Murder at Mansfield Park - Lynn Shepherd [96]
‘I can never be free of it—never erase it—never blot it out—that face, those eyes—cannot bear it—pretend I never saw, pretend I never heard—no, no, do not look upon me—I will not tell! I will not tell!’
The precise import of these words forced itself slowly but inexorably upon Mary’s consciousness. It was not Julia who had killed Fanny, but someone else. Julia’s previous burst of feeling did not signify her own guilt, but her horror at having seen her own cousin being brutally done to death, and by someone she herself knew. It was no wonder the girl was distraught—no wonder she was in terror—
Mary’s heart leapt in hope—and as soon froze, as the girl sprang up suddenly in the bed, her lips white, and her eyes staring sightlessly across the room. ‘Do not look upon me!—I will not tell—a secret—always, always a secret!— Edmund—Edmund!’
CHAPTER XVII
Charles Maddox was, at that moment, standing in silence on the garden terrace. He was not a man who required many hours of repose, and it had become his habit to spend much of the night watching, taking the advantage of peace and serenity to marshal his thoughts. Living as he did in the smoke and dirt of town, he could but rarely, as now, enjoy a moonlit landscape, and the contrast of a clear dark sky with the deep shade of woods. He gazed for a while at the constellations, picking out Arcturus and the Bear, as he had been taught as a boy, while reflecting that moonlight had practical as well as picturesque qualities: a messenger could ride all night in such conditions as this, and that being so, Maddox might, with luck, receive the information he required in the course of the following day. He had sent Fraser to London, to enquire at Portman-square as to the exact state of affairs between Mr and Mrs Crawford during their brief honeymoon; the husband had claimed they were happy, but every circumstance argued against it. Maddox had seen the clenched fist, the contracted brow, and the barely suppressed anger writ across his face. He would not be the first man Maddox had known, to conceal violent inclinations beneath a debonair and amiable demeanour, and this one had a motive as good as any of them: not love, or revenge, but money, and a great deal of it.
Maddox could not have told, precisely, how long he had been standing there, meditating the histories of his past cases, when he heard the sound of an approaching horse, the echo magnified unduly in the stillness of the air. He abandoned his reverie at once, and proceeded to the front of the house, to find a man dismounting in some haste. He was a medical gentleman, to judge by his bag, but he was not the physician Maddox had seen at Mansfield before.
‘Do I take it Mr Gilbert is unavailable?’ he asked.
The man looked at him with suspicion, as if wondering at his impertinence. ‘I am sorry, sir. I do not recollect that we have been introduced.’
‘My apologies. My name is Charles Maddox. The family have requested my assistance in resolving the unfortunate business of Mrs—that is—Miss Price’s death.’
The man nodded. ‘I had heard as much in the village; indeed, they are talking of little else. I am Phillips, the apothecary. Mr Gilbert has been detained at a lying-in at Locking Hall. He sent word to me to attend here in his stead.’
‘The patient is worse, I apprehend?’ said Maddox.
‘Indeed so, sir,’ said Phillips. ‘I must hasten to examine her. A great deal of time has already been lost.’
He handed his mount to the stable-boy, and began to hurry towards the house, but Maddox kept pace with him.
‘Have you been informed as to the symptoms?’
‘Of course. The message was most precise, though I do not see that it is any concern of yours.’
‘Nonetheless, if you would.’
‘Very well,’ said Phillips, stopping for a moment before the door, his gloves in one hand. ‘The pupils are contracted, the patient flushed about the face, the respiration raucous, and the pulse slow. Now if you will excuse me, I am expected.