NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 16

Catherine's expectations of pleasure from her visit in Milsom Street
were so very high that disappointment was inevitable; and accordingly,
though she was most politely received by General Tilney, and
kindly welcomed by his daughter, though Henry was at home, and no
one else of the party, she found, on her return, without spending
many hours in the examination of her feelings, that she had gone to
her appointment preparing for happiness which it had not afforded.
Instead of finding herself improved in acquaintance with Miss Tilney,
from the intercourse of the day, she seemed hardly so intimate with
her as before; instead of seeing Henry Tilney to greater advantage
than ever, in the ease of a family party, he had never said so
little, nor been so little agreeable; and, in spite of their father's
great civilities to her--in spite of his thanks, invitations,
and compliments--it had been a release to get away from him.
It puzzled her to account for all this. It could not be General
Tilney's fault. That he was perfectly agreeable and good-natured,
and altogether a very charming man, did not admit of a doubt, for
he was tall and handsome, and Henry's father. He could not be
accountable for his children's want of spirits, or for her want of
enjoyment in his company. The former she hoped at last might have
been accidental, and the latter she could only attribute to her
own stupidity. Isabella, on hearing the particulars of the visit,
gave a different explanation: "It was all pride, pride, insufferable
haughtiness and pride! She had long suspected the family to be
very high, and this made it certain. Such insolence of behaviour
as Miss Tilney's she had never heard of in her life! Not to do the
honours of her house with common good breeding! To behave to her
guest with such superciliousness! Hardly even to speak to her!"

"But it was not so bad as that, Isabella; there was no superciliousness;
she was very civil."

"Oh! Don't defend her! And then the brother, he, who had appeared
so attached to you! Good heavens! Well, some people's feelings
are incomprehensible. And so he hardly looked once at you the
whole day?"

"I do not say so; but he did not seem in good spirits."

"How contemptible! Of all things in the world inconstancy is my
aversion. Let me entreat you never to think of him again, my dear
Catherine; indeed he is unworthy of you."

"Unworthy! I do not suppose he ever thinks of me."

"That is exactly what I say; he never thinks of you. Such fickleness!
Oh! How different to your brother and to mine! I really believe
John has the most constant heart."

"But as for General Tilney, I assure you it would be impossible
for anybody to behave to me with greater civility and attention;
it seemed to be his only care to entertain and make me happy."

"Oh! I know no harm of him; I do not suspect him of pride. I
believe he is a very gentleman-like man. John thinks very
well of him, and John's judgment--"

"Well, I shall see how they behave to me this evening; we shall
meet them at the rooms."

"And must I go?"

"Do not you intend it? I thought it was all settled."

"Nay, since you make such a point of it, I can refuse you nothing.
But do not insist upon my being very agreeable, for my heart, you
know, will be some forty miles off. And as for dancing, do not
mention it, I beg; that is quite out of the question. Charles
Hodges will plague me to death, I dare say; but I shall cut him very
short. Ten to one but he guesses the reason, and that is exactly
what I want to avoid, so I shall insist on his keeping his conjecture
to himself."

Isabella's opinion of the Tilneys did not influence her friend;
she was sure there had been no insolence in the manners either of
brother or sister; and she did not credit there being any pride in
their hearts. The evening rewarded her confidence; she was met by
one with the same kindness, and by the other with the same attention,
as heretofore: Miss Tilney took pains to be near her, and Henry
asked her to dance.

Having heard the day before in Milsom Street that their elder
brother, Captain Tilney, was expected almost every hour, she was
at no loss for the name of a very fashionable-looking, handsome
young man, whom she had never seen before, and who now evidently
belonged to their party. She looked at him with great admiration,
and even supposed it possible that some people might think him
handsomer than his brother, though, in her eyes, his air was more
assuming, and his countenance less prepossessing. His taste and
manners were beyond a doubt decidedly inferior; for, within her
hearing, he not only protested against every thought of dancing
himself, but even laughed openly at Henry for finding it possible.
From the latter circumstance it may be presumed that, whatever might
be our heroine's opinion of him, his admiration of her was not of
a very dangerous kind; not likely to produce animosities between
the brothers, nor persecutions to the lady. He cannot be the
instigator of the three villains in horsemen's greatcoats, by whom
she will hereafter be forced into a traveling-chaise and four,
which will drive off with incredible speed. Catherine, meanwhile,
undisturbed by presentiments of such an evil, or of any evil at
all, except that of having but a short set to dance down, enjoyed
her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes
to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming
so herself.

At the end of the first dance, Captain Tilney came towards them
again, and, much to Catherine's dissatisfaction, pulled his brother
away. They retired whispering together; and, though her delicate
sensibility did not take immediate alarm, and lay it down as fact,
that Captain Tilney must have heard some malevolent misrepresentation
of her, which he now hastened to communicate to his brother, in
the hope of separating them forever, she could not have her partner
conveyed from her sight without very uneasy sensations. Her suspense
was of full five minutes' duration; and she was beginning to think
it a very long quarter of an hour, when they both returned, and an
explanation was given, by Henry's requesting to know if she thought
her friend, Miss Thorpe, would have any objection to dancing, as
his brother would be most happy to be introduced to her. Catherine,
without hesitation, replied that she was very sure Miss Thorpe did
not mean to dance at all. The cruel reply was passed on to the
other, and he immediately walked away.

"Your brother will not mind it, I know," said she, "because I heard
him say before that he hated dancing; but it was very good-natured
in him to think of it. I suppose he saw Isabella sitting down,
and fancied she might wish for a partner; but he is quite mistaken,
for she would not dance upon any account in the world."

Henry smiled, and said, "How very little trouble it can give you
to understand the motive of other people's actions."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"With you, it is not, How is such a one likely to be influenced,
What is the inducement most likely to act upon such a person's
feelings, age, situation, and probable habits of life considered--but,
How should I be influenced, What would be my inducement in
acting so and so?"

"I do not understand you."

"Then we are on very unequal terms, for I understand you perfectly
well."

"Me? Yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible."

"Bravo! An excellent satire on modern language."

"But pray tell me what you mean."

"Shall I indeed? Do you really desire it? But you are not aware
of the consequences; it will involve you in a very cruel embarrassment,
and certainly bring on a disagreement between us.

"No, no; it shall not do either; I am not afraid."

"Well, then, I only meant that your attributing my brother's wish
of dancing with Miss Thorpe to good nature alone convinced me of
your being superior in good nature yourself to all the rest of the
world."

Catherine blushed and disclaimed, and the gentleman's predictions
were verified. There was a something, however, in his words which
repaid her for the pain of confusion; and that something occupied
her mind so much that she drew back for some time, forgetting
to speak or to listen, and almost forgetting where she was; till,
roused by the voice of Isabella, she looked up and saw her with
Captain Tilney preparing to give them hands across.

Isabella shrugged her shoulders and smiled, the only explanation
of this extraordinary change which could at that time be given;
but as it was not quite enough for Catherine's comprehension, she
spoke her astonishment in very plain terms to her partner.

"I cannot think how it could happen! Isabella was so determined
not to dance."

"And did Isabella never change her mind before?"

"Oh! But, because--And your brother! After what you told him
from me, how could he think of going to ask her?"

"I cannot take surprise to myself on that head. You bid me be
surprised on your friend's account, and therefore I am; but as for
my brother, his conduct in the business, I must own, has been no
more than I believed him perfectly equal to. The fairness of your
friend was an open attraction; her firmness, you know, could only
be understood by yourself."

"You are laughing; but, I assure you, Isabella is very firm in
general."

"It is as much as should be said of anyone. To be always firm must
be to be often obstinate. When properly to relax is the trial of
judgment; and, without reference to my brother, I really think Miss
Thorpe has by no means chosen ill in fixing on the present hour."

The friends were not able to get together for any confidential
discourse till all the dancing was over; but then, as they walked
about the room arm in arm, Isabella thus explained herself: "I
do not wonder at your surprise; and I am really fatigued to death.
He is such a rattle! Amusing enough, if my mind had been disengaged;
but I would have given the world to sit still."

"Then why did not you?"

"Oh! My dear! It would have looked so particular; and you know
how I abhor doing that. I refused him as long as I possibly could,
but he would take no denial. You have no idea how he pressed me.
I begged him to excuse me, and get some other partner--but no,
not he; after aspiring to my hand, there was nobody else in the room
he could bear to think of; and it was not that he wanted merely to
dance, he wanted to be with me. Oh! Such nonsense! I told him
he had taken a very unlikely way to prevail upon me; for, of all
things in the world, I hated fine speeches and compliments; and so--and
so then I found there would be no peace if I did not stand
up. Besides, I thought Mrs. Hughes, who introduced him, might take
it ill if I did not: and your dear brother, I am sure he would
have been miserable if I had sat down the whole evening. I am so
glad it is over! My spirits are quite jaded with listening to his
nonsense: and then, being such a smart young fellow, I saw every
eye was upon us."

"He is very handsome indeed."

"Handsome! Yes, I suppose he may. I dare say people would admire
him in general; but he is not at all in my style of beauty. I hate
a florid complexion and dark eyes in a man. However, he is very
well. Amazingly conceited, I am sure. I took him down several
times, you know, in my way."

When the young ladies next met, they had a far more interesting
subject to discuss. James Morland's second letter was then received,
and the kind intentions of his father fully explained. A living,
of which Mr. Morland was himself patron and incumbent, of about
four hundred pounds yearly value, was to be resigned to his son as
soon as he should be old enough to take it; no trifling deduction
from the family income, no niggardly assignment to one of ten
children. An estate of at least equal value, moreover, was assured
as his future inheritance.

James expressed himself on the occasion with becoming gratitude;
and the necessity of waiting between two and three years before
they could marry, being, however unwelcome, no more than he had
expected, was borne by him without discontent. Catherine, whose
expectations had been as unfixed as her ideas of her father's
income, and whose judgment was now entirely led by her brother,
felt equally well satisfied, and heartily congratulated Isabella
on having everything so pleasantly settled.

"It is very charming indeed," said Isabella, with a grave face.
"Mr. Morland has behaved vastly handsome indeed," said the gentle
Mrs. Thorpe, looking anxiously at her daughter. "I only wish I
could do as much. One could not expect more from him, you know.
If he finds he can do more by and by, I dare say he will, for I am
sure he must be an excellent good-hearted man. Four hundred is
but a small income to begin on indeed, but your wishes, my dear
Isabella, are so moderate, you do not consider how little you ever
want, my dear."

"It is not on my own account I wish for more; but I cannot bear to
be the means of injuring my dear Morland, making him sit down upon
an income hardly enough to find one in the common necessaries of
life. For myself, it is nothing; I never think of myself."

"I know you never do, my dear; and you will always find your reward
in the affection it makes everybody feel for you. There never was
a young woman so beloved as you are by everybody that knows you;
and I dare say when Mr. Morland sees you, my dear child--but do
not let us distress our dear Catherine by talking of such things.
Mr. Morland has behaved so very handsome, you know. I always heard
he was a most excellent man; and you know, my dear, we are not to
suppose but what, if you had had a suitable fortune, he would have
come down with something more, for I am sure he must be a most
liberal-minded man."

"Nobody can think better of Mr. Morland than I do, I am sure. But
everybody has their failing, you know, and everybody has a right
to do what they like with their own money." Catherine was hurt by
these insinuations. "I am very sure," said she, "that my father
has promised to do as much as he can afford."

Isabella recollected herself. "As to that, my sweet Catherine,
there cannot be a doubt, and you know me well enough to be sure
that a much smaller income would satisfy me. It is not the want of
more money that makes me just at present a little out of spirits; I
hate money; and if our union could take place now upon only fifty
pounds a year, I should not have a wish unsatisfied. Ah! my
Catherine, you have found me out. There's the sting. The long,
long, endless two years and half that are to pass before your
brother can hold the living."

"Yes, yes, my darling Isabella," said Mrs. Thorpe, "we perfectly
see into your heart. You have no disguise. We perfectly understand
the present vexation; and everybody must love you the better for
such a noble honest affection."

Catherine's uncomfortable feelings began to lessen. She endeavoured
to believe that the delay of the marriage was the only source of
Isabella's regret; and when she saw her at their next interview as
cheerful and amiable as ever, endeavoured to forget that she had
for a minute thought otherwise. James soon followed his letter,
and was received with the most gratifying kindness.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 17


The Allens had now entered on the sixth week of their stay in Bath;
and whether it should be the last was for some time a question,
to which Catherine listened with a beating heart. To have her
acquaintance with the Tilneys end so soon was an evil which nothing
could counterbalance. Her whole happiness seemed at stake, while
the affair was in suspense, and everything secured when it was
determined that the lodgings should be taken for another fortnight.
What this additional fortnight was to produce to her beyond the
pleasure of sometimes seeing Henry Tilney made but a small part
of Catherine's speculation. Once or twice indeed, since James's
engagement had taught her what could be done, she had got so far
as to indulge in a secret "perhaps," but in general the felicity
of being with him for the present bounded her views: the present
was now comprised in another three weeks, and her happiness being
certain for that period, the rest of her life was at such a distance
as to excite but little interest. In the course of the morning
which saw this business arranged, she visited Miss Tilney, and poured
forth her joyful feelings. It was doomed to be a day of trial.
No sooner had she expressed her delight in Mr. Allen's lengthened
stay than Miss Tilney told her of her father's having just determined
upon quitting Bath by the end of another week. Here was a blow!
The past suspense of the morning had been ease and quiet to the
present disappointment. Catherine's countenance fell, and in a
voice of most sincere concern she echoed Miss Tilney's concluding
words, "By the end of another week!"

"Yes, my father can seldom be prevailed on to give the waters what
I think a fair trial. He has been disappointed of some friends'
arrival whom he expected to meet here, and as he is now pretty
well, is in a hurry to get home."

"I am very sorry for it," said Catherine dejectedly; "if
I had known this before--"

"Perhaps," said Miss Tilney in an embarrassed manner, "you
would be so good--it would make me very happy if--"

The entrance of her father put a stop to the civility, which
Catherine was beginning to hope might introduce a desire of their
corresponding. After addressing her with his usual politeness, he
turned to his daughter and said, "Well, Eleanor, may I congratulate
you on being successful in your application to your fair friend?"

"I was just beginning to make the request, sir, as you came in."

"Well, proceed by all means. I know how much your heart is in
it. My daughter, Miss Morland," he continued, without leaving his
daughter time to speak, "has been forming a very bold wish. We
leave Bath, as she has perhaps told you, on Saturday se'nnight. A
letter from my steward tells me that my presence is wanted at home;
and being disappointed in my hope of seeing the Marquis of Longtown
and General Courteney here, some of my very old friends, there is
nothing to detain me longer in Bath. And could we carry our selfish
point with you, we should leave it without a single regret. Can
you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene of public triumph
and oblige your friend Eleanor with your company in Gloucestershire?
I am almost ashamed to make the request, though its presumption would
certainly appear greater to every creature in Bath than yourself.
Modesty such as yours--but not for the world would I pain it by
open praise. If you can be induced to honour us with a visit, you
will make us happy beyond expression. 'Tis true, we can offer you
nothing like the gaieties of this lively place; we can tempt you
neither by amusement nor splendour, for our mode of living, as you
see, is plain and unpretending; yet no endeavours shall be wanting
on our side to make Northanger Abbey not wholly disagreeable."

Northanger Abbey! These were thrilling words, and wound up
Catherine's feelings to the highest point of ecstasy. Her grateful
and gratified heart could hardly restrain its expressions within
the language of tolerable calmness. To receive so flattering an
invitation! To have her company so warmly solicited! Everything
honourable and soothing, every present enjoyment, and every future
hope was contained in it; and her acceptance, with only the saving
clause of Papa and Mamma's approbation, was eagerly given. "I will
write home directly," said she, "and if they do not object,
as I dare say they will not--"

General Tilney was not less sanguine, having already waited on her
excellent friends in Pulteney Street, and obtained their sanction
of his wishes. "Since they can consent to part with you," said
he, "we may expect philosophy from all the world."

Miss Tilney was earnest, though gentle, in her secondary civilities,
and the affair became in a few minutes as nearly settled as this
necessary reference to Fullerton would allow.

The circumstances of the morning had led Catherine's feelings through
the varieties of suspense, security, and disappointment; but they
were now safely lodged in perfect bliss; and with spirits elated
to rapture, with Henry at her heart, and Northanger Abbey on her
lips, she hurried home to write her letter. Mr. and Mrs. Morland,
relying on the discretion of the friends to whom they had already
entrusted their daughter, felt no doubt of the propriety of
an acquaintance which had been formed under their eye, and sent
therefore by return of post their ready consent to her visit in
Gloucestershire. This indulgence, though not more than Catherine
had hoped for, completed her conviction of being favoured beyond
every other human creature, in friends and fortune, circumstance
and chance. Everything seemed to cooperate for her advantage. By
the kindness of her first friends, the Allens, she had been introduced
into scenes where pleasures of every kind had met her. Her feelings,
her preferences, had each known the happiness of a return. Wherever
she felt attachment, she had been able to create it. The affection
of Isabella was to be secured to her in a sister. The Tilneys,
they, by whom, above all, she desired to be favourably thought of,
outstripped even her wishes in the flattering measures by which
their intimacy was to be continued. She was to be their chosen
visitor, she was to be for weeks under the same roof with the
person whose society she mostly prized--and, in addition to all
the rest, this roof was to be the roof of an abbey! Her passion
for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry
Tilney--and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those
reveries which his image did not fill. To see and explore either
the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other,
had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more than the
visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire.
And yet, this was to happen. With all the chances against her of
house, hall, place, park, court, and cottage, Northanger turned
up an abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long, damp
passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her
daily reach, and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some
traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated
nun.

It was wonderful that her friends should seem so little elated by
the possession of such a home, that the consciousness of it should
be so meekly borne. The power of early habit only could account
for it. A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride.
Their superiority of abode was no more to them than their superiority
of person.

Many were the inquiries she was eager to make of Miss Tilney; but
so active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered,
she was hardly more assured than before, of Northanger Abbey having
been a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation, of
its having fallen into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on
its dissolution, of a large portion of the ancient building still
making a part of the present dwelling although the rest was decayed,
or of its standing low in a valley, sheltered from the north and
east by rising woods of oak.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 18


With a mind thus full of happiness, Catherine was hardly aware that
two or three days had passed away, without her seeing Isabella for
more than a few minutes together. She began first to be sensible
of this, and to sigh for her conversation, as she walked along the
pump-room one morning, by Mrs. Allen's side, without anything to
say or to hear; and scarcely had she felt a five minutes' longing
of friendship, before the object of it appeared, and inviting her
to a secret conference, led the way to a seat. "This is my favourite
place," said she as they sat down on a bench between the doors,
which commanded a tolerable view of everybody entering at either;
"it is so out of the way."

Catherine, observing that Isabella's eyes were continually
bent towards one door or the other, as in eager expectation, and
remembering how often she had been falsely accused of being arch,
thought the present a fine opportunity for being really so; and
therefore gaily said, "Do not be uneasy, Isabella, James will soon
be here."

"Psha! My dear creature," she replied, "do not think me such a
simpleton as to be always wanting to confine him to my elbow. It
would be hideous to be always together; we should be the jest of
the place. And so you are going to Northanger! I am amazingly
glad of it. It is one of the finest old places in England, I
understand. I shall depend upon a most particular description of
it."

"You shall certainly have the best in my power to give. But who
are you looking for? Are your sisters coming?"

"I am not looking for anybody. One's eyes must be somewhere, and
you know what a foolish trick I have of fixing mine, when my thoughts
are an hundred miles off. I am amazingly absent; I believe I am
the most absent creature in the world. Tilney says it is always
the case with minds of a certain stamp."

"But I thought, Isabella, you had something in particular to tell
me?"

"Oh! Yes, and so I have. But here is a proof of what I was saying.
My poor head, I had quite forgot it. Well, the thing is this: I
have just had a letter from John; you can guess the contents."

"No, indeed, I cannot."

"My sweet love, do not be so abominably affected. What can he
write about, but yourself? You know he is over head and ears in
love with you."

"With me, dear Isabella!"

"Nay, my sweetest Catherine, this is being quite absurd! Modesty,
and all that, is very well in its way, but really a little common
honesty is sometimes quite as becoming. I have no idea of being
so overstrained! It is fishing for compliments. His attentions
were such as a child must have noticed. And it was but half
an hour before he left Bath that you gave him the most positive
encouragement. He says so in this letter, says that he as good
as made you an offer, and that you received his advances in the
kindest way; and now he wants me to urge his suit, and say all manner
of pretty things to you. So it is in vain to affect ignorance."

Catherine, with all the earnestness of truth, expressed her
astonishment at such a charge, protesting her innocence of every
thought of Mr. Thorpe's being in love with her, and the consequent
impossibility of her having ever intended to encourage him. "As to
any attentions on his side, I do declare, upon my honour, I never
was sensible of them for a moment--except just his asking me to
dance the first day of his coming. And as to making me an offer,
or anything like it, there must be some unaccountable mistake. I
could not have misunderstood a thing of that kind, you know! And,
as I ever wish to be believed, I solemnly protest that no syllable
of such a nature ever passed between us. The last half hour before
he went away! It must be all and completely a mistake--for I
did not see him once that whole morning."

"But that you certainly did, for you spent the whole morning in
Edgar's Buildings--it was the day your father's consent came--and
I am pretty sure that you and John were alone in the parlour
some time before you left the house."

"Are you? Well, if you say it, it was so, I dare say--but for
the life of me, I cannot recollect it. I do remember now being with
you, and seeing him as well as the rest--but that we were ever
alone for five minutes--However, it is not worth arguing about,
for whatever might pass on his side, you must be convinced, by my
having no recollection of it, that I never thought, nor expected,
nor wished for anything of the kind from him. I am excessively
concerned that he should have any regard for me--but indeed it
has been quite unintentional on my side; I never had the smallest
idea of it. Pray undeceive him as soon as you can, and tell him I
beg his pardon--that is--I do not know what I ought to say--but
make him understand what I mean, in the properest way. I would
not speak disrespectfully of a brother of yours, Isabella, I am
sure; but you know very well that if I could think of one man more
than another--he is not the person." Isabella was silent. "My
dear friend, you must not be angry with me. I cannot suppose your
brother cares so very much about me. And, you know, we shall still
be sisters."

"Yes, yes" (with a blush), "there are more ways than one of our being
sisters. But where am I wandering to? Well, my dear Catherine,
the case seems to be that you are determined against poor John--is
not it so?"

"I certainly cannot return his affection, and as certainly never
meant to encourage it."

"Since that is the case, I am sure I shall not tease you any further.
John desired me to speak to you on the subject, and therefore I
have. But I confess, as soon as I read his letter, I thought it
a very foolish, imprudent business, and not likely to promote the
good of either; for what were you to live upon, supposing you came
together? You have both of you something, to be sure, but it is
not a trifle that will support a family nowadays; and after all
that romancers may say, there is no doing without money. I only
wonder John could think of it; he could not have received my last."

"You do acquit me, then, of anything wrong?--You are convinced
that I never meant to deceive your brother, never suspected him of
liking me till this moment?"

"Oh! As to that," answered Isabella laughingly, "I do not pretend
to determine what your thoughts and designs in time past may have
been. All that is best known to yourself. A little harmless
flirtation or so will occur, and one is often drawn on to give more
encouragement than one wishes to stand by. But you may be assured
that I am the last person in the world to judge you severely. All
those things should be allowed for in youth and high spirits. What
one means one day, you know, one may not mean the next. Circumstances
change, opinions alter."

"But my opinion of your brother never did alter; it was always the
same. You are describing what never happened."

"My dearest Catherine," continued the other without at all listening
to her, "I would not for all the world be the means of hurrying
you into an engagement before you knew what you were about. I do
not think anything would justify me in wishing you to sacrifice
all your happiness merely to oblige my brother, because he is
my brother, and who perhaps after all, you know, might be just as
happy without you, for people seldom know what they would be at,
young men especially, they are so amazingly changeable and inconstant.
What I say is, why should a brother's happiness be dearer to me than
a friend's? You know I carry my notions of friendship pretty high.
But, above all things, my dear Catherine, do not be in a hurry.
Take my word for it, that if you are in too great a hurry, you will
certainly live to repent it. Tilney says there is nothing people
are so often deceived in as the state of their own affections, and
I believe he is very right. Ah! Here he comes; never mind, he
will not see us, I am sure."

Catherine, looking up, perceived Captain Tilney; and Isabella,
earnestly fixing her eye on him as she spoke, soon caught his
notice. He approached immediately, and took the seat to which her
movements invited him. His first address made Catherine start.
Though spoken low, she could distinguish, "What! Always to be
watched, in person or by proxy!"

"Psha, nonsense!" was Isabella's answer in the same half whisper.
"Why do you put such things into my head? If I could believe it--my
spirit, you know, is pretty independent."

"I wish your heart were independent. That would be enough for me."

"My heart, indeed! What can you have to do with hearts? You men
have none of you any hearts."

"If we have not hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment
enough."

"Do they? I am sorry for it; I am sorry they find anything so
disagreeable in me. I will look another way. I hope this pleases
you" (turning her back on him); "I hope your eyes are not tormented
now."

"Never more so; for the edge of a blooming cheek is still in view--at
once too much and too little."

Catherine heard all this, and quite out of countenance, could listen
no longer. Amazed that Isabella could endure it, and jealous for
her brother, she rose up, and saying she should join Mrs. Allen,
proposed their walking. But for this Isabella showed no inclination.
She was so amazingly tired, and it was so odious to parade about
the pump-room; and if she moved from her seat she should miss
her sisters; she was expecting her sisters every moment; so that
her dearest Catherine must excuse her, and must sit quietly down
again. But Catherine could be stubborn too; and Mrs. Allen just
then coming up to propose their returning home, she joined her and
walked out of the pump-room, leaving Isabella still sitting with
Captain Tilney. With much uneasiness did she thus leave them. It
seemed to her that Captain Tilney was falling in love with Isabella,
and Isabella unconsciously encouraging him; unconsciously it must
be, for Isabella's attachment to James was as certain and well
acknowledged as her engagement. To doubt her truth or good intentions
was impossible; and yet, during the whole of their conversation
her manner had been odd. She wished Isabella had talked more like
her usual self, and not so much about money, and had not looked
so well pleased at the sight of Captain Tilney. How strange that
she should not perceive his admiration! Catherine longed to give
her a hint of it, to put her on her guard, and prevent all the pain
which her too lively behaviour might otherwise create both for him
and her brother.

The compliment of John Thorpe's affection did not make amends for
this thoughtlessness in his sister. She was almost as far from
believing as from wishing it to be sincere; for she had not forgotten
that he could mistake, and his assertion of the offer and of her
encouragement convinced her that his mistakes could sometimes be
very egregious. In vanity, therefore, she gained but little; her
chief profit was in wonder. That he should think it worth his
while to fancy himself in love with her was a matter of lively
astonishment. Isabella talked of his attentions; she had never
been sensible of any; but Isabella had said many things which she
hoped had been spoken in haste, and would never be said again;
and upon this she was glad to rest altogether for present ease and
comfort.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 19


A few days passed away, and Catherine, though not allowing herself
to suspect her friend, could not help watching her closely. The
result of her observations was not agreeable. Isabella seemed an
altered creature. When she saw her, indeed, surrounded only by
their immediate friends in Edgar's Buildings or Pulteney Street,
her change of manners was so trifling that, had it gone no farther,
it might have passed unnoticed. A something of languid indifference,
or of that boasted absence of mind which Catherine had never heard
of before, would occasionally come across her; but had nothing worse
appeared, that might only have spread a new grace and inspired a
warmer interest. But when Catherine saw her in public, admitting
Captain Tilney's attentions as readily as they were offered, and
allowing him almost an equal share with James in her notice and
smiles, the alteration became too positive to be passed over. What
could be meant by such unsteady conduct, what her friend could
be at, was beyond her comprehension. Isabella could not be aware
of the pain she was inflicting; but it was a degree of wilful
thoughtlessness which Catherine could not but resent. James was
the sufferer. She saw him grave and uneasy; and however careless
of his present comfort the woman might be who had given him her
heart, to her it was always an object. For poor Captain Tilney
too she was greatly concerned. Though his looks did not please
her, his name was a passport to her goodwill, and she thought with
sincere compassion of his approaching disappointment; for, in spite
of what she had believed herself to overhear in the pump-room,
his behaviour was so incompatible with a knowledge of Isabella's
engagement that she could not, upon reflection, imagine him aware
of it. He might be jealous of her brother as a rival, but if more
had seemed implied, the fault must have been in her misapprehension.
She wished, by a gentle remonstrance, to remind Isabella of her
situation, and make her aware of this double unkindness; but for
remonstrance, either opportunity or comprehension was always against
her. If able to suggest a hint, Isabella could never understand
it. In this distress, the intended departure of the Tilney family
became her chief consolation; their journey into Gloucestershire
was to take place within a few days, and Captain Tilney's removal
would at least restore peace to every heart but his own. But
Captain Tilney had at present no intention of removing; he was
not to be of the party to Northanger; he was to continue at Bath.
When Catherine knew this, her resolution was directly made. She
spoke to Henry Tilney on the subject, regretting his brother's
evident partiality for Miss Thorpe, and entreating him to make
known her prior engagement.

"My brother does know it," was Henry's answer.

"Does he? Then why does he stay here?"

He made no reply, and was beginning to talk of something else; but
she eagerly continued, "Why do not you persuade him to go away?
The longer he stays, the worse it will be for him at last. Pray
advise him for his own sake, and for everybody's sake, to leave
Bath directly. Absence will in time make him comfortable again;
but he can have no hope here, and it is only staying to be miserable."

Henry smiled and said, "I am sure my brother would not wish to do
that."

"Then you will persuade him to go away?"

"Persuasion is not at command; but pardon me, if I cannot even
endeavour to persuade him. I have myself told him that Miss Thorpe
is engaged. He knows what he is about, and must be his own master."

"No, he does not know what he is about," cried Catherine; "he does
not know the pain he is giving my brother. Not that James has ever
told me so, but I am sure he is very uncomfortable."

"And are you sure it is my brother's doing?"

"Yes, very sure."

"Is it my brother's attentions to Miss Thorpe, or Miss Thorpe's
admission of them, that gives the pain?"

"Is not it the same thing?"

"I think Mr. Morland would acknowledge a difference. No man is
offended by another man's admiration of the woman he loves; it is
the woman only who can make it a torment."

Catherine blushed for her friend, and said, "Isabella is wrong.
But I am sure she cannot mean to torment, for she is very much
attached to my brother. She has been in love with him ever since
they first met, and while my father's consent was uncertain, she
fretted herself almost into a fever. You know she must be attached
to him."

"I understand: she is in love with James, and flirts with Frederick."

"Oh! no, not flirts. A woman in love with one man cannot flirt
with another."

"It is probable that she will neither love so well, nor flirt so
well, as she might do either singly. The gentlemen must each give
up a little."

After a short pause, Catherine resumed with, "Then you do not
believe Isabella so very much attached to my brother?"

"I can have no opinion on that subject."

"But what can your brother mean? If he knows her engagement, what
can he mean by his behaviour?"

"You are a very close questioner."

"Am I? I only ask what I want to be told."

"But do you only ask what I can be expected to tell?"

"Yes, I think so; for you must know your brother's heart."

"My brother's heart, as you term it, on the present occasion, I
assure you I can only guess at."

"Well?"

"Well! Nay, if it is to be guesswork, let us all guess for ourselves.
To be guided by second-hand conjecture is pitiful. The premises
are before you. My brother is a lively and perhaps sometimes a
thoughtless young man; he has had about a week's acquaintance with
your friend, and he has known her engagement almost as long as he
has known her."

"Well," said Catherine, after some moments' consideration, "you
may be able to guess at your brother's intentions from all this;
but I am sure I cannot. But is not your father uncomfortable about
it? Does not he want Captain Tilney to go away? Sure, if your
father were to speak to him, he would go."

"My dear Miss Morland," said Henry, "in this amiable solicitude
for your brother's comfort, may you not be a little mistaken? Are
you not carried a little too far? Would he thank you, either on
his own account or Miss Thorpe's, for supposing that her affection,
or at least her good behaviour, is only to be secured by her seeing
nothing of Captain Tilney? Is he safe only in solitude? Or is
her heart constant to him only when unsolicited by anyone else?
He cannot think this--and you may be sure that he would not have
you think it. I will not say, 'Do not be uneasy,' because I know
that you are so, at this moment; but be as little uneasy as you
can. You have no doubt of the mutual attachment of your brother
and your friend; depend upon it, therefore, that real jealousy
never can exist between them; depend upon it that no disagreement
between them can be of any duration. Their hearts are open to each
other, as neither heart can be to you; they know exactly what is
required and what can be borne; and you may be certain that one
will never tease the other beyond what is known to be pleasant."

Perceiving her still to look doubtful and grave, he added, "Though
Frederick does not leave Bath with us, he will probably remain but
a very short time, perhaps only a few days behind us. His leave
of absence will soon expire, and he must return to his regiment.
And what will then be their acquaintance? The mess-room will
drink Isabella Thorpe for a fortnight, and she will laugh with your
brother over poor Tilney's passion for a month."

Catherine would contend no longer against comfort. She had resisted
its approaches during the whole length of a speech, but it now
carried her captive. Henry Tilney must know best. She blamed
herself for the extent of her fears, and resolved never to think
so seriously on the subject again.

Her resolution was supported by Isabella's behaviour in their parting
interview. The Thorpes spent the last evening of Catherine's stay
in Pulteney Street, and nothing passed between the lovers to excite
her uneasiness, or make her quit them in apprehension. James was
in excellent spirits, and Isabella most engagingly placid. Her
tenderness for her friend seemed rather the first feeling of her
heart; but that at such a moment was allowable; and once she gave
her lover a flat contradiction, and once she drew back her hand;
but Catherine remembered Henry's instructions, and placed it all
to judicious affection. The embraces, tears, and promises of the
parting fair ones may be fancied.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 20


Mr. and Mrs. Allen were sorry to lose their young friend, whose good
humour and cheerfulness had made her a valuable companion, and in
the promotion of whose enjoyment their own had been gently increased.
Her happiness in going with Miss Tilney, however, prevented their
wishing it otherwise; and, as they were to remain only one more
week in Bath themselves, her quitting them now would not long be
felt. Mr. Allen attended her to Milsom Street, where she was to
breakfast, and saw her seated with the kindest welcome among her
new friends; but so great was her agitation in finding herself as
one of the family, and so fearful was she of not doing exactly what
was right, and of not being able to preserve their good opinion,
that, in the embarrassment of the first five minutes, she could
almost have wished to return with him to Pulteney Street.

Miss Tilney's manners and Henry's smile soon did away some of her
unpleasant feelings; but still she was far from being at ease;
nor could the incessant attentions of the general himself entirely
reassure her. Nay, perverse as it seemed, she doubted whether
she might not have felt less, had she been less attended to. His
anxiety for her comfort--his continual solicitations that she
would eat, and his often-expressed fears of her seeing nothing to
her taste--though never in her life before had she beheld half
such variety on a breakfast-table--made it impossible for her
to forget for a moment that she was a visitor. She felt utterly
unworthy of such respect, and knew not how to reply to it. Her
tranquillity was not improved by the general's impatience for the
appearance of his eldest son, nor by the displeasure he expressed
at his laziness when Captain Tilney at last came down. She was
quite pained by the severity of his father's reproof, which seemed
disproportionate to the offence; and much was her concern increased
when she found herself the principal cause of the lecture, and
that his tardiness was chiefly resented from being disrespectful
to her. This was placing her in a very uncomfortable situation,
and she felt great compassion for Captain Tilney, without being
able to hope for his goodwill.

He listened to his father in silence, and attempted not any defence,
which confirmed her in fearing that the inquietude of his mind,
on Isabella's account, might, by keeping him long sleepless, have
been the real cause of his rising late. It was the first time of
her being decidedly in his company, and she had hoped to be now
able to form her opinion of him; but she scarcely heard his voice
while his father remained in the room; and even afterwards, so
much were his spirits affected, she could distinguish nothing but
these words, in a whisper to Eleanor, "How glad I shall be when
you are all off."

The bustle of going was not pleasant. The clock struck ten while
the trunks were carrying down, and the general had fixed to be out
of Milsom Street by that hour. His greatcoat, instead of being
brought for him to put on directly, was spread out in the curricle in
which he was to accompany his son. The middle seat of the chaise
was not drawn out, though there were three people to go in it,
and his daughter's maid had so crowded it with parcels that Miss
Morland would not have room to sit; and, so much was he influenced
by this apprehension when he handed her in, that she had some
difficulty in saving her own new writing-desk from being thrown
out into the street. At last, however, the door was closed upon
the three females, and they set off at the sober pace in which the
handsome, highly fed four horses of a gentleman usually perform a
journey of thirty miles: such was the distance of Northanger from
Bath, to be now divided into two equal stages. Catherine's spirits
revived as they drove from the door; for with Miss Tilney she felt
no restraint; and, with the interest of a road entirely new to her,
of an abbey before, and a curricle behind, she caught the last view
of Bath without any regret, and met with every milestone before
she expected it. The tediousness of a two hours' wait at Petty
France, in which there was nothing to be done but to eat without
being hungry, and loiter about without anything to see, next
followed--and her admiration of the style in which they travelled, of
the fashionable chaise and four--postilions handsomely liveried,
rising so regularly in their stirrups, and numerous outriders properly
mounted, sunk a little under this consequent inconvenience. Had
their party been perfectly agreeable, the delay would have been
nothing; but General Tilney, though so charming a man, seemed always
a check upon his children's spirits, and scarcely anything was said
but by himself; the observation of which, with his discontent at
whatever the inn afforded, and his angry impatience at the waiters,
made Catherine grow every moment more in awe of him, and appeared
to lengthen the two hours into four. At last, however, the order
of release was given; and much was Catherine then surprised by the
general's proposal of her taking his place in his son's curricle
for the rest of the journey: "the day was fine, and he was anxious
for her seeing as much of the country as possible."

The remembrance of Mr. Allen's opinion, respecting young men's
open carriages, made her blush at the mention of such a plan, and
her first thought was to decline it; but her second was of greater
deference for General Tilney's judgment; he could not propose
anything improper for her; and, in the course of a few minutes,
she found herself with Henry in the curricle, as happy a being as
ever existed. A very short trial convinced her that a curricle was
the prettiest equipage in the world; the chaise and four wheeled off
with some grandeur, to be sure, but it was a heavy and troublesome
business, and she could not easily forget its having stopped two
hours at Petty France. Half the time would have been enough for
the curricle, and so nimbly were the light horses disposed to move,
that, had not the general chosen to have his own carriage lead the
way, they could have passed it with ease in half a minute. But
the merit of the curricle did not all belong to the horses; Henry
drove so well--so quietly--without making any disturbance,
without parading to her, or swearing at them: so different from
the only gentleman-coachman whom it was in her power to compare
him with! And then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes
of his greatcoat looked so becomingly important! To be driven by
him, next to being dancing with him, was certainly the greatest
happiness in the world. In addition to every other delight, she
had now that of listening to her own praise; of being thanked at
least, on his sister's account, for her kindness in thus becoming
her visitor; of hearing it ranked as real friendship, and described
as creating real gratitude. His sister, he said, was uncomfortably
circumstanced--she had no female companion--and, in the frequent
absence of her father, was sometimes without any companion at all.

"But how can that be?" said Catherine. "Are not you with her?"

"Northanger is not more than half my home; I have an establishment
at my own house in Woodston, which is nearly twenty miles from my
father's, and some of my time is necessarily spent there."

"How sorry you must be for that!"

"I am always sorry to leave Eleanor."

"Yes; but besides your affection for her, you must be so fond of the
abbey! After being used to such a home as the abbey, an ordinary
parsonage-house must be very disagreeable."

He smiled, and said, "You have formed a very favourable idea of
the abbey."

"To be sure, I have. Is not it a fine old place, just like what
one reads about?"

"And are you prepared to encounter all the horrors that a building
such as 'what one reads about' may produce? Have you a stout heart?
Nerves fit for sliding panels and tapestry?"

"Oh! yes--I do not think I should be easily frightened, because
there would be so many people in the house--and besides, it has
never been uninhabited and left deserted for years, and then the
family come back to it unawares, without giving any notice, as
generally happens."

"No, certainly. We shall not have to explore our way into a hall
dimly lighted by the expiring embers of a wood fire--nor be obliged
to spread our beds on the floor of a room without windows, doors,
or furniture. But you must be aware that when a young lady is (by
whatever means) introduced into a dwelling of this kind, she is
always lodged apart from the rest of the family. While they snugly
repair to their own end of the house, she is formally conducted by
Dorothy, the ancient housekeeper, up a different staircase, and
along many gloomy passages, into an apartment never used since
some cousin or kin died in it about twenty years before. Can you
stand such a ceremony as this? Will not your mind misgive you when
you find yourself in this gloomy chamber--too lofty and extensive
for you, with only the feeble rays of a single lamp to take in its
size--its walls hung with tapestry exhibiting figures as large as
life, and the bed, of dark green stuff or purple velvet, presenting
even a funereal appearance? Will not your heart sink within you?"

"Oh! But this will not happen to me, I am sure."

"How fearfully will you examine the furniture of your apartment!
And what will you discern? Not tables, toilettes, wardrobes, or
drawers, but on one side perhaps the remains of a broken lute, on
the other a ponderous chest which no efforts can open, and over
the fireplace the portrait of some handsome warrior, whose features
will so incomprehensibly strike you, that you will not be able to
withdraw your eyes from it. Dorothy, meanwhile, no less struck by
your appearance, gazes on you in great agitation, and drops a few
unintelligible hints. To raise your spirits, moreover, she gives
you reason to suppose that the part of the abbey you inhabit is
undoubtedly haunted, and informs you that you will not have a single
domestic within call. With this parting cordial she curtsies off--you
listen to the sound of her receding footsteps as long as
the last echo can reach you--and when, with fainting spirits, you
attempt to fasten your door, you discover, with increased alarm,
that it has no lock."

"Oh! Mr. Tilney, how frightful! This is just like a book! But
it cannot really happen to me. I am sure your housekeeper is not
really Dorothy. Well, what then?"

"Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After
surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire
to rest, and get a few hours' unquiet slumber. But on the second,
or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably
have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake
the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring
mountains--and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you
will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished)
one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable
of course to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment for
indulging it, you will instantly arise, and throwing your dressing-gown
around you, proceed to examine this mystery. After a very short
search, you will discover a division in the tapestry so artfully
constructed as to defy the minutest inspection, and on opening it,
a door will immediately appear--which door, being only secured
by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts, succeed
in opening--and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through
it into a small vaulted room."

"No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing."

"What! Not when Dorothy has given you to understand that there is
a secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the
chapel of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off? Could you shrink
from so simple an adventure? No, no, you will proceed into this
small vaulted room, and through this into several others, without
perceiving anything very remarkable in either. In one perhaps
there may be a dagger, in another a few drops of blood, and in a
third the remains of some instrument of torture; but there being
nothing in all this out of the common way, and your lamp being
nearly exhausted, you will return towards your own apartment. In
repassing through the small vaulted room, however, your eyes will
be attracted towards a large, old-fashioned cabinet of ebony and
gold, which, though narrowly examining the furniture before, you
had passed unnoticed. Impelled by an irresistible presentiment, you
will eagerly advance to it, unlock its folding doors, and search
into every drawer--but for some time without discovering anything
of importance--perhaps nothing but a considerable hoard of
diamonds. At last, however, by touching a secret spring, an inner
compartment will open--a roll of paper appears--you seize it--it
contains many sheets of manuscript--you hasten with the
precious treasure into your own chamber, but scarcely have you
been able to decipher 'Oh! Thou--whomsoever thou mayst be, into
whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may fall'--when
your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in total
darkness."

"Oh! No, no--do not say so. Well, go on."

But Henry was too much amused by the interest he had raised to
be able to carry it farther; he could no longer command solemnity
either of subject or voice, and was obliged to entreat her to
use her own fancy in the perusal of Matilda's woes. Catherine,
recollecting herself, grew ashamed of her eagerness, and began
earnestly to assure him that her attention had been fixed without
the smallest apprehension of really meeting with what he related.
"Miss Tilney, she was sure, would never put her into such a chamber
as he had described! She was not at all afraid."

As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for a
sight of the abbey--for some time suspended by his conversation
on subjects very different--returned in full force, and every
bend in the road was expected with solemn awe to afford a glimpse
of its massy walls of grey stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient
oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour
on its high Gothic windows. But so low did the building stand,
that she found herself passing through the great gates of the lodge
into the very grounds of Northanger, without having discerned even
an antique chimney.

She knew not that she had any right to be surprised, but there
was a something in this mode of approach which she certainly had
not expected. To pass between lodges of a modern appearance, to
find herself with such ease in the very precincts of the abbey,
and driven so rapidly along a smooth, level road of fine gravel,
without obstacle, alarm, or solemnity of any kind, struck her as
odd and inconsistent. She was not long at leisure, however, for
such considerations. A sudden scud of rain, driving full in her
face, made it impossible for her to observe anything further, and
fixed all her thoughts on the welfare of her new straw bonnet; and
she was actually under the abbey walls, was springing, with Henry's
assistance, from the carriage, was beneath the shelter of the old
porch, and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and
the general were waiting to welcome her, without feeling one awful
foreboding of future misery to herself, or one moment's suspicion
of any past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice.
The breeze had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her;
it had wafted nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain; and having
given a good shake to her habit, she was ready to be shown into
the common drawing-room, and capable of considering where she was.

An abbey! Yes, it was delightful to be really in an abbey! But
she doubted, as she looked round the room, whether anything within
her observation would have given her the consciousness. The
furniture was in all the profusion and elegance of modern taste.
The fireplace, where she had expected the ample width and ponderous
carving of former times, was contracted to a Rumford, with slabs
of plain though handsome marble, and ornaments over it of the
prettiest English china. The windows, to which she looked with
peculiar dependence, from having heard the general talk of his
preserving them in their Gothic form with reverential care, were
yet less what her fancy had portrayed. To be sure, the pointed
arch was preserved--the form of them was Gothic--they might be
even casements--but every pane was so large, so clear, so light!
To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest divisions, and
the heaviest stone-work, for painted glass, dirt, and cobwebs, the
difference was very distressing.

The general, perceiving how her eye was employed, began to talk of
the smallness of the room and simplicity of the furniture, where
everything, being for daily use, pretended only to comfort, etc.;
flattering himself, however, that there were some apartments in
the Abbey not unworthy her notice--and was proceeding to mention
the costly gilding of one in particular, when, taking out his
watch, he stopped short to pronounce it with surprise within twenty
minutes of five! This seemed the word of separation, and Catherine
found herself hurried away by Miss Tilney in such a manner as
convinced her that the strictest punctuality to the family hours
would be expected at Northanger.

Returning through the large and lofty hall, they ascended a broad
staircase of shining oak, which, after many flights and many
landing-places, brought them upon a long, wide gallery. On one side
it had a range of doors, and it was lighted on the other by windows
which Catherine had only time to discover looked into a quadrangle,
before Miss Tilney led the way into a chamber, and scarcely staying
to hope she would find it comfortable, left her with an anxious
entreaty that she would make as little alteration as possible in
her dress.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 21


A moment's glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that her apartment
was very unlike the one which Henry had endeavoured to alarm her
by the description of. It was by no means unreasonably large, and
contained neither tapestry nor velvet. The walls were papered, the
floor was carpeted; the windows were neither less perfect nor more
dim than those of the drawing-room below; the furniture, though not
of the latest fashion, was handsome and comfortable, and the air of
the room altogether far from uncheerful. Her heart instantaneously
at ease on this point, she resolved to lose no time in particular
examination of anything, as she greatly dreaded disobliging the
general by any delay. Her habit therefore was thrown off with all
possible haste, and she was preparing to unpin the linen package,
which the chaise-seat had conveyed for her immediate accommodation,
when her eye suddenly fell on a large high chest, standing back in
a deep recess on one side of the fireplace. The sight of it made
her start; and, forgetting everything else, she stood gazing on it
in motionless wonder, while these thoughts crossed her:

"This is strange indeed! I did not expect such a sight as this!
An immense heavy chest! What can it hold? Why should it be placed
here? Pushed back too, as if meant to be out of sight! I will
look into it--cost me what it may, I will look into it--and
directly too--by daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may
go out." She advanced and examined it closely: it was of cedar,
curiously inlaid with some darker wood, and raised, about a foot
from the ground, on a carved stand of the same. The lock was
silver, though tarnished from age; at each end were the imperfect
remains of handles also of silver, broken perhaps prematurely by some
strange violence; and, on the centre of the lid, was a mysterious
cipher, in the same metal. Catherine bent over it intently, but
without being able to distinguish anything with certainty. She
could not, in whatever direction she took it, believe the last
letter to be a T; and yet that it should be anything else in that
house was a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment.
If not originally theirs, by what strange events could it have
fallen into the Tilney family?

Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater; and
seizing, with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she resolved
at all hazards to satisfy herself at least as to its contents.
With difficulty, for something seemed to resist her efforts, she
raised the lid a few inches; but at that moment a sudden knocking
at the door of the room made her, starting, quit her hold, and the
lid closed with alarming violence. This ill-timed intruder was Miss
Tilney's maid, sent by her mistress to be of use to Miss Morland;
and though Catherine immediately dismissed her, it recalled her to
the sense of what she ought to be doing, and forced her, in spite
of her anxious desire to penetrate this mystery, to proceed in her
dressing without further delay. Her progress was not quick, for
her thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object so well
calculated to interest and alarm; and though she dared not waste a
moment upon a second attempt, she could not remain many paces from
the chest. At length, however, having slipped one arm into her
gown, her toilette seemed so nearly finished that the impatience
of her curiosity might safely be indulged. One moment surely might
be spared; and, so desperate should be the exertion of her strength,
that, unless secured by supernatural means, the lid in one moment
should be thrown back. With this spirit she sprang forward, and
her confidence did not deceive her. Her resolute effort threw
back the lid, and gave to her astonished eyes the view of a white
cotton counterpane, properly folded, reposing at one end of the
chest in undisputed possession!

She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise when Miss
Tilney, anxious for her friend's being ready, entered the room, and
to the rising shame of having harboured for some minutes an absurd
expectation, was then added the shame of being caught in so idle
a search. "That is a curious old chest, is not it?" said Miss
Tilney, as Catherine hastily closed it and turned away to the
glass. "It is impossible to say how many generations it has been
here. How it came to be first put in this room I know not, but
I have not had it moved, because I thought it might sometimes be
of use in holding hats and bonnets. The worst of it is that its
weight makes it difficult to open. In that corner, however, it is
at least out of the way."

Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing,
tying her gown, and forming wise resolutions with the most violent
dispatch. Miss Tilney gently hinted her fear of being late; and in
half a minute they ran downstairs together, in an alarm not wholly
unfounded, for General Tilney was pacing the drawing-room, his watch
in his hand, and having, on the very instant of their entering, pulled
the bell with violence, ordered "Dinner to be on table directly!"

Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale
and breathless, in a most humble mood, concerned for his children,
and detesting old chests; and the general, recovering his politeness
as he looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter
for so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out
of breath from haste, when there was not the least occasion for
hurry in the world: but Catherine could not at all get over the
double distress of having involved her friend in a lecture and
been a great simpleton herself, till they were happily seated at
the dinner-table, when the general's complacent smiles, and a good
appetite of her own, restored her to peace. The dining-parlour
was a noble room, suitable in its dimensions to a much larger
drawing-room than the one in common use, and fitted up in a style
of luxury and expense which was almost lost on the unpractised eye
of Catherine, who saw little more than its spaciousness and the
number of their attendants. Of the former, she spoke aloud her
admiration; and the general, with a very gracious countenance,
acknowledged that it was by no means an ill-sized room, and
further confessed that, though as careless on such subjects as most
people, he did look upon a tolerably large eating-room as one of
the necessaries of life; he supposed, however, "that she must have
been used to much better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen's?"

"No, indeed," was Catherine's honest assurance; "Mr. Allen's
dining-parlour was not more than half as large," and she had never
seen so large a room as this in her life. The general's good
humour increased. Why, as he had such rooms, he thought it would
be simple not to make use of them; but, upon his honour, he believed
there might be more comfort in rooms of only half their size. Mr.
Allen's house, he was sure, must be exactly of the true size for
rational happiness.

The evening passed without any further disturbance, and,
in the occasional absence of General Tilney, with much positive
cheerfulness. It was only in his presence that Catherine felt the
smallest fatigue from her journey; and even then, even in moments
of languor or restraint, a sense of general happiness preponderated,
and she could think of her friends in Bath without one wish of
being with them.

The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the
whole afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew and
rained violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened
to the tempest with sensations of awe; and, when she heard it rage
round a corner of the ancient building and close with sudden fury
a distant door, felt for the first time that she was really in an
abbey. Yes, these were characteristic sounds; they brought to her
recollection a countless variety of dreadful situations and horrid
scenes, which such buildings had witnessed, and such storms ushered
in; and most heartily did she rejoice in the happier circumstances
attending her entrance within walls so solemn! She had nothing
to dread from midnight assassins or drunken gallants. Henry had
certainly been only in jest in what he had told her that morning.
In a house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have nothing to
explore or to suffer, and might go to her bedroom as securely as if
it had been her own chamber at Fullerton. Thus wisely fortifying
her mind, as she proceeded upstairs, she was enabled, especially
on perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her, to
enter her room with a tolerably stout heart; and her spirits were
immediately assisted by the cheerful blaze of a wood fire. "How
much better is this," said she, as she walked to the fender--"how
much better to find a fire ready lit, than to have to wait
shivering in the cold till all the family are in bed, as so many
poor girls have been obliged to do, and then to have a faithful
old servant frightening one by coming in with a faggot! How glad
I am that Northanger is what it is! If it had been like some other
places, I do not know that, in such a night as this, I could have
answered for my courage: but now, to be sure, there is nothing to
alarm one."

She looked round the room. The window curtains seemed in motion.
It could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through
the divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward,
carelessly humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so, peeped
courageously behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window
seat to scare her, and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt
the strongest conviction of the wind's force. A glance at the old
chest, as she turned away from this examination, was not without
its use; she scorned the causeless fears of an idle fancy, and
began with a most happy indifference to prepare herself for bed.
"She should take her time; she should not hurry herself; she did
not care if she were the last person up in the house. But she would
not make up her fire; that would seem cowardly, as if she wished
for the protection of light after she were in bed." The fire
therefore died away, and Catherine, having spent the best part of
an hour in her arrangements, was beginning to think of stepping
into bed, when, on giving a parting glance round the room, she was
struck by the appearance of a high, old-fashioned black cabinet,
which, though in a situation conspicuous enough, had never caught
her notice before. Henry's words, his description of the ebony
cabinet which was to escape her observation at first, immediately
rushed across her; and though there could be nothing really in it,
there was something whimsical, it was certainly a very remarkable
coincidence! She took her candle and looked closely at the cabinet.
It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but it was japan, black and
yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she held her candle,
the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key was in the
door, and she had a strange fancy to look into it; not, however,
with the smallest expectation of finding anything, but it was
so very odd, after what Henry had said. In short, she could not
sleep till she had examined it. So, placing the candle with great
caution on a chair, she seized the key with a very tremulous hand
and tried to turn it; but it resisted her utmost strength. Alarmed,
but not discouraged, she tried it another way; a bolt flew, and she
believed herself successful; but how strangely mysterious! The
door was still immovable. She paused a moment in breathless wonder.
The wind roared down the chimney, the rain beat in torrents against
the windows, and everything seemed to speak the awfulness of her
situation. To retire to bed, however, unsatisfied on such a point,
would be vain, since sleep must be impossible with the consciousness
of a cabinet so mysteriously closed in her immediate vicinity.
Again, therefore, she applied herself to the key, and after moving
it in every possible way for some instants with the determined
celerity of hope's last effort, the door suddenly yielded to her
hand: her heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and
having thrown open each folding door, the second being secured only
by bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock, though in
that her eye could not discern anything unusual, a double range
of small drawers appeared in view, with some larger drawers above
and below them; and in the centre, a small door, closed also with
a lock and key, secured in all probability a cavity of importance.

Catherine's heart beat quick, but her courage did not fail her.
With a cheek flushed by hope, and an eye straining with curiosity,
her fingers grasped the handle of a drawer and drew it forth. It
was entirely empty. With less alarm and greater eagerness she
seized a second, a third, a fourth; each was equally empty. Not
one was left unsearched, and in not one was anything found. Well
read in the art of concealing a treasure, the possibility of false
linings to the drawers did not escape her, and she felt round each
with anxious acuteness in vain. The place in the middle alone
remained now unexplored; and though she had "never from the first had
the smallest idea of finding anything in any part of the cabinet,
and was not in the least disappointed at her ill success thus far,
it would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly while she was about
it." It was some time however before she could unfasten the door,
the same difficulty occurring in the management of this inner
lock as of the outer; but at length it did open; and not vain, as
hitherto, was her search; her quick eyes directly fell on a roll of
paper pushed back into the further part of the cavity, apparently
for concealment, and her feelings at that moment were indescribable.
Her heart fluttered, her knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale.
She seized, with an unsteady hand, the precious manuscript, for
half a glance sufficed to ascertain written characters; and while
she acknowledged with awful sensations this striking exemplification
of what Henry had foretold, resolved instantly to peruse every line
before she attempted to rest.

The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it
with alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction; it
had yet some hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater
difficulty in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient
date might occasion, she hastily snuffed it. Alas! It was snuffed
and extinguished in one. A lamp could not have expired with more
awful effect. Catherine, for a few moments, was motionless with
horror. It was done completely; not a remnant of light in the wick
could give hope to the rekindling breath. Darkness impenetrable
and immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with
sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment. Catherine trembled
from head to foot. In the pause which succeeded, a sound like
receding footsteps and the closing of a distant door struck on her
affrighted ear. Human nature could support no more. A cold sweat
stood on her forehead, the manuscript fell from her hand, and
groping her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in, and sought some
suspension of agony by creeping far underneath the clothes. To
close her eyes in sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out
of the question. With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings
in every way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossible.
The storm too abroad so dreadful! She had not been used to feel
alarm from wind, but now every blast seemed fraught with awful
intelligence. The manuscript so wonderfully found, so wonderfully
accomplishing the morning's prediction, how was it to be accounted
for? What could it contain? To whom could it relate? By what
means could it have been so long concealed? And how singularly
strange that it should fall to her lot to discover it! Till she
had made herself mistress of its contents, however, she could have
neither repose nor comfort; and with the sun's first rays she was
determined to peruse it. But many were the tedious hours which
must yet intervene. She shuddered, tossed about in her bed, and
envied every quiet sleeper. The storm still raged, and various
were the noises, more terrific even than the wind, which struck
at intervals on her startled ear. The very curtains of her bed
seemed at one moment in motion, and at another the lock of her door
was agitated, as if by the attempt of somebody to enter. Hollow
murmurs seemed to creep along the gallery, and more than once her
blood was chilled by the sound of distant moans. Hour after hour
passed away, and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed
by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided or she
unknowingly fell fast asleep.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 22


The housemaid's folding back her window-shutters at eight o'clock
the next day was the sound which first roused Catherine; and she
opened her eyes, wondering that they could ever have been closed,
on objects of cheerfulness; her fire was already burning, and a bright
morning had succeeded the tempest of the night. Instantaneously,
with the consciousness of existence, returned her recollection of
the manuscript; and springing from the bed in the very moment of
the maid's going away, she eagerly collected every scattered sheet
which had burst from the roll on its falling to the ground, and
flew back to enjoy the luxury of their perusal on her pillow. She
now plainly saw that she must not expect a manuscript of equal
length with the generality of what she had shuddered over in books,
for the roll, seeming to consist entirely of small disjointed
sheets, was altogether but of trifling size, and much less than
she had supposed it to be at first.

Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started at its
import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false?
An inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all
that was before her! If the evidence of sight might be trusted,
she held a washing-bill in her hand. She seized another sheet,
and saw the same articles with little variation; a third, a fourth,
and a fifth presented nothing new. Shirts, stockings, cravats,
and waistcoats faced her in each. Two others, penned by the same
hand, marked an expenditure scarcely more interesting, in letters,
hair-powder, shoe-string, and breeches-ball. And the larger sheet,
which had enclosed the rest, seemed by its first cramp line,
"To poultice chestnut mare"--a farrier's bill! Such was the
collection of papers (left perhaps, as she could then suppose, by
the negligence of a servant in the place whence she had taken them)
which had filled her with expectation and alarm, and robbed her of
half her night's rest! She felt humbled to the dust. Could not
the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner of it,
catching her eye as she lay, seemed to rise up in judgment against
her. Nothing could now be clearer than the absurdity of her recent
fancies. To suppose that a manuscript of many generations back
could have remained undiscovered in a room such as that, so modern,
so habitable!--Or that she should be the first to possess the
skill of unlocking a cabinet, the key of which was open to all!

How could she have so imposed on herself? Heaven forbid that Henry
Tilney should ever know her folly! And it was in a great measure
his own doing, for had not the cabinet appeared so exactly to agree
with his description of her adventures, she should never have felt
the smallest curiosity about it. This was the only comfort that
occurred. Impatient to get rid of those hateful evidences of her
folly, those detestable papers then scattered over the bed, she
rose directly, and folding them up as nearly as possible in the
same shape as before, returned them to the same spot within the
cabinet, with a very hearty wish that no untoward accident might
ever bring them forward again, to disgrace her even with herself.

Why the locks should have been so difficult to open, however, was
still something remarkable, for she could now manage them with
perfect ease. In this there was surely something mysterious, and
she indulged in the flattering suggestion for half a minute, till
the possibility of the door's having been at first unlocked, and
of being herself its fastener, darted into her head, and cost her
another blush.

She got away as soon as she could from a room in which her conduct
produced such unpleasant reflections, and found her way with all
speed to the breakfast-parlour, as it had been pointed out to her
by Miss Tilney the evening before. Henry was alone in it; and his
immediate hope of her having been undisturbed by the tempest, with
an arch reference to the character of the building they inhabited,
was rather distressing. For the world would she not have her
weakness suspected, and yet, unequal to an absolute falsehood,
was constrained to acknowledge that the wind had kept her awake
a little. "But we have a charming morning after it," she added,
desiring to get rid of the subject; "and storms and sleeplessness
are nothing when they are over. What beautiful hyacinths! I have
just learnt to love a hyacinth."

"And how might you learn? By accident or argument?"

"Your sister taught me; I cannot tell how. Mrs. Allen used to take
pains, year after year, to make me like them; but I never could,
till I saw them the other day in Milsom Street; I am naturally
indifferent about flowers."

"But now you love a hyacinth. So much the better. You have gained
a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds
upon happiness as possible. Besides, a taste for flowers is always
desirable in your sex, as a means of getting you out of doors, and
tempting you to more frequent exercise than you would otherwise
take. And though the love of a hyacinth may be rather domestic,
who can tell, the sentiment once raised, but you may in time come
to love a rose?"

"But I do not want any such pursuit to get me out of doors. The
pleasure of walking and breathing fresh air is enough for me, and
in fine weather I am out more than half my time. Mamma says I am
never within."

"At any rate, however, I am pleased that you have learnt to love
a hyacinth. The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and
a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing.
Has my sister a pleasant mode of instruction?"

Catherine was saved the embarrassment of attempting an answer by
the entrance of the general, whose smiling compliments announced
a happy state of mind, but whose gentle hint of sympathetic early
rising did not advance her composure.

The elegance of the breakfast set forced itself on Catherine's
notice when they were seated at table; and, lucidly, it had been
the general's choice. He was enchanted by her approbation of his
taste, confessed it to be neat and simple, thought it right to
encourage the manufacture of his country; and for his part, to his
uncritical palate, the tea was as well flavoured from the clay of
Staffordshire, as from that of Dresden or Save. But this was quite
an old set, purchased two years ago. The manufacture was much
improved since that time; he had seen some beautiful specimens when
last in town, and had he not been perfectly without vanity of that
kind, might have been tempted to order a new set. He trusted,
however, that an opportunity might ere long occur of selecting
one--though not for himself. Catherine was probably the only one of
the party who did not understand him.

Shortly after breakfast Henry left them for Woodston, where business
required and would keep him two or three days. They all attended
in the hall to see him mount his horse, and immediately on re-entering
the breakfast-room, Catherine walked to a window in the hope of
catching another glimpse of his figure. "This is a somewhat heavy
call upon your brother's fortitude," observed the general to Eleanor.
"Woodston will make but a sombre appearance today."

"Is it a pretty place?" asked Catherine.

"What say you, Eleanor? Speak your opinion, for ladies can best
tell the taste of ladies in regard to places as well as men. I
think it would be acknowledged by the most impartial eye to have
many recommendations. The house stands among fine meadows facing
the south-east, with an excellent kitchen-garden in the same aspect;
the walls surrounding which I built and stocked myself about ten
years ago, for the benefit of my son. It is a family living, Miss
Morland; and the property in the place being chiefly my own, you
may believe I take care that it shall not be a bad one. Did Henry's
income depend solely on this living, he would not be ill-provided
for. Perhaps it may seem odd, that with only two younger children,
I should think any profession necessary for him; and certainly
there are moments when we could all wish him disengaged from every
tie of business. But though I may not exactly make converts of you
young ladies, I am sure your father, Miss Morland, would agree with
me in thinking it expedient to give every young man some employment.
The money is nothing, it is not an object, but employment is the
thing. Even Frederick, my eldest son, you see, who will perhaps
inherit as considerable a landed property as any private man in
the county, has his profession."

The imposing effect of this last argument was equal to his wishes.
The silence of the lady proved it to be unanswerable.

Something had been said the evening before of her being shown over
the house, and he now offered himself as her conductor; and though
Catherine had hoped to explore it accompanied only by his daughter,
it was a proposal of too much happiness in itself, under any
circumstances, not to be gladly accepted; for she had been already
eighteen hours in the abbey, and had seen only a few of its rooms.
The netting-box, just leisurely drawn forth, was closed with joyful
haste, and she was ready to attend him in a moment. "And when they
had gone over the house, he promised himself moreover the pleasure
of accompanying her into the shrubberies and garden." She curtsied
her acquiescence. "But perhaps it might be more agreeable to
her to make those her first object. The weather was at present
favourable, and at this time of year the uncertainty was very great
of its continuing so. Which would she prefer? He was equally at
her service. Which did his daughter think would most accord with
her fair friend's wishes? But he thought he could discern. Yes,
he certainly read in Miss Morland's eyes a judicious desire of making
use of the present smiling weather. But when did she judge amiss?
The abbey would be always safe and dry. He yielded implicitly,
and would fetch his hat and attend them in a moment." He left the
room, and Catherine, with a disappointed, anxious face, began to
speak of her unwillingness that he should be taking them out of
doors against his own inclination, under a mistaken idea of pleasing
her; but she was stopped by Miss Tilney's saying, with a little
confusion, "I believe it will be wisest to take the morning while
it is so fine; and do not be uneasy on my father's account; he
always walks out at this time of day."

Catherine did not exactly know how this was to be understood. Why
was Miss Tilney embarrassed? Could there be any unwillingness on
the general's side to show her over the abbey? The proposal was
his own. And was not it odd that he should always take his walk so
early? Neither her father nor Mr. Allen did so. It was certainly
very provoking. She was all impatience to see the house, and had
scarcely any curiosity about the grounds. If Henry had been with
them indeed! But now she should not know what was picturesque when
she saw it. Such were her thoughts, but she kept them to herself,
and put on her bonnet in patient discontent.

She was struck, however, beyond her expectation, by the grandeur
of the abbey, as she saw it for the first time from the lawn.
The whole building enclosed a large court; and two sides of the
quadrangle, rich in Gothic ornaments, stood forward for admiration.
The remainder was shut off by knolls of old trees, or luxuriant
plantations, and the steep woody hills rising behind, to give
it shelter, were beautiful even in the leafless month of March.
Catherine had seen nothing to compare with it; and her feelings
of delight were so strong, that without waiting for any better
authority, she boldly burst forth in wonder and praise. The
general listened with assenting gratitude; and it seemed as if his
own estimation of Northanger had waited unfixed till that hour.

The kitchen-garden was to be next admired, and he led the way to
it across a small portion of the park.

The number of acres contained in this garden was such as Catherine
could not listen to without dismay, being more than double the extent
of all Mr. Allen's, as well her father's, including church-yard and
orchard. The walls seemed countless in number, endless in length;
a village of hot-houses seemed to arise among them, and a whole
parish to be at work within the enclosure. The general was flattered
by her looks of surprise, which told him almost as plainly, as he
soon forced her to tell him in words, that she had never seen any
gardens at all equal to them before; and he then modestly owned
that, "without any ambition of that sort himself--without any
solicitude about it--he did believe them to be unrivalled in the
kingdom. If he had a hobby-horse, it was that. He loved a garden.
Though careless enough in most matters of eating, he loved good
fruit--or if he did not, his friends and children did. There
were great vexations, however, attending such a garden as his.
The utmost care could not always secure the most valuable fruits.
The pinery had yielded only one hundred in the last year. Mr. Allen,
he supposed, must feel these inconveniences as well as himself."

"No, not at all. Mr. Allen did not care about the garden, and
never went into it."

With a triumphant smile of self-satisfaction, the general wished
he could do the same, for he never entered his, without being vexed
in some way or other, by its falling short of his plan.

"How were Mr. Allen's succession-houses worked?" describing the
nature of his own as they entered them.

"Mr. Allen had only one small hot-house, which Mrs. Allen had the
use of for her plants in winter, and there was a fire in it now
and then."

"He is a happy man!" said the general, with a look of very happy
contempt.

Having taken her into every division, and led her under every wall,
till she was heartily weary of seeing and wondering, he suffered
the girls at last to seize the advantage of an outer door, and then
expressing his wish to examine the effect of some recent alterations
about the tea-house, proposed it as no unpleasant extension of their
walk, if Miss Morland were not tired. "But where are you going,
Eleanor? Why do you choose that cold, damp path to it? Miss
Morland will get wet. Our best way is across the park."

"This is so favourite a walk of mine," said Miss Tilney, "that I
always think it the best and nearest way. But perhaps it may be
damp."

It was a narrow winding path through a thick grove of old Scotch
firs; and Catherine, struck by its gloomy aspect, and eager to enter
it, could not, even by the general's disapprobation, be kept from
stepping forward. He perceived her inclination, and having again
urged the plea of health in vain, was too polite to make further
opposition. He excused himself, however, from attending them:
"The rays of the sun were not too cheerful for him, and he would
meet them by another course." He turned away; and Catherine was
shocked to find how much her spirits were relieved by the separation.
The shock, however, being less real than the relief, offered it no
injury; and she began to talk with easy gaiety of the delightful
melancholy which such a grove inspired.

"I am particularly fond of this spot," said her companion, with a
sigh. "It was my mother's favourite walk."

Catherine had never heard Mrs. Tilney mentioned in the family before,
and the interest excited by this tender remembrance showed itself
directly in her altered countenance, and in the attentive pause
with which she waited for something more.

"I used to walk here so often with her!" added Eleanor; "though I
never loved it then, as I have loved it since. At that time indeed
I used to wonder at her choice. But her memory endears it now."

"And ought it not," reflected Catherine, "to endear it to her husband?
Yet the general would not enter it." Miss Tilney continuing silent,
she ventured to say, "Her death must have been a great affliction!"

"A great and increasing one," replied the other, in a low voice.
"I was only thirteen when it happened; and though I felt my loss
perhaps as strongly as one so young could feel it, I did not, I
could not, then know what a loss it was." She stopped for a moment,
and then added, with great firmness, "I have no sister, you know--and
though Henry--though my brothers are very affectionate,
and Henry is a great deal here, which I am most thankful for, it
is impossible for me not to be often solitary."

"To be sure you must miss him very much."

"A mother would have been always present. A mother would have been
a constant friend; her influence would have been beyond all other."

"Was she a very charming woman? Was she handsome? Was there any
picture of her in the abbey? And why had she been so partial to
that grove? Was it from dejection of spirits?"--were questions
now eagerly poured forth; the first three received a ready affirmative,
the two others were passed by; and Catherine's interest in the
deceased Mrs. Tilney augmented with every question, whether answered
or not. Of her unhappiness in marriage, she felt persuaded. The
general certainly had been an unkind husband. He did not love her
walk: could he therefore have loved her? And besides, handsome
as he was, there was a something in the turn of his features which
spoke his not having behaved well to her.

"Her picture, I suppose," blushing at the consummate art of her
own question, "hangs in your father's room?"

"No; it was intended for the drawing-room; but my father was dissatisfied
with the painting, and for some time it had no place. Soon after
her death I obtained it for my own, and hung it in my bed-chamber--where
I shall be happy to show it you; it is very like." Here
was another proof. A portrait--very like--of a departed wife,
not valued by the husband! He must have been dreadfully cruel to
her!

Catherine attempted no longer to hide from herself the nature of the
feelings which, in spite of all his attentions, he had previously
excited; and what had been terror and dislike before, was now
absolute aversion. Yes, aversion! His cruelty to such a charming
woman made him odious to her. She had often read of such characters,
characters which Mr. Allen had been used to call unnatural and
overdrawn; but here was proof positive of the contrary.

She had just settled this point when the end of the path brought
them directly upon the general; and in spite of all her virtuous
indignation, she found herself again obliged to walk with him,
listen to him, and even to smile when he smiled. Being no longer
able, however, to receive pleasure from the surrounding objects,
she soon began to walk with lassitude; the general perceived it,
and with a concern for her health, which seemed to reproach her
for her opinion of him, was most urgent for returning with his
daughter to the house. He would follow them in a quarter of an
hour. Again they parted--but Eleanor was called back in half a
minute to receive a strict charge against taking her friend round
the abbey till his return. This second instance of his anxiety to
delay what she so much wished for struck Catherine as very remarkable.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 23


An hour passed away before the general came in, spent, on the part
of his young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his
character. "This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did
not speak a mind at ease, or a conscience void of reproach." At
length he appeared; and, whatever might have been the gloom
of his meditations, he could still smile with them. Miss Tilney,
understanding in part her friend's curiosity to see the house, soon
revived the subject; and her father being, contrary to Catherine's
expectations, unprovided with any pretence for further delay, beyond
that of stopping five minutes to order refreshments to be in the
room by their return, was at last ready to escort them.

They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air, a dignified step,
which caught the eye, but could not shake the doubts of the well-read
Catherine, he led the way across the hall, through the common
drawing-room and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent
both in size and furniture--the real drawing-room, used only with
company of consequence. It was very noble--very grand--very
charming!--was all that Catherine had to say, for her indiscriminating
eye scarcely discerned the colour of the satin; and all minuteness
of praise, all praise that had much meaning, was supplied by the
general: the costliness or elegance of any room's fitting-up could
be nothing to her; she cared for no furniture of a more modern
date than the fifteenth century. When the general had satisfied
his own curiosity, in a close examination of every well-known
ornament, they proceeded into the library, an apartment, in its
way, of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books, on
which an humble man might have looked with pride. Catherine heard,
admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than before--gathered
all that she could from this storehouse of knowledge, by
running over the titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed.
But suites of apartments did not spring up with her wishes. Large
as was the building, she had already visited the greatest part;
though, on being told that, with the addition of the kitchen, the
six or seven rooms she had now seen surrounded three sides of the
court, she could scarcely believe it, or overcome the suspicion of
there being many chambers secreted. It was some relief, however,
that they were to return to the rooms in common use, by passing
through a few of less importance, looking into the court, which,
with occasional passages, not wholly unintricate, connected the
different sides; and she was further soothed in her progress by
being told that she was treading what had once been a cloister,
having traces of cells pointed out, and observing several doors
that were neither opened nor explained to her--by finding herself
successively in a billiard-room, and in the general's private
apartment, without comprehending their connection, or being able
to turn aright when she left them; and lastly, by passing through
a dark little room, owning Henry's authority, and strewed with his
litter of books, guns, and greatcoats.

From the dining-room, of which, though already seen, and always to
be seen at five o'clock, the general could not forgo the pleasure
of pacing out the length, for the more certain information of
Miss Morland, as to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they
proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen--the ancient
kitchen of the convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former
days, and in the stoves and hot closets of the present. The general's
improving hand had not loitered here: every modern invention to
facilitate the labour of the cooks had been adopted within this,
their spacious theatre; and, when the genius of others had failed,
his own had often produced the perfection wanted. His endowments
of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high among
the benefactors of the convent.

With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey;
the fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying
state, been removed by the general's father, and the present erected in
its place. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building
was not only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only
for offices, and enclosed behind by stable-yards, no uniformity
of architecture had been thought necessary. Catherine could have
raved at the hand which had swept away what must have been beyond
the value of all the rest, for the purposes of mere domestic economy;
and would willingly have been spared the mortification of a walk
through scenes so fallen, had the general allowed it; but if he
had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of his offices; and as he
was convinced that, to a mind like Miss Morland's, a view of the
accommodations and comforts, by which the labours of her inferiors
were softened, must always be gratifying, he should make no apology
for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all; and Catherine
was impressed, beyond her expectation, by their multiplicity and
their convenience. The purposes for which a few shapeless pantries
and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton,
were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy.
The number of servants continually appearing did not strike her
less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some
pattened girl stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille
sneaked off. Yet this was an abbey! How inexpressibly different
in these domestic arrangements from such as she had read about--from
abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger than
Northanger, all the dirty work of the house was to be done by two
pair of female hands at the utmost. How they could get through it
all had often amazed Mrs. Allen; and, when Catherine saw what was
necessary here, she began to be amazed herself.

They returned to the hall, that the chief staircase might be
ascended, and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments of rich carving
might be pointed out: having gained the top, they turned in an
opposite direction from the gallery in which her room lay, and shortly
entered one on the same plan, but superior in length and breadth.
She was here shown successively into three large bed-chambers,
with their dressing-rooms, most completely and handsomely fitted
up; everything that money and taste could do, to give comfort and
elegance to apartments, had been bestowed on these; and, being
furnished within the last five years, they were perfect in all that
would be generally pleasing, and wanting in all that could give
pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last, the general,
after slightly naming a few of the distinguished characters by whom
they had at times been honoured, turned with a smiling countenance
to Catherine, and ventured to hope that henceforward some of their
earliest tenants might be "our friends from Fullerton." She felt
the unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted the impossibility
of thinking well of a man so kindly disposed towards herself, and
so full of civility to all her family.

The gallery was terminated by folding doors, which Miss Tilney,
advancing, had thrown open, and passed through, and seemed on the
point of doing the same by the first door to the left, in another
long reach of gallery, when the general, coming forwards, called her
hastily, and, as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding
whether she were going?--And what was there more to be seen?--Had
not Miss Morland already seen all that could be worth her
notice?--And did she not suppose her friend might be glad of some
refreshment after so much exercise? Miss Tilney drew back directly,
and the heavy doors were closed upon the mortified Catherine, who,
having seen, in a momentary glance beyond them, a narrower passage,
more numerous openings, and symptoms of a winding staircase,
believed herself at last within the reach of something worth her
notice; and felt, as she unwillingly paced back the gallery, that
she would rather be allowed to examine that end of the house than
see all the finery of all the rest. The general's evident desire
of preventing such an examination was an additional stimulant.
Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy, though it had
trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here; and
what that something was, a short sentence of Miss Tilney's, as they
followed the general at some distance downstairs, seemed to point
out: "I was going to take you into what was my mother's room--the
room in which she died--" were all her words; but few as
they were, they conveyed pages of intelligence to Catherine. It
was no wonder that the general should shrink from the sight of
such objects as that room must contain; a room in all probability
never entered by him since the dreadful scene had passed, which
released his suffering wife, and left him to the stings of conscience.

She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, to express her wish of
being permitted to see it, as well as all the rest of that side of
the house; and Eleanor promised to attend her there, whenever they
should have a convenient hour. Catherine understood her: the general
must be watched from home, before that room could be entered. "It
remains as it was, I suppose?" said she, in a tone of feeling.

"Yes, entirely."

"And how long ago may it be that your mother died?"

"She has been dead these nine years." And nine years, Catherine
knew, was a trifle of time, compared with what generally elapsed
after the death of an injured wife, before her room was put to
rights.

"You were with her, I suppose, to the last?"

"No," said Miss Tilney, sighing; "I was unfortunately from home.
Her illness was sudden and short; and, before I arrived it was all
over."

Catherine's blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions which
naturally sprang from these words. Could it be possible? Could
Henry's father--? And yet how many were the examples to justify
even the blackest suspicions! And, when she saw him in the evening,
while she worked with her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room
for an hour together in silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eyes
and contracted brow, she felt secure from all possibility of wronging
him. It was the air and attitude of a Montoni! What could more
plainly speak the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead to every
sense of humanity, in its fearful review of past scenes of guilt?
Unhappy man! And the anxiousness of her spirits directed her eyes
towards his figure so repeatedly, as to catch Miss Tilney's notice.
"My father," she whispered, "often walks about the room in this
way; it is nothing unusual."

"So much the worse!" thought Catherine; such ill-timed exercise
was of a piece with the strange unseasonableness of his morning
walks, and boded nothing good.

After an evening, the little variety and seeming length of which
made her peculiarly sensible of Henry's importance among them, she
was heartily glad to be dismissed; though it was a look from the
general not designed for her observation which sent his daughter
to the bell. When the butler would have lit his master's candle,
however, he was forbidden. The latter was not going to retire.
"I have many pamphlets to finish," said he to Catherine, "before
I can close my eyes, and perhaps may be poring over the affairs of
the nation for hours after you are asleep. Can either of us be
more meetly employed? My eyes will be blinding for the good of
others, and yours preparing by rest for future mischief."

But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment,
could win Catherine from thinking that some very different object
must occasion so serious a delay of proper repose. To be kept up
for hours, after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was
not very likely. There must be some deeper cause: something was
to be done which could be done only while the household slept;
and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes
unknown, and receiving from the pitiless hands of her husband a
nightly supply of coarse food, was the conclusion which necessarily
followed. Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better than a
death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course of things, she
must ere long be released. The suddenness of her reputed illness,
the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other children,
at the time--all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment.
Its origin--jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to be
unravelled.

In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck
her as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near
the very spot of this unfortunate woman's confinement--might
have been within a few paces of the cell in which she languished
out her days; for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for
the purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic division?
In the high-arched passage, paved with stone, which already she had
trodden with peculiar awe, she well remembered the doors of which
the general had given no account. To what might not those doors
lead? In support of the plausibility of this conjecture, it
further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery, in which lay
the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be, as certainly
as her memory could guide her, exactly over this suspected range of
cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments of which
she had caught a transient glimpse, communicating by some secret
means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous
proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she had perhaps
been conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!

Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her own surmises,
and sometimes hoped or feared that she had gone too far; but they
were supported by such appearances as made their dismissal impossible.

The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed the guilty scene
to be acting, being, according to her belief, just opposite her
own, it struck her that, if judiciously watched, some rays of light
from the general's lamp might glimmer through the lower windows, as
he passed to the prison of his wife; and, twice before she stepped
into bed, she stole gently from her room to the corresponding
window in the gallery, to see if it appeared; but all abroad was
dark, and it must yet be too early. The various ascending noises
convinced her that the servants must still be up. Till midnight,
she supposed it would be in vain to watch; but then, when the
clock had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not quite
appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more. The clock
struck twelve--and Catherine had been half an hour asleep.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 24


The next day afforded no opportunity for the proposed examination
of the mysterious apartments. It was Sunday, and the whole time
between morning and afternoon service was required by the general
in exercise abroad or eating cold meat at home; and great as
was Catherine's curiosity, her courage was not equal to a wish of
exploring them after dinner, either by the fading light of the sky
between six and seven o'clock, or by the yet more partial though
stronger illumination of a treacherous lamp. The day was unmarked
therefore by anything to interest her imagination beyond the sight
of a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs. Tilney, which
immediately fronted the family pew. By that her eye was instantly
caught and long retained; and the perusal of the highly strained
epitaph, in which every virtue was ascribed to her by the inconsolable
husband, who must have been in some way or other her destroyer,
affected her even to tears.

That the general, having erected such a monument, should be able
to face it, was not perhaps very strange, and yet that he could sit
so boldly collected within its view, maintain so elevated an air,
look so fearlessly around, nay, that he should even enter the church,
seemed wonderful to Catherine. Not, however, that many instances
of beings equally hardened in guilt might not be produced. She
could remember dozens who had persevered in every possible vice,
going on from crime to crime, murdering whomsoever they chose,
without any feeling of humanity or remorse; till a violent death
or a religious retirement closed their black career. The erection
of the monument itself could not in the smallest degree affect her
doubts of Mrs. Tilney's actual decease. Were she even to descend
into the family vault where her ashes were supposed to slumber, were
she to behold the coffin in which they were said to be enclosed--what
could it avail in such a case? Catherine had read too much
not to be perfectly aware of the ease with which a waxen figure
might be introduced, and a supposititious funeral carried on.

The succeeding morning promised something better. The general's
early walk, ill-timed as it was in every other view, was favourable
here; and when she knew him to be out of the house, she directly
proposed to Miss Tilney the accomplishment of her promise. Eleanor
was ready to oblige her; and Catherine reminding her as they went
of another promise, their first visit in consequence was to the
portrait in her bed-chamber. It represented a very lovely woman,
with a mild and pensive countenance, justifying, so far, the expectations
of its new observer; but they were not in every respect answered,
for Catherine had depended upon meeting with features, hair,
complexion, that should be the very counterpart, the very image,
if not of Henry's, of Eleanor's--the only portraits of which
she had been in the habit of thinking, bearing always an equal
resemblance of mother and child. A face once taken was taken
for generations. But here she was obliged to look and consider
and study for a likeness. She contemplated it, however, in spite
of this drawback, with much emotion, and, but for a yet stronger
interest, would have left it unwillingly.

Her agitation as they entered the great gallery was too much for
any endeavour at discourse; she could only look at her companion.
Eleanor's countenance was dejected, yet sedate; and its composure
spoke her inured to all the gloomy objects to which they were
advancing. Again she passed through the folding doors, again
her hand was upon the important lock, and Catherine, hardly able
to breathe, was turning to close the former with fearful caution,
when the figure, the dreaded figure of the general himself at the
further end of the gallery, stood before her! The name of "Eleanor"
at the same moment, in his loudest tone, resounded through the
building, giving to his daughter the first intimation of his presence,
and to Catherine terror upon terror. An attempt at concealment
had been her first instinctive movement on perceiving him, yet she
could scarcely hope to have escaped his eye; and when her friend,
who with an apologizing look darted hastily by her, had joined
and disappeared with him, she ran for safety to her own room, and,
locking herself in, believed that she should never have courage to
go down again. She remained there at least an hour, in the greatest
agitation, deeply commiserating the state of her poor friend, and
expecting a summons herself from the angry general to attend him
in his own apartment. No summons, however, arrived; and at last,
on seeing a carriage drive up to the abbey, she was emboldened
to descend and meet him under the protection of visitors. The
breakfast-room was gay with company; and she was named to them
by the general as the friend of his daughter, in a complimentary
style, which so well concealed his resentful ire, as to make her
feel secure at least of life for the present. And Eleanor, with
a command of countenance which did honour to her concern for his
character, taking an early occasion of saying to her, "My father
only wanted me to answer a note," she began to hope that she had
either been unseen by the general, or that from some consideration
of policy she should be allowed to suppose herself so. Upon this
trust she dared still to remain in his presence, after the company
left them, and nothing occurred to disturb it.

In the course of this morning's reflections, she came to a resolution
of making her next attempt on the forbidden door alone. It would
be much better in every respect that Eleanor should know nothing
of the matter. To involve her in the danger of a second detection,
to court her into an apartment which must wring her heart, could
not be the office of a friend. The general's utmost anger could
not be to herself what it might be to a daughter; and, besides, she
thought the examination itself would be more satisfactory if made
without any companion. It would be impossible to explain to Eleanor
the suspicions, from which the other had, in all likelihood, been
hitherto happily exempt; nor could she therefore, in her presence,
search for those proofs of the general's cruelty, which however they
might yet have escaped discovery, she felt confident of somewhere
drawing forth, in the shape of some fragmented journal, continued
to the last gasp. Of the way to the apartment she was now perfectly
mistress; and as she wished to get it over before Henry's return,
who was expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost. The
day was bright, her courage high; at four o'clock, the sun was now
two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to
dress half an hour earlier than usual.

It was done; and Catherine found herself alone in the gallery
before the clocks had ceased to strike. It was no time for thought;
she hurried on, slipped with the least possible noise through the
folding doors, and without stopping to look or breathe, rushed
forward to the one in question. The lock yielded to her hand, and,
luckily, with no sullen sound that could alarm a human being. On
tiptoe she entered; the room was before her; but it was some
minutes before she could advance another step. She beheld what
fixed her to the spot and agitated every feature. She saw a large,
well-proportioned apartment, an handsome dimity bed, arranged as
unoccupied with an housemaid's care, a bright Bath stove, mahogany
wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams of
a western sun gaily poured through two sash windows! Catherine
had expected to have her feelings worked, and worked they were.
Astonishment and doubt first seized them; and a shortly succeeding
ray of common sense added some bitter emotions of shame. She
could not be mistaken as to the room; but how grossly mistaken in
everything else!--in Miss Tilney's meaning, in her own calculation!
This apartment, to which she had given a date so ancient, a position
so awful, proved to be one end of what the general's father had
built. There were two other doors in the chamber, leading probably
into dressing-closets; but she had no inclination to open either.
Would the veil in which Mrs. Tilney had last walked, or the volume
in which she had last read, remain to tell what nothing else was
allowed to whisper? No: whatever might have been the general's crimes,
he had certainly too much wit to let them sue for detection. She
was sick of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her own room,
with her own heart only privy to its folly; and she was on the
point of retreating as softly as she had entered, when the sound of
footsteps, she could hardly tell where, made her pause and tremble.
To be found there, even by a servant, would be unpleasant; but by
the general (and he seemed always at hand when least wanted), much
worse! She listened--the sound had ceased; and resolving not
to lose a moment, she passed through and closed the door. At that
instant a door underneath was hastily opened; someone seemed with
swift steps to ascend the stairs, by the head of which she had yet
to pass before she could gain the gallery. She had no power to
move. With a feeling of terror not very definable, she fixed her
eyes on the staircase, and in a few moments it gave Henry to her
view. "Mr. Tilney!" she exclaimed in a voice of more than common
astonishment. He looked astonished too. "Good God!" she continued,
not attending to his address. "How came you here? How came you
up that staircase?"

"How came I up that staircase!" he replied, greatly surprised.
"Because it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber;
and why should I not come up it?"

Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more.
He seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation
which her lips did not afford. She moved on towards the gallery.
"And may I not, in my turn," said he, as he pushed back the
folding doors, "ask how you came here? This passage is at least as
extraordinary a road from the breakfast-parlour to your apartment,
as that staircase can be from the stables to mine."

"I have been," said Catherine, looking down, "to see your mother's
room."

"My mother's room! Is there anything extraordinary to be seen
there?"

"No, nothing at all. I thought you did not mean to come back till
tomorrow."

"I did not expect to be able to return sooner, when I went away;
but three hours ago I had the pleasure of finding nothing to detain
me. You look pale. I am afraid I alarmed you by running so fast
up those stairs. Perhaps you did not know--you were not aware
of their leading from the offices in common use?"

"No, I was not. You have had a very fine day for your ride."

"Very; and does Eleanor leave you to find your way into all the
rooms in the house by yourself?"

"Oh! No; she showed me over the greatest part on Saturday--and
we were coming here to these rooms--but only"--dropping her
voice--"your father was with us."

"And that prevented you," said Henry, earnestly regarding her.
"Have you looked into all the rooms in that passage?"

"No, I only wanted to see--Is not it very late? I must go and
dress."

"It is only a quarter past four" showing his watch--"and you are
not now in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for. Half an
hour at Northanger must be enough."

She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself to be
detained, though her dread of further questions made her, for the
first time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him. They walked
slowly up the gallery. "Have you had any letter from Bath since
I saw you?"

"No, and I am very much surprised. Isabella promised so faithfully
to write directly."

"Promised so faithfully! A faithful promise! That puzzles me. I
have heard of a faithful performance. But a faithful promise--the
fidelity of promising! It is a power little worth knowing,
however, since it can deceive and pain you. My mother's room is
very commodious, is it not? Large and cheerful-looking, and the
dressing-closets so well disposed! It always strikes me as the
most comfortable apartment in the house, and I rather wonder that
Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent you to look at
it, I suppose?"

"No."

"It has been your own doing entirely?" Catherine said nothing.
After a short silence, during which he had closely observed her,
he added, "As there is nothing in the room in itself to raise
curiosity, this must have proceeded from a sentiment of respect for
my mother's character, as described by Eleanor, which does honour
to her memory. The world, I believe, never saw a better woman.
But it is not often that virtue can boast an interest such as this.
The domestic, unpretending merits of a person never known do not
often create that kind of fervent, venerating tenderness which would
prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose, has talked of her
a great deal?"

"Yes, a great deal. That is--no, not much, but what she did say
was very interesting. Her dying so suddenly" (slowly, and with
hesitation it was spoken), "and you--none of you being at home--and
your father, I thought--perhaps had not been very fond of
her."

"And from these circumstances," he replied (his quick eye fixed on
hers), "you infer perhaps the probability of some
negligence--some"--(involuntarily she shook her head)--"or it may
be--of something still less pardonable." She raised her eyes towards
him more fully than she had ever done before. "My mother's illness,"
he continued, "the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden.
The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious
fever--its cause therefore constitutional. On the third day, in
short, as soon as she could be prevailed on, a physician attended
her, a very respectable man, and one in whom she had always placed
great confidence. Upon his opinion of her danger, two others were
called in the next day, and remained in almost constant attendance
for four and twenty hours. On the fifth day she died. During the
progress of her disorder, Frederick and I (we were both at home)
saw her repeatedly; and from our own observation can bear witness
to her having received every possible attention which could spring
from the affection of those about her, or which her situation in
life could command. Poor Eleanor was absent, and at such a distance
as to return only to see her mother in her coffin."

"But your father," said Catherine, "was he afflicted?"

"For a time, greatly so. You have erred in supposing him not
attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was
possible for him to--we have not all, you know, the same tenderness
of disposition--and I will not pretend to say that while she
lived, she might not often have had much to bear, but though his
temper injured her, his judgment never did. His value of her was
sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her
death."

"I am very glad of it," said Catherine; "it would have been very
shocking!"

"If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such
horror as I have hardly words to--Dear Miss Morland, consider
the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What
have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in
which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.
Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your
own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education
prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could
they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this,
where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where
every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies,
and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss
Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?"

They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame
she ran off to her own room.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 25


The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened.
Henry's address, short as it had been, had more thoroughly opened
her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their
several disappointments had done. Most grievously was she humbled.
Most bitterly did she cry. It was not only with herself that
she was sunk--but with Henry. Her folly, which now seemed even
criminal, was all exposed to him, and he must despise her forever.
The liberty which her imagination had dared to take with the
character of his father--could he ever forgive it? The absurdity
of her curiosity and her fears--could they ever be forgotten? She
hated herself more than she could express. He had--she thought
he had, once or twice before this fatal morning, shown something
like affection for her. But now--in short, she made herself as
miserable as possible for about half an hour, went down when the
clock struck five, with a broken heart, and could scarcely give
an intelligible answer to Eleanor's inquiry if she was well. The
formidable Henry soon followed her into the room, and the only
difference in his behaviour to her was that he paid her rather more
attention than usual. Catherine had never wanted comfort more,
and he looked as if he was aware of it.

The evening wore away with no abatement of this soothing politeness;
and her spirits were gradually raised to a modest tranquillity. She
did not learn either to forget or defend the past; but she learned
to hope that it would never transpire farther, and that it might not
cost her Henry's entire regard. Her thoughts being still chiefly
fixed on what she had with such causeless terror felt and done, nothing
could shortly be clearer than that it had been all a voluntary,
self-created delusion, each trifling circumstance receiving
importance from an imagination resolved on alarm, and everything
forced to bend to one purpose by a mind which, before she entered
the abbey, had been craving to be frightened. She remembered with
what feelings she had prepared for a knowledge of Northanger. She
saw that the infatuation had been created, the mischief settled,
long before her quitting Bath, and it seemed as if the whole might
be traced to the influence of that sort of reading which she had
there indulged.

Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe's works, and charming even as
were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that
human nature, at least in the Midland counties of England, was to
be looked for. Of the Alps and Pyrenees, with their pine forests
and their vices, they might give a faithful delineation; and Italy,
Switzerland, and the south of France might be as fruitful in horrors
as they were there represented. Catherine dared not doubt beyond
her own country, and even of that, if hard pressed, would have
yielded the northern and western extremities. But in the central
part of England there was surely some security for the existence even
of a wife not beloved, in the laws of the land, and the manners of
the age. Murder was not tolerated, servants were not slaves, and
neither poison nor sleeping potions to be procured, like rhubarb,
from every druggist. Among the Alps and Pyrenees, perhaps, there
were no mixed characters. There, such as were not as spotless as
an angel might have the dispositions of a fiend. But in England
it was not so; among the English, she believed, in their hearts
and habits, there was a general though unequal mixture of good and
bad. Upon this conviction, she would not be surprised if even in
Henry and Eleanor Tilney, some slight imperfection might hereafter
appear; and upon this conviction she need not fear to acknowledge
some actual specks in the character of their father, who, though
cleared from the grossly injurious suspicions which she must ever
blush to have entertained, she did believe, upon serious consideration,
to be not perfectly amiable.

Her mind made up on these several points, and her resolution
formed, of always judging and acting in future with the greatest
good sense, she had nothing to do but to forgive herself and be
happier than ever; and the lenient hand of time did much for her
by insensible gradations in the course of another day. Henry's
astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding
in the slightest way to what had passed, was of the greatest assistance
to her; and sooner than she could have supposed it possible in the
beginning of her distress, her spirits became absolutely comfortable,
and capable, as heretofore, of continual improvement by anything
he said. There were still some subjects, indeed, under which she
believed they must always tremble--the mention of a chest or a
cabinet, for instance--and she did not love the sight of japan
in any shape: but even she could allow that an occasional memento
of past folly, however painful, might not be without use.

The anxieties of common life began soon to succeed to the alarms
of romance. Her desire of hearing from Isabella grew every day
greater. She was quite impatient to know how the Bath world went
on, and how the rooms were attended; and especially was she anxious
to be assured of Isabella's having matched some fine netting-cotton,
on which she had left her intent; and of her continuing on the
best terms with James. Her only dependence for information of any
kind was on Isabella. James had protested against writing to her
till his return to Oxford; and Mrs. Allen had given her no hopes
of a letter till she had got back to Fullerton. But Isabella had
promised and promised again; and when she promised a thing, she
was so scrupulous in performing it! This made it so particularly
strange!

For nine successive mornings, Catherine wondered over the repetition
of a disappointment, which each morning became more severe: but,
on the tenth, when she entered the breakfast-room, her first object
was a letter, held out by Henry's willing hand. She thanked him as
heartily as if he had written it himself. "'Tis only from James,
however," as she looked at the direction. She opened it; it was
from Oxford; and to this purpose:


"Dear Catherine,

"Though, God knows, with little inclination for writing, I think
it my duty to tell you that everything is at an end between Miss
Thorpe and me. I left her and Bath yesterday, never to see either
again. I shall not enter into particulars--they would only pain
you more. You will soon hear enough from another quarter to know
where lies the blame; and I hope will acquit your brother of everything
but the folly of too easily thinking his affection returned. Thank
God! I am undeceived in time! But it is a heavy blow! After my
father's consent had been so kindly given--but no more of this.
She has made me miserable forever! Let me soon hear from you,
dear Catherine; you are my only friend; your love I do build upon.
I wish your visit at Northanger may be over before Captain Tilney
makes his engagement known, or you will be uncomfortably circumstanced.
Poor Thorpe is in town: I dread the sight of him; his honest heart
would feel so much. I have written to him and my father. Her
duplicity hurts me more than all; till the very last, if I reasoned
with her, she declared herself as much attached to me as ever, and
laughed at my fears. I am ashamed to think how long I bore with
it; but if ever man had reason to believe himself loved, I was
that man. I cannot understand even now what she would be at, for
there could be no need of my being played off to make her secure
of Tilney. We parted at last by mutual consent--happy for me
had we never met! I can never expect to know such another woman!
Dearest Catherine, beware how you give your heart. "Believe me,"
&c.


Catherine had not read three lines before her sudden change of
countenance, and short exclamations of sorrowing wonder, declared
her to be receiving unpleasant news; and Henry, earnestly watching
her through the whole letter, saw plainly that it ended no better
than it began. He was prevented, however, from even looking his
surprise by his father's entrance. They went to breakfast directly;
but Catherine could hardly eat anything. Tears filled her eyes, and
even ran down her cheeks as she sat. The letter was one moment in
her hand, then in her lap, and then in her pocket; and she looked
as if she knew not what she did. The general, between his cocoa
and his newspaper, had luckily no leisure for noticing her; but
to the other two her distress was equally visible. As soon as she
dared leave the table she hurried away to her own room; but the
housemaids were busy in it, and she was obliged to come down again.
She turned into the drawing-room for privacy, but Henry and Eleanor
had likewise retreated thither, and were at that moment deep in
consultation about her. She drew back, trying to beg their pardon,
but was, with gentle violence, forced to return; and the others
withdrew, after Eleanor had affectionately expressed a wish of
being of use or comfort to her.

After half an hour's free indulgence of grief and reflection,
Catherine felt equal to encountering her friends; but whether she
should make her distress known to them was another consideration.
Perhaps, if particularly questioned, she might just give an
idea--just distantly hint at it--but not more. To expose a friend,
such a friend as Isabella had been to her--and then their own
brother so closely concerned in it! She believed she must waive the
subject altogether. Henry and Eleanor were by themselves in the
breakfast-room; and each, as she entered it, looked at her anxiously.
Catherine took her place at the table, and, after a short silence,
Eleanor said, "No bad news from Fullerton, I hope? Mr. and Mrs.
Morland--your brothers and sisters--I hope they are none of
them ill?"

"No, I thank you" (sighing as she spoke); "they are all very well.
My letter was from my brother at Oxford."

Nothing further was said for a few minutes; and then speaking
through her tears, she added, "I do not think I shall ever wish
for a letter again!"

"I am sorry," said Henry, closing the book he had just opened;
"if I had suspected the letter of containing anything unwelcome,
I should have given it with very different feelings."

"It contained something worse than anybody could suppose! Poor
James is so unhappy! You will soon know why."

"To have so kind-hearted, so affectionate a sister," replied Henry
warmly, "must be a comfort to him under any distress."

"I have one favour to beg," said Catherine, shortly afterwards, in
an agitated manner, "that, if your brother should be coming here,
you will give me notice of it, that I may go away."

"Our brother! Frederick!"

"Yes; I am sure I should be very sorry to leave you so soon, but
something has happened that would make it very dreadful for me to
be in the same house with Captain Tilney."

Eleanor's work was suspended while she gazed with increasing
astonishment; but Henry began to suspect the truth, and something,
in which Miss Thorpe's name was included, passed his lips.

"How quick you are!" cried Catherine: "you have guessed it,
I declare! And yet, when we talked about it in Bath, you little
thought of its ending so. Isabella--no wonder now I have not
heard from her--Isabella has deserted my brother, and is to marry
yours! Could you have believed there had been such inconstancy
and fickleness, and everything that is bad in the world?"

"I hope, so far as concerns my brother, you are misinformed. I
hope he has not had any material share in bringing on Mr. Morland's
disappointment. His marrying Miss Thorpe is not probable. I think
you must be deceived so far. I am very sorry for Mr. Morland--sorry
that anyone you love should be unhappy; but my surprise would
be greater at Frederick's marrying her than at any other part of
the story."

"It is very true, however; you shall read James's letter yourself.
Stay--There is one part--" recollecting with a blush the last
line.

"Will you take the trouble of reading to us the passages which
concern my brother?"

"No, read it yourself," cried Catherine, whose second thoughts were
clearer. "I do not know what I was thinking of" (blushing again
that she had blushed before); "James only means to give me good
advice."

He gladly received the letter, and, having read it through, with
close attention, returned it saying, "Well, if it is to be so,
I can only say that I am sorry for it. Frederick will not be the
first man who has chosen a wife with less sense than his family
expected. I do not envy his situation, either as a lover or a
son."

Miss Tilney, at Catherine's invitation, now read the letter likewise,
and, having expressed also her concern and surprise, began to
inquire into Miss Thorpe's connections and fortune.

"Her mother is a very good sort of woman," was Catherine's answer.

"What was her father?"

"A lawyer, I believe. They live at Putney."

"Are they a wealthy family?"

"No, not very. I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at all:
but that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very
liberal! He told me the other day that he only valued money as it
allowed him to promote the happiness of his children." The brother
and sister looked at each other. "But," said Eleanor, after a
short pause, "would it be to promote his happiness, to enable him
to marry such a girl? She must be an unprincipled one, or she could
not have used your brother so. And how strange an infatuation on
Frederick's side! A girl who, before his eyes, is violating an
engagement voluntarily entered into with another man! Is not it
inconceivable, Henry? Frederick too, who always wore his heart so
proudly! Who found no woman good enough to be loved!"

"That is the most unpromising circumstance, the strongest presumption
against him. When I think of his past declarations, I give him up.
Moreover, I have too good an opinion of Miss Thorpe's prudence to
suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other was
secured. It is all over with Frederick indeed! He is a deceased
man--defunct in understanding. Prepare for your sister-in-law,
Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open,
candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple,
forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise."

"Such a sister-in-law, Henry, I should delight in," said Eleanor
with a smile.

"But perhaps," observed Catherine, "though she has behaved so ill
by our family, she may behave better by yours. Now she has really
got the man she likes, she may be constant."

"Indeed I am afraid she will," replied Henry; "I am afraid she will
be very constant, unless a baronet should come in her way; that is
Frederick's only chance. I will get the Bath paper, and look over
the arrivals."

"You think it is all for ambition, then? And, upon my word, there
are some things that seem very like it. I cannot forget that, when
she first knew what my father would do for them, she seemed quite
disappointed that it was not more. I never was so deceived in
anyone's character in my life before."

"Among all the great variety that you have known and studied."

"My own disappointment and loss in her is very great; but, as for
poor James, I suppose he will hardly ever recover it."

"Your brother is certainly very much to be pitied at present; but
we must not, in our concern for his sufferings, undervalue yours. You
feel, I suppose, that in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself:
you feel a void in your heart which nothing else can occupy.
Society is becoming irksome; and as for the amusements in which
you were wont to share at Bath, the very idea of them without her
is abhorrent. You would not, for instance, now go to a ball for
the world. You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you
can speak with unreserve, on whose regard you can place dependence,
or whose counsel, in any difficulty, you could rely on. You feel
all this?"

"No," said Catherine, after a few moments' reflection, "I do not--ought
I? To say the truth, though I am hurt and grieved, that
I cannot still love her, that I am never to hear from her, perhaps
never to see her again, I do not feel so very, very much afflicted
as one would have thought."

"You feel, as you always do, what is most to the credit of human
nature. Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know
themselves."

Catherine, by some chance or other, found her spirits so very much
relieved by this conversation that she could not regret her being
led on, though so unaccountably, to mention the circumstance which
had produced it.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 26


From this time, the subject was frequently canvassed by the three
young people; and Catherine found, with some surprise, that her
two young friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's
want of consequence and fortune as likely to throw great difficulties
in the way of her marrying their brother. Their persuasion that
the general would, upon this ground alone, independent of the
objection that might be raised against her character, oppose the
connection, turned her feelings moreover with some alarm towards
herself. She was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless, as
Isabella; and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur
and wealth enough in himself, at what point of interest were the
demands of his younger brother to rest? The very painful reflections
to which this thought led could only be dispersed by a dependence
on the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she was
given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had
from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general; and
by a recollection of some most generous and disinterested sentiments on
the subject of money, which she had more than once heard him utter,
and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters
misunderstood by his children.

They were so fully convinced, however, that their brother would
not have the courage to apply in person for his father's consent,
and so repeatedly assured her that he had never in his life been
less likely to come to Northanger than at the present time, that she
suffered her mind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden
removal of her own. But as it was not to be supposed that Captain
Tilney, whenever he made his application, would give his father
any just idea of Isabella's conduct, it occurred to her as highly
expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him as
it really was, enabling the general by that means to form a cool
and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections on a fairer ground
than inequality of situations. She proposed it to him accordingly;
but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected.
"No," said he, "my father's hands need not be strengthened, and
Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled. He must
tell his own story."

"But he will tell only half of it."

"A quarter would be enough."

A day or two passed away and brought no tidings of Captain Tilney.
His brother and sister knew not what to think. Sometimes it
appeared to them as if his silence would be the natural result of
the suspected engagement, and at others that it was wholly incompatible
with it. The general, meanwhile, though offended every morning by
Frederick's remissness in writing, was free from any real anxiety
about him, and had no more pressing solicitude than that of making
Miss Morland's time at Northanger pass pleasantly. He often
expressed his uneasiness on this head, feared the sameness of every
day's society and employments would disgust her with the place,
wished the Lady Frasers had been in the country, talked every
now and then of having a large party to dinner, and once or twice
began even to calculate the number of young dancing people in
the neighbourhood. But then it was such a dead time of year, no
wild-fowl, no game, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country.
And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one morning that
when he next went to Woodston, they would take him by surprise
there some day or other, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was
greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted
with the scheme. "And when do you think, sir, I may look forward
to this pleasure? I must be at Woodston on Monday to attend the
parish meeting, and shall probably be obliged to stay two or three
days."

"Well, well, we will take our chance some one of those days. There
is no need to fix. You are not to put yourself at all out of your
way. Whatever you may happen to have in the house will be enough.
I think I can answer for the young ladies making allowance for a
bachelor's table. Let me see; Monday will be a busy day with you,
we will not come on Monday; and Tuesday will be a busy one with me.
I expect my surveyor from Brockham with his report in the morning;
and afterwards I cannot in decency fail attending the club. I
really could not face my acquaintance if I stayed away now; for,
as I am known to be in the country, it would be taken exceedingly
amiss; and it is a rule with me, Miss Morland, never to give
offence to any of my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of time and
attention can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy men. They
have half a buck from Northanger twice a year; and I dine with
them whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore, we may say is out of the
question. But on Wednesday, I think, Henry, you may expect us; and
we shall be with you early, that we may have time to look about us.
Two hours and three quarters will carry us to Woodston, I suppose;
we shall be in the carriage by ten; so, about a quarter before one
on Wednesday, you may look for us."

A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than
this little excursion, so strong was her desire to be acquainted
with Woodston; and her heart was still bounding with joy when
Henry, about an hour afterwards, came booted and greatcoated into
the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said, "I am come,
young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our
pleasures in this world are always to be paid for, and that we often
purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual
happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.
Witness myself, at this present hour. Because I am to hope for
the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodston on Wednesday, which
bad weather, or twenty other causes, may prevent, I must go away
directly, two days before I intended it."

"Go away!" said Catherine, with a very long face. "And why?"

"Why! How can you ask the question? Because no time is to be lost
in frightening my old housekeeper out of her wits, because I must
go and prepare a dinner for you, to be sure."

"Oh! Not seriously!"

"Aye, and sadly too--for I had much rather stay."

"But how can you think of such a thing, after what the general
said? When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself
any trouble, because anything would do."

Henry only smiled. "I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your
sister's account and mine. You must know it to be so; and the
general made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary:
besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he has always
such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling
one for one day could not signify."

"I wish I could reason like you, for his sake and my own. Good-bye.
As tomorrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return."

He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler operation to
Catherine to doubt her own judgment than Henry's, she was very soon
obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable
to her his going. But the inexplicability of the general's
conduct dwelt much on her thoughts. That he was very particular
in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already
discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and mean
another all the while, was most unaccountable! How were people, at
that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware
of what his father was at?

From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without
Henry. This was the sad finale of every reflection: and Captain
Tilney's letter would certainly come in his absence; and Wednesday
she was very sure would be wet. The past, present, and future
were all equally in gloom. Her brother so unhappy, and her loss
in Isabella so great; and Eleanor's spirits always affected by
Henry's absence! What was there to interest or amuse her? She was
tired of the woods and the shrubberies--always so smooth and so
dry; and the abbey in itself was no more to her now than any other
house. The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped to
nourish and perfect was the only emotion which could spring from
a consideration of the building. What a revolution in her ideas!
She, who had so longed to be in an abbey! Now, there was nothing
so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of
a well-connected parsonage, something like Fullerton, but better:
Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If
Wednesday should ever come!

It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for. It
came--it was fine--and Catherine trod on air. By ten o'clock,
the chaise and four conveyed the two from the abbey; and, after
an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston,
a large and populous village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine
was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it, as the general seemed
to think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country,
and the size of the village; but in her heart she preferred it to
any place she had ever been at, and looked with great admiration
at every neat house above the rank of a cottage, and at all the
little chandler's shops which they passed. At the further end of
the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of it, stood
the parsonage, a new-built substantial stone house, with its
semicircular sweep and green gates; and, as they drove up to the
door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude, a large Newfoundland
puppy and two or three terriers, was ready to receive and make much
of them.

Catherine's mind was too full, as she entered the house, for her
either to observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by
the general for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the
room in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it then, she
perceived in a moment that it was the most comfortable room in the
world; but she was too guarded to say so, and the coldness of her
praise disappointed him.

"We are not calling it a good house," said he. "We are not comparing
it with Fullerton and Northanger--we are considering it as a mere
parsonage, small and confined, we allow, but decent, perhaps, and
habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality; or, in
other words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England
half so good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be it
from me to say otherwise; and anything in reason--a bow thrown
out, perhaps--though, between ourselves, if there is one thing
more than another my aversion, it is a patched-on bow."

Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be
pained by it; and other subjects being studiously brought forward
and supported by Henry, at the same time that a tray full of
refreshments was introduced by his servant, the general was shortly
restored to his complacency, and Catherine to all her usual ease
of spirits.

The room in question was of a commodious, well-proportioned size,
and handsomely fitted up as a dining-parlour; and on their quitting
it to walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller
apartment, belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made
unusually tidy on the occasion; and afterwards into what was to be
the drawing-room, with the appearance of which, though unfurnished,
Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy the general. It
was a prettily shaped room, the windows reaching to the ground,
and the view from them pleasant, though only over green meadows;
and she expressed her admiration at the moment with all the honest
simplicity with which she felt it. "Oh! Why do not you fit up
this room, Mr. Tilney? What a pity not to have it fitted up! It
is the prettiest room I ever saw; it is the prettiest room in the
world!"

"I trust," said the general, with a most satisfied smile, "that it
will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady's taste!"

"Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh!
What a sweet little cottage there is among the trees--apple trees,
too! It is the prettiest cottage!"

"You like it--you approve it as an object--it is enough. Henry,
remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains."

Such a compliment recalled all Catherine's consciousness, and silenced
her directly; and, though pointedly applied to by the general for
her choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings,
nothing like an opinion on the subject could be drawn from her.
The influence of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great
use in dissipating these embarrassing associations; and, having
reached the ornamental part of the premises, consisting of a walk
round two sides of a meadow, on which Henry's genius had begun to
act about half a year ago, she was sufficiently recovered to think
it prettier than any pleasure-ground she had ever been in before,
though there was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in
the corner.

A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with
a visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming
game of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll about,
brought them to four o'clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it
could be three. At four they were to dine, and at six to set off
on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly!

She could not but observe that the abundance of the dinner did not
seem to create the smallest astonishment in the general; nay, that
he was even looking at the side-table for cold meat which was not
there. His son and daughter's observations were of a different
kind. They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but
his own, and never before known him so little disconcerted by the
melted butter's being oiled.

At six o'clock, the general having taken his coffee, the carriage
again received them; and so gratifying had been the tenor of his
conduct throughout the whole visit, so well assured was her mind on
the subject of his expectations, that, could she have felt equally
confident of the wishes of his son, Catherine would have quitted
Woodston with little anxiety as to the How or the When she might
return to it.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 27


The next morning brought the following very unexpected letter from
Isabella:


Bath, April

My dearest Catherine, I received your two kind letters with the
greatest delight, and have a thousand apologies to make for not
answering them sooner. I really am quite ashamed of my idleness;
but in this horrid place one can find time for nothing. I have had
my pen in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every day since
you left Bath, but have always been prevented by some silly trifler
or other. Pray write to me soon, and direct to my own home. Thank
God, we leave this vile place tomorrow. Since you went away,
I have had no pleasure in it--the dust is beyond anything; and
everybody one cares for is gone. I believe if I could see you
I should not mind the rest, for you are dearer to me than anybody
can conceive. I am quite uneasy about your dear brother, not
having heard from him since he went to Oxford; and am fearful of
some misunderstanding. Your kind offices will set all right: he
is the only man I ever did or could love, and I trust you will
convince him of it. The spring fashions are partly down; and the
hats the most frightful you can imagine. I hope you spend your
time pleasantly, but am afraid you never think of me. I will not
say all that I could of the family you are with, because I would
not be ungenerous, or set you against those you esteem; but it
is very difficult to know whom to trust, and young men never know
their minds two days together. I rejoice to say that the young
man whom, of all others, I particularly abhor, has left Bath. You
will know, from this description, I must mean Captain Tilney, who,
as you may remember, was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me,
before you went away. Afterwards he got worse, and became quite my
shadow. Many girls might have been taken in, for never were such
attentions; but I knew the fickle sex too well. He went away to
his regiment two days ago, and I trust I shall never be plagued with
him again. He is the greatest coxcomb I ever saw, and amazingly
disagreeable. The last two days he was always by the side of
Charlotte Davis: I pitied his taste, but took no notice of him.
The last time we met was in Bath Street, and I turned directly
into a shop that he might not speak to me; I would not even look at
him. He went into the pump-room afterwards; but I would not have
followed him for all the world. Such a contrast between him and
your brother! Pray send me some news of the latter--I am quite
unhappy about him; he seemed so uncomfortable when he went away,
with a cold, or something that affected his spirits. I would write
to him myself, but have mislaid his direction; and, as I hinted
above, am afraid he took something in my conduct amiss. Pray
explain everything to his satisfaction; or, if he still harbours
any doubt, a line from himself to me, or a call at Putney when next
in town, might set all to rights. I have not been to the rooms this
age, nor to the play, except going in last night with the Hodges,
for a frolic, at half price: they teased me into it; and I was
determined they should not say I shut myself up because Tilney was
gone. We happened to sit by the Mitchells, and they pretended to
be quite surprised to see me out. I knew their spite: at one time
they could not be civil to me, but now they are all friendship; but
I am not such a fool as to be taken in by them. You know I have
a pretty good spirit of my own. Anne Mitchell had tried to put on
a turban like mine, as I wore it the week before at the concert,
but made wretched work of it--it happened to become my odd face,
I believe, at least Tilney told me so at the time, and said every
eye was upon me; but he is the last man whose word I would take.
I wear nothing but purple now: I know I look hideous in it, but
no matter--it is your dear brother's favourite colour. Lose no
time, my dearest, sweetest Catherine, in writing to him and to me,
Who ever am, etc.


Such a strain of shallow artifice could not impose even upon
Catherine. Its inconsistencies, contradictions, and falsehood
struck her from the very first. She was ashamed of Isabella, and
ashamed of having ever loved her. Her professions of attachment
were now as disgusting as her excuses were empty, and her demands
impudent. "Write to James on her behalf! No, James should never
hear Isabella's name mentioned by her again."

On Henry's arrival from Woodston, she made known to him and Eleanor
their brother's safety, congratulating them with sincerity on it,
and reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with strong
indignation. When she had finished it--"So much for Isabella,"
she cried, "and for all our intimacy! She must think me an idiot,
or she could not have written so; but perhaps this has served to
make her character better known to me than mine is to her. I see
what she has been about. She is a vain coquette, and her tricks
have not answered. I do not believe she had ever any regard either
for James or for me, and I wish I had never known her."

"It will soon be as if you never had," said Henry.

"There is but one thing that I cannot understand. I see that she
has had designs on Captain Tilney, which have not succeeded; but
I do not understand what Captain Tilney has been about all this
time. Why should he pay her such attentions as to make her quarrel
with my brother, and then fly off himself?"

"I have very little to say for Frederick's motives, such as
I believe them to have been. He has his vanities as well as Miss
Thorpe, and the chief difference is, that, having a stronger head,
they have not yet injured himself. If the effect of his behaviour
does not justify him with you, we had better not seek after the
cause."

"Then you do not suppose he ever really cared about her?"

"I am persuaded that he never did."

"And only made believe to do so for mischief's sake?"

Henry bowed his assent.

"Well, then, I must say that I do not like him at all. Though it
has turned out so well for us, I do not like him at all. As it
happens, there is no great harm done, because I do not think Isabella
has any heart to lose. But, suppose he had made her very much in
love with him?"

"But we must first suppose Isabella to have had a heart to
lose--consequently to have been a very different creature; and, in that
case, she would have met with very different treatment."

"It is very right that you should stand by your brother."

"And if you would stand by yours, you would not be much distressed
by the disappointment of Miss Thorpe. But your mind is warped by
an innate principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible
to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge."

Catherine was complimented out of further bitterness. Frederick
could not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry made himself so
agreeable. She resolved on not answering Isabella's letter, and
tried to think no more of it.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 28


Soon after this, the general found himself obliged to go to London
for a week; and he left Northanger earnestly regretting that any
necessity should rob him even for an hour of Miss Morland's company,
and anxiously recommending the study of her comfort and amusement
to his children as their chief object in his absence. His departure
gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be
sometimes a gain. The happiness with which their time now passed,
every employment voluntary, every laugh indulged, every meal a scene
of ease and good humour, walking where they liked and when they
liked, their hours, pleasures, and fatigues at their own command,
made her thoroughly sensible of the restraint which the general's
presence had imposed, and most thankfully feel their present release
from it. Such ease and such delights made her love the place and
the people more and more every day; and had it not been for a dread
of its soon becoming expedient to leave the one, and an apprehension
of not being equally beloved by the other, she would at each moment
of each day have been perfectly happy; but she was now in the fourth
week of her visit; before the general came home, the fourth week
would be turned, and perhaps it might seem an intrusion if she
stayed much longer. This was a painful consideration whenever it
occurred; and eager to get rid of such a weight on her mind, she
very soon resolved to speak to Eleanor about it at once, propose
going away, and be guided in her conduct by the manner in which
her proposal might be taken.

Aware that if she gave herself much time, she might feel it difficult
to bring forward so unpleasant a subject, she took the first
opportunity of being suddenly alone with Eleanor, and of Eleanor's
being in the middle of a speech about something very different, to
start forth her obligation of going away very soon. Eleanor looked
and declared herself much concerned. She had "hoped for the pleasure
of her company for a much longer time--had been misled (perhaps
by her wishes) to suppose that a much longer visit had been promised--and
could not but think that if Mr. and Mrs. Morland were aware
of the pleasure it was to her to have her there, they would be too
generous to hasten her return." Catherine explained: "Oh! As to
that, Papa and Mamma were in no hurry at all. As long as she was
happy, they would always be satisfied."

"Then why, might she ask, in such a hurry herself to leave them?"

"Oh! Because she had been there so long."

"Nay, if you can use such a word, I can urge you no farther. If
you think it long--"

"Oh! No, I do not indeed. For my own pleasure, I could stay with
you as long again." And it was directly settled that, till she
had, her leaving them was not even to be thought of. In having
this cause of uneasiness so pleasantly removed, the force of the
other was likewise weakened. The kindness, the earnestness of
Eleanor's manner in pressing her to stay, and Henry's gratified
look on being told that her stay was determined, were such sweet
proofs of her importance with them, as left her only just so much
solicitude as the human mind can never do comfortably without. She
did--almost always--believe that Henry loved her, and quite
always that his father and sister loved and even wished her to
belong to them; and believing so far, her doubts and anxieties were
merely sportive irritations.

Henry was not able to obey his father's injunction of remaining
wholly at Northanger in attendance on the ladies, during his absence
in London, the engagements of his curate at Woodston obliging him
to leave them on Saturday for a couple of nights. His loss was
not now what it had been while the general was at home; it lessened
their gaiety, but did not ruin their comfort; and the two girls
agreeing in occupation, and improving in intimacy, found themselves
so well sufficient for the time to themselves, that it was eleven
o'clock, rather a late hour at the abbey, before they quitted the
supper-room on the day of Henry's departure. They had just reached
the head of the stairs when it seemed, as far as the thickness of
the walls would allow them to judge, that a carriage was driving
up to the door, and the next moment confirmed the idea by the loud
noise of the house-bell. After the first perturbation of surprise
had passed away, in a "Good heaven! What can be the matter?" it
was quickly decided by Eleanor to be her eldest brother, whose
arrival was often as sudden, if not quite so unseasonable, and
accordingly she hurried down to welcome him.

Catherine walked on to her chamber, making up her mind as well
as she could, to a further acquaintance with Captain Tilney, and
comforting herself under the unpleasant impression his conduct
had given her, and the persuasion of his being by far too fine
a gentleman to approve of her, that at least they should not meet
under such circumstances as would make their meeting materially
painful. She trusted he would never speak of Miss Thorpe; and indeed,
as he must by this time be ashamed of the part he had acted, there
could be no danger of it; and as long as all mention of Bath scenes
were avoided, she thought she could behave to him very civilly. In
such considerations time passed away, and it was certainly in his
favour that Eleanor should be so glad to see him, and have so much
to say, for half an hour was almost gone since his arrival, and
Eleanor did not come up.

At that moment Catherine thought she heard her step in the gallery,
and listened for its continuance; but all was silent. Scarcely,
however, had she convicted her fancy of error, when the noise of
something moving close to her door made her start; it seemed as
if someone was touching the very doorway--and in another moment
a slight motion of the lock proved that some hand must be on it. She
trembled a little at the idea of anyone's approaching so cautiously;
but resolving not to be again overcome by trivial appearances
of alarm, or misled by a raised imagination, she stepped quietly
forward, and opened the door. Eleanor, and only Eleanor, stood
there. Catherine's spirits, however, were tranquillized but for
an instant, for Eleanor's cheeks were pale, and her manner greatly
agitated. Though evidently intending to come in, it seemed an
effort to enter the room, and a still greater to speak when there.
Catherine, supposing some uneasiness on Captain Tilney's account,
could only express her concern by silent attention, obliged her to
be seated, rubbed her temples with lavender-water, and hung over
her with affectionate solicitude. "My dear Catherine, you must not--you
must not indeed--" were Eleanor's first connected words.
"I am quite well. This kindness distracts me--I cannot bear it--I
come to you on such an errand!"

"Errand! To me!"

"How shall I tell you! Oh! How shall I tell you!"

A new idea now darted into Catherine's mind, and turning as pale
as her friend, she exclaimed, "'Tis a messenger from Woodston!"

"You are mistaken, indeed," returned Eleanor, looking at her most
compassionately; "it is no one from Woodston. It is my father
himself." Her voice faltered, and her eyes were turned to the ground
as she mentioned his name. His unlooked-for return was enough in
itself to make Catherine's heart sink, and for a few moments she
hardly supposed there were anything worse to be told. She said
nothing; and Eleanor, endeavouring to collect herself and speak
with firmness, but with eyes still cast down, soon went on. "You
are too good, I am sure, to think the worse of me for the part
I am obliged to perform. I am indeed a most unwilling messenger.
After what has so lately passed, so lately been settled between us--how
joyfully, how thankfully on my side!--as to your continuing
here as I hoped for many, many weeks longer, how can I tell you
that your kindness is not to be accepted--and that the happiness
your company has hitherto given us is to be repaid by--But I must
not trust myself with words. My dear Catherine, we are to part.
My father has recollected an engagement that takes our whole family
away on Monday. We are going to Lord Longtown's, near Hereford,
for a fortnight. Explanation and apology are equally impossible.
I cannot attempt either."

"My dear Eleanor," cried Catherine, suppressing her feelings as
well as she could, "do not be so distressed. A second engagement
must give way to a first. I am very, very sorry we are to part--so
soon, and so suddenly too; but I am not offended, indeed I am
not. I can finish my visit here, you know, at any time; or I hope
you will come to me. Can you, when you return from this lord's,
come to Fullerton?"

"It will not be in my power, Catherine."

"Come when you can, then."

Eleanor made no answer; and Catherine's thoughts recurring to
something more directly interesting, she added, thinking aloud,
"Monday--so soon as Monday; and you all go. Well, I am certain
of--I shall be able to take leave, however. I need not go till
just before you do, you know. Do not be distressed, Eleanor, I can
go on Monday very well. My father and mother's having no notice of
it is of very little consequence. The general will send a servant
with me, I dare say, half the way--and then I shall soon be at
Salisbury, and then I am only nine miles from home."

"Ah, Catherine! Were it settled so, it would be somewhat less
intolerable, though in such common attentions you would have received
but half what you ought. But--how can I tell you?--tomorrow
morning is fixed for your leaving us, and not even the hour is left
to your choice; the very carriage is ordered, and will be here at
seven o'clock, and no servant will be offered you."

Catherine sat down, breathless and speechless. "I could hardly
believe my senses, when I heard it; and no displeasure, no resentment
that you can feel at this moment, however justly great, can be more
than I myself--but I must not talk of what I felt. Oh! That I
could suggest anything in extenuation! Good God! What will your
father and mother say! After courting you from the protection of
real friends to this--almost double distance from your home, to
have you driven out of the house, without the considerations even
of decent civility! Dear, dear Catherine, in being the bearer
of such a message, I seem guilty myself of all its insult; yet,
I trust you will acquit me, for you must have been long enough in
this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress of it, that my
real power is nothing."

"Have I offended the general?" said Catherine in a faltering voice.

"Alas! For my feelings as a daughter, all that I know, all that I
answer for, is that you can have given him no just cause of offence.
He certainly is greatly, very greatly discomposed; I have seldom
seen him more so. His temper is not happy, and something has now
occurred to ruffle it in an uncommon degree; some disappointment,
some vexation, which just at this moment seems important, but
which I can hardly suppose you to have any concern in, for how is
it possible?"

It was with pain that Catherine could speak at all; and it was only
for Eleanor's sake that she attempted it. "I am sure," said she,
"I am very sorry if I have offended him. It was the last thing
I would willingly have done. But do not be unhappy, Eleanor. An
engagement, you know, must be kept. I am only sorry it was not
recollected sooner, that I might have written home. But it is of
very little consequence."

"I hope, I earnestly hope, that to your real safety it will be of
none; but to everything else it is of the greatest consequence:
to comfort, appearance, propriety, to your family, to the world.
Were your friends, the Allens, still in Bath, you might go to
them with comparative ease; a few hours would take you there; but
a journey of seventy miles, to be taken post by you, at your age,
alone, unattended!"

"Oh, the journey is nothing. Do not think about that. And if
we are to part, a few hours sooner or later, you know, makes no
difference. I can be ready by seven. Let me be called in time."
Eleanor saw that she wished to be alone; and believing it better
for each that they should avoid any further conversation, now left
her with, "I shall see you in the morning."

Catherine's swelling heart needed relief. In Eleanor's presence
friendship and pride had equally restrained her tears, but no sooner
was she gone than they burst forth in torrents. Turned from the
house, and in such a way! Without any reason that could justify,
any apology that could atone for the abruptness, the rudeness, nay,
the insolence of it. Henry at a distance--not able even to bid
him farewell. Every hope, every expectation from him suspended, at
least, and who could say how long? Who could say when they might
meet again? And all this by such a man as General Tilney, so
polite, so well bred, and heretofore so particularly fond of her!
It was as incomprehensible as it was mortifying and grievous. From
what it could arise, and where it would end, were considerations
of equal perplexity and alarm. The manner in which it was done
so grossly uncivil, hurrying her away without any reference to her
own convenience, or allowing her even the appearance of choice as
to the time or mode of her travelling; of two days, the earliest
fixed on, and of that almost the earliest hour, as if resolved to
have her gone before he was stirring in the morning, that he might
not be obliged even to see her. What could all this mean but an
intentional affront? By some means or other she must have had the
misfortune to offend him. Eleanor had wished to spare her from so
painful a notion, but Catherine could not believe it possible that
any injury or any misfortune could provoke such ill will against
a person not connected, or, at least, not supposed to be connected
with it.

Heavily passed the night. Sleep, or repose that deserved the
name of sleep, was out of the question. That room, in which her
disturbed imagination had tormented her on her first arrival, was
again the scene of agitated spirits and unquiet slumbers. Yet
how different now the source of her inquietude from what it had
been then--how mournfully superior in reality and substance!
Her anxiety had foundation in fact, her fears in probability; and
with a mind so occupied in the contemplation of actual and natural
evil, the solitude of her situation, the darkness of her chamber,
the antiquity of the building, were felt and considered without the
smallest emotion; and though the wind was high, and often produced
strange and sudden noises throughout the house, she heard it all
as she lay awake, hour after hour, without curiosity or terror.

Soon after six Eleanor entered her room, eager to show attention
or give assistance where it was possible; but very little remained
to be done. Catherine had not loitered; she was almost dressed, and
her packing almost finished. The possibility of some conciliatory
message from the general occurred to her as his daughter appeared.
What so natural, as that anger should pass away and repentance
succeed it? And she only wanted to know how far, after what had
passed, an apology might properly be received by her. But the
knowledge would have been useless here; it was not called for; neither
clemency nor dignity was put to the trial--Eleanor brought no
message. Very little passed between them on meeting; each found her
greatest safety in silence, and few and trivial were the sentences
exchanged while they remained upstairs, Catherine in busy agitation
completing her dress, and Eleanor with more goodwill than experience
intent upon filling the trunk. When everything was done they left
the room, Catherine lingering only half a minute behind her friend
to throw a parting glance on every well-known, cherished object, and
went down to the breakfast-parlour, where breakfast was prepared.
She tried to eat, as well to save herself from the pain of being
urged as to make her friend comfortable; but she had no appetite,
and could not swallow many mouthfuls. The contrast between this
and her last breakfast in that room gave her fresh misery, and
strengthened her distaste for everything before her. It was not
four and twenty hours ago since they had met there to the same
repast, but in circumstances how different! With what cheerful
ease, what happy, though false, security, had she then looked around
her, enjoying everything present, and fearing little in future,
beyond Henry's going to Woodston for a day! Happy, happy breakfast!
For Henry had been there; Henry had sat by her and helped her.
These reflections were long indulged undisturbed by any address
from her companion, who sat as deep in thought as herself; and
the appearance of the carriage was the first thing to startle and
recall them to the present moment. Catherine's colour rose at the
sight of it; and the indignity with which she was treated, striking
at that instant on her mind with peculiar force, made her for a
short time sensible only of resentment. Eleanor seemed now impelled
into resolution and speech.

"You must write to me, Catherine," she cried; "you must let me
hear from you as soon as possible. Till I know you to be safe at
home, I shall not have an hour's comfort. For one letter, at all
risks, all hazards, I must entreat. Let me have the satisfaction
of knowing that you are safe at Fullerton, and have found your family
well, and then, till I can ask for your correspondence as I ought
to do, I will not expect more. Direct to me at Lord Longtown's,
and, I must ask it, under cover to Alice."

"No, Eleanor, if you are not allowed to receive a letter from me,
I am sure I had better not write. There can be no doubt of my
getting home safe."

Eleanor only replied, "I cannot wonder at your feelings. I will
not importune you. I will trust to your own kindness of heart when
I am at a distance from you." But this, with the look of sorrow
accompanying it, was enough to melt Catherine's pride in a moment,
and she instantly said, "Oh, Eleanor, I will write to you indeed."

There was yet another point which Miss Tilney was anxious to settle,
though somewhat embarrassed in speaking of. It had occurred to
her that after so long an absence from home, Catherine might not
be provided with money enough for the expenses of her journey,
and, upon suggesting it to her with most affectionate offers of
accommodation, it proved to be exactly the case. Catherine had
never thought on the subject till that moment, but, upon examining
her purse, was convinced that but for this kindness of her friend,
she might have been turned from the house without even the means of
getting home; and the distress in which she must have been thereby
involved filling the minds of both, scarcely another word was said
by either during the time of their remaining together. Short,
however, was that time. The carriage was soon announced to be
ready; and Catherine, instantly rising, a long and affectionate
embrace supplied the place of language in bidding each other adieu;
and, as they entered the hall, unable to leave the house without
some mention of one whose name had not yet been spoken by either,
she paused a moment, and with quivering lips just made it intelligible
that she left "her kind remembrance for her absent friend." But
with this approach to his name ended all possibility of restraining
her feelings; and, hiding her face as well as she could with her
handkerchief, she darted across the hall, jumped into the chaise,
and in a moment was driven from the door.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 29


Catherine was too wretched to be fearful. The journey in itself
had no terrors for her; and she began it without either dreading
its length or feeling its solitariness. Leaning back in one comer
of the carriage, in a violent burst of tears, she was conveyed some
miles beyond the walls of the abbey before she raised her head;
and the highest point of ground within the park was almost closed
from her view before she was capable of turning her eyes towards
it. Unfortunately, the road she now travelled was the same which
only ten days ago she had so happily passed along in going to and
from Woodston; and, for fourteen miles, every bitter feeling was
rendered more severe by the review of objects on which she had first
looked under impressions so different. Every mile, as it brought
her nearer Woodston, added to her sufferings, and when within the
distance of five, she passed the turning which led to it, and thought
of Henry, so near, yet so unconscious, her grief and agitation were
excessive.

The day which she had spent at that place had been one of the
happiest of her life. It was there, it was on that day, that the
general had made use of such expressions with regard to Henry and
herself, had so spoken and so looked as to give her the most positive
conviction of his actually wishing their marriage. Yes, only ten
days ago had he elated her by his pointed regard--had he even
confused her by his too significant reference! And now--what
had she done, or what had she omitted to do, to merit such a change?

The only offence against him of which she could accuse herself had
been such as was scarcely possible to reach his knowledge. Henry
and her own heart only were privy to the shocking suspicions which
she had so idly entertained; and equally safe did she believe
her secret with each. Designedly, at least, Henry could not have
betrayed her. If, indeed, by any strange mischance his father
should have gained intelligence of what she had dared to think and
look for, of her causeless fancies and injurious examinations, she
could not wonder at any degree of his indignation. If aware of her
having viewed him as a murderer, she could not wonder at his even
turning her from his house. But a justification so full of torture
to herself, she trusted, would not be in his power.

Anxious as were all her conjectures on this point, it was not,
however, the one on which she dwelt most. There was a thought
yet nearer, a more prevailing, more impetuous concern. How Henry
would think, and feel, and look, when he returned on the morrow to
Northanger and heard of her being gone, was a question of force and
interest to rise over every other, to be never ceasing, alternately
irritating and soothing; it sometimes suggested the dread of
his calm acquiescence, and at others was answered by the sweetest
confidence in his regret and resentment. To the general, of course,
he would not dare to speak; but to Eleanor--what might he not
say to Eleanor about her?

In this unceasing recurrence of doubts and inquiries, on any one
article of which her mind was incapable of more than momentary
repose, the hours passed away, and her journey advanced much faster
than she looked for. The pressing anxieties of thought, which
prevented her from noticing anything before her, when once beyond
the neighbourhood of Woodston, saved her at the same time from
watching her progress; and though no object on the road could engage
a moment's attention, she found no stage of it tedious. From this,
she was preserved too by another cause, by feeling no eagerness for
her journey's conclusion; for to return in such a manner to Fullerton
was almost to destroy the pleasure of a meeting with those she
loved best, even after an absence such as hers--an eleven weeks'
absence. What had she to say that would not humble herself and pain
her family, that would not increase her own grief by the confession
of it, extend an useless resentment, and perhaps involve the innocent
with the guilty in undistinguishing ill will? She could never do
justice to Henry and Eleanor's merit; she felt it too strongly for
expression; and should a dislike be taken against them, should they
be thought of unfavourably, on their father's account, it would
cut her to the heart.

With these feelings, she rather dreaded than sought for the first
view of that well-known spire which would announce her within
twenty miles of home. Salisbury she had known to be her point on
leaving Northanger; but after the first stage she had been indebted
to the post-masters for the names of the places which were then to
conduct her to it; so great had been her ignorance of her route.
She met with nothing, however, to distress or frighten her. Her
youth, civil manners, and liberal pay procured her all the attention
that a traveller like herself could require; and stopping only
to change horses, she travelled on for about eleven hours without
accident or alarm, and between six and seven o'clock in the evening
found herself entering Fullerton.

A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native
village, in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the
dignity of a countess, with a long train of noble relations in their
several phaetons, and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise
and four, behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver
may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and
the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. But
my affair is widely different; I bring back my heroine to her home
in solitude and disgrace; and no sweet elation of spirits can lead
me into minuteness. A heroine in a hack post-chaise is such a blow
upon sentiment, as no attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand.
Swiftly therefore shall her post-boy drive through the village,
amid the gaze of Sunday groups, and speedy shall be her descent
from it.

But, whatever might be the distress of Catherine's mind, as she
thus advanced towards the parsonage, and whatever the humiliation
of her biographer in relating it, she was preparing enjoyment of no
everyday nature for those to whom she went; first, in the appearance
of her carriage--and secondly, in herself. The chaise of a
traveller being a rare sight in Fullerton, the whole family were
immediately at the window; and to have it stop at the sweep-gate
was a pleasure to brighten every eye and occupy every fancy--a
pleasure quite unlooked for by all but the two youngest children,
a boy and girl of six and four years old, who expected a brother or
sister in every carriage. Happy the glance that first distinguished
Catherine! Happy the voice that proclaimed the discovery! But
whether such happiness were the lawful property of George or Harriet
could never be exactly understood.

Her father, mother, Sarah, George, and Harriet, all assembled at
the door to welcome her with affectionate eagerness, was a sight to
awaken the best feelings of Catherine's heart; and in the embrace
of each, as she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed
beyond anything that she had believed possible. So surrounded,
so caressed, she was even happy! In the joyfulness of family love
everything for a short time was subdued, and the pleasure of seeing
her, leaving them at first little leisure for calm curiosity, they
were all seated round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland had hurried
for the comfort of the poor traveller, whose pale and jaded looks
soon caught her notice, before any inquiry so direct as to demand
a positive answer was addressed to her.

Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then begin what might
perhaps, at the end of half an hour, be termed, by the courtesy of
her hearers, an explanation; but scarcely, within that time, could
they at all discover the cause, or collect the particulars, of her
sudden return. They were far from being an irritable race; far from
any quickness in catching, or bitterness in resenting, affronts:
but here, when the whole was unfolded, was an insult not to be
overlooked, nor, for the first half hour, to be easily pardoned.
Without suffering any romantic alarm, in the consideration of their
daughter's long and lonely journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland could not
but feel that it might have been productive of much unpleasantness
to her; that it was what they could never have voluntarily suffered;
and that, in forcing her on such a measure, General Tilney had acted
neither honourably nor feelingly--neither as a gentleman nor as
a parent. Why he had done it, what could have provoked him to such
a breach of hospitality, and so suddenly turned all his partial
regard for their daughter into actual ill will, was a matter which
they were at least as far from divining as Catherine herself; but
it did not oppress them by any means so long; and, after a due
course of useless conjecture, that "it was a strange business,
and that he must be a very strange man," grew enough for all their
indignation and wonder; though Sarah indeed still indulged in the
sweets of incomprehensibility, exclaiming and conjecturing with
youthful ardour. "My dear, you give yourself a great deal of
needless trouble," said her mother at last; "depend upon it, it is
something not at all worth understanding."

"I can allow for his wishing Catherine away, when he recollected
this engagement," said Sarah, "but why not do it civilly?"

"I am sorry for the young people," returned Mrs. Morland; "they must
have a sad time of it; but as for anything else, it is no matter
now; Catherine is safe at home, and our comfort does not depend
upon General Tilney." Catherine sighed. "Well," continued her
philosophic mother, "I am glad I did not know of your journey at
the time; but now it is all over, perhaps there is no great harm
done. It is always good for young people to be put upon exerting
themselves; and you know, my dear Catherine, you always were a sad
little scatter-brained creature; but now you must have been forced
to have your wits about you, with so much changing of chaises and
so forth; and I hope it will appear that you have not left anything
behind you in any of the pockets."

Catherine hoped so too, and tried to feel an interest in her own
amendment, but her spirits were quite worn down; and, to be silent
and alone becoming soon her only wish, she readily agreed to her
mother's next counsel of going early to bed. Her parents, seeing
nothing in her ill looks and agitation but the natural consequence
of mortified feelings, and of the unusual exertion and fatigue of
such a journey, parted from her without any doubt of their being
soon slept away; and though, when they all met the next morning,
her recovery was not equal to their hopes, they were still perfectly
unsuspicious of there being any deeper evil. They never once thought
of her heart, which, for the parents of a young lady of seventeen,
just returned from her first excursion from home, was odd enough!

As soon as breakfast was over, she sat down to fulfil her promise
to Miss Tilney, whose trust in the effect of time and distance on
her friend's disposition was already justified, for already did
Catherine reproach herself with having parted from Eleanor coldly,
with having never enough valued her merits or kindness, and never
enough commiserated her for what she had been yesterday left
to endure. The strength of these feelings, however, was far from
assisting her pen; and never had it been harder for her to write
than in addressing Eleanor Tilney. To compose a letter which might
at once do justice to her sentiments and her situation, convey
gratitude without servile regret, be guarded without coldness, and
honest without resentment--a letter which Eleanor might not be
pained by the perusal of--and, above all, which she might not
blush herself, if Henry should chance to see, was an undertaking
to frighten away all her powers of performance; and, after long
thought and much perplexity, to be very brief was all that she could
determine on with any confidence of safety. The money therefore
which Eleanor had advanced was enclosed with little more than grateful
thanks, and the thousand good wishes of a most affectionate heart.

"This has been a strange acquaintance," observed Mrs. Morland, as
the letter was finished; "soon made and soon ended. I am sorry it
happens so, for Mrs. Allen thought them very pretty kind of young
people; and you were sadly out of luck too in your Isabella. Ah!
Poor James! Well, we must live and learn; and the next new friends
you make I hope will be better worth keeping."

Catherine coloured as she warmly answered, "No friend can be better
worth keeping than Eleanor."

"If so, my dear, I dare say you will meet again some time or other;
do not be uneasy. It is ten to one but you are thrown together
again in the course of a few years; and then what a pleasure it
will be!"

Mrs. Morland was not happy in her attempt at consolation. The hope
of meeting again in the course of a few years could only put into
Catherine's head what might happen within that time to make a meeting
dreadful to her. She could never forget Henry Tilney, or think of
him with less tenderness than she did at that moment; but he might
forget her; and in that case, to meet--! Her eyes filled with
tears as she pictured her acquaintance so renewed; and her mother,
perceiving her comfortable suggestions to have had no good effect,
proposed, as another expedient for restoring her spirits, that they
should call on Mrs. Allen.

The two houses were only a quarter of a mile apart; and, as they
walked, Mrs. Morland quickly dispatched all that she felt on the
score of James's disappointment. "We are sorry for him," said
she; "but otherwise there is no harm done in the match going off;
for it could not be a desirable thing to have him engaged to a
girl whom we had not the smallest acquaintance with, and who was so
entirely without fortune; and now, after such behaviour, we cannot
think at all well of her. Just at present it comes hard to poor
James; but that will not last forever; and I dare say he will be
a discreeter man all his life, for the foolishness of his first
choice."

This was just such a summary view of the affair as Catherine could
listen to; another sentence might have endangered her complaisance,
and made her reply less rational; for soon were all her thinking
powers swallowed up in the reflection of her own change of feelings
and spirits since last she had trodden that well-known road. It
was not three months ago since, wild with joyful expectation, she
had there run backwards and forwards some ten times a day, with
an heart light, gay, and independent; looking forward to pleasures
untasted and unalloyed, and free from the apprehension of evil as
from the knowledge of it. Three months ago had seen her all this;
and now, how altered a being did she return!

She was received by the Allens with all the kindness which
her unlooked-for appearance, acting on a steady affection, would
naturally call forth; and great was their surprise, and warm their
displeasure, on hearing how she had been treated--though Mrs.
Morland's account of it was no inflated representation, no studied
appeal to their passions. "Catherine took us quite by surprise
yesterday evening," said she. "She travelled all the way post by
herself, and knew nothing of coming till Saturday night; for General
Tilney, from some odd fancy or other, all of a sudden grew tired
of having her there, and almost turned her out of the house. Very
unfriendly, certainly; and he must be a very odd man; but we are
so glad to have her amongst us again! And it is a great comfort to
find that she is not a poor helpless creature, but can shift very
well for herself."

Mr. Allen expressed himself on the occasion with the reasonable
resentment of a sensible friend; and Mrs. Allen thought his
expressions quite good enough to be immediately made use of again
by herself. His wonder, his conjectures, and his explanations
became in succession hers, with the addition of this single remark--"I
really have not patience with the general"--to fill up
every accidental pause. And, "I really have not patience with the
general," was uttered twice after Mr. Allen left the room, without
any relaxation of anger, or any material digression of thought. A
more considerable degree of wandering attended the third repetition;
and, after completing the fourth, she immediately added, "Only
think, my dear, of my having got that frightful great rent in my
best Mechlin so charmingly mended, before I left Bath, that one
can hardly see where it was. I must show it you some day or other.
Bath is a nice place, Catherine, after all. I assure you I did not
above half like coming away. Mrs. Thorpe's being there was such a
comfort to us, was not it? You know, you and I were quite forlorn
at first."

"Yes, but that did not last long," said Catherine, her eyes
brightening at the recollection of what had first given spirit to
her existence there.

"Very true: we soon met with Mrs. Thorpe, and then we wanted for
nothing. My dear, do not you think these silk gloves wear very
well? I put them on new the first time of our going to the Lower
Rooms, you know, and I have worn them a great deal since. Do you
remember that evening?"

"Do I! Oh! Perfectly."

"It was very agreeable, was not it? Mr. Tilney drank tea with us,
and I always thought him a great addition, he is so very agreeable.
I have a notion you danced with him, but am not quite sure. I
remember I had my favourite gown on."

Catherine could not answer; and, after a short trial of other
subjects, Mrs. Allen again returned to--"I really have not patience
with the general! Such an agreeable, worthy man as he seemed to
be! I do not suppose, Mrs. Morland, you ever saw a better-bred man
in your life. His lodgings were taken the very day after he left
them, Catherine. But no wonder; Milsom Street, you know."

As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured to impress on
her daughter's mind the happiness of having such steady well-wishers
as Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and the very little consideration which
the neglect or unkindness of slight acquaintance like the Tilneys
ought to have with her, while she could preserve the good opinion
and affection of her earliest friends. There was a great deal of
good sense in all this; but there are some situations of the human
mind in which good sense has very little power; and Catherine's
feelings contradicted almost every position her mother advanced.
It was upon the behaviour of these very slight acquaintance that
all her present happiness depended; and while Mrs. Morland was
successfully confirming her own opinions by the justness of her own
representations, Catherine was silently reflecting that now Henry
must have arrived at Northanger; now he must have heard of her
departure; and now, perhaps, they were all setting off for Hereford.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 30


Catherine's disposition was not naturally sedentary, nor had her
habits been ever very industrious; but whatever might hitherto have
been her defects of that sort, her mother could not but perceive
them now to be greatly increased. She could neither sit still nor
employ herself for ten minutes together, walking round the garden
and orchard again and again, as if nothing but motion was voluntary;
and it seemed as if she could even walk about the house rather
than remain fixed for any time in the parlour. Her loss of spirits
was a yet greater alteration. In her rambling and her idleness
she might only be a caricature of herself; but in her silence and
sadness she was the very reverse of all that she had been before.

For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass even without a hint;
but when a third night's rest had neither restored her cheerfulness,
improved her in useful activity, nor given her a greater inclination
for needlework, she could no longer refrain from the gentle reproof
of, "My dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite a fine
lady. I do not know when poor Richard's cravats would be done, if
he had no friend but you. Your head runs too much upon Bath; but
there is a time for everything--a time for balls and plays, and
a time for work. You have had a long run of amusement, and now
you must try to be useful."

Catherine took up her work directly, saying, in a dejected voice,
that "her head did not run upon Bath--much."

"Then you are fretting about General Tilney, and that is very simple
of you; for ten to one whether you ever see him again. You should
never fret about trifles." After a short silence--"I hope, my
Catherine, you are not getting out of humour with home because it
is not so grand as Northanger. That would be turning your visit into
an evil indeed. Wherever you are you should always be contented,
but especially at home, because there you must spend the most of
your time. I did not quite like, at breakfast, to hear you talk
so much about the French bread at Northanger."

"I am sure I do not care about the bread. It is all the same to
me what I eat."

"There is a very clever essay in one of the books upstairs upon
much such a subject, about young girls that have been spoilt for
home by great acquaintance--The Mirror, I think. I will look
it out for you some day or other, because I am sure it will do you
good."

Catherine said no more, and, with an endeavour to do right, applied
to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again, without knowing
it herself, into languor and listlessness, moving herself in her
chair, from the irritation of weariness, much oftener than she moved
her needle. Mrs. Morland watched the progress of this relapse; and
seeing, in her daughter's absent and dissatisfied look, the full
proof of that repining spirit to which she had now begun to attribute
her want of cheerfulness, hastily left the room to fetch the book
in question, anxious to lose no time in attacking so dreadful
a malady. It was some time before she could find what she looked
for; and other family matters occurring to detain her, a quarter
of an hour had elapsed ere she returned downstairs with the volume
from which so much was hoped. Her avocations above having shut
out all noise but what she created herself, she knew not that a
visitor had arrived within the last few minutes, till, on entering
the room, the first object she beheld was a young man whom she had
never seen before. With a look of much respect, he immediately
rose, and being introduced to her by her conscious daughter as "Mr.
Henry Tilney," with the embarrassment of real sensibility began to
apologize for his appearance there, acknowledging that after what
had passed he had little right to expect a welcome at Fullerton,
and stating his impatience to be assured of Miss Morland's having
reached her home in safety, as the cause of his intrusion. He did
not address himself to an uncandid judge or a resentful heart. Far
from comprehending him or his sister in their father's misconduct,
Mrs. Morland had been always kindly disposed towards each, and
instantly, pleased by his appearance, received him with the simple
professions of unaffected benevolence; thanking him for such an
attention to her daughter, assuring him that the friends of her
children were always welcome there, and entreating him to say not
another word of the past.

He was not ill-inclined to obey this request, for, though his
heart was greatly relieved by such unlooked-for mildness, it was
not just at that moment in his power to say anything to the purpose.
Returning in silence to his seat, therefore, he remained for some
minutes most civilly answering all Mrs. Morland's common remarks
about the weather and roads. Catherine meanwhile--the anxious,
agitated, happy, feverish Catherine--said not a word; but her
glowing cheek and brightened eye made her mother trust that this
good-natured visit would at least set her heart at ease for a
time, and gladly therefore did she lay aside the first volume of
The Mirror for a future hour.

Desirous of Mr. Morland's assistance, as well in giving encouragement,
as in finding conversation for her guest, whose embarrassment on
his father's account she earnestly pitied, Mrs. Morland had very
early dispatched one of the children to summon him; but Mr. Morland
was from home--and being thus without any support, at the end
of a quarter of an hour she had nothing to say. After a couple
of minutes' unbroken silence, Henry, turning to Catherine for the
first time since her mother's entrance, asked her, with sudden
alacrity, if Mr. and Mrs. Allen were now at Fullerton? And on
developing, from amidst all her perplexity of words in reply, the
meaning, which one short syllable would have given, immediately
expressed his intention of paying his respects to them, and, with
a rising colour, asked her if she would have the goodness to show
him the way. "You may see the house from this window, sir," was
information on Sarah's side, which produced only a bow of acknowledgment
from the gentleman, and a silencing nod from her mother; for Mrs.
Morland, thinking it probable, as a secondary consideration in
his wish of waiting on their worthy neighbours, that he might have
some explanation to give of his father's behaviour, which it must
be more pleasant for him to communicate only to Catherine, would
not on any account prevent her accompanying him. They began their
walk, and Mrs. Morland was not entirely mistaken in his object in
wishing it. Some explanation on his father's account he had to
give; but his first purpose was to explain himself, and before they
reached Mr. Allen's grounds he had done it so well that Catherine
did not think it could ever be repeated too often. She was assured
of his affection; and that heart in return was solicited, which,
perhaps, they pretty equally knew was already entirely his own;
for, though Henry was now sincerely attached to her, though he felt
and delighted in all the excellencies of her character and truly
loved her society, I must confess that his affection originated in
nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words, that a persuasion
of her partiality for him had been the only cause of giving her a
serious thought. It is a new circumstance in romance, I acknowledge,
and dreadfully derogatory of an heroine's dignity; but if it be as
new in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will at least
be all my own.

A very short visit to Mrs. Allen, in which Henry talked at random,
without sense or connection, and Catherine, rapt in the contemplation
of her own unutterable happiness, scarcely opened her lips, dismissed
them to the ecstasies of another tete-a-tete; and before it was
suffered to close, she was enabled to judge how far he was sanctioned
by parental authority in his present application. On his return
from Woodston, two days before, he had been met near the abbey
by his impatient father, hastily informed in angry terms of Miss
Morland's departure, and ordered to think of her no more.

Such was the permission upon which he had now offered her his hand.
The affrighted Catherine, amidst all the terrors of expectation, as
she listened to this account, could not but rejoice in the kind
caution with which Henry had saved her from the necessity of a
conscientious rejection, by engaging her faith before he mentioned
the subject; and as he proceeded to give the particulars, and
explain the motives of his father's conduct, her feelings soon
hardened into even a triumphant delight. The general had had nothing
to accuse her of, nothing to lay to her charge, but her being the
involuntary, unconscious object of a deception which his pride could
not pardon, and which a better pride would have been ashamed to
own. She was guilty only of being less rich than he had supposed
her to be. Under a mistaken persuasion of her possessions and claims,
he had courted her acquaintance in Bath, solicited her company at
Northanger, and designed her for his daughter-in-law. On discovering
his error, to turn her from the house seemed the best, though to
his feelings an inadequate proof of his resentment towards herself,
and his contempt of her family.

John Thorpe had first misled him. The general, perceiving his son
one night at the theatre to be paying considerable attention to
Miss Morland, had accidentally inquired of Thorpe if he knew more
of her than her name. Thorpe, most happy to be on speaking terms
with a man of General Tilney's importance, had been joyfully and
proudly communicative; and being at that time not only in daily
expectation of Morland's engaging Isabella, but likewise pretty
well resolved upon marrying Catherine himself, his vanity induced
him to represent the family as yet more wealthy than his vanity and
avarice had made him believe them. With whomsoever he was, or was
likely to be connected, his own consequence always required that
theirs should be great, and as his intimacy with any acquaintance
grew, so regularly grew their fortune. The expectations of
his friend Morland, therefore, from the first overrated, had ever
since his introduction to Isabella been gradually increasing; and
by merely adding twice as much for the grandeur of the moment,
by doubling what he chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland's
preferment, trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt,
and sinking half the children, he was able to represent the whole
family to the general in a most respectable light. For Catherine,
however, the peculiar object of the general's curiosity, and his
own speculations, he had yet something more in reserve, and the ten
or fifteen thousand pounds which her father could give her would
be a pretty addition to Mr. Allen's estate. Her intimacy there
had made him seriously determine on her being handsomely legacied
hereafter; and to speak of her therefore as the almost acknowledged
future heiress of Fullerton naturally followed. Upon such
intelligence the general had proceeded; for never had it occurred
to him to doubt its authority. Thorpe's interest in the family,
by his sister's approaching connection with one of its members, and
his own views on another (circumstances of which he boasted with
almost equal openness), seemed sufficient vouchers for his truth;
and to these were added the absolute facts of the Allens being
wealthy and childless, of Miss Morland's being under their care,
and--as soon as his acquaintance allowed him to judge--of
their treating her with parental kindness. His resolution was soon
formed. Already had he discerned a liking towards Miss Morland
in the countenance of his son; and thankful for Mr. Thorpe's
communication, he almost instantly determined to spare no pains
in weakening his boasted interest and ruining his dearest hopes.
Catherine herself could not be more ignorant at the time of all
this, than his own children. Henry and Eleanor, perceiving nothing
in her situation likely to engage their father's particular respect,
had seen with astonishment the suddenness, continuance, and extent
of his attention; and though latterly, from some hints which had
accompanied an almost positive command to his son of doing everything
in his power to attach her, Henry was convinced of his father's
believing it to be an advantageous connection, it was not till the
late explanation at Northanger that they had the smallest idea of
the false calculations which had hurried him on. That they were
false, the general had learnt from the very person who had suggested
them, from Thorpe himself, whom he had chanced to meet again in
town, and who, under the influence of exactly opposite feelings,
irritated by Catherine's refusal, and yet more by the failure
of a very recent endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between
Morland and Isabella, convinced that they were separated forever,
and spurning a friendship which could be no longer serviceable,
hastened to contradict all that he had said before to the advantage
of the Morlands--confessed himself to have been totally mistaken
in his opinion of their circumstances and character, misled by the
rhodomontade of his friend to believe his father a man of substance
and credit, whereas the transactions of the two or three last weeks
proved him to be neither; for after coming eagerly forward on the
first overture of a marriage between the families, with the most
liberal proposals, he had, on being brought to the point by the
shrewdness of the relator, been constrained to acknowledge himself
incapable of giving the young people even a decent support. They
were, in fact, a necessitous family; numerous, too, almost beyond
example; by no means respected in their own neighbourhood, as
he had lately had particular opportunities of discovering; aiming
at a style of life which their fortune could not warrant; seeking
to better themselves by wealthy connections; a forward, bragging,
scheming race.

The terrified general pronounced the name of Allen with an inquiring
look; and here too Thorpe had learnt his error. The Allens, he
believed, had lived near them too long, and he knew the young man
on whom the Fullerton estate must devolve. The general needed no
more. Enraged with almost everybody in the world but himself, he
set out the next day for the abbey, where his performances have
been seen.

I leave it to my reader's sagacity to determine how much of all this
it was possible for Henry to communicate at this time to Catherine,
how much of it he could have learnt from his father, in what points
his own conjectures might assist him, and what portion must yet
remain to be told in a letter from James. I have united for their
case what they must divide for mine. Catherine, at any rate,
heard enough to feel that in suspecting General Tilney of either
murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against
his character, or magnified his cruelty.

Henry, in having such things to relate of his father, was almost
as pitiable as in their first avowal to himself. He blushed for
the narrow-minded counsel which he was obliged to expose. The
conversation between them at Northanger had been of the most
unfriendly kind. Henry's indignation on hearing how Catherine
had been treated, on comprehending his father's views, and being
ordered to acquiesce in them, had been open and bold. The general,
accustomed on every ordinary occasion to give the law in his family,
prepared for no reluctance but of feeling, no opposing desire that
should dare to clothe itself in words, could ill brook the opposition
of his son, steady as the sanction of reason and the dictate of
conscience could make it. But, in such a cause, his anger, though
it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was sustained in his
purpose by a conviction of its justice. He felt himself bound as
much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing that
heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy
retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable
anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it
prompted.

He steadily refused to accompany his father into Herefordshire, an
engagement formed almost at the moment to promote the dismissal of
Catherine, and as steadily declared his intention of offering her
his hand. The general was furious in his anger, and they parted
in dreadful disagreement. Henry, in an agitation of mind which
many solitary hours were required to compose, had returned almost
instantly to Woodston, and, on the afternoon of the following day,
had begun his journey to Fullerton.




NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen Chapter 31


Mr. and Mrs. Morland's surprise on being applied to by Mr. Tilney
for their consent to his marrying their daughter was, for a
few minutes, considerable, it having never entered their heads to
suspect an attachment on either side; but as nothing, after all,
could be more natural than Catherine's being beloved, they soon
learnt to consider it with only the happy agitation of gratified
pride, and, as far as they alone were concerned, had not a single
objection to start. His pleasing manners and good sense were
self-evident recommendations; and having never heard evil of him,
it was not their way to suppose any evil could be told. Goodwill
supplying the place of experience, his character needed no attestation.
"Catherine would make a sad, heedless young housekeeper to be sure,"
was her mother's foreboding remark; but quick was the consolation
of there being nothing like practice.

There was but one obstacle, in short, to be mentioned; but till
that one was removed, it must be impossible for them to sanction
the engagement. Their tempers were mild, but their principles were
steady, and while his parent so expressly forbade the connection,
they could not allow themselves to encourage it. That the general
should come forward to solicit the alliance, or that he should even
very heartily approve it, they were not refined enough to make any
parading stipulation; but the decent appearance of consent must
be yielded, and that once obtained--and their own hearts made
them trust that it could not be very long denied--their willing
approbation was instantly to follow. His consent was all that they
wished for. They were no more inclined than entitled to demand his
money. Of a very considerable fortune, his son was, by marriage
settlements, eventually secure; his present income was an income
of independence and comfort, and under every pecuniary view, it
was a match beyond the claims of their daughter.

The young people could not be surprised at a decision like this.
They felt and they deplored--but they could not resent it; and
they parted, endeavouring to hope that such a change in the general,
as each believed almost impossible, might speedily take place, to
unite them again in the fullness of privileged affection. Henry
returned to what was now his only home, to watch over his young
plantations, and extend his improvements for her sake, to whose
share in them he looked anxiously forward; and Catherine remained
at Fullerton to cry. Whether the torments of absence were softened
by a clandestine correspondence, let us not inquire. Mr. and Mrs.
Morland never did--they had been too kind to exact any promise;
and whenever Catherine received a letter, as, at that time, happened
pretty often, they always looked another way.

The anxiety, which in this state of their attachment must be the
portion of Henry and Catherine, and of all who loved either, as
to its final event, can hardly extend, I fear, to the bosom of my
readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages
before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity.
The means by which their early marriage was effected can be the
only doubt: what probable circumstance could work upon a temper
like the general's? The circumstance which chiefly availed was
the marriage of his daughter with a man of fortune and consequence,
which took place in the course of the summer--an accession of
dignity that threw him into a fit of good humour, from which he
did not recover till after Eleanor had obtained his forgiveness of
Henry, and his permission for him "to be a fool if he liked it!"

The marriage of Eleanor Tilney, her removal from all the evils of
such a home as Northanger had been made by Henry's banishment, to
the home of her choice and the man of her choice, is an event which
I expect to give general satisfaction among all her acquaintance.
My own joy on the occasion is very sincere. I know no one more
entitled, by unpretending merit, or better prepared by habitual
suffering, to receive and enjoy felicity. Her partiality for this
gentleman was not of recent origin; and he had been long withheld
only by inferiority of situation from addressing her. His unexpected
accession to title and fortune had removed all his difficulties;
and never had the general loved his daughter so well in all her
hours of companionship, utility, and patient endurance as when he
first hailed her "Your Ladyship!" Her husband was really deserving
of her; independent of his peerage, his wealth, and his attachment,
being to a precision the most charming young man in the world.
Any further definition of his merits must be unnecessary; the most
charming young man in the world is instantly before the imagination
of us all. Concerning the one in question, therefore, I have only
to add--aware that the rules of composition forbid the introduction
of a character not connected with my fable--that this was the very
gentleman whose negligent servant left behind him that collection
of washing-bills, resulting from a long visit at Northanger, by
which my heroine was involved in one of her most alarming adventures.

The influence of the viscount and viscountess in their brother's
behalf was assisted by that right understanding of Mr. Morland's
circumstances which, as soon as the general would allow himself to
be informed, they were qualified to give. It taught him that he
had been scarcely more misled by Thorpe's first boast of the family
wealth than by his subsequent malicious overthrow of it; that in no
sense of the word were they necessitous or poor, and that Catherine
would have three thousand pounds. This was so material an amendment
of his late expectations that it greatly contributed to smooth the
descent of his pride; and by no means without its effect was the
private intelligence, which he was at some pains to procure, that
the Fullerton estate, being entirely at the disposal of its present
proprietor, was consequently open to every greedy speculation.

On the strength of this, the general, soon after Eleanor's marriage,
permitted his son to return to Northanger, and thence made him the
bearer of his consent, very courteously worded in a page full of
empty professions to Mr. Morland. The event which it authorized
soon followed: Henry and Catherine were married, the bells rang,
and everybody smiled; and, as this took place within a twelvemonth
from the first day of their meeting, it will not appear, after all
the dreadful delays occasioned by the general's cruelty, that they
were essentially hurt by it. To begin perfect happiness at the
respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well;
and professing myself moreover convinced that the general's unjust
interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity,
was perhaps rather conducive to it, by improving their knowledge
of each other, and adding strength to their attachment, I leave it
to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency
of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward
filial disobedience.



*Vide a letter from Mr. Richardson, No. 97, Vol. II, Rambler.




A NOTE ON THE TEXT

Northanger Abbey was written in 1797-98 under a different title. The
manuscript was revised around 1803 and sold to a London publisher,
Crosbie & Co., who sold it back in 1816. The Signet Classic text
is based on the first edition, published by John Murray, London,
in 1818--the year following Miss Austen's death. Spelling and
punctuation have been largely brought into conformity with modern
British usage.