Northanger Abbey
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.
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.”