Murder at Mansfield Park (21 page)

‘I believe he has asked to question the servants, and to carry out a search of the house, but the latter has been absolutely refused. Miss Bertram has declared that her mother is in no fit state to accede to such a request, and Mrs Norris was, as one might have expected, particularly loud in her outrage at such an idea; all the more so since— in
her
opinion—it is now palpably obvious that one of the labourers must be responsible. She is all for having the whole lot of them carted off to Northampton assizes, but I suppose we should not have expected any thing like reason or logic from
that
lady.’

‘How so, Dr Grant? I am hardly an admirer of Mrs Norris,
in general
, but surely there is some thing to be said for such a view of the matter?’

Dr Grant shook his head.‘It is no more plausible, my dear,’ he said patiently, ‘than your picture of a gang of murderous gipsies marauding unchecked and unnoticed across the Mansfield lawns. A mere five minutes’ mature deliberation should be sufficient to remind you that the workmen are always under supervision of one kind or another when they are in the park, and share sleeping quarters in the stable block. I doubt any one of them could have slipped away and committed such a crime without one or other of his fellows noticing, especially as there would have been a great effusion of blood, which could not possibly have been concealed. And what could be the motive for such a deed? I believe Maddox has agreed to question the men concerned, if only to appease Mrs Norris, but I suspect that he knows as well as I do, that he will have to look elsewhere for his assassin.’

It had not escaped Mary’s notice, that Dr Grant’s initial contempt for their London visitor had modulated into some thing very like respect, and she was still wondering over it, when her sister spoke again.

‘If only it were possible,’ mused Mrs Grant, ‘to tell for certain who had handled that mattock. Then all would be made clear in a matter of moments.’

Dr Grant gave a smile that expressed all the indulgence of self-amusement in the face of feminine irrationality. ‘Now you really
are
growing fanciful. If you are both ready to withdraw, I will retire to my study.’

Mary and her sister sat over the fire in the parlour, both absorbed in their own thoughts.

‘It still does not make sense to me,’ said Mrs Grant at length. ‘Even if the workmen indeed prove to be innocent, I cannot believe that this Mr Maddox can possibly suspect any of the family of complicity in this dreadful deed. Surely some delinquent vagabond or escaped criminal is far more likely? Whatever Dr Grant says about it being improbable that strangers could go undetected about the park, I find it equally unbelievable that anyone at Mansfield could be guilty of such a brutal outrage against a defenceless young woman.’

‘You do hear of such things,’ said Mary with a sigh. ‘And no doubt a London thief-taker like Mr Maddox has had experience of them, if anyone has.’

Like her brother-in-law, she had to acknowledge a grudging admiration for the man’s energy and penetration. She had not given these qualities their proper estimation at first, to her cost, but she now suspected him to be a man with an extraordinary talent for stratagem and manoeuvre, who would likely prove to be a fearsome adversary. God forbid she should find herself in such a position! She shivered a little, and Mrs Grant got up to stir the fire.

‘That said, I do not envy Mr Maddox the task of questioning the servants. You know how such people are, Mary—if they are not idle and dissatisfied, they are trifling and silly, and gadding about the village all day long. It will be an insufferably tedious task, and I doubt he will end up with very much to shew for it.’

Mary watched the flames leap up in the grate, and reflected on her sister’s words. To judge from her own experience, the Mansfield servants would be only too susceptible to Maddox’s method of questioning, and even if the Bertram family might fondly believe that their private affairs would remain private, she feared that Maddox would soon be in possession of a far fuller, and less palatable, version of the truth.

At that very moment, indeed, Mr Maddox was settling Hannah O’Hara into a similar chair, by a similar fire. He had been interested to discover that, alone of all the ladies at Mansfield, Fanny Price had had two maids to her own use; a little, sallow, upright Frenchwoman, who clearly fancied herself as much superior to Maddox, as she must feel herself to be to the rest of the servants; and a young girl who had until very recently made one of the housemaids, and owed her elevation to her skill at her needle. He had quickly established that this girl would be far more convenient for his purpose than the taciturn Madame Dacier, and elected to begin his interrogations with her.

O’Hara had never previously entered Sir Thomas’s room, far less been invited to sit down in one of his imposing chairs, and Maddox was relying on the little flutter of self-importance that such an unlooked-for event must provoke, to put her off her guard. The glass of wine he had offered her, ‘to steady her nerves’, would doubtless have no insignificant contribution to make in that regard. He had already perceived her to be a quick-looking girl, with such an abundance of freckles and red hair as to confirm her Irish parentage before she had uttered a single word. Maddox had no quarrel with the Irish—indeed he had once been much enamoured of a girl from Baly-craig, and young O’Hara’s native volubility might be of singular value to him; after all, if anyone was privy to what had been passing in Fanny Price’s mind in the days before her disappearance, it was the young woman before him. He had also taken the wise precaution of erecting a small screen at the farther end of the room, and installing his assistant Fraser there, with a memorandum book and pencil. It was his usual practice, and had been of the greatest utility in a number of previous engagements of a like delicate nature: his own memory was first-rate, but Fraser’s notebook had often proved to be even more reliable. Maddox had not deemed it necessary to inform the maid that her words were being recorded; he rarely accorded such a courtesy even to those who employed him, and never, yet, to a servant.

‘So, Hannah. What can you tell me about your mistress?’ he began, in what he designed to be a fatherly manner.

‘Miss Fanny, sir?’

‘Come now, Hannah, who else would I mean?’

The girl coloured, and gripped her glass a little tighter. ‘I’m sorry, sir. I’m a mite nervous, that I am.’

‘I quite understand. But there’s nothing to fear. All you have to do is tell the truth. I’m sure you can do that, can’t you, Hannah—a good God-fearing girl like you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘So. Miss Price. Was she a kind mistress?’

If he had thought the girl was blushing before, it was nothing to the scarlet that flooded her face now.

‘We-ell,’ she said, ‘that’s not quite the word as I’d have chosen. She was very partic’lar—
very
partic’lar. Every thing always had to be just so. ’Specially with her clothes. Many’s a time I’ve sat up all night sewing, mending some thing as she’d torn, or finishing some thing as she wanted to wear the next day.’

Maddox smiled, a picture of sympathy. ‘Young ladies can be most trying, can they not? Ever prey to the most petty whims and caprices, and it is people like us who stand the brunt of it. But in my experience, even the mistress who is a tyrant to her maids, may appear quite differently among her equals. Would that apply to Miss Fanny, would you say?’

O’Hara gave him a look he could not at first decipher. ‘You could say that, I suppose.When she was wit’ her family she was like a different person. Then it was all “Yes Sir Thomas”, “No, Sir Thomas”, “Three bags full, Sir Thomas”. Eyes always down, that prim mouth of hers set in plaits.’

‘Indeed?’ said Maddox, wondering, not for the first time, at the verbal ingenuity of the Irish. ‘How very interesting, Hannah. And which, would you say, was the
real
Miss Fanny?’

O’Hara gave a short laugh. ‘Mine, to be sure! She might ’a looked as if butter wouldn’t melt, but I’ve seen the looks she gave Miss Maria, when she thought she’d stole that Mr Rushworth from her. We all thought as it were him she ran off with, but it seems it must ‘a been someone else entirely.’

‘You have no suspicion of who that might have been?’

O‘Hara drained her glass, and put it down; her cheeks were somewhat flushed. ‘If it ’a been
me
, I’d ’a gone off with that Mr Crawford as soon as look at him. He’s a fine gentleman, and no mistake.’

‘But since Mr Crawford was not in the neighbourhood at the time—’

O’Hara shrugged her shoulders. ‘All I can say is she definitely meant to meet
someone
that morning. That pelisse she was wearing? It was the best she had, and she had some beautiful things. She wouldn’t ’a worn
that
for a walk in a muddy garden with no-one round to see.’

Maddox nodded thoughtfully; Mary Crawford had made a similar observation, but it had taken this girl’s rude simplicity to make its full meaning manifest. He decided it was time to question her more minutely on the matter in hand.

‘Do you know of anyone who might have wished Miss Fanny harm?’

O’Hara’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Killed her, you mean? I can’t tell you any thing about that—I don’t know nothing about it, and that’s God’s honest truth.’

Maddox cursed himself; terror would only petrify her into silence. ‘No, no, do not fret about that. I only wish to know the real state of things between Miss Fanny and her relations.’

O’Hara gave him a narrow look. ‘I suppose there’s no harm in telling what everyone here knows—’

‘No, indeed, Hannah, and especially when it is what everyone
knows
, but no-one will
say
. No-one in the family, that is.’

O’Hara gave him a penetrating glance. ‘They didn’t know the half of it. Not Sir Thomas and her ladyship, anyways. It always looked peaceful and good humoured enough on the surface, but underneath it was a different story, make no mistake about it. At least as far as the young ladies was concerned. Miss Fanny had a cunning way of her own of causing quarrels without seeming to, if you take my meaning. And as soon as Miss Maria set her cap at Mr Rushworth, well, you can just imagine what Miss Fanny thought ’a that—I think it truly was the first time in the whole course of her life that she’d ever wanted some thing and not got it at the first time of asking. The bickerings that man caused! Miss Maria did what she could to stand her ground, but she never had cat’s chance—Miss Fanny would bawl at her like a trollop when they were out of hearing of the rest of the family, however dainty and demure she made sure to look in the drawing-room.’

O’Hara sat back in her chair, and eyed Maddox in a conspiratorial manner. ‘If you ask me, some thing happened on that jaunt to Compton. I can’t tell you as to what, but every thing changed after that and it weren’t just the news about Sir Thomas.You see if I’m not wrong.’

Maddox did not rise to the bait. ‘And what about Mr Norris—how did he feel about all this?’ he continued.

O’Hara did not appear to be particularly interested in Mr Norris. ‘Oh, you never could tell, with him. He’s a deep one—keeps his feelings to hisself. But one of the footmen saw what happened when he got back from Cumberland the first time and caught Miss Fanny and Mr Rushworth at that play rehearsal. She was in his arms, so Williams said. Almost
kissing
, he said. Not at all what a man like Mr Norris would have expected, I can tell you. Williams said his face was black as thunder, and he insisted the whole thing was stopped, right there and then. It was the talk of the servants’ hall for days after.’

Maddox could well believe it; O’Hara, meanwhile, was still speaking.

‘All the same, if you ask me, he was as tired of her, as she was of him. It wasn’t just about Mr Rushworth, either. They
both
preferred someone else.’

Maddox sat forward in his chair; he had already discovered, or guessed, much of what O’Hara had told him, but this he had not heard before.

‘Oh, he did his best to hide it,’ she said, ‘being so strict and all, but you only had to look at him when she was in the room. He was in love with her. It was written all over his face.’

‘It is most important there is no misunderstanding about this point, Hannah,’ said Maddox choosing his words with care. ‘To whom are you referring?’

‘Why, Miss Crawford, of course. Who else could it be?’

Even though the hour was late, Maddox sent Stornaway to fetch Maria Bertram’s maid, and sat over the fire while he awaited her arrival, perusing the notes Fraser had taken. He also read once again the observations he himself had recorded after his conversation with Mary, in the light of O’Hara’s last and most suggestive revelation.

It was all very interesting, very interesting indeed.

CHAPTER XIV

Mary, needless to say, knew nothing of this; and she set out for the Park the following morning with a heart much lighter than it would have been, had she been privy to all that was going through Maddox’s mind at that same moment. The house seemed quiet enough, and if the servants were more circumspect than usual, Mary scarcely noticed in her eagerness to enquire after Julia, and her relief at hearing that if she was no better, she was likewise no worse. The girl had been given another sleeping draught, and Mary sat with her for some time, deriving considerable comfort from seeing her in such a quiet, steady and seemingly comfortable repose. From the window she could still see the view that had been so much cherished by her young friend. Mary could not but find it most affecting that, even if it had come about in a way she could never have foreseen, Julia had, indeed, succeeded in her desperate attempt to save her beloved trees: they had been judged sufficiently close to the Park to make the task of felling them too productive of noise and commotion for the abode of a patient in her precarious state of health. A temporary stay of execution had since become indeterminate; the workmen had been confined to their quarters since Mr Maddox’s arrival, at his express request, and Mary now doubted whether the improvements at Mansfield Park would ever be resumed.