There Must Be Murder (14 page)

“Surely Lady Beauclerk has since regretted the
argument with General Tilney, if she felt true affection for
him?”

“Oh, no; Mr. Hornebolt dotes on her ladyship,
and on that cat, too. Says Lady J. is a superior creature of her
kind, and that his dear Agatha can spend just what she likes on her
bits of muslin, and any jumped-up half-pay officer who won’t stand
the expense of his wife’s fitting-out should be run through with
his own sword. I dare say he was talking about the general. But he
won’t stand for Lady Beauclerk keeping her title. He’s an
old-fashioned man, his mother was Mrs. Hornebolt and his wife will
be Mrs. Hornebolt. Miss don’t let her forget it, either; she will
have precedence over her own mother when she is Lady Beauclerk and
her mamma is Mrs. Hornebolt.”

She stopped for breath, and Matthew regarded her
with admiration. “My dear Miss Biddy, have you been listening at
doors again?”

“Of course! How else could I learn anything? You
like to listen to my gossip well enough, I’m sure. I’ll wager you
carry it back to your master right smart, too.”

The sudden, simple truth of her words shamed
Matthew; so much so, that when they reached Laura-place, he allowed
her to draw him into a dark niche by the kitchen door “to say
good-bye proper-like” with very good grace, and gave her a good-bye
kiss that left her dreamy-eyed and giggling.

***

The previous Sunday walk to Beechen Cliff had
been so successful that the Tilneys and the Whitings determined to
repeat it. The day was fine and sunny, and while the walk beside
the river was not as crowded as the Royal Crescent, they were not
alone, so MacGuffin remained on his lead. Henry and Eleanor both
were in fine spirits, having had good news from Matthew about their
father.

“I cannot help feeling a little sorry for
General Tilney,” said Catherine. “What if Lady Beauclerk had made
him very much in love with her?”

“I think he was, after his own fashion,” said
Henry. “But your amiable habit of putting yourself in another’s
place, and attributing to them your own unhappiness in such a
situation, has misled you, I fear. If my father is unhappy over
Lady Beauclerk, his disposition is such that it will not be of long
duration. He will soon tease himself out of it by recalling her
account at her mantua-maker’s, and congratulating himself on
escaping having to pay it.”

“Not to mention escaping having to walk her
cat,” said his lordship.

A man was pacing along the riverbank ahead of
them, near the spot where MacGuffin had waded out to chase the
ducks. As they approached him, Catherine recognized him. “That is
Mr. Shaw. Poor man! I do feel very sorry for him, and I dare say he
feels his misfortune more than General Tilney.”

The man bent over and picked up some objects
along the shoreline and placed them in his coat pockets. He paced
some more, and then, as they approached from one side and a large
family party from the other, he suddenly waded out into the
river.

Understanding dawned on Catherine. “Oh! He has
placed rocks in his pockets! Henry, Mr. Shaw means to drown
himself! You must stop him!”

“Shaw!” cried Henry. “I say, Shaw!”

Mr. Shaw whirled around and pointed a finger
accusingly at them. “Do not try to stop me! No one would help me,
no one would make my angel listen to me! It is too late! My blood
is on your hands!” He turned away and stumbled forward, walking
with odd high steps rather than wading. “She will know!” he cried,
pointing in the general direction of the Pulteney Bridge. “She will
know how much I loved her when she finds me floating by her very
door, and then she will regret her treatment of me! But it will be
too late! I shall be gone from this earth forever!”

Catherine, frightened beyond understanding,
cried, “Oh, stop him! Someone stop him!”

Henry released her arm and strode down the
riverbank. “That river must be freezing at this season, Shaw, and
you are frightening the ladies. Do come out now, there’s a good
fellow.” MacGuffin added several barks as emphasis as he strained
on his lead.

Mr. Shaw took two more thrashing steps into the
river, which flowed against him and broke around his knees. “I have
nothing to live for,” he said. “Nothing. My angel has forsaken me.
The devil must take me for his own now!”

Henry gave a short sigh of impatience, and then
bent down and took off MacGuffin’s lead. The dog immediately raced
for the river and plunged in.

Mr. Shaw flailed away from MacGuffin. “Begone,
hellbeast! Leave me to your dark master!” One of his feet slipped,
and he went down on one knee, struggling to keep his head above
water. Even in her fright, Catherine thought his behavior odd; he
said he wanted to drown himself, but seemed afraid to go under
water.

MacGuffin, up to his haunches in the water,
seized the floating end of Mr. Shaw’s tailcoat firmly in his mouth
and braced himself on the river bottom. Mr. Shaw tried to move away
from him, but MacGuffin held firm.

“He has been trained in water retrieval,” Henry
called to Mr. Shaw. “Trained very well, I may add. You might as
well give it up now.”

Mr. Shaw attempted to unbutton his coat and slip
out of it, but MacGuffin growled, the coat-tail still in his mouth,
and shook his head violently from side to side, as though playing a
game of keep-away. Mr. Shaw stopped struggling and began to weep
with loud braying sobs; he then buried his face in his hands.

Henry watched him for a long moment. “Do you
think you are the only man whose peace has been destroyed by Judith
Beauclerk?” he asked, his voice full of compassion. Mr. Shaw’s
turned to look at him; Henry gazed back at him steadily, and they
seemed to communicate something, a shared knowledge that made
Catherine suddenly uneasy.

MacGuffin tugged again, and at last Mr. Shaw
came with him, stumbling out of the river, the dog herding him like
a lost sheep and never letting go of the coat-tail until his
captive was safely on land and wrapped in a blanket produced by the
family party, which had watched the proceedings with fascinated
horror. A few more spectators had collected, including several
small boys who heard that someone had drowned himself and demanded,
in high-pitched, strident voices, to see the corpse. Lord Whiting
sent them away and consulted with the father of the family-party,
and they went to fetch his carriage, which was waiting in
Argyle-street.

Henry put an arm around Mr. Shaw’s shoulders,
still bowed in sorrow. He looked up at Catherine consciously, and
she turned and said to the fascinated onlookers, “Step away,
please; leave him be.” They turned, one by one, and drifted away,
as Henry spoke to Mr. Shaw in unintelligible tones.

The mother of the family-party would not be
moved so easily. “What is he saying?” she asked Catherine, peering
over her shoulder at Henry and Mr. Shaw huddled on the riverbank.
“What is he doing?”

“My husband is a priest,” said Catherine firmly.
“He will say all that is necessary.”

The woman’s face cleared. “Oh, a priest,” she
said. “Aye, he’ll take care of the poor devil.” She turned to shoo
her children away.

Lord Whiting and the father returned, and the
three men helped Mr. Shaw to get up and moving towards the bridge.
“Cat, take MacGuffin, and go to our lodgings with Eleanor,” Henry
called to her. “We will meet you there.”

***

Henry and John returned to Pulteney-street a few
hours later, and assured the worried ladies that they had returned
Mr. Shaw to his rooms in Westgate Buildings, saw him into dry
clothes and left him in front of a blazing fire.

“How could you leave him?” cried Catherine. “How
do you know he will not try again to destroy himself?”

“He did not really want to destroy himself,”
said his lordship, flinging himself into a chair. “He only wanted
someone to share his misery. Did you not see that he feared the
water? Only a man still in love with life would have such
fear.”

“And pray note that he chose to make his attempt
nearly on the Beauclerks’ doorstep,” said Henry. “He raved a bit in
the carriage about Judith finding him floating in the river and
being sorry she had cast him off, but it soon came out that he
really did not wish to drown himself; he had a wild scheme of
someone running for Judith so she could stop him from drowning
himself and reconcile with him.”

“He also waited until he was sure he had an
audience,” said Lord Whiting. “He could have jumped in before we or
that nice fellow from Hampshire got there, but he waited for us to
be close enough to see his act. I give him credit; ’twas as good as
anything one sees on Drury Lane. Though the poor fellow has had a
bad time of it.”

Henry looked at Catherine, who sat with her head
down, and her hands fastened in her lap; an attitude he knew to
mean that she was in some distress that she did not care to
vocalize. “Do not worry, my sweet. Mr. Shaw and I had a good talk,
and I made him see the foolishness of martyring himself to Miss
Beauclerk. I think he might even be on the way to mending his
broken heart.”

Catherine lifted her head and looked into
Henry’s eyes. “You once said to me that Miss Beauclerk had not
injured you; but the way you spoke to him today—the way you said he
was not the first man to have his peace destroyed by her—”

Henry and Eleanor exchanged glances, and Eleanor
said, “Catherine and John are part of our family now, Henry; I
believe you should tell them.”

He nodded, and said to Catherine, “I told you
the truth. Judith Beauclerk did not break my heart or injure me by
her flirtations. I regret I cannot say the same for my
brother.”

“Captain Tilney?”

“Yes. He came home several years ago, a newly
commissioned lieutenant in the Twelfth Light Dragoons, and fell for
Judith with all the ardent affection of a young man fresh from a
battlefield, and offered her his hand and his heart. She said that
she could not marry a mere Lieutenant Tilney, and he had to put
himself in the way of a battlefield commission or, better yet, a
knighthood so she could be Lady Tilney. Frederick told no one of
this, not even my father; and he went off to Toulon and put himself
in grave danger during the siege there, in a hopeless cause, trying
to cover himself with glory for her sake.”

“He won his commission?”

“Yes; he was Captain Tilney, but it was not
enough for Judith; he was not Sir Frederick. He presented himself
to Judith, and she laughed at him, and said she had never intended
to marry him or any officer, and how could he take her so
seriously? My brother changed that day, Cat; he changed from a
brave, headstrong, sometimes vain and thoughtless young man into
someone capable of amusing himself at the expense of another’s
comfort. He learned to give what he received from Miss Beauclerk;
and since then has found no woman worthy of his affection.”

Catherine considered this gravely. “That is why
he acted the way he did with Isabella Thorpe, I dare say; he knew
her for a vain coquette, and took his revenge on her.”

“Not so much revenge, I think, as recognizing
that Miss Thorpe’s was not a heart worth winning, or worth more
than a common flirtation, and perhaps taking advantage of it.”

“And now I understand why you did not wish Miss
Beauclerk to live at Northanger; if Captain Tilney came to visit, I
dare say it would be most uncomfortable for him.”

“Yes,” said Eleanor. “And my father promoted the
match between Frederick and Judith, which really was most eligible,
so Henry and I were astonished that he seemed to have forgotten the
outcome of it.”

“I do not understand why Miss Beauclerk would
refuse Captain Tilney and accept Sir Philip,” said Catherine.
“Captain Tilney will have a much larger estate and fortune.”

“I believe she always meant to get Beauclerk, if
she could,” said Henry. “She could not capture him with her own
charms, but her father made it possible with the terms of his
will.”

“So ambition makes fools of us all,” said his
lordship. “Eleanor, love, is that tea hot? I could use a cup.”

***

The fire in their bedroom was past its first and
highest blaze, and Henry and Catherine burrowed into their thick
quilts, embraced by the circle of light thrown off by Henry’s
candle as he read aloud the last chapter of
The Mysteries of
Udolpho
.

O! how joyful it is to tell of happiness,
such as that of Valancourt and Emily; to relate, that, after
suffering under the oppression of the vicious and the disdain of
the weak, they were, at length, restored to each other—to the
beloved landscapes of their native country,—to the securest
felicity of this life, that of aspiring to moral and labouring for
intellectual improvement—to the pleasures of enlightened society,
and to the exercise of the benevolence, which had always animated
their hearts; while the bowers of La Vallee became, once more, the
retreat of goodness, wisdom and domestic blessedness!