Murder at Mansfield Park

by Lynn Shepherd

  ‘Did you hear what our sister said, Mary? There was no mention, as far as I can recall, that Mr Norris has confessed to killing Julia. Fanny, yes, but not Julia. That is curious, is it not?’

  It had not occurred to her before, and she hardly knew how to explain it. ‘I cannot tell, Henry, nothing seems to make sense.’

  ‘But this, indeed, does not make sense. From what you say, aside from good Mrs Baddeley, no-one at the Park is aware how Julia died—with one exception: our friend Maddox. So why has he not confronted Mr Norris with that fact? Why has he not extorted a second confession?’

  Mary looked helpless.‘I do not know. It is unaccountable.’

  Henry was still pacing, still pensive. It was some minutes before he spoke again, but when he did, his words made every nerve in her body thrill with transport. ‘Do you really believe him to be guilty of these terrible crimes?’

  ‘I do not want to believe it, but what choice do I have? I heard what Julia Bertram said.’

  ‘But from what you say, she only cried out his name— that does not prove any thing in itself. Is it at all possible, do you think, that she was calling to him for help? We know he was in the park at that time. Might she have seen him at a distance, and called to him, even if he never heard her— even if he never even knew she was there?’

  ‘Then why has he confessed? Why admit to a crime he did not commit?’

  Henry took her hands in both his own. ‘Has it crossed your mind, even for the briefest of moments, that he may have been protecting you?’

  ‘But why? Why should I need his protection?’

  ‘Come and sit down, and tell me, as exactly as you can, what you said to Mr Norris this morning.’

  She sat down heavily on the bench, her mind all disorder, trying to recapture her precise words. ‘I—I told him that Julia had spoken a name, but that I did not need to repeat it. I said I could not allow you to be falsely accused, and that I had no choice but to go to Maddox. And I said,’ her voice sinking, ‘that he and I might never see each other again.’

  She was by now crying bitterly, but her brother, by contrast, was in a state of excited agitation.

  ‘So you never, at any point, accused him directly?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘In fact, my dear Mary,’ he said, coming to her side and taking her hand, ‘every thing you said might have led him to believe that you were confessing to him.’

  It was gently spoken, but every word had the force of a heavy blow. She gazed at him in amazement, her mind torn between bewilderment and mortification. The shock of conviction was almost as agonising as it was longed for; he was not guilty, but he was willing to appear so for her sake, and she alone had placed him in this peril.

  ‘But Henry, this is dreadful!’ she cried. ‘I must explain— how could he have believed me capable of—’

  ‘You believed him capable, did you not?’

  ‘I must go to him—to Maddox—I must tell him—’

  ‘Calm yourself, my dear sister. You are not thinking clearly. We do not even know where Mr Norris is at this moment. He may, even now, be on his way to Northampton. And as for Mr Maddox, I fear you will need more proof than this to convince a man of his make. He has his reward money already in his sights, and he will not relinquish a suspect who has so conveniently confessed, unless we can present him with another equally promising quarry. Our best course will be to convince Mr Norris that his heroic concern for you is not necessary; if he can be persuaded to withdraw his confession, we may be better placed to counter Maddox.’

  ‘But how are we to do such a thing? If we do not even know where he is?’

  ‘Leave that to me, my dear Mary. I will go at once to the Park, and see what I may discover. I do not expect the family to see me—that would be too much of an intrusion—but the steward, McGregor, will be as well-informed as any body, and he still has regard for me, even if some others at the Park do not. You, in the mean time, should take some rest. I will return as soon as I am able.’

  She had no better plan to propose, and returned to the house after watching him mount his horse, and head down the drive. She heartily wished to avoid going into company, but she knew that any further absence would only attract more notice and enquiry, so instead of retiring to her room she joined her sister and Dr Grant in the parlour. She could not hope for restraint from her sister, in the face of such extraordinary news, but she did hope that, by suggesting a game of cribbage before dinner, she might limit the scope of her speculations. The cards were brought, and for the next hour the reckonings of the game were interspersed with Mrs Grant’s wondering conjectures.

  ‘And that makes thirty-one, Mary. And to think, all this time the killer was right under our very noses—and for it to be Mr Norris too!—it just shews that you can never judge by appearances—I always thought him such a placid and agreeable gentleman! Four in hand and eight in crib. And to think, anyone of us might have fallen prey to his murderous urges, and been slaughtered in our beds at any moment!’

  ‘I think that most improbable, my dear,’ said Dr Grant, looking up from his copy of Fordyce’s Sermons. ‘According to the eminent authorities on the subject whose works I have perused, Norris does not exhibit any of the recognised characteristics of lunacy, and is therefore most unlikely to be an indiscriminate killer of the type to which you refer.’

  ‘That may very well be the case, Dr Grant,’ replied his wife, ‘but Mrs Baddeley told me his own servants are now afraid to go near him, fearing that he is more than half-crazed. You are to deal, Mary; shall I deal for you?’

  The time passed heavily, and Mary was impatient for sounds of her brother’s return; indeed, she could not comprehend why such a simple errand should have taken him so long, but when Henry did, at last, present himself in the parlour, the explanation was not tardy in coming forth.

  ‘I hope I have not been the means of delaying your dinner,’ he said, as he handed his gloves to the servant, ‘but I have been unavoidably and unexpectedly detained. Sir Thomas has returned to Mansfield.’

  ‘Sir Thomas returned!’ exclaimed Mrs Grant. ‘But I thought he was not expected for another two days at least?’

  ‘It seems that he made rather quicker progress on the road than he had originally hoped—or than his physician had advised. But I am afraid he had distressing news to hear on his return. Having so far outstripped his expected course, the intelligence had not yet reached him of his daughter’s death. It must have been a cruel blow.’

  ‘And a heavy aggravation to what he will already have suffered upon hearing of Miss Price’s murder,’ said Dr Grant. ‘Not to mention her unseemly marriage. I imagine he had words to say on that subject to you, sir.’

  Henry flushed. ‘Once I learned of his return, I went directly to offer Sir Thomas my respects. He was, indeed, so good as to receive me.’

  Mary could only imagine the particulars of that interview, and her brother’s conscious and awkward manner served to confirm her suspicions; Dr Grant might be overly condemnatory in his reproofs, but impartiality would not have denied that Sir Thomas had good cause to be aggrieved, and Henry as good cause for self-reproach.

  ‘He was not pleased—how could he be?—but I can assure you, Dr Grant, that he remained both just and reasonable throughout, even in the face of such provocations as he has suffered. Indeed, I do not think I have appreciated, till now, the true benevolence of his character. He has such a fine and dignified manner, that one scarcely distinguishes the man, from the head of the house. He did not scruple to give me his opinion of my conduct, but he was prepared to listen to what I was able to say in my defence, and concluded by observing that the one consolation he has derived since his return,’ this with a side glance at Mary, ‘is the discovery that I am no longer suspected of any involvement in the death of my wife.’

  ‘I imagine that will be but poor solace for the loss of her fortune,’ retorted Dr Grant, with a sniff.

  ‘And what about Mr Norris?’ interj
ected his wife. ‘Did you discover any more on that subject?’

  This time Henry did not meet Mary’s eye. ‘He is to be taken to Northampton in three days’ time. There are, it seems, some matters of procedure to be resolved with the magistrate, and Mr Maddox is reluctant to hand over his charge until they are settled. I fancy Sir Thomas was not much pleased to find his room—and his claret—had been appropriated in his absence, and by such a man as that. I do not think he had been at home more than an hour when he saw me, but it had sufficed to return his room to all its previous peace and stateliness.’

  ‘So where is Mr Maddox now?’ asked Mrs Grant.

  ‘He has moved, as a temporary expedient, into lodgings with the steward, my old friend McGregor. Mr Norris remains, for the moment, at the White House, under guard.’

  ‘Let us hope he is dispatched bag and baggage long before the funerals,’ said Mrs Grant. ‘Imagine the scandal if it were otherwise! Even Northampton would be too close.’

  ‘That, I am afraid, is not very likely, my dear sister,’ said Henry. ‘Indeed, sir,’ turning to Dr Grant, ‘Sir Thomas bade me inform you that, if it is convenient, he wishes the burial services to take place the day after tomorrow.’

  CHAPTER XX

  Much as Mary might have hoped for an opportunity to see Edmund the following day, Henry was skilful enough to dissuade her from it, arguing that, even if she had no care for propriety, she could not hope to see him alone in a house full of servants, and when he was under close surveillance by one of Maddox’s underlings. In her brother’s view, there was nothing for it but to await the day of the funerals, when the White House domestics would be absent at church, and Henry might be of service in distracting Stornaway for a few moments while she slipped into the house. They had talked, and they had been silent; he had reasoned, she had resisted; but she had ended by acquiescing.

  She spent, as a result, a miserable and restless day, unable to work, unable to read, and reluctant even to leave the house. Henry was absent in Northampton on business with Sir Thomas’s attorney, and Mrs Grant, perfectly unaware of what was passing in her sister’s mind, encouraged her to take advantage of the dry weather and walk up to the Park.

  ‘Even if her ladyship is not well enough to see you, you might sit for an hour with Miss Bertram, or see the corpse of poor Miss Julia, and tell me how it appears.’

  Mary could barely repress a shudder; she had never told her sister that it was she who had prepared Fanny Price’s disfigured body for the grave, and she could not face such another experience, not even to pay a final farewell to her sweet dead friend.

  By late afternoon the weather had changed; the clouds rolled in, and the sky grew dark. Mary sat at the window watching the first dismal drops of rain, wondering if Edmund might also be looking out, as she was, and whether his thoughts were drawn to her, as hers were, so irresistibly, to him. She could not bear even to contemplate how she must now appear in his eyes: the cold-blooded murderess of the woman he was to have married, driven to an unforgiveable transgression by the basest motives of jealousy and resentment, and too craven to admit to what she had done. Any esteem, any respect, he might once have accorded her must now be utterly done away, and yet he loved her still. He must do so, or why would he be prepared to forfeit his own life in place of hers? To face the gallows without flinching, for love of her. She could not bear to contemplate the pain he must be suffering, and was racked the more from the knowledge that it was in her power to relieve it, could she but find five minutes to speak with him, and tell him the truth.

  But that all-satisfying moment would have to wait. She had first to endure an evening with the Grants, without even her brother’s company to support her. Her mind was abstracted and dissatisfied; she could hardly eat any thing at dinner, and could only with difficulty govern her vexation at the tediousness of her brother-in-law, who elected to prepare them for the morrow’s solemnities by filling the interval before bed-time with a peroration from Bishop Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying, concerning ‘the Contingencies and Treatings of our departed friends after death, in order to their Burial’, which he delivered in a tone of the most monotonous pomposity. The good Bishop had provided numerous remedies against impatience, but none that were of any efficacy in stilling Mary’s eagerness, or calming her longing to be some where else altogether.

  It continued to rain all night, and Charles Maddox was woken the following morning by the sound of the wind in the trees outside his window. He no longer had such a view as he had enjoyed at the Park, but the steward’s wife was hospitable, and the food only a little inferior to that served in the servants’ hall. By the time he had breakfasted, and spoken at some length to Fraser, who had returned to Mansfield the night before, the funeral bell was already tolling from the tower of Mansfield church. He had dressed in his black coat, and now added the arm-band of crape, which was always carried with him in his luggage, and had seen much service over the years, before making his way to the Park to join the rest of the household now assembling in the hall. He did not put himself forward to pay his respects; indeed, it suited his purpose to remain silent and unattended to, and observe how the family conducted itself at such a pass. Sir Thomas, he saw, looked thin and haggard, the marks of his recent illness given stronger emphasis by his mourning clothes, and his son stood at his side, ready to offer his arm should that become necessary. Maddox had not thought to see the ladies of the house; in his experience, fashionable London ladies were never expected to attend family obsequies, but he suspected that the absence of Lady Bertram and her daughter might be attributed more to genuine feeling, than the mere observance of the proper etiquette. A few moments later a deeper and almost unnatural silence began to take possession of the room, and as the whispers died away, Maddox heard the sounds of the approaching horses.

  The carriages came to a halt before the open door, the two hearses drawn by plumed horses, the first curtained in black, the second in maiden white. Maddox saw, with no little consternation, that the cortège was accompanied by Henry Crawford on horseback. The master of the house then took his place in the family carriage, and a few moments later the solemn procession began to make its slow way down the sweep. By the time they reached the church, the long line of servants following on foot had been considerably augmented by tenants from the Mansfield estate, and the carriages of the best local families, their blinds pulled down.

  As the Mansfield footmen carried the two coffins into the nave, and Maddox took his own seat near the back of the church, he saw that Mrs Grant and her sister were already seated in the parsonage pew. He found it hard to believe that it was only a few days since he had last seen Mary Crawford, so changed was her appearance. Her face was drawn, and there was a hollowness about her eyes that did not augur well. He wondered, for a moment only, whether he might not be following the wrong course, but told himself that he was allowing his partiality for this woman to impede his professional judgment. Knowing what he did of Dr Grant, he could not hope for brief eulogia on the deceased, but all the same, he found himself unexpectedly affected by the signs of genuine grief that attended the clergyman’s account of Julia Bertram’s short life; her father and brother were visibly distressed, and her young maid, Polly Evans, wept inconsolably in Mrs Baddeley’s motherly arms.

  When Dr Grant turned his attention to the late Mrs Crawford, Maddox was aware of an immediate and decided change in the mood in the church; there was little evidence of sorrow now, whether real or feigned, and the few murmurings that came to Maddox’s ears were expressions of sympathy for the plight of Mr Norris, a fact which he found both surprising and instructive. Nor did Maddox envy the clergyman his task: it was clear that, were it any other young woman but Sir Thomas’s niece, Dr Grant would have deemed it his Christian duty to present her fate as an awful warning to the congregation, and a caution against the evils of lust and avarice, but he was painfully constrained by the presence of his patron, and the demands of common politeness. It demanded all the ingenuit
y of a casuist to steer a safe course through such dangerous waters; to bury Mrs Crawford without praising her, and give an account of her life without referring to the husband who had seduced her, or the cousin who would be charged on the morrow with having done her to death. The husband, at least, had the good grace to appear abashed, and while Henry Crawford held his head high in the family pew, there was a spot of colour on each cheek that spoke either of a considerable suppressed anger, or an inner regret rising to wretchedness; even Maddox, with all his aptitude for physiognomy, could not determine which. It was of a piece with what he had come to know of the man, and he laid up this latest observation alongside the new intelligence Fraser had brought with him from Enfield. Henry Crawford was a conundrum that appeared to grow more complex the more closely he examined it; he had yet to decide if the solution to that conundrum was a matter of intellectual curiosity, or some thing more significant, but he hoped he might not have to wait very much longer to obtain his answer.

  When the service was concluded, the gentlemen rose to accompany the coffins down into the family vault, and the assembled mourners waited in respectful silence; a silence broken only by the quiet weeping of Evans, and the whispered words of comfort offered by the housekeeper. Several minutes elapsed before Sir Thomas reappeared, his own face as white as if iced over by death. His halting progress down the aisle, supported by his son, was pitiful to see, and Maddox wondered whether the old gentleman’s health might never recover from the series of shocks he had sustained. Maddox was one of the last of the mourners to attain the door, and what he saw outside did not surprise him: there was a crowd of people thronging the churchyard, but both Henry Crawford and his sister were gone.

  The knell was still tolling behind her as Mary made her way quickly to the rear gate of the White House. She had only visited the house once, quite early in her stay at the parsonage, but she remembered it very clearly, having spent an extremely tedious hour being taken through every room by Mrs Norris, who did not scruple to point out every chair, table, silver fork, and finger-glass, and who could enumerate the price of every item with as much facility as an agent shewing the house to a prospective tenant. Henry had warned her to remain out of sight until she saw him on the terrace with Stornaway; the man was said to be partial to snuff, when he could get it, and Henry had still a plentiful supply of fine Macouba that he had purchased in St James’s. It was hardly subtle, by way of a bribe, and should the man prove suspicious, Henry was not at all sure how he was to explain his sudden presence in the house; if pressed, he intended to claim he bore a message from Sir Thomas, enquiring as to the arrangements for Mr Norris’s removal, but it was, at best, a poor excuse, as any astute sentinel would know; they must hope that Maddox chose his subalterns for their physical not their mental prowess.