Murder at Mansfield Park

"If things were different, Miss Crawford," he said slowly, "if I were a proper man — a man able to stand on his own feet, and not the useless, vacillating weakling my stepmother always said I was — then I would ask you myself — I would say — " He threw up his hands in anguish. "But how can I do so? Look at me — confined to this damned chair — with no money and no prospect of gaining any. How can I ask any woman — far less a woman like you — to make such a sacrifice? I can live on comfortably enough at the Park — Sir Thomas has been very kind — but a man should give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from, not condemn her to a miserable dependence on the benevolence of others. And it is not only my fortune I have lost. My reputation is gone — quite gone. As far as the world is concerned, I will for ever be a man who confessed to murder, and there will no doubt be some who will always question whether I did not, in fact, commit those dreadful crimes. And if that were not enough, how can I ask another woman to become Mrs Norris, in the shadow of what has happened to the last woman to bear that name?"

They were silent.

"It is true," she said gently, after a pause, "that you are not the happy and prosperous Mr Norris whom first I met."

"In truth, Miss Crawford, I was neither, even then. I did not know, at that time, that my prosperity was as much a chimaera as my happiness. You, by contrast, might now have both. You might marry whom you choose."

"And I do choose, Mr Norris. Do you think my feelings are so evanescent, or my affections so easily bestowed? Do you think I care for what people think? And though I have lived all my life under the narrow constraints of comparative poverty, I am now in the happy position of discarding such wearisome economies for ever. You talked just now of fine ironies; here is another: the fortune that will now provide for me, is the fortune you should have had. Had you married Fanny, as everyone wished, you would be the master of Lessingby now, and not my brother."

He shook his head. "Your words only serve to remind me of my own shame. I should never have allowed the engagement to persist so long. It was cowardice — rank cowardice. I should have spoken to Sir Thomas long ago; had I done so, he would never have allowed the connection to endure as long as it did. I would have been released, and she — she might still be living today."

"But everyone — everything — was against you. Duty, habit, expectation. Such an arrangement — established when you were so young, and supported as it was by your whole family — it would have taken great courage to give it up."

"A man should always do his duty, Miss Crawford, however difficult the circumstances. Indeed, there is little merit in doing so, unless it demands some exertion, some struggle on our part. Long standing and public as was the engagement, I had a duty to her, as well as myself, not to enter knowingly into a marriage without affection — without the true affection that alone can justify any hope of lasting happiness."

His words struck her with all the force of a thunderbolt. She knew — had always known — how wretched she would be if she were to marry a man she did not love, and yet only a few hours before she had been giving serious consideration to just such an alliance. She had even reasoned herself into believing that Maddox might be the only man in the world who could place a just value on her talents, and that they might — as he had insisted — have much in common; not merely a shared literary taste, but a general similarity of temper and disposition. But now the truth of her own heart was all before her. Whatever the inconveniences that might lie before them — whatever the attractions of another course — she loved Edmund Norris still; loved him, and wished to be his wife.

She rose to her feet. "I will detain you no longer, Mr Norris. I must find Mr Maddox, and beg a few minutes’ conversation with him in private."

Had she doubted his affection before, she could do so no longer; the expression of his face sank gradually to a settled and blank despair. It was as if a lamp had flickered and gone out.

"I hope you will be happy, Miss Crawford," he said, in a low voice, turning his face away.

"I hope so too, Mr Norris; but it will not be with Mr Maddox, if I am."

It was said with something of her former playfulness, and when he looked up at her, he saw that she was smiling.

"I have decided to refuse him. After all, how can I marry Mr Maddox when I have already given my heart to another?"

Chapter 23