Murder at Mansfield Park

ill.’
    ‘No!’ Mary cried wildly. ‘Do not distress her! I am quite well—quite well!’ Edmund was at her side in an instant; she heard his voice, and felt his hands lifting
her up.
    ‘You are not well.’ he said firmly, ‘nor could anyone expect you to be so. Mr McGregor will accompany you back to the house. Pray believe me that I would escort you
myself, if it were at all possible, but I have a duty to await the arrival of the constable.’
    ‘There is no need—I can remain here,’ she said weakly, but her knees trembled under her, and she could not deny it.
    ‘Indeed you cannot remain—you must not remain,’ he continued. ‘This is no place for a lady. Mr McGregor? Your arm, if you please.’
    How long it took them to attain the house, Mary had no idea, and likewise she retained no recollection of what happened subsequently. The next few hours passed in a haze. She had some visionary
remembrances of figures passing to and fro before her sight, of screams and cries that seemed to come from a great distance, of lowered voices, and a cup of tea pressed into her hand that tasted
dull and cloying in her mouth. When at last she came to her senses, she was lying on a bed she did not recognise, in a room she had never seen. But the young woman sitting quietly sewing by the
bedside, she had seen before. It was Rogers, one of the Mansfield Park housemaids.
    ‘Oh, miss! You’re awake!’ she cried, as Mary struggled to sit up. ‘We were that worried about you—Mr Gilbert came and every thing. It’s just as well Miss
Julia is a little better—he’s had his hands full enough with you, and all the other ladies. Your sister’s been sitting with you above three hours, but Mr Norris just persuaded her
to go home and get some rest. She was looking almost as pale as you do. Give me a minute, and I’ll go and call Mrs Baddeley—’
    ‘If you please, Rogers,’ said Mary, her voice thick, ‘tell me what has happened—I have only the dimmest recollection as to how I came to be here.’
    Rogers sat down heavily in the chair, her face grim. ‘Are you sure, miss? Mr Norris said you weren’t to be upset. Most insistent, he was.’
    ‘I am sincerely grateful to Mr Norris for his consideration,’ she said, treasuring the thought, ‘but you need not worry. I was, I admit, overcome by a fit of nervous faintness,
but I do not usually suffer from such things, and I am quite recovered now. I would much rather know exactly what has occurred.’
    ‘If you say so, miss,’ said Rogers, who clearly still had her doubts on the matter. ‘It was Mr McGregor who brought you back. You was leaning on his arm and you looked so
queer! Of course, none of us knowed why then , and Mr McGregor barely had time to tell Mr Baddeley what it were all about before he was off again on horseback to fetch the constable, though
what use they think old Mr Holmes is going to be is beyond me. He must be sixty if he’s a day. Anyway, that’s when we knowed it were serious, but we didn’t find out what was
really going on until the footmen came back. They’d covered it over as much as they could, but there was this one hand hanging down, all spattered in mud, and jolting with every move of the
cart. Gave me quite a turn, I can tell you. Young Sally Puxley fainted clean away.’
    Mary turned her face against the pillow, and closed her eyes. So it had not been a dream; it had seemed so shocking, that her heart revolted from it as impossible, but she knew now that the
sickening images that had floated before her in her stupor were not, after all, some hideous concoction of memory and imagination, but only too horribly real.
    ‘Are you all right, miss?’ said Rogers quickly. ‘You’ve come over dreadful pale again.’
    ‘So it’s true,’ Mary whispered, half to herself. ‘Fanny Price is dead.’

 
    CHAPTER XII
    When Mary opened her eyes again, the morning sun was streaming through the window. For a few precious moments she enjoyed the bliss of ignorance, but such serenity could not
last, and the events of the previous day were not long in returning to her remembrance. She felt weak and faint in body, but her mind had regained some part of its usual self-possession, and she
dressed herself quickly, and went out into the passage. She was in a part of the house she did not know, and she stood for a moment, wondering how best to proceed. It then occurred to her that she
might take the opportunity to locate Julia