‘I see I have taken you by surprise,’ he said. ‘You will naturally wish for time to collect your thoughts. Allow me, in the mean time, to plead my case. It is, perhaps, not the most romantic language to use, but you are an intelligent woman, and I wish to appeal, principally, to that intelligence. I know you have an attachment to Mr Norris—’ she coloured and started at this, but he continued, ‘I have no illusions, Miss Crawford. My affections are, I assure you, quite fervent enough to satisfy the vanity of a young woman of a far more trivial cast of mind than your own, but I have known for some time that I would have a pre-engaged heart to assail. I know, likewise, that you will now be a woman of no inconsiderable fortune. But what can Mr Norris do for you—what can even your brother do—compared to what I shall do? I am not the master of Lessingby, but I am, nonetheless, a man of no inconsiderable property. If such things are important to you, you may have what house you choose, and have it completely new furnished from cellar to attic, and dictate your own terms as to pin-money, jewels, carriages, and the rest. But I suspect such things are not important to you. My offer to you is independence. Heroism, danger, activity, adventure. The chance to travel— to see the world. All the things that men take for granted, and most women do not even have the imagination to dream of, far less embrace. But you, I fancy, are an exception. What would be tranquillity and comfort to little Maria Bertram, would be tediousness and vexation to you. You are not born to sit still and do nothing. Even if he makes a complete recovery, which is by no means certain, you are no more fitted to be Edmund Norris’s sweet little wife than I would be. And if he does not recover, you will waste your youth and beauty pushing an invalid in a bath chair, buried in a suffocating domesticity. Do not make the mistake of marrying a man whose understanding is inferior to your own—do not hide your light under a bushel, purely to do him credit.You are worth more than that—you can achieve more than that. I know enough of you already to be quite sure that you would be an inestimable support to me in my profession—and not merely a support, but a partner, in the truest, fullest sense of the word. Your eye for detail, your capacity for logical thinking and lucid deduction, surpass any thing I have seen, even among men whom I admire. You have a genius for the business, Mary, and if you do not choose it, it seems that it chooses you.’
She drew back in confusion, aware that she ought to be displeased at the freedom of his address, but he had already taken her hand—not with lover-like impetuosity, but with cool deliberation; he lifted her fingers slowly to his lips, his eyes on hers in a gaze of passionate intensity. Some thing passed between them, that Mary felt all over her, in all her pulses, and all her nerves. Denial was impossible; there was a connection between this man and herself; an attraction that she had long been blind to, and even longer denied.
Such reflections were sufficient to bring a colour to her pale cheeks; a colour that Maddox saw, and seized upon. But he knew better than to press her.
‘I am very sensible of the honour you are paying me, Mr Maddox,’ she began, dropping her eyes.
‘But?’
‘But I will need some time to consider it.’
‘Of course,’ he said, getting to his feet, and preparing to go. ‘Pray take all the time you need. My own affections are fixed, and will not change. I love you, Mary Crawford, and I give you my word, that in marrying me, you will lose nothing you value that is associated with that name, and you will gain a freedom that only Mary Maddox could dream of attaining.’
The effect of such a conversation was not to be underrated, especially for a mind that had suffered as hers had done, and it required several hours to give the appearance of sedateness to her spirits, even if they could not bring serenity to her heart. She did not know what to think; she was flattered, tempted, disarmed. She could not deny that the prospect he described held an irresistible attraction for her; having done so little, and travelled so little, to have a life so full of novelty and endeavour! To be at once active, fearless, and self-sufficient—to move, at last, from a state of obligation to one of such brilliant independency! And yet, did she love him enough to marry him? Did she, indeed, love him at all? She had a regard for him, she admired his intellect and esteemed many of his fine qualities, but she also knew him capable of acts that were abhorrent to her principles, and she had challenged and condemned his gross want of feeling and humanity where his own purposes were concerned. Pity the wife who might fall victim to such barbarous treatment, and all the more so as she suspected that, however high she appeared to stand in his regard, he had no very high opinion of her sex in general. If he became her husband, would she not be more than half afraid of him?
With a mind so oppressed, she longed for the calm reflection of solitude, and after a quiet dinner with the Grants, she professed herself equal to a short walk in the park, and having allayed their very natural concerns, she set out at a gentle pace. The harvest moon had already risen, and was nearly at the full, hanging like a pale lantern over the sheep grazing peacefully on the farther side of the ha-ha. On the other side of the valley the labourers were once again at work, and she had no doubt that her brother was present to direct and dictate; Sir Thomas having determined that the improvements should, after all, be completed, Henry had insisted, to Mary’s very great pleasure, on offering his services. Though the triumph and glory of his scheme would never now be realised: Sir Thomas had decreed that the avenue was to remain, in lasting tribute to the daughter he had lost.
How it happened, she could not tell, but Mary found her footsteps were drawn towards the White House. It was not in hopes of seeing Edmund, for she knew that could not be; nor was it to recall what had happened there only a few short days ago. Had she been asked her purpose, she could not have told, she had only a sense of some thing unfinished, and incomplete. She unlatched the garden gate, and walked slowly across the lawn. The late summer shadows were lengthening under the trees, and she did not perceive at once that she was not alone. He had his back to her, his head resting against the chair, and a rug draped across his knees. It was so like the posture in which she had last seen him, so awful a reminder of what had been, and what might have been, that she stood for a moment, unable to move, her hand at her breast, and her heart full. Perhaps she made a sound, but at length he moved, and half-turned towards her.
‘Mrs Baddeley? Is that you?’
She hesitated; then took a step closer.
‘No, Mr Norris. It is not Mrs Baddeley.’
There was a pause.
‘Mary?’ he whispered.
She had heard her name from another’s lips not three hours before, and she could not, at that moment, have told if she had longed or feared to hear it now. She went quickly forward, and stood before him.The change in his appearance clutched at her heart. His face was white and pinched, and his eyes had a hectic feverishness that did not seem to be solely the consequence of his recent misfortune; some thing more profound was amiss. Neither spoke for some moments, then he roused himself, and gestured towards the chair beside him.
‘I am so much reduced, Miss Crawford,’ he said, in a bitter tone, ‘that I cannot even do the necessary courtesy to a lady by standing in her presence.’
‘In that case, Mr Norris, I will sit.’ They remained in silence a moment, but it was not a companionable silence; the minds of both were over-taxed.
‘I had not thought to see you here,’ she said at last.
‘Mrs Baddeley was so good as to wheel me to the garden. I wanted to take a last look at the place.’
‘Last? Are you going away?’
He shook his head. ‘Only as far as the Park. This house is to be sold, and every thing in it. And it will still not be enough—nowhere near enough—to clear away all the claims of my creditors. My father’s wealth derived almost entirely from his estate at Antigua, and it is only now that I have discovered that it has been making heavy losses for a number of years. In consequence I find I have debts far greater than I could ever have conceived of, and no way to pay them
with any degree of expedition, except by the sale of all I have.’
She noted the formal character of his discourse, and felt it at her heart.
‘It is a wonder,’ she said, at length, and with a break in her voice, ‘that your mother was able to keep up the appearance of affluence for so long.’
He smiled sourly. ‘She has—had—a will of iron. But even she could not endure such a terrible burden for ever; the pressure was too great.That day in the park—the unexpected encounter with Fanny—it was not so very much, in itself. But it brought her to the brink of the abyss. She had already seen the wreck of all her hopes of my marrying Fanny; our debts had mounted to the point of imminent ruin; and now she had to endure contempt and disdain from the very person from whom she expected the utmost deference, gratitude, and respect.’
He paused, and gazed across the lawn to where the moon was rising in the late afternoon sky.
‘When you spoke to me at the belvedere, I knew at once. When you talked about the blood—the “blood on her hands”—I knew. That day, when I returned from Cumberland, she had not expected me; when I surprised her at the house, she was in a strange mood—excitable, nervous—she could barely keep in one place for a minute together. You know her character, and you know such behaviour to be quite unlike her usual self; I, certainly, had never seen it before. And when I went into the parlour, I found rags in the fire. Blood-stained rags in a fire that did not need to be lit so early on such a warm day. She told me she had dropped a jar in the store-room, and cut her hand, and there were indeed some marks that might have testified to such an incident. But how could I have suspected their real cause? Even later, when it became horribly, indisputably clear, I still could not believe—’
He swallowed, and went on, ‘When I confronted her, she said she had done it for me—for us. I saw at once that, even if she were the actual perpetrator of the crime, I bore my own terrible responsibility for what she had done. I should have made it my business to enquire into our pecuniary circumstances years ago; had I done so, I would have known the strain under which she had been labouring for so long, and been in a position to take action to alleviate it. Any man of the least decision of character would have done so, and more. How could I, knowing that, allow her to pay the price for my own blindness and incompetency? I did the only thing left to me. I went to Maddox, and confessed to every thing.’
‘Not quite every thing.That was how he knew you were not telling him the truth.’
He turned to look at her. ‘So you knew? About Julia? And yet you said nothing.’
‘I was there when she died. It was impossible not to know. But I was bound by a solemn promise of secrecy. And besides, that day at the belvedere, I believed you to be the murderer. It was your name I had heard on Julia’s lips—it was you I thought had killed her. To keep her from betraying you.’
His astonishment appeared to be beyond what he could readily express; he stared at her, then looked away. ‘There is a fine irony here, could I but appreciate it. Here I have been, thinking you despised me for a fool, a coward, and a dupe, and all the time you believed me capable of killing two defenceless young women in the most brutal, cold-blooded manner.’ He laughed, but it was a chill and hollow sound. ‘I should, I suppose, be flattered you deemed me capable of acting with such resolution! And yet, believing that, you trusted yourself, alone, in my company, that day at the belvedere. You took such a terrible risk—merely to warn me?’
Mary shook her head.‘I do not think I really believed you guilty. I longed to hear you give a plausible explanation—to tell me some new fact that would prove you innocent.’
‘And yet no such fact was forthcoming. Indeed, your worst fears must only have been confirmed, when you heard of my subsequent confession.’
‘I do not wish to speak of that,’ she said with a sigh. ‘It is past, and should be forgotten.’
‘And you wish to think only of the future.’ It was a statement, rather than a question.
‘I do not take your meaning.’
‘Come, Miss Crawford. The housemaids at the Park can talk of little else, and in my pitiful invalid state I cannot easily escape from their chatter. Mr Maddox is, I gather, growing extremely particular in his attentions.’
She flushed, but would not meet his gaze. ‘I have received a proposal of marriage, yes.’
‘And when am I to wish you joy?’
‘I have not yet made my decision. There are many things to consider.’
Had Mary been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen a faint colour rush into his cheeks; the herald of an infinitesimal hope, when all before had been utterly hopeless.
‘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—every thing—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, b
ut 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 some thing 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 XXIII
It was a very quiet wedding. Neither Mary nor Edmund had any inclination for needless ostentation, but it would not have escaped the notice of those schooled in matters of fashion, that the refined elegance of the bride’s gown owed as much to the generosity of her brother, in sending for silks from London, as it did to her own skills as a needlewoman. They had been obliged to wait until the three months of deep mourning were over, but that period had been, all things considered, a happy time; Mary had worked on her wedding-clothes, and wandered about the park with Edmund all the autumn evenings, under the last lingering leaves, raising his mind to animation, and his spirits to cheerfulness. His health improved so well under this agreeable regimen that by the time the couple met at the altar he was able to walk from the church unaided, with his bride on his arm. Sir Thomas was not the only onlooker to observe the effect of real affection on his nephew’s disposition, nor the only one to attribute it to Mary’s lively talents and quick understanding. Mr Maddox had been cruelly disappointed by her rejection, even if he had not ranked his chances of success very high, but his self-control in her presence had been punctilious, and when he departed the neighbourhood some few days thereafter, he had called at the parsonage to bid her the farewell of one who wished to remain always her friend.
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