Murder at Mansfield Park

back to her, his head resting
against the chair, and a rug draped across his knees. It was so like the posture in which she had last seen him, so awful a reminder of what had been, and what might have been, that she stood for a
moment, unable to move, her hand at her breast, and her heart full. Perhaps she made a sound, but at length he moved, and half-turned towards her.
    ‘Mrs Baddeley? Is that you?’
    She hesitated; then took a step closer.
    ‘No, Mr Norris. It is not Mrs Baddeley.’
    There was a pause.
    ‘ Mary ?’ he whispered.
    She had heard her name from another’s lips not three hours before, and she could not, at that moment, have told if she had longed or feared to hear it now. She went quickly forward, and
stood before him. The change in his appearance clutched at her heart. His face was white and pinched, and his eyes had a hectic feverishness that did not seem to be solely the consequence of his
recent misfortune; some thing more profound was amiss. Neither spoke for some moments, then he roused himself, and gestured towards the chair beside him.
    ‘I am so much reduced, Miss Crawford,’ he said, in a bitter tone, ‘that I cannot even do the necessary courtesy to a lady by standing in her presence.’
    ‘In that case, Mr Norris, I will sit.’ They remained in silence a moment, but it was not a companionable silence; the minds of both were over-taxed.
    ‘I had not thought to see you here,’ she said at last.
    ‘Mrs Baddeley was so good as to wheel me to the garden. I wanted to take a last look at the place.’
    ‘Last? Are you going away?’
    He shook his head. ‘Only as far as the Park. This house is to be sold, and every thing in it. And it will still not be enough—nowhere near enough—to clear away all the claims
of my creditors. My father’s wealth derived almost entirely from his estate at Antigua, and it is only now that I have discovered that it has been making heavy losses for a number of years.
In consequence I find I have debts far greater than I could ever have conceived of, and no way to pay them with any degree of expedition, except by the sale of all I have.’
    She noted the formal character of his discourse, and felt it at her heart.
    ‘It is a wonder,’ she said, at length, and with a break in her voice, ‘that your mother was able to keep up the appearance of affluence for so long.’
    He smiled sourly. ‘She has— had —a will of iron. But even she could not endure such a terrible burden for ever; the pressure was too great. That day in the park—the
unexpected encounter with Fanny—it was not so very much, in itself. But it brought her to the brink of the abyss. She had already seen the wreck of all her hopes of my marrying Fanny; our
debts had mounted to the point of imminent ruin; and now she had to endure contempt and disdain from the very person from whom she expected the utmost deference, gratitude, and respect.’
    He paused, and gazed across the lawn to where the moon was rising in the late afternoon sky.
    ‘When you spoke to me at the belvedere, I knew at once. When you talked about the blood—the “blood on her hands”—I knew. That day, when I returned from Cumberland,
she had not expected me; when I surprised her at the house, she was in a strange mood—excitable, nervous—she could barely keep in one place for a minute together. You know her
character, and you know such behaviour to be quite unlike her usual self; I, certainly, had never seen it before. And when I went into the parlour, I found rags in the fire. Blood-stained rags in a
fire that did not need to be lit so early on such a warm day. She told me she had dropped a jar in the store-room, and cut her hand, and there were indeed some marks that might have testified to
such an incident. But how could I have suspected their real cause? Even later, when it became horribly, indisputably clear, I still could not believe—’
    He swallowed, and went on, ‘When I confronted her, she said she had done it for me —for us . I saw at once that, even if she were the actual perpetrator of the
crime, I bore my own terrible responsibility for what she had done. I should have made it my business to enquire into our pecuniary circumstances years ago; had I done so, I would have known
the strain under which she had been labouring for so long, and been in a position to take action to alleviate it. Any man of the least decision of character would have done so, and more. How could