Murder at Mansfield Park

"I have just been giving the men instructions to commence the felling of the avenue, and the digging of the channel for the new cascade," he said, as he shook out his coat. "How do they go on at the Park?"

Mary sighed, and related the events of the afternoon, too preoccupied, perhaps, with her wet shoes to notice the look in his eye as she described what she had heard on the stairs. "I had not expected her to be so affected," she concluded.

"I suppose it rather depends what exactly she is affected by," observed Henry, deep in his own thoughts.

At that moment Mrs Grant appeared, armed with dry clothes, and the promise of hot tea and a good fire.

"I hear there is still no news of Sir Thomas," she said."Poor man! To be cut off at his time of life, when Lady Bertram depends on him so completely! But then again, I have no doubt Mrs Norris will be more than ready to step forward, and supply his place. She never misses an opportunity to interfere, even where she is not wanted. Did you see her at the ball? Taking it on herself to make up the card-tables, as if she were the hostess, and plaguing the life out of the chaperons because she wanted them moved to another part of the room. But at least we will not have to endure all that again in a hurry. There will be no more balls at Sotherton for the present."

Henry looked up from where he was sitting removing his boots. "What is this? No more balls at Sotherton? Do not ask me to believe that Mr Rushworth has all of a sudden lost his taste for gaudy display, or acquired a preference for the modest and discreet."

"No, indeed, Henry," said Mrs Grant, with a look that was only half reproving. "But I heard this morning that he has left the neighbourhood. I am told that when he returned to Sotherton last night, there was a letter awaiting him from his father requesting his presence in Bath, and his father’s requests are not, apparently, of the kind to be trifled with. They say he will not be back before the winter. Did you not hear about it at the Park, Mary? Mr Rushworth called there this morning, on his way to the turnpike road — or so Mrs Baddeley told me. The ladies must have heard the news by now."

"I am certain they have," thought Mary, "and I do not doubt that it was this news, unexpected and unwelcome as it must have been, that was the real cause of Miss Price’s hysteria, rather than any excessive solicitude for her uncle’s health." A glance at her brother proved that he was of much the same mind, but Henry refused to meet her gaze, and a moment later he was on his feet, and hurrying away to dress for dinner.

Chapter 9

The weather worsening the next day, Mary was forced to give up all notion of a walk to the Park, and resigned herself to the probability of twenty-four hours within doors, with only her brother and the Grants for company. In the latter, however, she was mistaken. They were just beginning breakfast when a letter arrived for Henry; a letter of the most pressing business, as they soon discovered.

"It is from Sir Robert Ferrars," he said, as he turned the pages. "You remember, Mary? I had the laying out of his pleasure-grounds at Netherfield last year, after he acquired the estate from Charles Bingley. A small job, hardly worth the trouble, but one that obtained for me some invaluable new connections. Indeed, I still have hopes of a commission at Bingley’s new property on the strength of his recommendation. However," he continued, his brow contracting, "it seems that an officious gardener has been interfering with the drains, with the result that most of the gravel walks are now under half a foot of water. Ferrars is reluctant to entrust the repair work to anyone but me — as well he should be, in the circumstances." He folded the letter and put it carefully in his pocket-book. "He writes to request my presence without delay. I will pen a note to Bertram to inform him, if you would be so good as to send one of the men to the Park? The affair requires my immediate departure, and if the weather is at all the same in Hertfordshire as it is here, I dare not imagine the dirt and disorder I will find on my arrival. It will be a miracle if my magnificent statues are not up to their knees in mud."