Chapter Three
There were two distinctive shots, and then a horrible silence. Emma froze in the open doorway, eerily still until she slowly brought her hands to her face. “Was that…?”
Elizabeth glanced over at Cathy. “Good Heavens! When Mr. Tilney said he meant to get rid of the general, I wonder what he had in mind.” She instantly regretted her jape, for Cathy began to tremble.
“If I am not mistaken… that was a shot,” Harriet groaned. “What are we to do?”
“Two shots,” Lady Allen said. “We ought to stay here until it is safe, until Mr. Tilney comes for us, as we planned.”
But Cathy was already rushing toward the door. As Emma stepped back to make way for her, Cathy turned back over her shoulder and said, “If Mr. Tilney has been harmed…. He is the handsomest man I ever saw.”
“I should rather like to know what is happening,” Elizabeth agreed. “And handsome men surely must be protected.”
Emma patted Elizabeth on the arm as she moved past. “It must be nothing. We are in wild country, perhaps some great beast got into the house, or a servant made a mistake while loading guns for hunting.”
Elizabeth nodded. “I believe you are right, though Cathy may never recover if we do not discover that Mr. Tilney has fought off a whole legion of robbers.”
“Oh! Have a care for yourselves, girls,” Lady Allen tutted as she began to examine the passageway Lady Susan had vanished into.
Elizabeth and Cathy held hands as they crept on their toes toward the end of the corridor.
They kept close to the wall and huddled together as they slowly peered around the corner.
Sir Edward and a few of the other gentlemen had also come out into the corridor, and were speaking amongst themselves in hushed curiosity.
Mr. Rushworth noticed the ladies and waved them over.
“Lizzy, Miss Morland, you ought to return to your rooms until we know that it is safe,” Sir Edward said.
Cathy shook her head. “But we want to know what happened!”
“So do we,” Mr. Willoughby replied. “Given the circumstances, it is safe to suppose something is afoot.”
Just then, Mr. Tilney came running around the far corner, though he slowed to a brisk walk at the sight of them. “Thank Heavens you are all safe. Have you any idea what those shots were?”
“We ought to ask you, good fellow,” Mr. Bertram sniffed.
“I have no sense of where the shots seemed to come from, but I suppose we ought to have a look around,” Mr. Tilney replied.
“Were you not with your father?”
“No, Miss Morland. He requested some time to attend to a matter of business before departing to collect my sister. I had returned to compose a quick note to Eleanor, who is aware of all my plans. I hope she might stall him for a few days, until the royals arrive.”
“Well, we must find out what those shots were about. Your father is capable of anything! Whatever business he wished to take care of might have been something ghastly indeed,” Mr. Willoughby said.
Mr. Rushworth nodded his agreement. “We have a right to know what is going on, and I refuse to be kept in the dark.”
Just then, there were distant, feminine shouts.
All seven of them began to move as a group, further down the hallway.
A door opened, and Mrs. Rushworth emerged with the short, plain-featured fellow.
The pair balked for a moment, their expressions very guilty, but after perceiving that Mr. Rushworth was already striding beyond them, they joined the group of concerned guests.
As they traversed the castle, they were joined by another man whom Elizabeth had not seen before, though from Mr. Tilney’s manner, she supposed it was his brother.
When they reached the far side of the castle, on the ground floor, they encountered Mrs. Clay and another woman, whom Elizabeth supposed must be Mr. Younge.
Coming from the opposite corner, Mr. Darcy, Miss Denham, Mr. Parker, and Lady Susan all rushed toward the others. The two groups converged amidst a flurry of questions and chaos.
Before them all, Mrs. Clay knelt on the ground, hunched over and weeping; she had been sick in a potted fern nearby. Mrs. Younge was bent down trying to comfort the woman, though she herself was in no better a state.
“Good God, what is it?” Henry went to them at once, his face twisted with agony. “Has my father done something?”
“Aye, he’s been shot, and he’s stabbed Mr. Wickham!” Mrs. Younge wailed.
The unknown gentleman addressed Mr. Tilney in a thunderous tone. “Something is horribly amiss with all this, Henry. I was to meet them for some business in the cellar a quarter hour ago, but I was delayed by some stupid matter with my valet.”
Mr. Tilney glared at the man. “What sort of business is conducted in the cellar, Fred? Do not think I am unaware.”
“You and the captain had better go down and have a look,” Mrs. Younge said.
Mr. Tilney and Captain Tilney nodded, and stepped into the narrow corridor that led to the cellar stairs. Mr. Darcy followed, giving Mrs. Younge a chilling glare as he passed her. “You may perhaps require a witness who is not family.”
Sir Edward lingered protectively close to Elizabeth and Cathy, and told them, “You girls ought to go back to your rooms.”
“Perhaps you ought to go with us; Lady Allen may be very frightened,” Elizabeth said, still cross enough with her uncle’s avoidance to enjoy his look of displeasure at her insolence.
Sir Walter ambled down the corridor, looking confused at the sight of them all congregated there. “I was bathing, and my manservant told me there were shots. I thought he must be mad.”
Murmurs of disquiet rippled through the corridor, though they had not long to wait for the gentlemen to return from the cellar. Mr. Darcy and Mr. Tilney approached the others looking pale and grim. The latter looked as if he wished to address them, but knew not how.
“General Tilney and his associate, George Wickham, are dead,” Mr. Darcy said gravely.
Everybody began to speak at once, but Mr. Darcy held up a hand, his demeanor imposing enough to silence them.
“The general was shot, and George Wickham, had a dagger in his chest. The gun lay on the floor between them, so it is possible that one attacked first and then the other reciprocated a lethal blow before they both succumbed. Captain Tilney, however, insists this is unlikely.”
Elizabeth staggered backwards, stunned to hear that name spoken. She studied Mr. Darcy’s countenance as he spoke and was sure he had tears in his eyes. What could it mean?
He and Mr. Tilney glanced about, but Captain Tilney was no longer amongst them. Mr. Tilney knit his brows. “Where is Fred?” He returned to the cellar stairs but came straight back with a look of confusion.
Everybody was in uproar; the consensus was that there was undoubtedly a murderer in their midst. Mr. Tilney looked quite distressed, but tried to call them all to order as Mr. Darcy had done.
“Now, listen, everybody. I ought to find my brother, and surely I must send for the magistrate at once. I think you ought to return to your rooms while Fred and I manage it all.”
“Return to our rooms? Alone?” Miss Denham scoffed. “I have no wish to be murdered in my chamber, sir.”
Several others began to agree with this sentiment.
“Somebody obviously has a grudge against the general, and perhaps this Mr. Wickham was merely a witness who needed to be silenced,” Mr. Parker said.
“Many of us know a few of the other guests and may have some other score to settle. I do not think we should break up the group. That is how this horrid thing has happened, with all of us tucked away in our rooms.”
There was more agreement amongst them, and Mr. Tilney looked too panicked to make any decision. Cathy began to wring her hands and fret. “Oh dear, and we have left Lady Allen and Harriet and Emma all alone!”
“We ought to include everybody in whatever happens next,” Lady Susan said.
“The magistrate will probably wish to question everybody,” Mr. Darcy said. “We were all scattered throughout the house, and anybody might be the culprit. By the by, I believe we should all have a look at one another’s hands for traces of gunpowder.”
Everybody made a great show of extending their hands to prove they were clean, with Sir Walter even attempting a poor jest at being the cleanest amongst them after a lavender scented bath.
Lady Susan made a great spectacle of saucily removing her gloves to show her bare hands also bore no traces of damning evidence.
“I daresay a pair of dirtied gloves might already be burning in a fireplace somewhere in the castle,” Mrs. Rushworth observed, exposing her own bare hands.
“True, but the magistrate will want to ask everybody where they were at the moment of the incident,” Mr. Darcy said. “We should all convene in the parlor where we met before dinner last night and await the proceedings. Tilney, you should ask a servant to have your cook delay the evening meal.”
Mr. Tilney had been comforting the two wailing ladies, who offered to attend to Mr. Darcy’s suggestion before excusing themselves. “Yes, I must send for the magistrate,” he agreed. “And where could Fred have gotten to?”
“Lady Susan found one of the secret passages,” Cathy told him. “Might there be another in the cellar?”
“I think you must be right,” he said. “There are a couple of unused rooms at the back of the castle. Sir Walter, your room is near the end of that wing. Would you see if my brother has gone that way? He and my father might have had their things brought up.”
Sir Walter looked wary. “Your brother was in quite a temper.”
“I will go with you, Uncle,” Mr. Willoughby said.