Murder at Mansfield Park

For S & S

who were there at the start.

Names of the Principal Persons

At Mansfield Park:

The family:

Sir Thomas Bertram, Baronet

Lady Bertram, his wife

Thomas Bertram, his eldest son

Miss Maria Bertram, his eldest daughter

William Bertram, his second son, away at sea

Miss Julia Bertram, his second daughter

Miss Fanny Price, niece to Sir Thomas; daughter to Mr Price of Lessingby Hall, Cumberland, and his wife Frances, sister to Lady Bertram

The household:

Baddeley, the butler

Mrs Baddeley, the housekeeper

Mr McGregor, the steward

Mr Fletcher, the bailiff

Mrs Chapman, attending Lady Bertram

Mme Dacier, attending Miss Price

Hannah O'Hara, attending Miss Price

Kitty Jeffries, attending Miss Bertram

Polly Evans, attending Miss Julia Bertram

At the White House

Mrs Norris, sister to Lady Bertram

Edmund Norris, her stepson

At the Parsonage

The Reverend Dr Grant

Mrs Grant

Henry Crawford, half brother to Mrs Grant

Miss Mary Crawford, his sister

At Sotherton

James Rushworth, son to Sir Richard Rushworth

The Honourable John Yates

From London

Charles Maddox, a thief-taker

George Fraser and Abel Stornaway, his assistants

Chapter 1

About thirty years ago Miss Maria Ward, of Huntingdon, with only seven thousand pounds, had the good luck to captivate Sir Thomas Bertram, of Mansfield Park, in the county of Northampton, and to be thereby raised to the rank of a baronet’s lady, with all the comforts and consequences of an handsome house and large income. All Huntingdon exclaimed on the greatness of the match, and her uncle, the lawyer, himself, allowed her to be at least three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to it. She had two sisters to be benefited by her elevation, and her father hoped that the eldest daughter’s match would set matters in a fair train for the younger. But, though she possessed no less a fortune, Miss Julia’s features were rather plain than handsome, and in consequence the neighbourhood was united in its conviction that there would not be such another great match to distinguish the Ward family.

Unhappily for the neighbourhood, Miss Julia was fated to confound their dearest expectations, and to emulate her sister’s good luck, by captivating a gentleman of both wealth and consequence, albeit a widower. Within a twelvemonth after Miss Ward’s nuptials her younger sister began upon a career of conjugal felicity with a Mr Norris, his considerable fortune, and young son, in the village immediately neighbouring Mansfield Park. Miss Frances fared yet better. A chance encounter at a Northampton ball threw her in the path of a Mr Price, the only son of a great Cumberland family, with a large estate at Lessingby Hall. Miss Frances was lively and beautiful, and the young man being both romantic and imprudent, a marriage took place to the infinite mortification of his father and mother, who possessed a sense of their family’s pride and consequence, which equalled, if not exceeded, even their prodigious fortune. It was as unsuitable a connection as such hasty marriages usually are, and did not produce much happiness. Having married beneath him, Mr Price felt justly entitled to excessive gratitude and unequalled devotion in his wife, but he soon discovered that the young woman he had loved for her spirit, as much as her beauty, had neither the gentle temper nor submissive disposition he and his family considered his due.