Murder at Mansfield Park - Lynn Shepherd [115]
He was there. At the table, as if to eat—and there was, indeed, a plate at his side—but he was no longer sitting, no longer upright; he was slumped over the table, his head between his arms, his face half-concealed. She made a move towards him, then stopped, noticing for the first time the bottle and empty glass at his hand. She had never known him intoxicated—had thought, indeed, that he had an aversion to strong liquor in all its forms—and yet here he was, in the middle of the day, in a state of apparent drunkenness.
Her first feeling was one of guilty remorse—had she really brought him to this?—but a moment’s further observation led her to question her first response. There was still more than half a bottle of wine remaining, and he could not possibly have been reduced to such a state after imbibing so small a quantity. He bore all the signs of intoxication—the stertorous respiration, the flushed face—but as she moved closer, she could not discern the breath of wine.
‘Mr Norris?’ she said, hesitatingly. ‘May I speak to you for a moment?’
There was no reply.
Summoning all her courage, she put out a hand and took him by the shoulder, and spoke again, as loudly as she dared,‘Mr Norris? Are you awake?’
Once more, she received no reply, but the propinquity in which she now stood allowed to observe him more closely, and she perceived that his stupefaction did not so much resemble the effects of drink, as the terrifying torpor into which Julia Bertram had descended, and from which they had not been able to reclaim her. She reached for the glass at once, and seized it with fumbling fingers; her suspicions were correct—there was a strong odour of laudanum.
‘My God!’ she cried. ‘What have you done—what have you done?’
She dragged him to an erect position, his head lolling over one shoulder, and saw, with terror, that his face was beginning to take on the same deep suffusion of blood that she had seen only a few days before. This time, at least, she knew what to do. She moved first towards the bell to ring for assistance, before she recollected that the servants were all absent; she turned towards the door, thinking to call for aid from her brother and Stornaway, but she never reached it.There was already someone standing there, with her hand to the door-handle, and a basket of cutlery over one arm.
‘Oh Mrs Norris!’ cried Mary, running towards her. ‘Thank God that you are here! You must help me—I think Edmund has taken poison—he must have despaired in the face of—but no matter—I fear I am not making myself very clear, but this is exactly what happened with poor Julia—we must act quickly—it may already be too late!’
Mrs Norris looked at her for a long moment, then shut the door quietly behind her.
‘You would do better to sit down and calm yourself, Miss Crawford. These theatrical performances of yours serve no useful purpose.’
‘But—did you not hear me?’ she stammered. ‘Your son has taken poison—we must procure him an emetic—I know what to do—and with your knowledge of remedies you must have such a thing in the house—there is a chance—if we intervene at once that we may—’
‘We may what, Miss Crawford? Preserve his life so that you may tighten your grip yet further on his heart?’
‘I do not know what you mean—’
‘You were more than half to blame,’ she said, advancing towards Mary. ‘If it had not been for you, and that blackguard brother of yours, they would be married by now. Once Rushworth was out of the way I thought everything would return to how it should be, but oh no. Your contemptible brother resorted to the most vile arts, to the most depraved, wicked contrivances to lure her away—’
‘But even if that were true,’ interrupted Mary, ‘it is not important now, not at this moment. We must act quickly to help Edmund or we will both lose him. Please, Mrs Norris— he has taken laudanum—a very great deal of laudanum—’
‘I know