There Must Be Murder (4 page)

Catherine watched Henry’s evening cloak swinging
gently in the shadows. Perhaps she dozed a little; though her
dreams were not of brigands and abductors, but of their comfortable
lodgings, a warm fire, a glass of wine mixed with water, and Henry
reading
Udolpho
. . . they were almost to the black veil. . .
which held no fears for Catherine while Henry was there.

“Are you prepared to receive your beaux this
morning, Cat?” Henry asked his wife at breakfast the next
morning.

“My beaux? Whatever do you mean?”

“Your dance partners from last night, who no
doubt will call this morning, bringing you nosegays, and poems of
their own composition dedicated to your beauty, and other
tributes.”

“I hardly think so, Henry. I am barely
acquainted with any of them.”

“I think it a very hard thing indeed when a man
must bribe the master of the ceremonies in order to secure a dance
with his own wife. Not that half a crown is too much to pay to
dance with you, my sweet.”

“If you wish, I shall tell the other gentlemen I
am engaged to you from now on. I would prefer to dance only with
you—well, and with John, and perhaps Sir Philip, who was very
obliging when I was left without a partner.”

“Yes; Beauclerk can be most obliging. I would
not keep you from your partners at the rooms, my sweet, but if you
are not at home to morning-callers, may I engage you today for a
country walk?”

Catherine’s face fell. “Oh! I should like that
very much; but I promised Miss Beauclerk I would call upon her.” It
seemed a hard duty indeed, when it kept her from a country walk
with Henry.

“I shall come with you, as I must do my duty to
Lady Beauclerk as well. We will stay the proscribed half-hour and
then be free for our walk.”

The breakfast things had just been cleared when
Mr. King was announced. “Though we met at the ball last night,” he
said, “I saw your names in the pump-room book today and determined
to pay my call in form. And may I take this opportunity as well to
offer you my congratulations, Mr. Tilney?”

“On my marriage, Mr. King? You congratulated me
last night, but I am happy to accept your kind wishes as many times
as you care to express them. Marriage is, after all, a lasting
blessing, and perhaps more worth the congratulations as it gains in
duration.”

“Indeed, sir; but I had a different wedding in
mind. Everywhere I go this morning, it is said that General Tilney
will marry Lady Beauclerk. I saw them together at the pump-room not
half an hour past, drinking water and looking very contented.”

“My father,” said Henry, “has not shared such
hopes with us; but we only met for the first time in several months
last night, and perhaps he felt that such a delicate family
communication was not best made in a ballroom; and I believe that
Lady Beauclerk has not yet cast off her mourning for Sir
Arthur.”

“Oh! of course. When one sees a lady out
everywhere, one forgets that she is in mourning. I do beg your
pardon, sir, if I have given offense.”

Henry assured Mr. King that he had taken no
offense. The affable little man left after fifteen minutes, and the
call on the Beauclerks could be put off no longer.

As they prepared to leave, MacGuffin was at the
door; seeing his master booted and great coated and his mistress in
her bonnet and pelisse, he not unnaturally expected to achieve that
particular species of canine happiness known as “Out.”

Henry looked down at the dog’s beseeching eyes
and wagging tail. “I ask you, Cat, can one resist such
supplication? If beggars were equipped with these powers, they
should live like kings. Very well, lad, but you go to a lady’s
house, and I charge you to be on your best behavior.”

“May we take him with us to Lady Beauclerk’s
house?”

“Lady Beauclerk usually has several lapdogs
about, so Mac will have company, and he will enjoy a walk
afterward; that is, if we can keep him out of the river.”

The walk to Lady Beauclerk’s establishment was
not long; Laura-place was situated at the end of Pulteney-street,
set diagonally, like a jewel, into the base of the grand avenue.
However, even on a short walk the Newfoundland created a stir
amongst the pedestrians on the wide pavement. One stately matron
ran into the street, heedless of the hem of her gown and the
leavings of horses, to avoid meeting them; a fashionable young man
stopped Henry to ask where he might procure a puppy for himself;
and a small boy, not even as tall as MacGuffin, was pulled past
briskly by his nurse as he called out in a high, piping voice that
he desired to pet “the pony.”

Catherine had never looked very closely at the
grand houses of Laura-place. As they approached the house that Lady
Beauclerk had taken for two months, she saw that they were wider
and taller than even the grand houses of Pulteney-street; and Lady
Beauclerk had taken the entire house, not a mere single floor of
rooms. They sent up their cards and were admitted; the footman who
conducted them to her ladyship’s breakfast-room did not even deign
to notice the Newfoundland who followed him up the stairs, his
master and mistress trailing behind. Despite Henry’s assurances,
Catherine was apprehensive at the reception that the dog would
receive; as they entered the breakfast-room, and she perceived
several visitors already arrived—including General Tilney, who
favored her with a haughty nod of the head—her apprehension
increased.

“Oh, the dear creature!” cried Miss Beauclerk as
they entered. She immediately knelt to pet MacGuffin, who received
her adoration as his due. “But I’m afraid that Lady Josephine will
not like him as much as I do.”

“Surely you have not forgotten Lady Josephine,
Henry,” said Lady Beauclerk.

Catherine wondered who the mysterious Lady
Josephine might be; perhaps an elderly spinster companion to Lady
Beauclerk or her daughter. All the callers beside themselves were
gentlemen of Lady Beauclerk’s generation. As Catherine considered
the question, a loud hiss from behind her ladyship’s chair answered
the puzzle. A striped cat stood howling on the back of the chair,
her fur standing on end. MacGuffin, accustomed to the tyranny of
three active terriers, ignored this sally and lay down next to Miss
Beauclerk’s chair.

“I was mistaken,” Henry murmured to Catherine.
“Her ladyship keeps cats, not dogs.” A certain gleam in his eye
made Catherine suspect that Henry remembered Lady Josephine very
well. She gave him an answering smile, and then noticed that Miss
Beauclerk was smiling at him knowingly as well.

Lady Josephine paced back and forth across the
back of the chair a few times, emitting an occasional cry of
dislike; at last she settled into her mistress’ lap.

“I am glad that you came today,” Miss Beauclerk
said to Catherine as Henry exchanged polite nothings with Lady
Beauclerk. “Mamma and I are so dull! We have been to the pump-room
for our glass of water, and took four turns about the room, and
inspected the book to see who has arrived, and are now at the mercy
of those friends kind enough to take pity on a poor widow and
orphan.”

Catherine looked round her surreptitiously at
the grand appointments of the house, and thought it the very
opposite of poor, and indeed quite replete with interesting ways
one might spend one’s time when one’s callers went away. A stack of
uncut books lay waiting for some lucky reader on a table; a grand
pianoforte and an ornate harp stood ready to be played (and
Catherine did not doubt for a moment that Miss Beauclerk played
both, exquisitely); and Miss Beauclerk sat with a froth of white
muslin in her lap, onto which she was rapidly dropping tiny
whitework stitches. She saw Catherine looking at it, and said, “You
catch me quite dissipated, Mrs. Tilney! I dare say you keep busy
with good works, making clothing for the poor of your parish, and
here I am embroidering a new shawl for myself. It will be a pretty
thing, though, will it not?”

“It is very pretty,” said Catherine, recalling
that she had never given a thought to the poor-basket and
determining to start directly she got home.

“When you get to know me you will learn that I
am very vain and like pretty things. Am not I, Mr. Tilney?” she
said, interrupting his conversation with her mother.

“You hardly can expect me to answer such a
question,” said Henry. “Whether I agree or disagree, I will be
ungentlemanlike; either I call you vain, or accuse you of
dissembling. Determining how I might appear to the best advantage
in such a situation will take more time than a morning-call
provides.”

Miss Beauclerk burst into a musical trill of
laughter. “How you must enjoy being married to him!” she said to
Catherine. “How I should enjoy dining every day with such a
charming rattle!”

“Henry is not a rattle,” said Catherine. “His
conversation is always very amusing, and often instructive.”

“I dare say it is,” said Miss Beauclerk, smiling
at Henry in what Catherine considered a very familiar way.

Some of the visitors took their leave, and
General Tilney had a whispered conversation with his son that ended
with Henry saying to Catherine, “I am sorry, my sweet, but I must
postpone our walk. My father requires me to attend him to
Milsom-street.”

Catherine, remembering Mr. King’s news, thought
the general might have something particular to tell Henry. “Of
course you must go with your father. We shall have our walk another
time.”

Miss Beauclerk, listening to this conjugal
tete-a-tete with what Catherine thought a rather impertinent
interest, said, “May I claim you for an hour or two, then, Mrs.
Tilney? I have some commissions in town that cannot wait, and I
would like it very much if you would accompany me.”

“There is no need to trouble Mrs. Tilney,
Judith,” said Lady Beauclerk. “Married women have so many things to
do; dear Mrs. Tilney has no time to chaperone a spinster nearly ten
years her elder about Bath.”

Miss Beauclerk winced at her mother’s words, and
Catherine felt the sting of them herself. She had been on the verge
of refusing, of pleading letters and household matters requiring
her attention, but instead she said, “I have some commissions of my
own, ma’am, and I should be very glad of Miss Beauclerk’s
company.”

Henry smiled down at her, a smile in which Miss
Beauclerk had no part, and pressed her hand. “Very well, then. You
two shall look after one another, and MacGuffin shall look after
you both.”

“Delightful!” cried Miss Beauclerk. “What a
handsome fellow we shall have beauing us about, Mrs. Tilney!” She
scratched the dog’s ear, and he put back his head, eyes closed in
ecstasy.

***

“Will you take some claret, Henry?” asked the
general.

Henry accepted the glass of wine and sipped it
silently. On the walk to Milsom-street, the general had spoken of
some improvements he had recently made to the offices at Northanger
Abbey and asked after Henry’s shrubbery. Henry let the general lead
the conversation, waiting for him to introduce the subject of Lady
Beauclerk, but the general seemed more interested in asking after
his tenants at Woodston.

“You are very quiet today,” said the general.
“Surely you do not still hold a grudge about that misunderstanding
last year with your wife? I allowed your marriage, and that should
be an end to it. No one can say I am a tyrannical father.”

“No one is saying you are a tyrannical father.
The gossips of Bath have much more interesting news to retail. Tell
me, sir: when may I offer you my congratulations on your impending
marriage to Lady Beauclerk; and why did I not hear this news from
your lips, but as common gossip known to everyone in Bath except
your own children?”

“Gossip? Who gossips about the Tilneys?”