Murder at Mansfield Park

followed by another from the parsonage offering his sister far more
suitable accommodations than their present lodgings could afford, he saw it as the happy intervention of a Providence that had ever been his friend.
    The measure was quite as welcome on one side as it could be expedient on the other; for Mrs Grant, having by this time run through all the usual resources of ladies residing in a country
parsonage without a family of children to superintend, was very much in want of some domestic diversion. The arrival, therefore, of her brother and sister was highly agreeable; and Mrs Grant was
delighted to receive a young man and woman of very pleasant appearance. Henry Crawford was decidedly handsome, with a person, height, and air that many a nobleman might have envied, while Mary had
an elegant and graceful beauty, and a strength of understanding that might even exceed her brother’s. This, however, she had the good sense to conceal, at least when first introduced into
polite company. Mrs Grant had not waited her sister’s arrival to look out for a desirable match for her, and she had fixed, for want of much variety of suitable young men in the immediate
vicinity, on Tom Bertram. He was, she was constrained to admit, but twenty-one, and perhaps an eldest son would in general be thought too good for a girl of less than two thousand pounds,
but stranger things have happened, especially where the young woman in question had all the accomplishments which Mrs Grant saw in her sister. Did not Lady Bertram herself have little more than
that sum when she captivated Sir Thomas? Mary had not been three hours in the house before Mrs Grant told her what she had planned, concluding with, ‘And as we are invited to the Park this
evening, you will see him for yourself.’
    ‘And what of your poor brother?’ asked Henry with a smile. ‘Are there no Miss Bertrams to whom I can make myself agreeable? No rich ward of Sir Thomas’s I can entertain?
I ask only that they have at least twenty thousand pounds. I cannot exert myself for any thing less.’
    ‘If that is your standard,’ replied Mrs Grant, ‘then Mansfield has only one young woman worthy of the name. Fanny Price is Sir Thomas’s niece, and has at least twice that
sum, and will inherit her grandfather’s Cumberland property, and some vast estates in the West Indies, I believe. And she is generally thought to be by far the handsomest of the young
ladies—quite the belle of the neighbourhood. But I am sorry for your sake, my dear brother, that she is already engaged. Or at least, so I believe, for no announcement has actually been made,
but Mrs Norris told me in confidence, that Fanny is to marry her son Edmund. He has a very large property from his father, though you would scarcely believe it from the way his mother carries on.
Such assiduous economy and frugality I have never known, and certainly not from a person so admirably provided for as Mrs Norris must be. I believe she must positively enjoy all her ingenious
contrivances, and take pleasure in saving half a crown here and there, since there cannot possibly be any other explanation.’
    Mary heaved a small sigh at this, and thought of the considerable retrenchment she had been forced to make in her own expenditure of late. Mrs Grant, meanwhile, had returned to the young ladies
of the Park.
    ‘You will be obliged to content yourself with Miss Bertram, Henry. She is a pretty young lady, if not so handsome as Miss Price, and has a nice height and size, and sweet dark eyes. But I
warn you that you may encounter some competition in that quarter. A Mr Rushworth has but lately arrived in the neighbourhood, and I believe we may even see him at the Park this evening. He is the
younger son of a lord, with an estate of four or five thousand a year, they say, and very likely more.’
    Henry could not help half a smile, but he said nothing.
    The dinner hour approaching, the ladies separated for their toilette. Although Mary had laughed heartily at her sister’s picture of herself as the future mistress of Mansfield Park, she
found herself meditating upon it in the calmness of her own room, and she dressed with more than usual care. The loss of her home, with all its attendant indignity, had been a painful proof that
matrimony was the only honourable provision for a well-educated young woman of such little fortune as hers. Marriage, therefore, must be her object, and she must resign herself to