There Must Be Murder

Girlebooks Presents

by Margaret C. Sullivan

Illustrations by Cassandra Chouinard

© Copyright 2010 Margaret C. Sullivan and
Cassandra Chouinard

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Reserved.

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This book is a work
of fiction. Names, characters, business organizations, places,
events and incidents either are the product of the author’s
imagination or are used fictiously. The author’s use of names of
actual persons (living or dead), places, and characters is
incidental to the purposes of the plot, and is not intended to
change the fictional character of the work or to disparage any
company or its products or services. The book has not been
prepared, approved, or licensed by any persons or characters named
in the text, their successors, or related corporate entitities.

Cover illustration
by Cassandra Chouinard

Dedicated to the members of Team
(Henry and Catherine) Tilney everywhere.

"Government," said Henry, endeavouring not to
smile, "neither desires nor dares to interfere in such matters.
There must be murder; and government cares not how much."

—
Northanger Abbey
by Jane Austen,
Volume I, Chapter XIV

The Reverend Henry Tilney, the rector of
Woodston parish in Gloucestershire, looked up from his book and
addressed his wife. “Catherine, do you know what day this is?”

Catherine Tilney smiled at her husband. “It is
Saturday, beloved.”

“Yes, it is, but this is no ordinary Saturday.
This is Saturday, the ninth day of February.”

Though they had been married but a short time,
Catherine knew that Henry was not in the habit of stating the
obvious without a particular reason; thus, she looked at him
expectantly, her needle suspended above the fabric.

“My sweet, I am surprised at you. Do not you
remember? We met exactly one year ago tonight, in the Lower Rooms
at Bath.”

“Did we?” Catherine was delighted with this
intelligence.

“We did. I presumed that you were already aware
of this anniversary, as you have recourse to your journal to remind
you of it. I dare say you were certain to record such an important
event as meeting your future husband.”

“Henry, you know perfectly well that I keep no
journal. Besides, I did not know then that you were my future
husband.”

“Some husbands would be injured at such an
admission, but not I; after all, I did not know that you were my
future wife. I remember that I was wandering about the rooms like a
lost soul, having no acquaintance there. The master of ceremonies,
Mr. King, took pity upon me and asked if I would like an
introduction to a clergyman’s daughter who was in need of a
partner. In Christian charity, I could not decline; though from my
past experience of ladies described as ‘clergymen’s daughters,’ I
expected to be presented to an elderly spinster with a squint. You
may imagine my relief when Miss Morland turned out to be rather a
pretty girl, and I considered myself fortunate that no other
gentleman had already claimed the honor of dancing with her.”

Catherine’s eyes were shining. “You thought me
pretty?”

“Indeed.” Henry reached for her hand and kissed
it. “Emily and Valancourt await us, my sweet. Shall we retire?”

“I am ready.” Catherine neatly folded her
sewing.

“I beg your pardon, MacGuffin,” Henry addressed
the Newfoundland curled up at the foot of his chair. “It is time
for bed, lad. I cannot rise while you are sleeping on my feet.”

MacGuffin raised his shaggy head and gazed up at
his master adoringly, his tail thumping the floor. A string of
saliva glistened at the corner of the dog’s mouth, trailing down to
the old blanket placed on the floor expressly to absorb the excess.
Henry gently lifted his foot in an encouraging nudge, and the dog
uttered a weary moan and heaved his massive bulk to a standing
position.

“Shall you let the dogs out?” Catherine asked
her husband. The house terriers, lying in a tangled heap by the
fire, looked round at her utterance of that favored word,
“out.”

“Matthew will attend to that.”

As they passed out of the drawing room, followed
by the clicking of canine claws on the wooden floor, a figure
loomed from the shadows of the passage. Catherine started and gave
a strangled cry.

“Beg pardon, Mrs. Tilney,” said Matthew. Matthew
was the rector’s groom, clerk, and factotum; an accomplished
huntsman, he glided about the parsonage as silently as he moved
through the woods, frequently (and quite inadvertently) startling
his mistress. However, Catherine liked Matthew, and it was not in
her nature to bear a grudge, so she smiled her forgiveness.

Matthew snapped his fingers at the dogs, and
they followed him down the passage toward the rear of the house as
the Tilneys climbed the stairs to their bedchamber.

***

Henry had a genius for piling the pillows so
that he could sit up in bed and read comfortably, even with one arm
round Catherine’s waist and her head resting upon his shoulder. The
fire burned brightly, and the Tilneys curled up warmly together
under the quilts as Henry read aloud from Mrs. Radcliffe’s novel,
The Mysteries of Udolpho
.

“
Valancourt
,” Henry read, “
between
these emotions of love and pity, lost the power, and almost the
wish, of repressing his agitation; and, in the intervals of
convulsive sobs, he, at one moment, kissed away her tears—
”

Henry stopped reading and scattered several
quick kisses across Catherine’s face. She giggled and prodded him
in the chest. “There are no tears here, sir. Pray continue.”

“I would much rather kiss you.”

“Read!”

“I hear and obey, madam.” Henry returned to
Udolpho
. “Now, where was I? Oh, yes—kissed away her tears,
then told her cruelly, that possibly sh
e might never again weep
for him, and then tried to speak more calmly, but only exclaimed,
‘O Emily—my heart will break!—I cannot—cannot leave you! Now—I gaze
upon that countenance, now I hold you in my arms! A little while,
and all this will appear a dream. I shall look, and cannot see you;
shall try to recollect your features—and the impression will be
fled from my imagination;—to hear the tones of your voice, and even
memory will be silent!—I cannot, cannot leave you!
’”

The first time Catherine read
Udolpho
,
she had wept over this passage; but when Henry read Valancourt’s
dialogue, he used such a simpering, affected voice that she found
herself laughing at the poor Chevalier’s distress.

“‘
Why should we confide the happiness of our
whole lives to the will of people, who have no right to interrupt,
and, except in giving you to me, have no power to promote it? O
Emily! Venture to trust your own heart, venture to be mine for
ever!’ His voice trembled, and he was silent; Emily continued to
weep, and was silent also, when Valancourt proceeded to propose an
immediate marriage, and that, at an early hour on the following
morning, she should quit Madame Montoni’s house, and be conducted
by him to the church of the Augustines, where a friar should await
to unite them.
”

Henry stopped reading and pondered for a moment.
“The banns were not published? No license obtained? A curious
business; I dare say that the brave Valancourt might have found the
Augustine friar less receptive to his scheme than he
anticipated.”

“It is only a story, Henry,” said Catherine in
the patient tone used to educate the slow-witted.

“Forgive me, my sweet. It was a matter of
professional interest. To continue:
The silence, with which she
listened to a proposal, dictated by love and despair, and enforced
at a moment, when it seemed scarcely possible for her to oppose
it;—when her heart was softened by the sorrows of a separation,
that might be eternal, and her reason obscured by the illusions of
love and terror, encouraged him to hope, that it would not be
rejected. ‘Speak, my Emily!’ said Valancourt eagerly, ‘let me hear
your voice, let me hear you confirm my fate.’ She spoke not; her
cheek was cold, and her senses seemed to fail her, but she did not
faint. To Valancourt’s terrified imagination she appeared to be
dying; he called upon her name, rose to go to the chateau for
assistance, and then, recollecting her situation, feared to go, or
to leave her for a moment.
”

Henry paused and glanced down at his wife’s rapt
face. “I am glad that you are not of a swooning disposition, Cat.
It must be terribly uncomfortable to have a girl forever falling
insensible at inconvenient times, when she is most in need of all
her faculties. It is well that you did not swoon when I offered you
marriage. It might have put me off my mission.”

Catherine sighed in delight. “I assure you, I
felt no inclination to swoon. That was the happiest moment of my
life. I should not have liked to miss it because I was
insensible.”

Henry smiled and gently touched her chin. “Then
I am glad that you did not miss it.”

“It all seems so long ago, and yet we met for
the first time just one year ago tonight! Henry, we should go back
to Bath someday, present ourselves to Mr. King, and tell him what a
successful introduction he made that night.”

“You would like to return to Bath?”

“Oh, yes! I think it would be very pleasant to
return to Bath as a married woman. I should not have to worry about
sitting out at the balls for lack of a partner.”

“Very well. I will write to my curate and
enquire whether his schedule will allow me a fortnight in Bath,
which we naturally shall extend to six weeks.”

Catherine’s delight with the scheme could not be
expressed in words; fortunately, she needed no words to express
that delight as admirably as her husband could desire.

The morning post contained a letter of great
import; Henry paused only to issue a particular order to Matthew,
and then went to share the news with Catherine.

He found her in the parsonage drawing-room, a
very different apartment from that which she had seen on her first
visit to Woodston. Fitted up with wallpaper and draperies in
various shades of green and elegant new furniture, the room now
indeed deserved the encomium of “the prettiest room in the world,”
bestowed upon it by its then-future mistress.