Northanger Abbey
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.
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;