There Must Be Murder

Chapter Four No Enemy to Matrimony

“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?”

“Everyone who saw you conduct Lady Beauclerk to the Lower Rooms last night and to the pump-room this morning, and who knows you have been daily in her company for the past several months.” The General was silent. “Do you deny it, sir? Do you deny that you are trying to fix your interest with Lady Beauclerk, before her husband has been dead a year?”

The General poured another glass of wine. “No. I do not deny it.” He took a deep draught.

“It is well that you have been on the spot, as they say, for I see you have a few rivals here in Bath. Lady Beauclerk’s fortune is a handsome one, is it not? And will remain hers in the event of a remarriage?”

“Lady Beauclerk is a handsome woman, and a good neighbor and friend. It is not to be wondered at that she would have — admirers.”

Henry stared at his father. Could it be that this misguided courtship had more than financial motives? “I dare say the Abbey is a rather lonely place these days.”

“Some might find it so, but the military man has resources, Henry. Do not forget that.” He paused, thoughtful for a moment. “You suspect me of trying to acquire Lady Beauclerk’s fortune for my own, do not you? I confess that it is a handsome fortune, and not a small consideration.”

“Are you distressed for funds, sir? Has Frederick been extravagant, or got into debt? If that is the case, you must allow me to assist however is in my power — ”

The General waved his hand dismissively. “No, no; the estates are producing very well, as you know, and your brother has not overspent his allowance quite yet this quarter. Not that I could not use a little extra; who cannot? But Lady Beauclerk is a very pleasant woman, and very good company; very good company, indeed. I would be proud to have her bear the Tilney name.” He sipped his wine thoughtfully.

Henry Tilney was rarely at a loss for words; but finding his father in the midst of a romance served to rob him of speech completely.