Northanger Abbey
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.
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,