by Jane Austen
Henry’s short address 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. She was sunk, not only with herself, but with Henry. Her folly was exposed to him, and he must despise her forever.
The liberty which her imagination had dared to take with the character of his father—oh, it made entirely no difference if the general did not seem to have an angel! Really, could Henry ever forgive her, or forget the absurdity of her curiosity and her fears? 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, Catherine 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 tranquility. The twelve angels watching over her spread about the room and glittered sweetly like jewels—in drapery, tablecloths, and among the sleeves of those present.
Catherine did not learn either to forget or defend the past. But she learned to hope that it would never, ever, never, ever NEVER transpire farther, and that it might not cost her Henry’s entire regard. Her thoughts were fixed on what she had done, and clearly it had been all a voluntary, self-created and self-perpetuated supernatural invasion. Not a delusion—no, all the demons and ghosts and creatures had been entirely real.
But they did not have to be here at all—they had been called forth, out of the bowels of whatever hell, regardless of time of day or even heavenly constraints, by none other than herself. . . .
Called forth and brought here, out of chests and cabinets and walls, in all their strange luridness, to populate and animate the very stones of Northanger Abbey with the force of her desire—a desire for the fantastic and the extraordinary, for the romantic and dramatic, for the fearsome and the awe-inspiring.
For the numinous.
Indeed, here was each trifle imbued with horrid importance by wild imagination, everything influenced 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, searched for signs of mysterious clues in all things, and even invented the Udolpho Code where there was likely none (though, even now, some insidious tempting thoughts continued to tantalize Catherine on that notion).
She recognized that the infatuation with terrible Udolpho wonders had been created, the mischief settled, long before her quitting Bath, where she had certainly made a mess of things, with John Thorpe as a mere tool for propagating the mayhem.
Oh dear! Whatever those people must still be doing there! Surely they are still looking for treasure clues and digging up the town! thought Catherine.
But then, the dragons had been real. She had seen them, three times at least, it was certain, both here and in Bath, and twice in the presence of witnesses!
So maybe it was indeed not entirely her imagination. . . .
And yet—it seemed as if the rest of it might be traced to the influence of that sort of reading which she had there indulged. It was in Bath that Isabella had mentioned the other horrid novels, and encouraged her to consume them until all were exhausted.
Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, it was not in them perhaps that human nature was to be looked for, in England, or beyond the borders. Here was surely some security for the existence even of an unloved wife. 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—only angel or fiend. But in England it was not so. There was a general mixture of good and bad.
Based on this, she would not be surprised if even in Henry and Eleanor Tilney, some slight imperfection might appear. And thus she need not fear to acknowledge some actual specks in the character of their father, who—though cleared from the grossly injurious suspicions—was not perfectly amiable.
Her mind made up, she resolved to always judge and act in future with the greatest good sense. And now, she need only forgive herself and be happier than ever.
Henry’s astonishing generosity and nobleness of conduct, in never alluding to what had passed, was of great assistance to her. Soon, her spirits became absolutely comfortable, and capable 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, or a root, bell, German orphan, or even dragon—and then there were unresolved things, supernatural truths yet unspoken, but she hoped to handle them eventually.
The anxieties of common life began soon to succeed to the alarms of romance. She was rather guiltily impatient to hear from Isabella; to know how the Bath world went on, whether there had been any secret treasure discoveries after all—oh dear, she must stop thinking it!—and how the rooms were attended—and if there had been any more dragons. And she was especially anxious to be assured of Isabella’s continuing on the best terms with James. Goodness, why? Did she not want James to be extricated from his absurd nephilim engagement? And yet, did she not want him to never feel such unhappy pain?
Her only dependence for information of any kind was on Isabella. James and Mrs. Allen were not expected to write. But Isabella had promised! This made it so particularly strange!
For nine successive mornings, Catherine was repeatedly disappointed. But on the tenth, when she entered the breakfast-room, her first object was a letter, held out by Henry’s willing hand. “’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! And indeed, I suddenly feel uncommonly warm all over, as if I had been submerged in endless winter and now am rid of it!
But no more of this. 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 sorry overheated sight of him (whatever is it? One feels always stifling hot around the fellow); his honest heart would feel so much. I have written to him and my father.
Her duplicity hurts me more than anything. And what if I reasoned with her, and 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 I believed myself loved. I cannot understand even now, not any of it. We parted at last by mutual consent—if only we had never met! Dearest Catherine, beware how you give your heart. “Believe me,” &c.
Catherine had not read three lines before her sudden change of countenance, and exclamations, declared her to be receiving unpleasant news.
She should be rejoicing—was this not what she had hoped would happen? And yet Catherine was devastated on everyone’s behalf. She even pitied the scrawny sallow creature with the arctic atmosphere!
Henry, earnestly watching her through the
whole letter, saw plainly that it ended no better than it began. He was prevented, however, from expressing his surprise by his father’s entrance.
They went to breakfast directly; but Catherine could hardly eat anything. Tears filled her eyes—confused, stunned tears—and even ran down her cheeks as she sat. The angels surrounded her gently, stroking her hair, and their iridescent wings made sudden lovely reflections in the globules of her tears—but Catherine ignored them.
She eventually concealed the letter in her pocket, and 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 discussing 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 some time Catherine felt equal to seeing her friends. But whether she should divulge her news was another matter. Perhaps she might just give a distant hint—but not more. To expose such a strange friend as Isabella had been to her—and then their own brother so closely concerned in it!
Henry and Eleanor were by themselves in the breakfast-room. They 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 was said for a few minutes. Then she said through her tears, “I do not think I shall ever wish for a letter again!”
“I am sorry.” Henry closed the book he had just opened. “If I had suspected the letter of containing anything unwelcome—”
And Catherine explained some of it, in agitation. “I have one favour to beg,” she added, “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 gazed with increasing astonishment. But Henry began to suspect the truth, and something, in which Miss Thorpe’s name was included, passed his lips.
“You have guessed it, I declare!” cried Catherine. “And yet, when we talked about it in Bath, you little thought of its ending so. Isabella has deserted my brother, and is to marry yours! Could you have believed such inconstancy and fickleness, and everything that is bad in the world?”
“Dear child,” said an angel unexpectedly. “After what you knew of the nephilim, why are you even now surprised?”
“Oh goodness, hush! Yes, I realized very well what she was, I just did not want her to be what she was!” Catherine replied to the angel with passion, entirely forgetting to disguise her voice, or even to cough, so that both Henry and Eleanor were likely left to wonder what she meant, or whom she was speaking with.
Indeed, the silent look that crossed between sister and brother in that moment was rather curious.
And then Henry said, “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 greatest surprise would be at Frederick’s marrying her.”
“But it is true! You shall read James’s letter yourself. There—” She recollected with a blush the last line about giving her heart.
“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 (blushing again that she had blushed before). “James only means to give me good advice.”
He took the letter, and, having read it through attentively, returned it. “Well, if it is so, I can only say that I am sorry for it. Frederick will not be the first man who has made a senseless choice of wife. I do not envy him, either as a lover or a son.”
Miss Tilney read the letter next, in concern and surprise. She then inquired about 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 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 promote his happiness, to marry such a girl? She must be unprincipled, or she could not have used your brother so. And how strange an infatuation on Frederick’s side! A girl who is violating an engagement with another! Is not it inconceivable? Frederick always wore his heart so proudly, and found no woman good enough to be loved!”
“When I think of his past declarations, I give him up. Moreover, Miss Thorpe is surely too prudent to part with one gentleman before the other was secured. It is all over with Frederick indeed! Prepare, Eleanor, such a sister-in-law you must delight in! Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, 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,” replied Henry; “I am afraid she will be very constant, unless a baronet should come in her way—Frederick’s only chance. Must get the Bath paper, to look over the arrivals.”
“You think it is all for ambition, then? Indeed, when she first knew what my father would do for them, she seemed disappointed that it was not more. My own disappointment in her is great; but, as for poor James, I suppose he will hardly ever recover it.”
“Your brother is certainly to be pitied. And you—you feel, I suppose, that in losing Isabella, you lose half yourself. A void in your heart nothing else can occupy. Society is becoming irksome. And as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath (Udolpho turnips and orphans, again), the very idea of them without her is abhorrent. You would not go to a ball for the world. You feel that you have no longer any friend. You feel all this?”
“No,” said Catherine, with a blooming smile, “I do not—ought I? To say the truth, though I am hurt and grieved that I cannot love her, that I am never to hear from her or see her again, I do not feel so afflicted as one would have thought.”
“You feel, as you always do,” said Henry, looking at her with his frequent impossible-to-describe expression.
And Catherine found her spirits so very much relieved by this conversation. Because, now in addition to all things, she need not have that painful and quite possibly impossible talk with James!
Crowning her brow, the angels smiled.
Chapter 26
From this time, the subject was often discussed by the three young people.
Catherine found, with some surprise, that her two young friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella’s lack of fortune as likely to throw great difficulties in the way of her marrying their brother.
Their certainty that the general would, upon this ground alone, independent of her char
acter, oppose the connection, turned her feelings 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—what of his younger brother?
These painful reflections could only be dispersed by a hope of that continuing partiality which she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general—and by a recollection of his generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money. In these matters he was surely misunderstood by his children.
But the Tilneys were so fully convinced that their brother would not have the courage to apply in person for his father’s consent (nor was he likely to come to Northanger now), that she found herself at ease as to the necessity of any sudden removal of her own.
At some point Catherine proposed that Henry reveal the situation to the general.
“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 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, was free from any real anxiety about his eldest son. Instead he hoped Miss Morland’s time at Northanger was passing pleasantly. He often expressed his uneasiness on this behalf and attempted to provide her with various sources of amusement.
One morning he told Henry that when he next went to Woodston, they would take him by surprise there, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme.
