MANSFIELD REVISITED

Finding myself filled with an overmastering wish to find out what happened after Fanny married Edmund, and when Susan came to live at Mansfield," Aiken offers a smooth sequel to Jane Austen's 1814 Mansfield Park—with steady charm and humor, but with tidy sentimentality taking the place of Austen's more rigorous exploration of character. It's some five years after the wedding of Edmund to cousin Fanny; Edmund's father, Sir Thomas Bertram of Mansfield Park, has died while on business in the West Indies; so Fanny and Edmund, with a baby son, set off to settle family matters in Antigua—leaving indolent, self-involved Lady Bertram to be looked after by Edmund's hearty brother Tom (the new Sir Thomas) and by Fanny's 18-year-old sister Susan, who has been Lady B.'s live-in companion since coming to Mansfield Park at age 1.4. (Fanny and Susan are poor relations from a shabby naval household in Portsmouth.) From the start, then, it seems as if brusque Tom and saucy Susan are headed for another cousinly romance—especially since they're constantly bickering. Before the final confessions of devotion, however, there'll be an array of Austen-ish red herrings: Tom's insufferable sister Julia, a meddling snob living nearby, is intent on pairing Tom off with her equally snooty sister-in-law; Tom himself, a huntsman who's far from eager to marry at 30, plans eventually to ask for the hand of sweet, pretty Miss Harley (another neighbor); Susan finds a soulmate in a gentle visiting clergyman. Then, arriving suddenly from the pages of Mansfield Park, the notorious Crawfords reappear on the scene: vivacious Mary (once courted by Edmund) is now a frail, courageous refugee from a disastrous marriage, seriously ill; her brother Henry (once the dishonorable suitor of Fanny) now seems to be a changed man; they take up residence in the White House, a Mansfield Park cottage with happy memories for the dying Mary, who is soon being doted upon by fine Susan. But, though a series of events—a ruined picnic, Tom's fall from a horse, Miss Harley's engagement—brings both Tom and Susan close to the newly noble Crawfords, the cousins will end up blissfully together. . . after a teary deathbed scene (more Dickens than Austen) and the usual misunderstandings. Throughout, in fact, Aiken's sense and sensibility are more marshmallowy than Austen's—softening Lady B.'s selfishness, redeeming the Crawfords, transforming shallow Tom into a fit mate for Susan with implausible ease. But, while the more hard-headed Austen fans will probably prefer Jane Gillespie's 1983 Ladysmead (all about what happened to horrid Maria Bertram, an offstage player here), other Mansfield Parkers will find this an endearing, cozily amusing follow-up.