Henry didn’t mean to die.
It’s my favorite theory I’ve come up with (though I’m probably not the first) and was my initial thought after finishing the last chapter.
At the end of the book Donna Tartt specifically made it a point to mention the ‘two flat cracks’ that went off when Henry fired at himself due to the drawback of the gun. When reading this, i thought it was an interesting detail to add. It seemed, to me, important in some way. Following that detail, in the epilogue, she added that despite having two bullet wounds to the head, he survived for over twelve hours, which even amazed the doctors. Richard himself even theorizes that perhaps Henry didn’t want to die.
Now, if aimed correctly, you can survive a bullet wound to the head with (moderately) minimal brain damage. Henry being Henry, I believe he would know that. It would be surprising if he hadn’t consider this scenario to some extent.
Despite Henry possibly knowing this fact, we already know that he wasn’t too good with guns- or at least no longer participated, and did not like, using them after accidentally killing a duck at Francis’s country house while shooting targets (they put the gun away and he never went shooting again.)
To get straight to the theory, I believe Henry planned for this, or some similar scenario. He knew where to aim, but wasn’t very familiar with using a gun, and hadn’t realized the drawback would make the gun go off twice. Two flat cracks. That’s why he had such a strong will to survive even after the two self inflicted injuries. He planned on one bullet, aimed correctly to avoid hitting anything too vital, but when the second bullet hit, his body couldn’t handle that kind of injury.
I don’t know what, but I wonder if he told Camilla something about him surviving or to not worry because he’ll be fine- that he would live and come back to her. Maybe she’s still hoping that he’s right and his promise will come true, which is why she refused to marry Richard.
I’m not sure why he did shoot or what his plan was had he survived. He was extremely loyal, especially considering that no matter how you look at his death, he did it for them. Maybe Henry didn’t want Charles to get into trouble, which would put all of them at risk, and decided to frame the previous shots as them trying to prevent his (supposed-to-be failed) suicide attempt. Maybe he wanted to fake his death to get all of them off the hook and slip away with Camilla after he recovered. No matter what the reasons were, I’m almost certain that Henry didn’t mean to die.
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