Murder at Mansfield Park

and regret for the rest of my life. I
struck her, Mr Maddox. I struck her full across the face, and she staggered. She had not expected it—how could she? She could not conceive of anyone having the audaciousness to raise a hand
to her— to Miss Price, the heiress of Lessingby. I could scarcely believe it myself, and as I watched her sink on her knees before me in the mud every thing seemed to be happening with
strange and unnatural slowness. And then the full horror of what I had done rushed in upon me, and I ran away.’
    The two sat in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. At last Maria rose to her feet, and made as if to return to the house. She was a few feet away when Maddox called her
back.
    ‘You are quite sure she said she had left here with a man—that she had eloped?’
    Maria nodded.
    ‘But she did not say with whom? You do not know who it was?’
    ‘No, Mr Maddox. I am sorry, but I cannot assist you. She never told me his name.’
    Some time before this, Mary had returned to the relative peace of the parsonage, and, finding both Dr Grant and her sister departed on business to the village, she sat down in
the parlour to write to Henry. She had not heard from him for some days, and had not written herself since Miss Price’s disappearance: as catastrophe had succeeded catastrophe she had not
known how to begin, or how best to convey such terrible and unexpected news; preparing him for the disappointment to be occasioned by the cessation of all work on the improvements was only the
least of her concerns.
    She had arranged her paper, pen, and inkstand, and even gone so far as to write ‘My very dear Henry’, when she was suddenly aware of an unusual noise in the hall. A moment later the
door of the room was thrown open, and Henry himself rushed into the room, his clothes bespattered with the dirt of the road, and his hat still in his hands.
    ‘Is she here?’ he cried, in a state of agitation. ‘Have you seen her?’
    ‘What can you mean?’ said Mary, rising to her feet in dismay. ‘ Whom do you mean?’
    ‘My wife, of course—who else? I’ve come back to find her—I’ve come back to find Fanny.’

 
    CHAPTER XV
    Mary would remember the hour that followed to the end of her days. She could only be grateful that they were accorded the luxury of spending that hour alone, without even her sister or Dr Grant
to overhear or intercede. It was hardly possible to take in all her brother had to say, and it was many, many minutes before she could form a distinct idea of what had occurred. It seemed that
while Henry had, indeed, travelled to Sir Robert Ferrars’s estate, he had staid there no more than two days; hearing of Mr Rushworth’s engagement, he had decided, in a moment of rash
impetuosity, to return to Mansfield in secret, and contrive to see Fanny. She, as Mary well knew, had taken to walking in the garden alone in the morning, and it was there that he had met
her—met her, made love to her, and persuaded her, at last, to run away with him. It was clear that, on her side at least, it was a decision owing nothing to passion, and every thing to hatred
of home, restraint, and tranquillity, to the misery of disappointed affection, and contempt of the man she was to have married. Having a man like Henry Crawford wholly in her power had likewise
offered its own allurements, as had the idea of a romantic elopement, and all the bustle and excitement of the intrigue—not merely travelling by night, and bribing innkeepers, but imagining
the uproar that must have ensued at Mansfield, as soon as she was missed. More than once did Mary shake her head as she listened to this narration; more than once did she picture, with horror, the
awful consequences of this rash marriage, had Fanny lived. But she had not lived, and Mary had not yet had the courage to say so. She watched as her brother paced up and down the room, his
face haggard and anxious, despite the unaccustomed richness of his attire.
    ‘We were married in London four days later,’ he said, at length. ‘The day after she came of age. She was happy—ordering new clothes and viewing houses in Wimpole-street.
She has a quite extraordinary talent for spending money—nothing is too good, nothing too expensive—but little more than a week later I awoke in our lodgings to find she was gone. I have
spent every waking hour since looking for her.’
    He threw himself into a chair, and cast his hat onto the