Murder at Mansfield Park

with high glee, mimicking his victim’s rather prosing manner to absolute perfection. Perhaps Mary should have apprehended some thing of her
own feelings from the growing disquiet she felt at this continued raillery, but unwelcome as it was, she chose rather to censure Henry’s lack of manners, than her own lack of prudence.
    Mary rode every morning, and in the afternoons she sauntered about with Julia Bertram in the Mansfield woods, or—rather more reluctantly—walked with Miss Price in Mrs Grant’s
garden.
    ‘Every time I come into this shrubbery I am more struck with how much has been made of such unpromising scrubby dirt,’ said Miss Price, as they were thus sitting together one day.
‘Three years ago, this was nothing but a rough hedgerow along the upper side of the field, never thought of as any thing, or capable of becoming any thing.’
    ‘It may seem partial in me to praise,’ replied Mary, looking around her, ‘but I must admire the taste my sister has shewn in all this. Even Henry approves of it, and his
good opinion is not so easily won in matters horticultural.’
    ‘I am so glad to see the evergreens thrive!’ answered Miss Price, who did not appear to have heard her. ‘The evergreen! How beautiful, how welcome, how wonderful the
evergreen!’
    But as Miss Price happened to have her eyes fixed at that moment on a particularly fine example of an elm, Mary merely smiled and said nothing.
    A few moments later, Miss Price began again in a rather different strain, ‘I cannot imagine what it is to pass March and April in London. How different a thing sunshine must be in a town!
I imagine that in—Bedford-square was it not, my dear Miss Crawford?—the sun’s power is only a glare, serving but to bring forward stains and dirt that might otherwise have slept.
And old gentlemen can be so particular about such things. I always pity the housekeeper in such circumstances. You , of course, know the trials of housekeeping only too
well.’
    Miss Price having exhausted for the present even her considerable talent for the underhand and the insulting, began to pull at some of the trimming on her dress. ‘This cheap fringe will
not do at all. I really must ask Lady Bertram to remonstrate with that slovenly dressmaker. I am hardly fit to appear in decent company, but thankfully there is no-one of consequence here to
see me.’
    Mary watched her for a moment, reflecting that she did not have such an ornament on even her finest gown, before commenting thoughtfully, ‘I am conscious of being even more attracted to a
country residence than I expected.’
    ‘Indeed?’ said Miss Price loudly, with a look of meaning. ‘What had you in mind? Allow me to guess. An elegant, moderate-sized house in the centre of family
connections—continual engagements among them—commanding the first society in the neighbourhood, and turning from the cheerful round of such amusements to nothing worse than a tête-à-tête with the person one feels most agreeable in the world? I can see that such a picture would have much in it to attract you , Miss Crawford.’
    ‘Perhaps it does.’ Mary added to herself, leaving her seat, ‘Perhaps I could even envy you with such a home as that.’
    Miss Price sat silent, once again absorbed in the vexations of her gown, and pulling at it until it was quite spoilt. Mary relapsed into thoughtfulness, till suddenly looking up she saw Edmund
walking towards them in the company of Mrs Grant. The very consciousness of having been thinking of him as ‘Edmund’—as Miss Price alone was justified in thinking of
him—caused her to colour and look away, a movement which was not lost on the sharp eyes of Miss Price.
    ‘Well, Miss Crawford,’ she said archly, ‘shall I disappoint them of half their lecture upon my sitting down out of doors at this time of year, by being up before they can
begin?’
    Edmund met them with particular awkwardness. It was the first time of his seeing them together since the beginning of that better acquaintance which he had been hearing deprecated by his mother
almost every day. He could hardly understand it; there was such a difference in their tempers, their dispositions, and their tastes, there never were two people more dissimilar. But even if he saw
the force of such a contrast, he was not yet equal to discuss it with himself, and seeing them together now, he confined himself to an insipid and common-place observation about the wisdom of