#he is a FOOL especially re: Mary and he is blind but he stood up for her. wants her happiness. protects her from Aunt Norris.

[itspileofgoodthings]

Also it’s really fascinating because in a certain way Austen finds the trope of redemption through romance/good girl fixes bad boy dead but in an even realer way Henry is just the wrong candidate for it. Or, to be even more accurate, the setup of Henry and Fanny is the wrong match for it and that’s what makes it funny. The truth is that Henry objectifies her, NOT physically. His appreciation of her beauty is hands down the most romantic thing he feels for her but he objectifies her morals and her goodness, in essence: her character. He, and in a different but equally real way Mary treat Fanny like a doll and every time she does something of quality they react with surprise and delight as if a doll had done it. The fact that the surprise and delight are genuine makes it worse because it’s even more objectifying. They’re like “look at the doll speak! The doll said something incisive and profound! The doll doesn’t even know of what quality she is made because she’s so simple! Noble simplicity!” And it is objectively condescending and—not to beat a dead horse here!!!— truly objectifying. They both see and sense her superiority to the rest of Mansfield but that doesn’t mean that they treat her like a person. Henry makes much of her, refuses to listen to what she actually wants, enlists Sir Thomas against her, feels no scruple whatsoever about putting pressure on her, and doesn’t know her well enough to know that she does “know her own mind” despite not knowing her own manner. He’s also the wrong candidate for this trope because he’s too knowing and observant. He KNOWS he’s in the trope. He’s kind of like “hmmm Fanny redeeming me, Fanny changing me, wow, love to consider it from a moral aesthetic point of view, what a flower in her cap that would be and how it would stick it to the rest of the Mansfield crew” and so he’s not set up to be surprised or charmed into compassion and real love 1) because he’s self-aware of the good it would do him and 2) because he gets ahead of the good by manipulating it for his own schemes. Alleviating boredom/sticking it to Mansfield and co. being the two main ones for as far as I can tell. He even knows that if he just waits, if he just holds out that “absence, time, and distance,” as he says, will speak for him. Will clear his way. Will work on Fanny’s heart. Because it IS a powerful trope for a reason! And especially if Edmund was out of the picture re: Mary what else would there be for her to do? But that’s the thing. He SEES the truth of it and sees the inevitability of it but only because he’s thinking of this in terms of winning—winning her, but also just winning at the scheme, pulling the con. True love doesn’t do that. The absence, time, and distance of which he’s speaking would be enacted by someone with a loving heart in such a different way because it would just be the simple act of compassion and not wanting to trouble the beloved that would be the motivator. It would be Darcy going back to his normal life after the Hunsford proposal with no intention of winning Lizzy back or determination to pursue her or need to clarify anything past the letter but still with love in his heart for her. Henry doesn’t have that love and never did and so cannot be changed by it. He plays the stakes of it all like a game and because Fanny isn’t playing it at all he loses, in every possible way.

[lonepiper5758]

Flame Eyre

NOTE - This is not my original work. It’s a silly mash up/remix/cover version. I just edited it. I hope it may bring a smile, especially to @mylieutenant who needs a Regency fix. All credit to Charlotte Bronte. Please forgive my presumption.

The parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His sight dog, Pilot, lay on one side, as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and said softly, "Lie down!" Colonel Mustang turned mechanically to see what the commotion was: but as he saw nothing, he returned and sighed.

"Give me the water, Mary," he said.

I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed me, still excited.

"What is the matter?" he inquired.

"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. "This is you, Mary, is it not?"

"Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.

Mustang put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes. “Answer me — speak again!" he ordered, imperiously and aloud.

"Will you have a little more water, Sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass," I said.

" Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?"

"Pilot knows me, and Mary knows I am here. I came only this evening," I answered.

"Great God! — what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?"

"No delusion — no madness: your mind, Sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy."

"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever — whoever you are — be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!"

He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.

"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her."

The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder — neck — waist — I was entwined and gathered to him.

"Is it Hawkeye? What is it? This is her shape — this is her size — "

"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, Colonel! I am glad to be so near you again."

"Hawkeye! — Riza Hawkeye," was all he said.

"My dear Colonel," I answered, "I am Riza Hawkeye: I have found you out — I am come back to you."

"In truth? — in the flesh? My living Lieutenant?"

"You touch me, Sir, — you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"

"These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus — and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me."

"Which I never will, Sir, from this day."

"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned. It is you — is it, Hawkeye? You are come back to me then?"

"I am."

"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"

"No, Colonel! I am an independent woman now."

"But as you are rich, Hawkeye, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?"

"I told you I am independent, Sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress."

"And you will stay with me?"

"Certainly — unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your companion — to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear Colonel; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live."

The Colonel replied not: he seemed serious — abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms — but he eagerly snatched me closer.

"No — no — Hawkeye; you must not go. No — I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence. I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself — I must have you. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame."

"Well, Sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."

"Yes — but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair — to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt: do you think so? Come — tell me."

"I will think what you like, Sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better."

"But you cannot always be my nurse, Lieutenant: you are young — you must marry one day."

"I don't care about being married."

"You should care, Hawkeye: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care — but — a sightless block!"

He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation.

"It is time some one undertook to re-humanise you," said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. Your hair reminds me of eagles' feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have not yet noticed."

"On these hands I have not just nails, but scars,” he said, holding up the mutilated limbs and showing them to me. “A ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Lieutenant?"

"It is a pity to see; and a pity to see your eyes: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you."

"I thought you would be revolted, Hawkeye, when you saw my hands, and my cicatrised visage."

"Have you a pocket-comb about you, Colonel?"

"What for, Lieutenant?"

"Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand.”

Am I hideous, Hawkeye?"

"Very, Sir: you always were, you know.”

"My seared vision! My crippled strength!" he murmured regretfully.

I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled.

"Colonel! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you, you would be proud and content.

"Ah! Lieutenant. But I want a wife."

"Do you, Sir?"

"Yes: is it news to you?"

"Of course: you said nothing about it before."

"Is it unwelcome news?"

"That depends on circumstances, Sir — on your choice."

"Which you shall make for me, Hawkeye. I will abide by your decision."

"Choose then, Sir — her who loves you best ."

"I will at least choose — her I love best . Hawkeye, will you marry me?"

"Yes, Sir."

"A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?"

"Yes, Sir."

"A crippled man, whom you will have to wait on?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Truly, Riza?"

"Most truly, Sir."