"It was very much as you surmised. I was astonished to see her — and see her in such high spirits, into the bargain. I asked where she had been, but she told me that was her affair, and none of mine. She said this in that arrogant, imperious way she had when we were alone, and out of the hearing of either of my parents — as if I was little better than a servant, or one of her pitiable underlings. I had been angry before, but her words and her tone aroused a fury such as I had never felt before. I thought of all the distress she had caused — the scandal in the neighbourhood — my mother’s grief — and yet there she was, parading about in her finest clothes, with no thought for the fact that she had put the whole family through days of doubt and misery on her account. Some part of this I think I said — my recollection is somewhat confused — but I do recall her laughing. Laughing out loud, and saying that she did indeed doubt that the like alarm would have been raised if
A single tear rolled down her cheek at this, and Maddox was moved to pity her; he could only imagine what submitting to the incessant spite and ascendancy of her cousin had been to a temper like Maria Bertram’s, an evil which even the comfort and elegance of such an eligible home could not have entirely atoned for. He had never met Miss Price, but everything he had heard of her declared her to have been a monster of complacency and pride, who, under a cloak of cringing self-abasement, had succeeded in dominating Mansfield Park, and everyone in it. And without presuming to judge whether she had merited such a fate, he suspected, nonetheless, that Maria Bertram was not the only member of the family who might have yearned for a world without Miss Price, however much they might have shrunk from such a savage and brutal way of achieving it.
"Go on, Miss Bertram," he said softly."We shall soon have done."
"I know she meant those words as provocation; I know she meant to insult and offend; but that was no excuse. I will think of what followed with shame and regret for the rest of my life. I struck her, Mr Maddox. I struck her full across the face, and she staggered. She had not expected it — how could she? She could not conceive of anyone having the audaciousness to raise a hand to
The two sat in silence for a moment, each lost in their own thoughts. At last Maria rose to her feet, and made as if to return to the house. She was a few feet away when Maddox called her back.
"You are quite sure she said she had left here with a man — that she had eloped?"
Maria nodded.
"But she did not say with whom? You do not know who it was?"
"No, Mr Maddox. I am sorry, but I cannot assist you. She never told me his name."
Some time before this, Mary had returned to the relative peace of the parsonage, and, finding both Dr Grant and her sister departed on business to the village, she sat down in the parlour to write to Henry. She had not heard from him for some days, and had not written herself since Miss Price’s disappearance: as catastrophe had succeeded catastrophe she had not known how to begin, or how best to convey such terrible and unexpected news; preparing him for the disappointment to be occasioned by the cessation of all work on the improvements was only the least of her concerns.
She had arranged her paper, pen, and inkstand, and even gone so far as to write "My very dear Henry", when she was suddenly aware of an unusual noise in the hall. A moment later the door of the room was thrown open, and Henry himself rushed into the room, his clothes bespattered with the dirt of the road, and his hat still in his hands.
"Is she here?" he cried, in a state of agitation. "Have you seen her?"
"What can you mean?" said Mary, rising to her feet in dismay. "
"My wife, of course — who else? I’ve come back to find her — I’ve come back to find Fanny."
