Margaret Sullivan: There Must Be Murder

“I know you cannot like it, Henry,” said Eleanor.

“It is none of my affair, I am sure,” said Henry. “My mother has been dead these ten years. It is not wonderful that the general should seek a wife.”

“I would have had him look elsewhere.”

“Do we have the right to dictate to him, Eleanor, when we did not allow him to dictate to us?” said Henry, with a smile at Catherine.

“But John and Catherine are not — ” Eleanor bit off the words.

“Hateful shrews?” supplied her husband.

Even Eleanor laughed at his sally.

“I would not worry overmuch,” said his lordship, finishing his tea. “I am not so sure that her ladyship will accept an offer from General Tilney. She is enjoying single blessedness too much to give it up very soon. Do you know what they call her? The Merry Widow.”

“Do they indeed?” murmured Henry.

Catherine did not expect much enjoyment from the remainder of the evening, but more dances with the viscount, and Sir Philip, and especially with Henry, brought back all the happiness with which she had anticipated this visit to Bath, alloyed only by Miss Beauclerk taking Catherine’s hand at the close of the ball and begging her to call at their house in Laura-place on the morrow. Her manner was so perfectly frank and friendly that Catherine could not refuse, though she shrank from a more intimate acquaintance.

Matthew and MacGuffin waited for them outside the rooms; Matthew had already procured a chair for Catherine, but Henry walked ahead of the chair, deep in conversation with Matthew, who held a lantern to light the way. The chair-men kept a careful distance, unsure what to make of the very large Newfoundland dog, so their progress was slower than usual.

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.”