Murder at Mansfield Park - Softcover

LYNN SHEPHERD, who received a doctorate in English literature from Oxford University, lives in London. She first had the idea of writing "an authentic Austen murder" nearly ten years ago.

Chapter I
About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon,
with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck
to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in
the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised
to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and
consequences of an handsome house and large income. All
Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and
her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three
thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had
two sisters to be benefited by her elevation, and her father
hoped that the eldest daughter’s match would set matters
in a fair train for the younger. But, though she possessed
no less a fortune, Miss Julia’s features were rather plain
than handsome, and in consequence the neighbourhood
was united in its conviction that there would not be such
another great match to distinguish the Ward family.
Unhappily for the neighbourhood, Miss Julia was fated
to confound their dearest expectations, and to emulate
her sister’s good luck, by captivating a gentleman of both
wealth and consequence, albeit a widower. Within a
twelvemonth after Miss Ward’s nuptials her younger sister
began upon a career of conjugal felicity with a Mr Norris,
his considerable fortune, and young son, in the village
immediately neighbouring Mansfield Park. Miss Frances
fared yet better. A chance encounter at a Northampton ball
threw her in the path of a Mr Price, the only son of a great
Cumberland family, with a large estate at Lessingby Hall.
Miss Frances was lively and beautiful, and the young man
being both romantic and imprudent, a marriage took place
to the infinite mortification of his father and mother, who
possessed a sense of their family’s pride and consequence,
which equalled, if not exceeded, even their prodigious
fortune. It was as unsuitable a connection as such hasty
marriages usually are, and did not produce much happiness.
Having married beneath him, Mr Price felt justly entitled
to excessive gratitude and unequalled devotion in his wife,
but he soon discovered that the young woman he had
loved for her spirit, as much as her beauty, had neither the
gentle temper nor submissive disposition he and his family
considered his due.
Older sages might easily have foreseen the natural
sequel of such an inauspicious beginning, and despite the
fine house, jewels and carriages that her husband’s position
afforded, it was not long before Miss Frances, for her part,
perceived that the Prices could not but hold her cheap, on
account of her lowly birth. The consequence of this, upon
a mind so young and inexperienced, was but too inevitable.
Her spirits were depressed, and though her family were not
consumptive, her health was delicate, and the rigours of
the Cumberland climate, severely aggravated by a difficult
lying-in, left young Mr Price a widower within a year of
his marriage. He had not been happy with his wife, but
that did not prevent him being quite overcome with
misery and regret when she was with him no more, and
the late vexations of their life together were softened by her
suffering and death. His little daughter could not console
him; she was a pretty child, with her mother’s light hair and
blue eyes, but the resemblance served only to heighten his
sense of anguish and remorse. It was a wretched time, but
even as they consoled their son in his affliction, Mr and Mrs
Price could only congratulate themselves privately that a
marriage contracted under such unfortunate circumstances
had not resulted in a more enduring unhappiness. Having
consulted a number of eminent physicians, the anxious
parents soon determined that the young man would be
materially better for a change of air and situation, and the
family having an extensive property at the West Indies, it
was soon decided between them that his wounded heart
might best find consolation in the novelty, exertion, and
excitement of a sea voyage. Some heart-ache the widowerfather
may be supposed to have felt on leaving his daughter,
but he took comfort in the fact that his little Fanny would
have every comfort and attention in his father’s house.
He left England with the probability of being at least a
twelvemonth absent.
And what of Mansfield at this time? Lady Bertram had
delighted her husband with an heir, soon after Miss Frances’
marriage, and this joyful event was duly followed by the
birth of a daughter, some few months younger than her
little cousin in Cumberland. One might have imagined Mrs
Price to have enjoyed a regular and intimate intercourse
with her sisters at Mansfield during this interesting period,
but her husband’s family had done all in their power to
discourage any thing more than common civility, and
despite Mrs Norris’s sanguine expectations of being ‘every
year at Lessingby’, and being introduced to a host of great
personages, no such invitation was ever forthcoming. Mrs
Price’s sudden death led to an even greater distance between
the families, and when news finally reached Mansfield that
young Mr Price had fallen victim to a nervous seizure on
his journey back to England—intelligence his parents had
not seen fit to impart themselves—Mrs Norris could not
be satisfied without writing to the Prices, and giving vent
to all the anger and resentment that she had pent up in
her own mind since her sister’s marriage. Had Sir Thomas
known of her intentions, an absolute rupture might have
been prevented, but as it was the Prices felt fully justified in
putting an end to all communication between the families
for a considerable interval.
One can only imagine the mortifying sensations that Sir
Thomas must have endured at such a time, but all private
feelings were soon swallowed up by a more public grief.
Mr Norris, long troubled by an indifferent state of health,
brought on apoplexy and death by drinking a whole bottle
of claret in the course of a single evening. There were some
who said that a long-standing habit of self-indulgence had
lately grown much worse from his having to endure daily
harangues from his wife at her ill-treatment by the Prices,
but whatever the truth of this, it is certain that no such
rumour ever came to Mrs Norris’s ear. She, for her part,
was left only with a large income and a spacious house, and
consoled herself for the loss of her husband by considering
that she could do very well without him, and for the loss of
an invalid to nurse by the acquisition of a son to bring up.
At Mansfield Park a son and a daughter successively
entered the world, and as the years passed, Sir Thomas
contrived to maintain a regular if unfrequent correspondence
with his brother-in-law, Mr Price, in which he learned of
little Fanny’s progress with much complacency. But when
the girl was a few months short of her twelfth birthday,
Sir Thomas, in place of his usual communication from
Cumberland, received instead a letter in a lawyer’s hand,
conveying the sorrowful information that Mr and Mrs
Price had both succumbed to a putrid fever, and in the next
sentence, beseeching Sir Thomas, as the child’s uncle, and
only relation, to take the whole charge of her. Sir Thomas
was a man of honour and principle, and not insensible
to the claims of duty and the ties of blood, but such an
undertaking was not to be lightly engaged in; not, at least,
without consulting his wife. Lady Bertram was a woman
of very tranquil feelings, guided in every thing important
by Sir Thomas, and in smaller day-to-day concerns by her
sister. Knowing as he did Mrs Norris’s generous concern
for the wants of others, Sir Thomas elected to bring the
subject forward as they were sitting together at the tea-table,
where Mrs Norris was presiding. He gave the ladies the
particulars of the letter in his usual measured and dignified
manner, concluding with the observation that ‘after due
consideration, and examining this distressing circumstance
in all its particulars, I firmly believe that I have no other
alternative but to accede to this lawyer’s request and bring
Fanny to live with us here, at Mansfield Park. I hope, my
dear, that you will also see it in the same judicious light.’
Lady Bertram agreed with him instantly. ‘I think we
cannot do better,’ said she. ‘Let us send for her at once. Is
she not my niece, and poor Frances’ orphan child?’
As for Mrs Norris, she had not a word to say. She
saw decision in Sir Thomas’s looks, and her surprise and
vexation required some moments’ silence to be settled into
composure. Instead of seeing her first, and beseeching her
to try what her influence might do, Sir Thomas had shewn
a very reasonable dependence on the nerves of his wife,
and introduced the subject with no more ceremony than
he might have announced such common and indifferent
news as their country neighbourhood usually furnished.
Mrs Norris felt herself defrauded of an office, but there
was comfort, however, soon at hand. A second and most
interesting reflection suddenly occurring to her, she resumed
the conversation with renewed animation as soon as
the tea-things had been removed.
‘My dear Sir Thomas,’ she began, with a voice as well
regulated as she could manage, ‘considering what excellent
prospects the young lady has, and supposing her to possess
even one hundredth part of the sweet temper of your own
dear girls, would it not be a fine thing for us all if she were
to develop a fondness for my Edmund? After all, he will in
time inherit poor Mr Norris’s property, and she will have
her grandfather’s es...