The Matters at Mansfield: (Or, the Crawford Affair) (Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries) (11 page)

Fifteen

You express so little anxiety about my being murdered under Ash Park Copse by Mrs. Hulbert’s servant, that I have a great mind not to tell you whether I was or not
.

—
Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra

T
he restless night gave way to an equally restless morning. Anne, it seemed, had been the only member of their party to capture more than intermittent sleep. Elizabeth had returned to her chamber to find Darcy dressed, and when they went down to breakfast they found Colonel Fitzwilliam already at table.

“I could not lie still,” he confessed. “I am near mad for useful employment, but I know not what action to take.”

“At present there is little to be done beyond turning the affair over to the magistrate,” Darcy said.

“I offered to call upon Sir Thomas, but Lady Catherine bade me wait. She said Mr. Archer would handle it.”

A minute later, the inn door opened to admit the solicitor, a dark silhouette against the pale daylight behind him. Mr. Archer was dressed in the same black suit he had worn the day before, or perhaps an identical one; he did not project the impression of a gentleman wont to enliven his wardrobe with variety. Such as color.

He appeared surprised to find their small party assembled, and consulted his pocketwatch. “Half past eight already? Still, rather early for breakfast.”

“Perhaps in London,” said Mrs. Gower, bringing out additional tea, toast, rolls, and rashers. Elizabeth hungrily reached for a roll and spread it with strawberry jam. The long night had left her famished, and she expected this day to prove still longer.

As Mr. Archer moved farther into the room, Elizabeth noted that his suit indeed sported a bit of color—a stripe of yellowish sheen near his left knee. He crossed to the staircase, where the descent of Lady Catherine halted his progress. A look passed between them, her brows rising in question. He responded with a nod so slight as to be almost imperceptible. After she passed, he proceeded to his own chamber.

Her ladyship settled into a chair at the head of the table. “Mrs. Darcy, who attends Anne presently?”

“She woke and desired solitude in which to order her thoughts. She said she would call for one of us or your maid if she required anything.”

The room darkened as more clouds passed over the sun. Her ladyship’s countenance darkened as well.

“Someone ought to sit with her and engage her in constructive discourse, else she might indulge in melancholy.” There was little doubt who the “someone” was that Lady Catherine had in mind.

Much as Elizabeth sympathized with Anne’s plight—both her recent marital mess and the lifelong misfortune of fate having assigned Lady Catherine as her mother—she had maternal matters of her own occupying her attention this morning. She anticipated that today would bring confirmation from Georgiana or Lily-Anne’s nurse of their safe arrival at Pemberley, and until she received it, thoughts of her daughter would command the majority of her consciousness. Though she trusted that all went well, she had never before been separated from the child for such a long period of time, nor by so great a distance, and she missed the little person who had in so few months wrought such significant changes in her life.

“You are well attuned to Anne’s needs.” Elizabeth tried not to choke on her roll along with the words. “What comfort her mother’s presence would bring her.”

“I will see her following breakfast.”

“Perhaps your ladyship might breakfast with your daughter. I wish I could breakfast with mine this morning.”

“Lily-Anne is an infant. Of what possible interest could her presence be to you or any of us? Children are best left to their nurses until they not only have learned to speak, but have attained sufficient years and experience to have something worthwhile to say.”

“Surely by now your own daughter has acquired both.”

“The events of recent weeks prove that my daughter’s maturity does not include enough sense to act in her own interest. Therefore, she can have nothing to say at present that would concern me. And even if she did, the guest rooms of this establishment are far too cramped to dine in comfortably, otherwise I would have ordered a tray to my own chamber. I shall breakfast right here.”

A serving maid brought an empty teacup and plate to Lady Catherine and lit a candle on the table against the growing darkness. A storm was gathering.

“I require tea,” Lady Catherine said.

The maid checked the pot in front of Elizabeth. It was half-full and still steaming. She lifted it to pour, but Lady Catherine covered the top of her teacup with her hand.

“I want a fresh pot. And take care that the water is newly drawn. I will have none of the reboiled sludge you attempted to impose upon me yesterday.”

“I swear, ma’am, the tea yesterday—”

“No reused leaves, either.”

“Oh, ma’am! We never—”

“Or excuses.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The poor girl hurried off before Lady Catherine threatened to pour the boiling water over her.

Elizabeth took a pointed sip from her own cup. “The tea here is not the best I have ever been served, but it is not bad.”

“That, Mrs. Darcy, illustrates the difference between us. You are accustomed to accepting inferiority. I am not. When I want something, I do not settle for less.”

The tea arrived. Fortunately for the serving girl, Meg entered from the outside door just as she started to pour, thus drawing Lady Catherine’s derisive gaze to a new target.

“Humph,” Lady Catherine said under her breath. “I see the common dining room just became more common.”

Meg regarded their party uncertainly, though she did not appear to have overheard Lady Catherine’s snub. She went to an empty table in the corner. The sky outside had completely darkened, and the maid brought out another candle for Meg. In the flickering light, she looked lonely sitting there by herself, watching the flame as if she were not sure where else to direct her attention.

Elizabeth called over to her. “Mrs. Garrick, we have nearly finished our own breakfast, but you are welcome to join our table.”

Lady Catherine’s teacup clanked onto its saucer as a fit of coughing seized her.

Meg jumped up. “Oh, dear!” She hurried over to Lady Catherine and delivered three sharp blows to her back. As she prepared to offer a fourth, Lady Catherine seized her wrist.

“Stop assaulting me!” she sputtered.

“You were choking.”

“I merely downed my tea incorrectly, you featherbrain!” She issued a final, deep cough, then drained her teacup to clear her throat. She straightened her spine in an attempt to recapture her dignity.

Meg gave Lady Catherine’s back a final, gentle pat. “There, there. My mother had trouble feeding herself too, toward the end. Try eating more slowly.”

“The end? The end of what?”

Meg met Elizabeth’s gaze and shook her head sympathetically. “They become so irritable when they begin to lose their independence.”

A clap of thunder sounded, followed by the fall of rain. It came heavily, sluicing both the ground and Elizabeth’s spirits, for it trapped her inside with Lady Catherine.

In the courtyard, the trot of a horse signaled the arrival of a traveler. The animal emitted an unhappy neigh. It was not a traveler, however, but the ostler who hurried in a few moments later. His gaze swept the company, lighting at last on Darcy.

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir, for disturbin’ your breakfast, but Mr. Crawford’s horse is here.”

Lady Catherine’s teacup clattered a second time. “The scoundrel has returned? Impossible.”

“No, ma’am, not him. Just his horse. The saddle’s empty.”

Lady Catherine scoffed. “Then how do you know the mount is Mr. Crawford’s?”

“There’s no mistaking the animal, ma’am. Not with a scar like that.”

Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam left the ladies inside and subjected themselves to the deluge to see the horse for themselves. By the time they reached the stable, a boy had already unsaddled the mount and was rubbing her down. The horse was disfigured as Anne had described. It was indeed Charleybane.

Darcy inspected the saddle but noted nothing of interest. “Where are Mr. Crawford’s saddlebags?” he asked the stable boy.

“The horse didn’t return with none, sir.”

He exchanged a glance with his cousin. Mr. Crawford had left behind his valise and other luggage, but Darcy assumed he had fled the inn with something more than the clothes on his back. “Did he depart with saddlebags?”

“Don’t recollect, sir.” The boy finished grooming and moved to another part of the stable.

Colonel Fitzwilliam reached out to stroke the hunter’s nose, but the mare shied from his hand. “A noble animal scarred by circumstance,” he said. “Does Mr. Crawford spoil everything he touches? I wonder how she came by her injury.”

“Anne says Mr. Crawford recently acquired the Thoroughbred from Mr. Sennex as payment for a debt.”

“The mare belonged to Neville Sennex? Do not tell me so, for that means I must now consider the horse better off in Mr. Crawford’s care, which I find difficult to believe of any feeling creature.”

“Including Anne?”

“Especially Anne.” Colonel Fitzwilliam shook his head. “What cruel fortune, to escape marriage to a man who is constantly brutal only to wed one who is brutally inconstant. She deserves a happier fate than either Mr. Sennex or Mr. Crawford could ever give her.”

“I do not know how she will find one now. Her legal mire is thicker than the mud on my boots.”

“Crawford’s death would clean up matters quite a bit.”

Despite the warm, humid air congesting the stable, the colonel’s words chilled Darcy. His cousin was no coward, but he was also no hothead. He had entered the army out of necessity—as a second son, unlikely to inherit unless misfortune struck his elder brother, he had needed a profession, and in his youth had been drawn to the military because it appeared to offer a more stimulating life than would the church or the law. In his years of service he had seen his share of battles and acquitted himself well, earning a reputation as a strong commander undaunted in combat. But his had always been an impersonal aggression, directed at a faceless, collective enemy. Until Henry Crawford crossed his path.

“You expressed a similar sentiment last night,” Darcy observed.

“Ease your mind—I have not acted upon it. I merely state a fact: Anne would be far better off with Crawford dead than missing. She would be free to marry whomever she wished while the courts sort out whether her first marriage was valid or not.”

“Even could she—or her mother—find a man who is interested, I cannot imagine Anne herself wishes to wed anyone at present. Hymen has not treated her well thus far.”

“She may yet find happiness. But before that can happen, we must ascertain Mr. Crawford’s fate. Did he abandon his mount voluntarily, or did an accident befall him?”

Darcy had been pondering that very question. “She is a distinctive horse. Mr. Crawford himself presents an average appearance that would not excite notice among strangers, but the animal’s scar draws attention and would linger in the memory of anyone he encounters. He might have parted with her in order to travel more inconspicuously. That would help explain why we were all unsuccessful in locating him during our search yesterday evening.”

“Surely if he chose to set the mare loose, he did so near a place where he could hire another mount or board a coach. Is there anything distinctive about her shoes? Perhaps we can trace the hoofprints to determine where she became separated from Mr. Crawford.”

An enormous crack of thunder satisfied that query. Even if they could have discerned Charleybane’s marks from all the others on the road, rain had obliterated them by now. As if to reinforce the point, the shower intensified.

They could not seek Henry Crawford today. The only question remaining was whether they would ever locate him at all.

Sixteen

Henry Crawford, ruined by early independence and bad domestic example, indulged in the freaks of a cold-blooded vanity a little too long
.

—Mansfield Park

D
arcy turned his head away from the appalling spectacle, grateful that he had come alone despite Elizabeth’s offer to accompany him. The servant who had summoned him upon the unfortunate discovery had communicated few details, but something in his manner had forewarned Darcy that the true news lay in what had gone unsaid.

Sir Thomas Bertram muttered something resembling condolences. “You can imagine how surprised I was to learn that Mr. Crawford had been found on my own grounds,” he added. “We were still more shocked by his condition. I am sorry to have summoned you so early, but you can see why I do not want him left any longer in his present state.”

Sir Thomas’s servant had escorted Darcy through the woods of Mansfield Park to a small clearing some distance from the road. It was Darcy’s second meeting with Sir Thomas, the first having occurred when the family reported Mr. Crawford’s disappearance following the return of his horse. The coroner, a gentleman Sir Thomas had introduced as “my old friend Mr. Stover,” was also present, as was Sir Thomas’s gamekeeper, who had first come upon the body.

Darcy fought down the bile rising in his throat. As unconscionable as Mr. Crawford’s transgressions had been in life, no person deserved to endure such degradation in death as to be reduced to an inhuman mound of torn flesh. Rain had washed away most of the blood, but the body was in an advanced state of decomposition, and prolonged exposure to hungry wildlife and hot, humid weather had rendered what was left of him, particularly his countenance, unrecognizable. Were it not for the dark hair and general build of the remains, Darcy could not have believed it possible that this was a man he knew, let alone had spoken to less than a se’nnight previous. “Are you certain it is Mr. Crawford?”

“That is what we hope you will confirm,” said Mr. Stover.

“We identified him by these.” Sir Thomas produced a silver snuffbox engraved with the initials
H.C
. and the pair of earrings his daughter Maria had deposited at Henry’s feet. “They were in his coat.”

Darcy pitied whichever of the men had gotten close enough to the corpse to retrieve Henry’s effects. The coat, along with much of Mr. Crawford’s other moldering clothing, clung to his damaged body in shreds. The stench was beyond rank, made worse by the fact that the corpse lay in the full sun, just outside what limited shade might have been offered by a nearby cluster of birch trees.

“I saw him pocket those ear-bobs the day he disappeared,” Darcy said. “I am afraid this is indeed Henry Crawford.” He turned to the gamekeeper. “What sort of animal attacked him?”

The gamekeeper shook his head. “We have no large predators around here. He was dead before the scavengers got to him.”

“What killed him, then?”

“That.” The coroner pointed to Mr. Crawford’s left side. As Darcy stood on the opposite side of the corpse, he had to move to obtain a proper view.

A pistol lay in the grass.

“If you observe the area around what used to be his mouth, you can see black powder burns.” Mr. Stover leaned forward and waved away flies to grant a better view. “The shot came from extremely close range.”

Darcy would have been content to take his word on the matter, but he looked out of courtesy. There were indeed burns and powder embedded in a vague circle around the mouth, almost like the tattoos one sometimes saw on sailors. The rest of Mr. Crawford’s flesh was so discolored and darkened that he had not noticed the burns before—not that he had allowed his gaze to rest on Mr. Crawford’s face all that long. “Someone shot him in the mouth?”

“Not just any someone.” Mr. Stover exchanged an uneasy glance with Sir Thomas. “I believe we have another Young Werther here.”

If the sight and smell of Henry Crawford’s corpse had not been enough to turn Darcy’s stomach, the coroner’s pronouncement was. Darcy had read
The Sorrows of Young Werther
years ago—every one of his schoolfellows had, on the sly. Banned in some countries, the book had been blamed for a spate of imitative deaths.

“Self-murder?” He shook his head. “No—that cannot be.”

Yet even as he spoke, he privately admitted the possibility. Goethe’s novel appealed to romantic, impulsive young men, and Henry Crawford had proved himself both.

“This would seem to support Mr. Stover’s hypothesis.” Sir Thomas handed Darcy a water-stained note. “It is the only other item we found on Mr. Crawford’s person.”

Darcy unfolded the paper. Though the rain that had caused the ink to run had dried, humidity had left the paper damp, and black india stained Darcy’s gloves. Most of the words were obscured by smears and blots; Darcy could make out but two: “honor” and “forgiven.”

Yes, it could be a suicide message, Mr. Crawford’s final apology for his actions before taking his life. But the consequences of self-murder were too severe for the pronouncement to be made without absolute certainty. Suicide was more than just a crime against God; it was a crime against the king. Self-murderers could not be buried in consecrated ground, and their property was forfeited to the Crown. Anne’s grief and shame would be compounded, and, were her erstwhile marriage even deemed valid, she would receive nothing for all the misery it had caused her.

Darcy met Sir Thomas’s gaze. “This note could have said anything.”

“Including farewell.”

“There is ample room for doubt.”

“Not when considered with the other evidence.” The coroner stepped around the body and picked up the pistol. He turned it over in his hands, tracing the escutcheon and other engravings with his fingertip. “This is an expensive firelock. If someone else shot Mr. Crawford, why did he leave it behind?”

“Perhaps to make it appear a case of self-murder. There are many in this village with cause to wish Mr. Crawford ill.” Including Sir Thomas. Darcy fervently hoped the magistrate would not allow personal prejudice to influence his actions on so serious an issue. “Perhaps one of the people he wronged decided that depriving Mr. Crawford merely of his life was insufficient retribution. Contriving to have the death ruled a suicide would constitute complete revenge.”

“Indeed, it would,” Sir Thomas said, “but the fact that there might be others interested in taking Mr. Crawford’s life does not eliminate the possibility that he spared them the trouble.”

“Where did he obtain the pistol? I do not recall his having one among his possessions.”

“Can you say with certainty that he did not? That this is not his weapon?”

Darcy paused. “No. But he traveled here lightly—”

“Following his elopement, Mrs. Norris tells me. Perhaps he anticipated trouble en route to Gretna Green, particularly if he and his bride journeyed by night, and armed himself to ward off highwaymen—or friends of the bride who might pursue them. This is a small weapon, as pistols go, and easily concealed.”

“I wonder that Mrs. Norris would happen to share the circumstances of Mr. Crawford’s arrival with you, or how she even came into possession of her information,” Darcy said.

“She mentioned the news during a visit to my wife earlier this week. My sister-in-law makes it her business to stay informed of goings-on in the village, and to keep us similarly apprised.”

The gamekeeper stifled a cough.

The sound drew Sir Thomas’s attention. “Have you something to say, Mr. Cobb?”

“No, sir.”

Sir Thomas stepped back a few feet from the corpse. “Pray, let us move upwind, or better still, conclude this quickly. Now that the sun has risen above the trees I find the smell overpowering.”

Darcy had to concur with Sir Thomas’s complaint; the gamekeeper also appeared more than happy to relocate. Only the coroner seemed impervious to the odor as he continued to study the pistol. Darcy wondered how often he was exposed to such gruesome scenes.

Mr. Stover at last left the corpse’s side and joined them. “This is certainly a fine weapon. Pierced side plates, gold touch holes, crowned muzzle. Not one I would leave behind, revenge or no. But a dramatic choice for a dramatic act.”

“May I?” Darcy asked.

The coroner handed the smoothbore to Darcy. It was indeed a finely crafted weapon, fashioned of a rich brown walnut stock with a curved, deeply chequered grip and carved butt cap. Its case-hardened lock and hammer were engraved with images of a rook—or perhaps it was a crow or raven—and the polished silver escutcheon featured the same. The lock facing carried a London label with the crossed-pistols-and-swords mark of the arm’s renowned maker; the top flat of its blued octagonal barrel boasted his name, inlaid in gold: “H. W. Mortimer, Gun Maker to His Majesty.”

It was not so much a weapon as a work of art, and it was with reluctance that Darcy surrendered it to Sir Thomas. He privately agreed with Mr. Stover: One would not sacrifice so valuable an arm easily.

His gaze strayed toward the place beside Mr. Crawford where the pistol had lain, but his eye stopped instead on a spot of color in an area of particularly tall grass between him and the deceased. He had not noticed it before, but from his new vantage point upwind he could see something gold caught at the base of overhanging blades. Curious, he walked over to it, nearly tripping over a large rock also hidden in the grass but one stride from his quarry.

It was a circle of silk about two inches in diameter, gold with a pattern of tiny indigo birds lined up like chessmen on a field of or. Its edges were frayed, and three blackened hairline abrasions on its underside radiated out from a scorched bull’s-eye perhaps a half-inch round.

“What have you there?” Sir Thomas asked.

“A gun patch,” Darcy replied. The circles of fabric were used to load firelocks; the patch was inserted between the powder and the lead ball, and expelled when the weapon was discharged. The shot patch generally fell to the ground a few feet from the muzzle.

The quality of this particular fabric surpassed what one generally used to load weapons. Linen was far more common, and Darcy’s choice when hunting. Silks, valued for their strength and sheerness, were sometimes used in critical situations where accuracy was vital, but even then tended to be plain, not employ costly dyes or weaves. This was a singularly expensive gun patch. And Mr. Crawford had been killed by an expensive gun.

Darcy brought the patch to Sir Thomas and the coroner. “If Mr. Crawford indeed shot himself, how did the discharged patch land so far from his body?”

“He has lain here for days,” replied Mr. Stover, “with animals coming and going to an extent that one wishes were far less evident. Any number of creatures could have carried it hither.”

“Maybe it is not his patch,” added Sir Thomas. “Mr. Crawford is hardly the only person ever to fire in these woods. My eldest son and his friends often shoot for sport. The patch could have fallen there on an entirely different occasion, perhaps not even a recent one.”

Darcy conceded the possibility, but the fabric did not appear as if it had been tossed about the grove for months. Though the patch had been somewhat sheltered from this week’s intermittent rain by the overhanging grass, the area had received such heavy downpours in the days leading up to Mr. Crawford’s arrival in Mansfield that had the cloth been exposed to those tempests it would have been muddied or its black powder residue washed out to a much greater extent. If this patch had landed in the grove earlier, it had not preceded the night of Mr. Crawford’s disappearance by long.

In addition to the fabric itself being a curious choice for sport shooting, the design was one Darcy had never previously encountered, and the fact that both it and the pistol were ornamented by images of birds heightened his interest. “This is an unusual pattern,” Darcy said. “Do you recognize it as one Mr. Bertram uses for his rifle?”

“I cannot say that I do,” Sir Thomas admitted. His gamekeeper also denied familiarity.

“And does he typically hunt with silk?”

“Mr. Darcy, difficult as it may be to accept the manner of Mr. Crawford’s demise, that scrap of cloth could not have been associated with the shot that caused his death,” said Mr. Stover. “You saw how close the range was, and there appears to be no exit wound. I expect that when I complete my examination of the remains, I will find Mr. Crawford’s patch lodged with the ball inside his skull.”

Darcy was dissatisfied, but saw little value in arguing the point at present. He could not say that he himself was convinced that the patch was related to Henry’s shooting, only that the verdict of suicide—though not yet official, almost assuredly forthcoming given the collusion between the magistrate and the coroner—seemed overhasty.

“May I retain it, then? The patch?”

Sir Thomas shrugged. “I see no reason why I or Mr. Stover have need of it. If for some reason it is wanted, I trust you will surrender it?”

“Of course.”

“Well, then, as you have no further business here, I suggest you return to the inn and impart the news of Mr. Crawford’s demise to his widow—widows—yes, I know of the bigamy allegation; my son informed me of it privately. When Mr. Stover has done with his examination, he will give notice of the inquest.”

Darcy knew he had been dismissed, but he was not quite ready to leave. “Might I view Mr. Crawford’s remains a final time before I go?” He had no idea what he sought, but something unexplored nagged him.

Sir Thomas’s brows rose. “I cannot fathom why you would wish to subject yourself to his corpse again, but do so if you like. For my part, I found Mr. Crawford’s company offensive whilst he lived; death has not improved him.”

Darcy walked the fifteen paces or so to the body. Mr. Crawford lay on his back, mouth open. Somewhere inside was the ball that had killed him. Had it indeed been self-administered? Despite having found the silk patch suggesting a shot that had come from farther away, despite the repercussions to Anne and, by extension, to the reputation of her entire family, himself included, he could not rationally rule out the possibility of suicide. It was indeed difficult to imagine another scenario that could lead to Mr. Crawford’s swallowing a bullet. Not even swallowing—from the coroner’s words and the appearance of things, the ball had traveled at an upward angle when it entered. What were the odds of anyone
but
Mr. Crawford himself having aimed so precisely?