Northanger Abbey
had lately formed an intimacy with a young man of his own college, of
the name of Thorpe; and that he had spent the last week of the
Christmas vacation with his family, near London.
The whole being explained, many obliging things were said by the Miss
Thorpes of their wish of being better acquainted with her; of being
considered as already friends, through the friendship of their
brothers, etc., which Catherine heard with pleasure, and answered with
all the pretty expressions she could command; and, as the first proof
of amity, she was soon invited to accept an arm of the eldest Miss
Thorpe, and take a turn with her about the room. Catherine was
delighted with this extension of her Bath acquaintance, and almost
forgot Mr. Tilney while she talked to Miss Thorpe. Friendship is
certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Their conversation turned upon those subjects, of which the free
discussion has generally much to do in perfecting a sudden intimacy
between two young ladies: such as dress, balls, flirtations, and
quizzes. Miss Thorpe, however, being four years older than Miss
Morland, and at least four years better informed, had a very decided
advantage in discussing such points; she could compare the balls of
Bath with those of Tunbridge, its fashions with the fashions of London;
could rectify the opinions of her new friend in many articles of
tasteful attire; could discover a flirtation between any gentleman and
lady who only smiled on each other; and point out a quiz through the
thickness of a crowd. These powers received due admiration from
Catherine, to whom they were entirely new; and the respect which they
naturally inspired might have been too great for familiarity, had not
the easy gaiety of Miss Thorpe’s manners, and her frequent expressions
of delight on this acquaintance with her, softened down every feeling
of awe, and left nothing but tender affection. Their increasing
attachment was not to be satisfied with half a dozen turns in the
pump-room, but required, when they all quitted it together, that Miss
Thorpe should accompany Miss Morland to the very door of Mr. Allen’s
house; and that they should there part with a most affectionate and
lengthened shake of hands, after learning, to their mutual relief, that
they should see each other across the theatre at night, and say their
prayers in the same chapel the next morning. Catherine then ran
directly upstairs, and watched Miss Thorpe’s progress down the street
from the drawing-room window; admired the graceful spirit of her walk,
the fashionable air of her figure and dress; and felt grateful, as well
she might, for the chance which had procured her such a friend.
Mrs. Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one; she was a
good-humoured, well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent mother. Her
eldest daughter had great personal beauty, and the younger ones, by
pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and
dressing in the same style, did very well.
This brief account of the family is intended to supersede the necessity
of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself, of her past
adventures and sufferings, which might otherwise be expected to occupy
the three or four following chapters; in which the worthlessness of
lords and attorneys might be set forth, and conversations, which had
passed twenty years before, be minutely repeated.
CHAPTER 5
Catherine was not so much engaged at the theatre that evening, in
returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe, though they certainly
claimed much of her leisure, as to forget to look with an inquiring eye
for Mr. Tilney in every box which her eye could reach; but she looked
in vain. Mr. Tilney was no fonder of the play than the pump-room. She
hoped to be more fortunate the next day; and when her wishes for fine
weather were answered by seeing a beautiful morning, she hardly felt a
doubt of it; for a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its
inhabitants, and all the world appears on such an occasion to walk
about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.
As soon as divine service was over, the Thorpes and Allens eagerly
joined each other; and after staying long enough in the pump-room to
discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not a
genteel face to be seen, which everybody discovers every Sunday
throughout the season, they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe
the fresh air of better company. Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in
arm, again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved
conversation; they talked much, and with much enjoyment; but again was
Catherine disappointed in her hope of reseeing her partner. He was
nowhere to be met with; every search for him was equally unsuccessful,
in morning lounges or evening assemblies; neither at the Upper nor
Lower Rooms, at dressed or undressed balls, was he perceivable; nor
among the walkers, the horsemen, or the curricle-drivers of the
morning. His name was not in the pump-room book, and curiosity could do
no more. He must be gone from Bath. Yet he had not mentioned that his
stay would be so short! this sort of mysteriousness, which is always so
becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine’s imagination
around his person and manners, and increased her anxiety to know more
of him. From the Thorpes she could learn nothing, for they had been
only two days in Bath before they met with Mrs. Allen. It was a
subject, however, in which she often indulged with her fair friend,
from whom she received every possible encouragement to continue to
think of him; and his impression on her fancy was not suffered
therefore to weaken. Isabella was very sure that he must be a charming
young man, and was equally sure that he must have been delighted with
her dear Catherine, and would therefore shortly return. She liked him
the better for being a clergyman, “for she must confess herself very
partial to the profession”; and something like a sigh escaped her as
she said it. Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the cause of
that gentle emotion—but she was not experienced enough in the finesse
of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery
was properly called for, or when a confidence should be forced.
Mrs. Allen was now quite happy—quite satisfied with Bath. She had found
some acquaintance, had been so lucky too as to find in them the family
of a most worthy old friend; and, as the completion of good fortune,
had found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself.
Her daily expressions were no longer, “I wish we had some acquaintance
in Bath!” They were changed into, “How glad I am we have met with Mrs.
Thorpe!” and she was as eager in promoting the intercourse of the two
families, as her young charge and Isabella themselves could be; never
satisfied with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of
Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation, but in which there was
scarcely ever any exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of
subject, for Mrs. Thorpe talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen
of her gowns.
The progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick
as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so rapidly through
every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly no
fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They
called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when
they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not
to be divided in the set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other
enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and
dirt, and shut themselves up, to read novels together. Yes, novels; for
I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with
novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very
performances, to the number of which they are themselves adding—joining
with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such
works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own
heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over
its insipid pages with disgust. Alas! if the heroine of one novel be
not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect
protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the
reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over
every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which
the press now groans. Let us not desert one another; we are an injured
body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and
unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the
world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride,
ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And
while the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of
England, or of the man who collects and publishes in a volume some
dozen lines of Milton, Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the
Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne, are eulogized by a thousand
pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and
undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the
performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.
“I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that _I_
often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the
common cant. “And what are you reading, Miss——?” “Oh! it is only a
novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with
affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or
Camilla, or Belinda”; or, in short, only some work in which the
greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough
knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties,
the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in
the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged
with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a work, how proudly
would she have produced the book, and told its name; though the chances
must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous
publication, of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a
young person of taste: the substance of its papers so often consisting
in the statement of improbable circumstances, unnatural characters, and
topics of conversation which no longer concern anyone living; and their
language, too, frequently so coarse as to give no very favourable idea
of the age that could endure it.
CHAPTER 6
The following conversation, which took place between the two friends in
the pump-room one morning, after an acquaintance of eight or nine days,
is given as a specimen of their very warm attachment, and of the
delicacy, discretion, originality of thought, and literary taste which
marked the reasonableness of that attachment.
They met by appointment; and as Isabella had arrived nearly five
minutes before her friend, her first address naturally was, “My dearest
creature, what can have made you so late? I have been waiting for you
at least this age!”
“Have you, indeed! i am very sorry for it; but really I thought I was
in very good time. It is but just one. I hope you have not been here
long?”
“Oh! these ten ages at least. I am sure I have been here this half
hour. But now, let us go and sit down at the other end of the room, and
enjoy ourselves. I have an hundred things to say to you. In the first
place, I was so afraid it would rain this morning, just as I wanted to
set off; it looked very showery, and that would have thrown me into
agonies! do you know, I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a