Murder at Mansfield Park

Three months later the happy event took place that was to take her from Mansfield, and in the course of the year that followed she pursued her plan, and sketched out a design for a novel that might appeal to a reader such as herself. Two or three families in a country village seemed the very thing to work on, and once commenced she made rapid progress, and found to her surprise and delight that the work was accepted by the first publisher she approached. Edmund, meanwhile, had found the beauty of the Lakes, and the glory of the scenery, most conducive to productive reflection, and having retrospected the course of his life, the errors he had made, and the lessons he had learned, he began to consider whether he might not make himself useful to others, and secure an income large enough to support his family, without relying on his brother-in-law’s generosity, by taking orders. It was a decision that Mary heartily approved; she had, in fact, long wondered whether becoming a clergyman might not suit him in every respect, and do full justice to his kind heart, gentle temper, strong good sense and uprightness of mind. The resolution taken, all that remained was to find him a suitable living, and here they were indebted to a stroke of good fortune. After talking of the possibility for many years, and almost ceasing to form hopes of it ever coming about, Dr Grant finally succeeded to the stall in Westminster that had long been the object of his ambition, and he and his wife removed to London. The living at Mansfield now falling vacant, Sir Thomas was most heartily gratified to be able to offer it to his nephew, and no less heartily did he welcome the young couple home, having formed such an attachment to Mary, in the weeks after his return from Keswick, as had made him miss her as much as if she had been his own daughter. After settling her in her new home with every kind attention to her comfort, the object of almost every day was to see her there, or to get her away from it.

One might suppose that the prospect of living at the parsonage would revive some painful memories, but these were quickly done away. Mary had always thought it a pretty little house, and now every window in it afforded fine views of a landscape that, thanks to her brother’s improvements, was fast becoming established as one of the beauties of the county. With her husband’s love, and her own rising fame to sustain her, the parsonage soon grew as dear to her heart, and as thoroughly perfect in her eyes, as everything else, within the view and patronage of Mansfield Park, had long been.

Acknowledgments

My first and greatest debt is, of course, to Jane Austen herself — not just her wonderful novels, but her letters as well, which I have both mimicked and mined in an effort to recreate her characteristic combination of elegant turns of phrase and delightfully ruthless observations. As a lifelong fan of her work I’ve tried to remain faithful both to the spirit of her writing, and the actual language she used — I’d like to think that if she’d turned her hand to murder it might just have turned out something like this.

Some readers will also have recognised the deliberate reference to Kingsley Amis’s famous condemnation of the original Fanny Price as "a monster of complacency and pride, who under a cloak of cringing self-abasement, dominates and gives meaning to the novel". This comes from an article originally published in The Spectator in October 1957, entitled "What became of Jane Austen?"

Finally, I’d like to thank my husband Simon for all his support, and my agent, Ben Mason, for everything he did to make this happen — without him, it would never have been published at all.