company good enough reason to light a candle, that I might see the inferiority of my suitor," was the other's snide rejoinder.
Fortunately their economy did not extend to the clock, allowing the man of God to count the seconds till he might be released from this pit of snakes.
Declare (Rumpelstiltskin)
On his sickbed, Tom discovered he had been wont to use the word "pain" too loosely. Mere annoyances were nothing to the suffering of true illness.
And it turned out pains might be felt on behalf of others. When well enough to join the family, Tom realized Fanny might have wants same as any other lady. It was a revelatory, heady moment, and in the next instance he bade his mother release her for a restorative walk.
The other Miss Price (Sarah? Sally? something) approached him afterward, eyeing him with suspicion. "And are you Mr. Thomas Bertram?" she asked eventually.
"Why yes," he answered with a nettled frown, and had a second epiphany: he might be able to endure the full weight of his name after all.
