Murder at Mansfield Park

the apothecary.
    ‘What do you mean, sir?’ cried Mrs Baddeley in terror, rising unsteadily from her chair. ‘Do you talk of poison ? And in this house? The poor girl has had nothing but Mr
Gilbert’s cordial, administered with my own hands.’
    ‘That may very well be the case,’ said Maddox, striding to the table of medicines, and beginning to examine them. ‘But are you in a position to swear that there was never a
moment—never a single moment—in the last two days, when Miss Julia has been left alone?’
    Mrs Baddeley flushed, and the two women exchanged a glance.
    ‘I see you cannot,’ continued Maddox. ‘And here, I believe, is the result. This bottle breathes faintly of laudanum. Mr Phillips—your opinion, if you please.’
    The apothecary came forward, and lifted the bottle to his nose, before looking up with an expression of horror. ‘This is most alarming—someone has clearly tampered with the cordial.
Heaven knows what Mr Gilbert will have to say to this—’
    ‘Your efforts would be better directed to assisting your patient, Mr Phillips. Mrs Baddeley, do you happen to have a supply of ipecacuanha in the house? It may serve, as an
emetic.’
    ‘I believe so, sir. It is long since I have had need of that evil physic, but there may still be a small quantity in the chest in my room. I will need to fetch the key.’
    ‘Then if you feel strong enough, I would ask you to make haste there with Mr Phillips, so that he may make up a tincture.’
    ‘Mrs Baddeley is not well, sir,’ intervened Miss Crawford, as the door closed behind them. ‘I know the chest to which she refers, and could just as easily have gone in her
place.’
    ‘I wished to speak to you alone, Miss Crawford,’ said Maddox, ‘and prepare you for what is to come. Once the emetic has taken effect, we must try to get Miss Julia from her
bed, and revive her a little by moving her about the room. With luck, we may prevent the onset of the final stupor. But it will not be an easy task, and may tax even your strength and fortitude. If
you do not feel yourself equal to it, I will send for one of the servants, but, for reasons that will no doubt become clear to you when you have had time to reflect, I would prefer to keep the
matter between our four selves, at least for the moment.’
    She did not answer at once, and when he turned his eyes towards her white and horrified face, he perceived that she was already blaming herself. She had administered the last doses of the
cordial; she—all unwitting—had therefore been the purveyor of the poison; how she might feel if the girl were to die, he had not, then, the energy to contemplate.
    He did not think it likely that either of them would forget the night they endured together, at Julia Bertram’s bed-side. The darkness without was nothing to the grim work they undertook
within. The ipecacuanha brought upon such violent reachings as seemed to tear the girl’s frail constitution in pieces, and more than once he wondered whether the cure might not be more deadly
than the malady, and he would prove, at the last, to be a murderer, not a saviour. He saw, too, that Mary Crawford was beset by doubts of a similar melancholy order, but she never uttered a word of
doubt or misgiving, and directed her efforts to assisting Mr Phillips, and accomplishing the charge before them. And it was a soul-harrowing task; the reachings were soon followed by a
foul-smelling vomit, and a sudden gush of liquid smelling strongly of laudanum, and even when the basins had been removed, and the patient cleansed, there was no possibility of rest. Knowing the
state of prostration which would necessarily follow, and the stimulant measures necessary to counter it, if death were to be averted, Maddox had them take her bodily from the bed, and toil hour
after hour by turns, half-carrying, half-dragging her cold and insensible body about the room.
    As the dawn rose behind Sir Thomas’s woods, the two women began to fancy there was some slight improvement in the girl’s pulse: they waited, watched, and examined it again and again,
and when the first rays of sunlight revealed a lightening of the venous darkness that had flooded her face, they dared at last to hope that she might be out of danger. Even Mr Phillips acknowledged
a temporary revival, and ventured to give encouraging assurances, but Maddox was not so sanguine; he had seen this flattering symptom before, and knew that all too often it