by Jane Austen
Billiards.
[From William Combe, The Dance of Life (London, 1817; 1903 reprint), p. 234]
[List of Illustrations]
From the dining-room of which, though already seen, and always to be seen at five o’clock, the General could not forego the pleasure of pacing out the length, for the more certain information of Miss Morland,13 as to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen14—the ancient kitchen of the convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days,15 and in the stoves and hot closets of the present.16 The General’s improving hand had not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of the cooks, had been adopted within this,17 their spacious theatre;18 and, when the genius19 of others had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted.20 His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent.21
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.22 All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was not only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only for offices,23 and enclosed behind by stable-yards,24 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;25 and as he was convinced, that, to a mind like Miss Morland’s, a view of the accommodations26 and comforts, by which the labours of her inferiors were softened, must always be gratifying,27 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,28 were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy.29 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 curtsey,30 or some footman in dishabille sneaked off.31 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,32 and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began to be amazed herself.
A house (Bishopthorpe Palace, Yorkshire) that, like Northanger Abbey, has preserved some of its older, Gothic features, including its front windows and main entrance.
[From John Preston Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen, Vol. V (London, 1822)]
[List of Illustrations]
A maid ironing.
[From George Dawe, The Life of George Morland (London, 1909), p. 124]
[List of Illustrations]
They returned to the hall, that the chief stair-case might be ascended, and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments of rich carving might be pointed out:33 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.34 She was here shewn successively into three large bed-chambers, with their dressing-rooms,35 most completely and handsomely fitted up; every thing 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,36 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.
Pattens.
[From Alice Morse Earle, Two Centuries of Costume in America (New York, 1903), p. 362]
[List of Illustrations]
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,37 when the General, coming forwards, called her hastily, and, as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whither 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,38 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 stair-case, 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 down stairs, 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,39 she felt secure from all possibility of wronging him.40 It was the air and attitude41 of a Montoni!42—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.43 When the butler would have lit his master’s candle, however, he was forbidden.44 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.45 Can either of us be more meetly46 employed? My eyes will be blinding47 for the good of others; and yours preparing by rest for future mischief.”48
But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment, could win Catherine from thinking, that some very different object49 must occasion so serious a delay of proper repose. To be kept up for hours, after the family50 were in bed, by stupid51 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 hand 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 natural52 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 revolving53 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?54 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 stair-case 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 stair-case she had perhaps been conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!55
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 appalled56 by darkness, steal out and look once more. The clock struck twelve—and Catherine had been half an hour asleep.57
Chapter Nine
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;1 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 any thing to interest her imagination beyond the sight of a very elegant monument to the memory of Mrs. Tilney, which immediately fronted the family pew.2 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,3 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 elevated4 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.5 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?6 Catherine had read too much not to be perfectly aware of the ease with which a waxen figure might be introduced,7 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, air, 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.8 But here she was obliged to look and consider and study for a likeness.9 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 great10 gallery was too much for any endeavour at discourse; she could only look at her companion. Eleanor’s countenance was dejected, yet sedate;11 and its composure spoke her enured 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;12 and she was named to them by the General, as the friend of his daughter, in a complime
ntary 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,13 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 policy14 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 office15 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,16 and it would be only her retiring to dress half an hour earlier than usual.17
