Northanger Abbey
persuade your brother how impossible it is. Tell him that it would
quite shock you to see me do such a thing; now would not it?”
“No, not at all; but if you think it wrong, you had much better
change.”
“There,” cried Isabella, “you hear what your sister says, and yet you
will not mind her. Well, remember that it is not my fault, if we set
all the old ladies in Bath in a bustle. Come along, my dearest
Catherine, for heaven’s sake, and stand by me.” And off they went, to
regain their former place. John Thorpe, in the meanwhile, had walked
away; and Catherine, ever willing to give Mr. Tilney an opportunity of
repeating the agreeable request which had already flattered her once,
made her way to Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thorpe as fast as she could, in the
hope of finding him still with them—a hope which, when it proved to be
fruitless, she felt to have been highly unreasonable. “Well, my dear,”
said Mrs. Thorpe, impatient for praise of her son, “I hope you have had
an agreeable partner.”
“Very agreeable, madam.”
“I am glad of it. John has charming spirits, has not he?”
“Did you meet Mr. Tilney, my dear?” said Mrs. Allen.
“No, where is he?”
“He was with us just now, and said he was so tired of lounging about,
that he was resolved to go and dance; so I thought perhaps he would ask
you, if he met with you.”
“Where can he be?” said Catherine, looking round; but she had not
looked round long before she saw him leading a young lady to the dance.
“Ah! he has got a partner; I wish he had asked _you_,” said Mrs. Allen;
and after a short silence, she added, “he is a very agreeable young
man.”
“Indeed he is, Mrs. Allen,” said Mrs. Thorpe, smiling complacently; “I
must say it, though I _am_ his mother, that there is not a more
agreeable young man in the world.”
This inapplicable answer might have been too much for the comprehension
of many; but it did not puzzle Mrs. Allen, for after only a moment’s
consideration, she said, in a whisper to Catherine, “I dare say she
thought I was speaking of her son.”
Catherine was disappointed and vexed. She seemed to have missed by so
little the very object she had had in view; and this persuasion did not
incline her to a very gracious reply, when John Thorpe came up to her
soon afterwards and said, “Well, Miss Morland, I suppose you and I are
to stand up and jig it together again.”
“Oh, no; I am much obliged to you, our two dances are over; and,
besides, I am tired, and do not mean to dance any more.”
“Do not you? Then let us walk about and quiz people. Come along with
me, and I will show you the four greatest quizzers in the room; my two
younger sisters and their partners. I have been laughing at them this
half hour.”
Again Catherine excused herself; and at last he walked off to quiz his
sisters by himself. The rest of the evening she found very dull; Mr.
Tilney was drawn away from their party at tea, to attend that of his
partner; Miss Tilney, though belonging to it, did not sit near her, and
James and Isabella were so much engaged in conversing together that the
latter had no leisure to bestow more on her friend than one smile, one
squeeze, and one “dearest Catherine.”
CHAPTER 9
The progress of Catherine’s unhappiness from the events of the evening
was as follows. It appeared first in a general dissatisfaction with
everybody about her, while she remained in the rooms, which speedily
brought on considerable weariness and a violent desire to go home.
This, on arriving in Pulteney Street, took the direction of
extraordinary hunger, and when that was appeased, changed into an
earnest longing to be in bed; such was the extreme point of her
distress; for when there she immediately fell into a sound sleep which
lasted nine hours, and from which she awoke perfectly revived, in
excellent spirits, with fresh hopes and fresh schemes. The first wish
of her heart was to improve her acquaintance with Miss Tilney, and
almost her first resolution, to seek her for that purpose, in the
pump-room at noon. In the pump-room, one so newly arrived in Bath must
be met with, and that building she had already found so favourable for
the discovery of female excellence, and the completion of female
intimacy, so admirably adapted for secret discourses and unlimited
confidence, that she was most reasonably encouraged to expect another
friend from within its walls. Her plan for the morning thus settled,
she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast, resolving to remain
in the same place and the same employment till the clock struck one;
and from habitude very little incommoded by the remarks and
ejaculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of mind and incapacity for
thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could
never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if
she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the
street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she must observe it aloud,
whether there were anyone at leisure to answer her or not. At about
half past twelve, a remarkably loud rap drew her in haste to the
window, and scarcely had she time to inform Catherine of there being
two open carriages at the door, in the first only a servant, her
brother driving Miss Thorpe in the second, before John Thorpe came
running upstairs, calling out, “Well, Miss Morland, here I am. Have you
been waiting long? We could not come before; the old devil of a
coachmaker was such an eternity finding out a thing fit to be got into,
and now it is ten thousand to one but they break down before we are out
of the street. How do you do, Mrs. Allen? A famous ball last night, was
not it? Come, Miss Morland, be quick, for the others are in a
confounded hurry to be off. They want to get their tumble over.”
“What do you mean?” said Catherine. “Where are you all going to?”
“Going to? Why, you have not forgot our engagement! did not we agree
together to take a drive this morning? What a head you have! we are
going up Claverton Down.”
“Something was said about it, I remember,” said Catherine, looking at
Mrs. Allen for her opinion; “but really I did not expect you.”
“Not expect me! that’s a good one! and what a dust you would have made,
if I had not come.”
Catherine’s silent appeal to her friend, meanwhile, was entirely thrown
away, for Mrs. Allen, not being at all in the habit of conveying any
expression herself by a look, was not aware of its being ever intended
by anybody else; and Catherine, whose desire of seeing Miss Tilney
again could at that moment bear a short delay in favour of a drive, and
who thought there could be no impropriety in her going with Mr. Thorpe,
as Isabella was going at the same time with James, was therefore
obliged to speak plainer. “Well, ma’am, what do you say to it? Can you
spare me for an hour or two? Shall I go?”
“Do just as you please, my dear,” replied Mrs. Allen, with the most
placid indifference. Catherine took the advice, and ran off to get
ready. In a very few minutes she reappeared, having scarcely allowed
the two others time enough to get through a few short sentences in her
praise, after Thorpe had procured Mrs. Allen’s admiration of his gig;
and then receiving her friend’s parting good wishes, they both hurried
downstairs. “My dearest creature,” cried Isabella, to whom the duty of
friendship immediately called her before she could get into the
carriage, “you have been at least three hours getting ready. I was
afraid you were ill. What a delightful ball we had last night. I have a
thousand things to say to you; but make haste and get in, for I long to
be off.”
Catherine followed her orders and turned away, but not too soon to hear
her friend exclaim aloud to James, “What a sweet girl she is! i quite
dote on her.”
“You will not be frightened, Miss Morland,” said Thorpe, as he handed
her in, “if my horse should dance about a little at first setting off.
He will, most likely, give a plunge or two, and perhaps take the rest
for a minute; but he will soon know his master. He is full of spirits,
playful as can be, but there is no vice in him.”
Catherine did not think the portrait a very inviting one, but it was
too late to retreat, and she was too young to own herself frightened;
so, resigning herself to her fate, and trusting to the animal’s boasted
knowledge of its owner, she sat peaceably down, and saw Thorpe sit down
by her. Everything being then arranged, the servant who stood at the
horse’s head was bid in an important voice “to let him go,” and off
they went in the quietest manner imaginable, without a plunge or a
caper, or anything like one. Catherine, delighted at so happy an
escape, spoke her pleasure aloud with grateful surprise; and her
companion immediately made the matter perfectly simple by assuring her
that it was entirely owing to the peculiarly judicious manner in which
he had then held the reins, and the singular discernment and dexterity
with which he had directed his whip. Catherine, though she could not
help wondering that with such perfect command of his horse, he should
think it necessary to alarm her with a relation of its tricks,
congratulated herself sincerely on being under the care of so excellent
a coachman; and perceiving that the animal continued to go on in the
same quiet manner, without showing the smallest propensity towards any
unpleasant vivacity, and (considering its inevitable pace was ten miles
an hour) by no means alarmingly fast, gave herself up to all the
enjoyment of air and exercise of the most invigorating kind, in a fine
mild day of February, with the consciousness of safety. A silence of
several minutes succeeded their first short dialogue; it was broken by
Thorpe’s saying very abruptly, “Old Allen is as rich as a Jew—is not
he?” Catherine did not understand him—and he repeated his question,
adding in explanation, “Old Allen, the man you are with.”
“Oh! mr. Allen, you mean. Yes, I believe, he is very rich.”
“And no children at all?”
“No—not any.”
“A famous thing for his next heirs. He is _your_ godfather, is not he?”
“My godfather! no.”
“But you are always very much with them.”
“Yes, very much.”
“Aye, that is what I meant. He seems a good kind of old fellow enough,
and has lived very well in his time, I dare say; he is not gouty for
nothing. Does he drink his bottle a day now?”
“His bottle a day! no. Why should you think of such a thing? He is a
very temperate man, and you could not fancy him in liquor last night?”
“Lord help you! you women are always thinking of men’s being in liquor.
Why, you do not suppose a man is overset by a bottle? I am sure of
_this_—that if everybody was to drink their bottle a day, there would
not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a
famous good thing for us all.”
“I cannot believe it.”
“Oh! lord, it would be the saving of thousands. There is not the
hundredth part of the wine consumed in this kingdom that there ought to
be. Our foggy climate wants help.”
“And yet I have heard that there is a great deal of wine drunk in
Oxford.”
“Oxford! there is no drinking at Oxford now, I assure you. Nobody
drinks there. You would hardly meet with a man who goes beyond his four
pints at the utmost. Now, for instance, it was reckoned a remarkable
thing, at the last party in my rooms, that upon an average we cleared
about five pints a head. It was looked upon as something out of the
common way. _Mine_ is famous good stuff, to be sure. You would not
often meet with anything like it in Oxford—and that may account for it.
But this will just give you a notion of the general rate of drinking
there.”
“Yes, it does give a notion,” said Catherine warmly, “and that is, that
you all drink a great deal more wine than I thought you did. However, I