Lynn Shepherd - Murder at Mansfield Park

It had not escaped Mary’s notice, that Dr Grant’s initial contempt for their London visitor had modulated into something very like respect, and she was still wondering over it, when her sister spoke again.

"If only it were possible," mused Mrs Grant, "to tell for certain who had handled that mattock. Then all would be made clear in a matter of moments."

Dr Grant gave a smile that expressed all the indulgence of self-amusement in the face of feminine irrationality. "Now you really are growing fanciful. If you are both ready to withdraw, I will retire to my study."

Mary and her sister sat over the fire in the parlour, both absorbed in their own thoughts.

"It still does not make sense to me," said Mrs Grant at length. "Even if the workmen indeed prove to be innocent, I cannot believe that this Mr Maddox can possibly suspect any of the family of complicity in this dreadful deed. Surely some delinquent vagabond or escaped criminal is far more likely? Whatever Dr Grant says about it being improbable that strangers could go undetected about the park, I find it equally unbelievable that anyone at Mansfield could be guilty of such a brutal outrage against a defenceless young woman."

"You do hear of such things," said Mary with a sigh. "And no doubt a London thief-taker like Mr Maddox has had experience of them, if anyone has."

Like her brother-in-law, she had to acknowledge a grudging admiration for the man’s energy and penetration. She had not given these qualities their proper estimation at first, to her cost, but she now suspected him to be a man with an extraordinary talent for stratagem and manoeuvre, who would likely prove to be a fearsome adversary. God forbid she should find herself in such a position! She shivered a little, and Mrs Grant got up to stir the fire.

"That said, I do not envy Mr Maddox the task of questioning the servants. You know how such people are, Mary — if they are not idle and dissatisfied, they are trifling and silly, and gadding about the village all day long. It will be an insufferably tedious task, and I doubt he will end up with very much to shew for it."

Mary watched the flames leap up in the grate, and reflected on her sister’s words. To judge from her own experience, the Mansfield servants would be only too susceptible to Maddox’s method of questioning, and even if the Bertram family might fondly believe that their private affairs would remain private, she feared that Maddox would soon be in possession of a far fuller, and less palatable, version of the truth.

At that very moment, indeed, Mr Maddox was settling Hannah O’Hara into a similar chair, by a similar fire. He had been interested to discover that, alone of all the ladies at Mansfield, Fanny Price had had two maids to her own use; a little, sallow, upright Frenchwoman, who clearly fancied herself as much superior to Maddox, as she must feel herself to be to the rest of the servants; and a young girl who had until very recently made one of the housemaids, and owed her elevation to her skill at her needle. He had quickly established that this girl would be far more convenient for his purpose than the taciturn Madame Dacier, and elected to begin his interrogations with her.

O’Hara had never previously entered Sir Thomas’s room, far less been invited to sit down in one of his imposing chairs, and Maddox was relying on the little flutter of self-importance that such an unlooked-for event must provoke, to put her off her guard. The glass of wine he had offered her, "to steady her nerves", would doubtless have no insignificant contribution to make in that regard. He had already perceived her to be a quick-looking girl, with such an abundance of freckles and red hair as to confirm her Irish parentage before she had uttered a single word. Maddox had no quarrel with the Irish — indeed he had once been much enamoured of a girl from Baly-craig, and young O’Hara’s native volubility might be of singular value to him; after all, if anyone was privy to what had been passing in Fanny Price’s mind in the days before her disappearance, it was the young woman before him. He had also taken the wise precaution of erecting a small screen at the farther end of the room, and installing his assistant Fraser there, with a memorandum book and pencil. It was his usual practice, and had been of the greatest utility in a number of previous engagements of a like delicate nature: his own memory was first-rate, but Fraser’s notebook had often proved to be even more reliable. Maddox had not deemed it necessary to inform the maid that her words were being recorded; he rarely accorded such a courtesy even to those who employed him, and never, yet, to a servant.

"So, Hannah. What can you tell me about your mistress?" he began, in what he designed to be a fatherly manner.

"Miss Fanny, sir?"

"Come now, Hannah, who else would I mean?"

The girl coloured, and gripped her glass a little tighter. "I’m sorry, sir. I’m a mite nervous, that I am."

"I quite understand. But there’s nothing to fear. All you have to do is tell the truth. I’m sure you can do that, can’t you, Hannah — a good God-fearing girl like you?"

"Yes, sir."

"So. Miss Price. Was she a kind mistress?"

If he had thought the girl was blushing before, it was nothing to the scarlet that flooded her face now.

"We-ell," she said, "that’s not quite the word as I’d have chosen. She was very partic’lar — very partic’lar. Everything always had to be just so. "Specially with her clothes. Many’s a time I’ve sat up all night sewing, mending something as she’d torn, or finishing something as she wanted to wear the next day."

Maddox smiled, a picture of sympathy. "Young ladies can be most trying, can they not? Ever prey to the most petty whims and caprices, and it is people like us who stand the brunt of it. But in my experience, even the mistress who is a tyrant to her maids, may appear quite differently among her equals. Would that apply to Miss Fanny, would you say?"

O’Hara gave him a look he could not at first decipher. "You could say that, I suppose.When she was wit’ her family she was like a different person. Then it was all “Yes Sir Thomas”, “No, Sir Thomas”, “Three bags full, Sir Thomas”. Eyes always down, that prim mouth of hers set in plaits."

"Indeed?" said Maddox, wondering, not for the first time, at the verbal ingenuity of the Irish. "How very interesting, Hannah. And which, would you say, was the real Miss Fanny?"

O’Hara gave a short laugh. "Mine, to be sure! She might ’a looked as if butter wouldn’t melt, but I’ve seen the looks she gave Miss Maria, when she thought she’d stole that Mr Rushworth from her. We all thought as it were him she ran off with, but it seems it must "a been someone else entirely."

"You have no suspicion of who that might have been?"

O" Hara drained her glass, and put it down; her cheeks were somewhat flushed. "If it ’a been me , I’d ’a gone off with that Mr Crawford as soon as look at him. He’s a fine gentleman, and no mistake."

"But since Mr Crawford was not in the neighbourhood at the time — "

O’Hara shrugged her shoulders. "All I can say is she definitely meant to meet someone that morning. That pelisse she was wearing? It was the best she had, and she had some beautiful things. She wouldn’t ’a worn that for a walk in a muddy garden with no-one round to see."

Maddox nodded thoughtfully; Mary Crawford had made a similar observation, but it had taken this girl’s rude simplicity to make its full meaning manifest. He decided it was time to question her more minutely on the matter in hand.

"Do you know of anyone who might have wished Miss Fanny harm?"

O’Hara’s eyes widened in alarm. "Killed her, you mean? I can’t tell you anything about that — I don’t know nothing about it, and that’s God’s honest truth."