The Matters at Mansfield: (Or, the Crawford Affair) (Mr. & Mrs. Darcy Mysteries) (7 page)

Nine

To anything like a permanence of abode, or limitation of society, Henry Crawford had, unluckily, a great dislike
.

—Mansfield Park

T
he Ox and Bull had served as Mansfield’s only inn for seven generations. What began as a small public house had over the years expanded into a conglomerate of rooms haphazardly added as demand justified and profit allowed. The dining room had been twice enlarged to accommodate the numerous villagers who dined there; in addition, the inn now boasted eight private bedchambers, a small parlor, a communal sleeping room for servants, and stables that also functioned as the local livery. The Bull, as its regular patrons called it, sprawled rather than sat on the main road of the modest village, across the green from the church, whose tall, straight spire chided its neighbor for undisciplined deportment.

Despite the inn’s rogue architecture, it was a respectable establishment. So its proprietors, Mr. and Mrs. Gower, informed Darcy and his companions. Thrice.

Anne’s accident upon their arrival brought the innkeeper and his wife outside immediately. All attention was on the injured lady. Henry bent over Anne, attempting to calm her in a quiet voice as Darcy, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and Mr. Gower worked with the postilion and the ostler to remove the carriage wheel from atop Anne’s leg without causing her further harm. Mrs. Gower hurried off to fetch the apothecary.

By the time Anne was freed, a small audience had gathered. Mr. Gower sent a servant to open one of the bedrooms so that Anne might be brought inside. Mr. Crawford, who yet bent over Anne, lifted her into his arms and stood, providing onlookers their first true glimpse at his countenance since the ordeal began. The innkeeper stiffened.

“Here, now. This is a respectable inn.”

“I should hope so,” Henry said evenly. “Mrs. Crawford is a respectable lady.”

“Mrs. Crawford, is she?”

Several spectators repeated the name in low tones. Henry ignored the murmurs; Anne was oblivious to them, her countenance overcome with pain.

“My wife is in agony. Are you going to show us to the room, or not?”

“Aye, as she is injured.”

Mr. Gower led them to a room at the top of the stairs. As Henry settled Anne on the bed, Mrs. Gower returned with the apothecary. The sight of Mr. Crawford made them both stop in surprise.

“Mr. Crawford—I did not recognize you earlier in the commotion.” She cast an appraising look at Anne. “Your injured friend is welcome, but I must remind you that this is a respectable inn.”

“I shall bear that in mind.”

Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam withdrew while the apothecary examined Anne. In the dining room, they found that several patrons who had witnessed the accident were gathered in one corner, already relating the tale to newcomers at a nearby table. Upon their entrance, the conversation hushed.

They approached the innkeeper. “Have you three rooms available?” asked Darcy. “I am uncertain how long we will require them.”

The innkeeper assessed the two of them, then opened his register. “What names shall I record?”

“Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy of Derbyshire, and Colonel James Fitzwilliam of Buckinghamshire. The third gentleman is Mr. Henry Crawford, but it seems you are already acquainted with him.”

“Mr. Crawford is well known in Mansfield.”

“I was not aware of his possessing any connection to Northamptonshire,” Darcy said.

“None that any gentleman ought to boast of.”

“Might I entreat you to explain?”

“Your companion can provide his own account, and a glib one I am sure it will be. Meanwhile, if whatever business brought you here involves Sir Thomas Bertram, you would do well to leave Mr. Crawford behind should you go to Mansfield Park. I do not expect your friend is welcome at that house.”

Darcy hardly considered Mr. Crawford his friend, and after the reception Henry had met in Mansfield, was still less inclined to cultivate a stronger association with him than the one forced by the gentleman’s marriage to Anne. He would not, however, betray to a stranger how little he knew about his newest relation.

“We have no business in Mansfield,” Colonel Fitzwilliam said. “We stopped here only to change horses and refresh ourselves.”

“Mr. Crawford is a bold one, passing through this village at all.” Mr. Gower called over a boy of about ten. “This is my son, Nat. If you will identify which luggage belongs to you and which belongs to the Crawfords, he will see that it gets to the proper rooms.”

“We have only portmanteaus.” Leaving in haste and journeying by horseback, Darcy had carried little more than a spare shirt. Henry and Anne had also fled relatively unencumbered. “The Crawfords each have a small valise.”

The absence of baggage earned a censorious look from the innkeeper. “Well, Nat, you should have an easy time of it. The Crawfords are in room one, and Mr. Darcy’s and the colonel’s rooms are across the hall.” The boy set off.

“I run a respectable inn, Mr. Darcy.”

“So I understand.”

“I will not tolerate immoral behavior going on beneath its roof for my children to see, nor will the decent folk of this village countenance such. Is that lady upstairs truly Mr. Crawford’s wife?”

“I can produce proof if you require it.” Darcy had procured a copy of the marriage certificate for Lady Catherine, but his tone discouraged any such request from the innkeeper. “She is also our cousin, the daughter of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and the niece of the Earl of Southwell. As this is a ‘respectable inn,’ I trust she will be treated with due consideration.”

As a rule, Darcy deplored invoking the names of his titled relations. But Anne was experiencing enough distress without also enduring condemnation from her hosts. She would no doubt receive an ample quantity of that from her own mother in short order.

The names produced the desired effect. Part of Mr. Gower’s glower diminished. “Mrs. Crawford shall receive proper attention while she is a guest of the Bull. Though what sort of reception her husband finds in Mansfield, I cannot guarantee.”

Darcy and the colonel inspected their rooms. Darcy’s was small and simply appointed, but clean. The bed occupied most of the chamber, leaving insufficient space for a table or other writing surface on which to execute his most pressing obligation, that of sending word to Riveton Hall of the accident.

He asked his host where he might procure writing supplies, and was directed to Hardwick’s on the main lane through town. While Colonel Fitzwilliam remained behind at the inn on the chance that he might be needed, Darcy proceeded to Hardwick’s. He found the shop to be an all-purpose establishment, serving as the local linendrapers, haberdasher, jeweler, stationer, and so on. He purchased a quill, paper, ink, and wax, and returned to the inn.

The group of villagers he had noted earlier yet lingered in the dining room, and he chose a seat near them. Normally he would have distanced himself from the talkative party to better compose his thoughts—indeed, anxiety for Anne disordered them enough without the added distraction of boisterous conversation—but he hoped to learn more about the apparently notorious Mr. Crawford without the indignity of actually having to enquire. With half his mind focused on the neighboring table, he addressed his letter to Elizabeth. It was easier to write to her than to Lady Catherine, and she could break the distressing news to Anne’s mother in person.

At first, Darcy’s presence stifled the very discussion he wished to overhear. Upon his sitting down, the group’s most vocal member, a middle-aged man with bushy grey hair and a bulbous nose, self-consciously initiated a new topic, and for a time one would have imagined that the world turned upon the issue of whether Abe Tucker’s dairy cow would calve this week or next. Were Mr. Tucker himself present, he doubtless would have been pleased to learn that, by consensus, the calf would arrive no later than Thursday. Also, that the thief who had stolen a hen from Mrs. Norris’s poultry house had been discovered by his mother and promptly marched over to offer a stammering apology, which had been accepted in a manner certain to deter the eight-year-old felon from embarking on a permanent criminal career. And that it would surely rain again this se’nnight. Unless it did not.

However, human nature being what it is—especially when augmented by successive pints of small beer—the villagers could not long suppress their curiosity regarding the gentleman upstairs, the lady he claimed was his wife, and what business could have brought them to Mansfield. Darcy felt their gazes upon him as he penned his letter; it was only a matter of time before the bushy-haired fellow, whom the others called Hobson, finally addressed him.

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I saw the accident earlier. I hope that Mrs. Crawford will recover?”

Darcy had to give the man credit. He wondered how long the laborer had been formulating an acceptable way to initiate conversation with a gentleman on whom he had no claim. He looked up from his letter. “Are you acquainted with the Crawfords?”

“Not directly, sir. But for a time, Mr. Crawford was often seen about the village.”

“A guest of our minister, Dr. Grant,” interjected another member of the party, a young scrawny fellow with a friendly but pockmarked countenance. The others called him Spriggs.

“Yes, Dr. Grant,” Hobson said. “Mrs. Grant is Mr. Crawford’s sister—”

“Half sister,” Spriggs corrected.

“—so Mr. Crawford is known around the neighborhood. He didn’t spend much time in the village—he was mostly up at Mansfield Park—but he’d offer a nod as he rode through, which is more than we ever received from Miss Crawford.”

“Mary Crawford—that’s Mr. Crawford’s full sister,” Spriggs, apparently the Crawford family’s official genealogist, clarified for Darcy’s benefit. “Have you met her?”

“I have not had the pleasure.”

“Quite a beauty, Miss Crawford.”

Hobson scowled. “Trouble is, she knows it.”

“She lives with the Grants, but they all moved to London nearly a twelvemonth ago. Dr. Grant got himself a stall in Westminster.”

“He ought to give up the living here if you ask me.” Hobson drained his glass. “Damned selfish, I say, collecting his salary while the rectory sits empty and Mr. Bertram covers the Mansfield parish duties in addition to his own at Thornton Lacey. Especially after the scandal with Mr. Bertram’s sister.”

“Miss Bertram was no innocent,” muttered a man at a nearby table.

“Mrs. Rushworth, you mean. When she gave up the name Bertram, Mr. Crawford should have given up her. No gentleman has any business running off with another man’s wife.”

“No proper lady, married or not, would have gone.”

Darcy signaled the serving girl to bring the men another round.

“Well, don’t let Mrs. Norris hear you saying such about her niece, or she’ll make your ears burn.”

“Let her rail. What does anyone care about that old busybody’s opinion? Even Sir Thomas doesn’t. Won’t receive his own daughter, and I say good riddance. If my Nellie ever brought such shame on my house, I’d cast her out—and castrate the dog she ran off with.”

“I’d leave that satisfaction to her cuckolded husband.”

“Rushworth is outraged enough to do it. He won’t take her back, and I hear he’s actually going to divorce her.”

“Put her and Mr. Crawford on trial?”

Just then the apothecary descended the staircase. Though Darcy regretted his timing—he wanted to learn more about Mr. Crawford—anxiety for Anne propelled him away from Hobson’s conversation.

“Mrs. Crawford is fortunate,” said Mr. Dawson. “Though her leg is terribly bruised and swollen, it appears to be unbroken. I believe the recent rain softened the ground enough that her limb sank into the earth when the carriage wheel rolled over it. She is in a great deal of pain, however, and I recommend she not travel for at least a fortnight.”

Darcy added the essentials of Mr. Dawson’s report to his letter and arranged for it to be dispatched to Riveton posthaste. By the time he completed his task, Hobson and his comrades had disbanded, taking their elucidating discussion with them.

He went upstairs. Mr. Crawford answered his knock and admitted him. Mrs. Gower had departed, leaving Henry alone with Anne, who lay sleeping. Someone had helped her out of her muddy clothes and into a nightdress, barely visible beneath the quilt tucked around her. Darcy could not see the injured leg at all.

“Mr. Dawson gave her laudanum.” Mr. Crawford pushed a stray lock of hair away from Anne’s eyes. “Her sleep was fitful at first, but I believe she rests more comfortably now.”

“I have sent word to Riveton of the accident.”

“Thank you. That was a duty to which I did not look forward.”

“Do not thank me yet. While I composed the letter, several other patrons in the dining room engaged in a most intriguing conversation. Do you care to speculate as to its subject?”

Mr. Crawford had the decency to appear uncomfortable. “Henry Crawford?”

“Indeed. And one Mrs. Rushworth.”

“There are many other villages in which I would rather find myself.”

“Anne confided to me that you had recently ended an affair with a married lady. I now presume she referred to Mrs. Rushworth—unless you maintain a succession of mistresses?”

“No, only the one. Though lately I have contemplated starting a harem.”

Darcy’s lack of amusement eradicated Mr. Crawford’s attempt at wit. His grin faded.

“Trust me, one such as Maria Rushworth is enough,” Mr. Crawford said more soberly. “She is willful and vain and selfish, and I believe I felt more regret at her disloyalty toward her husband than she did. Believe it or not, it was
she
who persuaded
me
to elope. I had not lived with her above a month before I realized my error, and prolonged the affair only in the failed hope that my feelings would rekindle to what they ought to be after the misery our liaison had caused all her family. I felt an obligation to remain with her, but finally I could not live the falsehood any longer.”