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stood forward for admiration. The remainder was shut

off by knolls of old trees, or luxuriant plantations,

and the steep woody hills rising behind, to give it shelter,

were beautiful even in the leafless month of March.

Catherine had seen nothing to compare with it; and her

feelings of delight were so strong, that without waiting

for any better authority, she boldly burst forth in wonder

and praise. The general listened with assenting gratitude;

and it seemed as if his own estimation of Northanger had

waited unfixed till that hour.

The kitchen-garden was to be next admired, and he

led the way to it across a small portion of the park.

The number of acres contained in this garden was

such as Catherine could not listen to without dismay,

being more than double the extent of all Mr. Allen`s,

as well her father`s, including church-yard and orchard.

The walls seemed countless in number, endless in length;

a village of hot-houses seemed to arise among them,

and a whole parish to be at work within the enclosure.

The general was flattered by her looks of surprise,

which told him almost as plainly, as he soon forced her

to tell him in words, that she had never seen any gardens

at all equal to them before; and he then modestly owned that,

" without any ambition of that sort himself--without any

solicitude about it--he did believe them to be unrivalled

in the kingdom. If he had a hobby-horse, it was that.

He loved a garden. Though careless enough in most

matters of eating, he loved good fruit--or if he did not,

his friends and children did. There were great vexations,

however, attending such a garden as his. The utmost

care could not always secure the most valuable fruits.

The pinery had yielded only one hundred in the last year.

Mr. Allen, he supposed, must feel these inconveniences as well

as himself. "

" No, not at all. Mr. Allen did not care about

the garden, and never went into it. "

With a triumphant smile of self-satisfaction,

the general wished he could do the same, for he never

entered his, without being vexed in some way or other,

by its falling short of his plan.

" How were Mr. Allen`s succession-houses worked? "

describing the nature of his own as they entered them.

" Mr. Allen had only one small hot-house, which

Mrs. Allen had the use of for her plants in winter,

and there was a fire in it now and then. "

" He is a happy man! " said the general, with a look

of very happy contempt.

Having taken her into every division, and led her

under every wall, till she was heartily weary of seeing

and wondering, he suffered the girls at last to seize

the advantage of an outer door, and then expressing his

wish to examine the effect of some recent alterations

about the tea-house, proposed it as no unpleasant

extension of their walk, if Miss Morland were not tired.

" But where are you going, Eleanor? Why do you choose

that cold, damp path to it? Miss Morland will get wet.

Our best way is across the park. "

" This is so favourite a walk of mine, " said Miss Tilney,

" that I always think it the best and nearest way.

But perhaps it may be damp. "

It was a narrow winding path through a thick grove of old

Scotch firs; and Catherine, struck by its gloomy aspect,

and eager to enter it, could not, even by the general`s

disapprobation, be kept from stepping forward. He perceived

her inclination, and having again urged the plea of health

in vain, was too polite to make further opposition.

He excused himself, however, from attending them: " The

rays of the sun were not too cheerful for him, and he

would meet them by another course. " He turned away;

and Catherine was shocked to find how much her spirits

were relieved by the separation. The shock, however,

being less real than the relief, offered it no injury;

and she began to talk with easy gaiety of the delightful

melancholy which such a grove inspired.

" I am particularly fond of this spot, " said her companion,

with a sigh. " It was my mother`s favourite walk. "

Catherine had never heard Mrs. Tilney mentioned in

the family before, and the interest excited by this tender

remembrance showed itself directly in her altered countenance,

and in the attentive pause with which she waited for something more.

" I used to walk here so often with her! " added Eleanor;

" though I never loved it then, as I have loved it since.

At that time indeed I used to wonder at her choice.

But her memory endears it now. "

" And ought it not, " reflected Catherine, " to endear

it to her husband? Yet the general would not enter it. "

Miss Tilney continuing silent, she ventured to say,

" Her death must have been a great affliction! "

" A great and increasing one, " replied the other,

in a low voice. " I was only thirteen when it happened;

and though I felt my loss perhaps as strongly as one

so young could feel it, I did not, I could not,

then know what a loss it was. " She stopped for a moment,

and then added, with great firmness, " I have no sister,

you know--and though Henry--though my brothers are

very affectionate, and Henry is a great deal here,

which I am most thankful for, it is impossible for me

not to be often solitary. "

" To be sure you must miss him very much. "

" A mother would have been always present. A mother

would have been a constant friend; her influence would

have been beyond all other. "

" Was she a very charming woman? Was she handsome?

Was there any picture of her in the abbey? And why had

she been so partial to that grove? Was it from dejection

of spirits? " --were questions now eagerly poured forth;

the first three received a ready affirmative, the two

others were passed by; and Catherine`s interest in the

deceased Mrs. Tilney augmented with every question,

whether answered or not. Of her unhappiness in marriage,

she felt persuaded. The general certainly had been

an unkind husband. He did not love her walk: could he

therefore have loved her? And besides, handsome as he was,

there was a something in the turn of his features which

spoke his not having behaved well to her.

" Her picture, I suppose, " blushing at the consummate

art of her own question, " hangs in your father`s room? "

" No; it was intended for the drawing-room; but my father

was dissatisfied with the painting, and for some time it

had no place. Soon after her death I obtained it for my own,

and hung it in my bed-chamber--where I shall be happy

to show it you; it is very like. " Here was another proof.

A portrait--very like--of a departed wife, not valued

by the husband! He must have been dreadfully cruel to her!

Catherine attempted no longer to hide from herself the

nature of the feelings which, in spite of all his attentions,

he had previously excited; and what had been terror and

dislike before, was now absolute aversion. Yes, aversion! His

cruelty to such a charming woman made him odious to her.

She had often read of such characters, characters which

Mr. Allen had been used to call unnatural and overdrawn;

but here was proof positive of the contrary.

She had just settled this point when the end

of the path brought them directly upon the general;

and in spite of all her virtuous indignation, she found

herself again obliged to walk with him, listen to him,

and even to smile when he smiled. Being no longer able,

however, to receive pleasure from the surrounding objects,

she soon began to walk with lassitude; the general perceived it,

and with a concern for her health, which seemed to reproach

her for her opinion of him, was most urgent for returning

with his daughter to the house. He would follow them

in a quarter of an hour. Again they parted--but Eleanor

was called back in half a minute to receive a strict charge

against taking her friend round the abbey till his return.

This second instance of his anxiety to delay what she

so much wished for struck Catherine as very remarkable.

CHAPTER 23

An hour passed away before the general

came in, spent, on the part of his young guest,

in no very favourable consideration of his character.

" This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not

speak a mind at ease, or a conscience void of reproach. "

At length he appeared; and, whatever might have been the

gloom of his meditations, he could still smile with them.

Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend`s

curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject;

and her father being, contrary to Catherine`s expectations,

unprovided with any pretence for further delay,

beyond that of stopping five minutes to order refreshments

to be in the room by their return, was at last ready

to escort them.

They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air,

a dignified step, which caught the eye, but could not

shake the doubts of the well-read Catherine, he led

the way across the hall, through the common drawing-room

and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent

both in size and furniture--the real drawing-room, used

only with company of consequence. It was very noble--very

grand--very charming! --was all that Catherine had to say,

for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned the colour

of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praise

that had much meaning, was supplied by the general:

the costliness or elegance of any room`s fitting-up

could be nothing to her; she cared for no furniture

of a more modern date than the fifteenth century.

When the general had satisfied his own curiosity,

in a close examination of every well-known ornament,

they proceeded into the library, an apartment, in its way,

of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books,

on which an humble man might have looked with pride.

Catherine heard, admired, and wondered with more genuine

feeling than before--gathered all that she could from

this storehouse of knowledge, by running over the titles

of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed. But suites

of apartments did not spring up with her wishes.

Large as was the building, she had already visited

the greatest part; though, on being told that,

with the addition of the kitchen, the six or seven rooms

she had now seen surrounded three sides of the court,

she could scarcely believe it, or overcome the suspicion

of there being many chambers secreted. It was some relief,

however, that they were to return to the rooms in

common use, by passing through a few of less importance,

looking into the court, which, with occasional passages,

not wholly unintricate, connected the different sides;

and she was further soothed in her progress by being told

that she was treading what had once been a cloister,

having traces of cells pointed out, and observing several

doors that were neither opened nor explained to her--by

finding herself successively in a billiard-room, and in

the general`s private apartment, without comprehending

their connection, or being able to turn aright when she

left them; and lastly, by passing through a dark little room,

owning Henry`s authority, and strewed with his litter

of books, guns, and greatcoats.

From the dining-room, of which, though already seen,

and always to be seen at five o`clock, the general

could not forgo the pleasure of pacing out the length,

for the more certain information of Miss Morland,

as to what she neither doubted nor cared for,

they proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen--

the ancient kitchen of the convent, rich in the massy walls

and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hot

closets of the present. The general`s improving hand had

not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate

the labour of the cooks had been adopted within this,

their spacious theatre; and, when the genius of others

had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted.

His endowments of this spot alone might at any time

have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent.

With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity

of the abbey; the fourth side of the quadrangle having,

on account of its decaying state, been removed by the

general`s father, and the present erected in its place.

All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was

not only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only

for offices, and enclosed behind by stable-yards, no

uniformity of architecture had been thought necessary.

Catherine could have raved at the hand which had swept

away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest,

for the purposes of mere domestic economy; and would

willingly have been spared the mortification of a walk

through scenes so fallen, had the general allowed it;

but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of

his offices; and as he was convinced that, to a mind like

Miss Morland`s, a view of the accommodations and comforts,

by which the labours of her inferiors were softened,

must always be gratifying, he should make no apology

for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all;

and Catherine was impressed, beyond her expectation,

by their multiplicity and their convenience. The purposes

for which a few shapeless pantries and a comfortless

scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton, were here

carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy.

The number of servants continually appearing did not

strike her less than the number of their offices.

Wherever they went, some pattened girl stopped to curtsy,

or some footman in dishabille sneaked off. Yet this was

an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic

arrangements from such as she had read about--from

abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger

than Northanger, all the dirty work of the house was

to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost.

How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen;

and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began

to be amazed herself.

They returned to the hall, that the chief staircase

might be ascended, and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments

of rich carving might be pointed out: having gained

the top, they turned in an opposite direction from the

gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered one

on the same plan, but superior in length and breadth.

She was here shown successively into three large

bed-chambers, with their dressing-rooms, most completely

and handsomely fitted up; everything that money and taste

could do, to give comfort and elegance to apartments,

had been bestowed on these; and, being furnished within

the last five years, they were perfect in all that would

be generally pleasing, and wanting in all that could give

pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last,

the general, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished

characters by whom they had at times been honoured,

turned with a smiling countenance to Catherine,

and ventured to hope that henceforward some of their

earliest tenants might be " our friends from Fullerton. "

She felt the unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted

the impossibility of thinking well of a man so kindly disposed

towards herself, and so full of civility to all her family.

The gallery was terminated by folding doors, which Miss

Tilney, advancing, had thrown open, and passed through,

and seemed on the point of doing the same by the first

door to the left, in another long reach of gallery,

when the general, coming forwards, called her hastily, and,

as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whether

she were going? --And what was there more to be seen? --Had

not Miss Morland already seen all that could be worth

her notice? --And did she not suppose her friend might be

glad of some refreshment after so much exercise? Miss

Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors were

closed upon the mortified Catherine, who, having seen,

in a momentary glance beyond them, a narrower passage,

more numerous openings, and symptoms of a winding staircase,

believed herself at last within the reach of something

worth her notice; and felt, as she unwillingly paced back

the gallery, that she would rather be allowed to examine

that end of the house than see all the finery of all

the rest. The general`s evident desire of preventing

such an examination was an additional stimulant.

Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy,

though it had trespassed lately once or twice,

could not mislead her here; and what that something was,

a short sentence of Miss Tilney`s, as they followed

the general at some distance downstairs, seemed to point

out: " I was going to take you into what was my mother`s

room--the room in which she died--" were all her words;

but few as they were, they conveyed pages of intelligence

to Catherine. It was no wonder that the general should

shrink from the sight of such objects as that room

must contain; a room in all probability never entered

by him since the dreadful scene had passed, which released

his suffering wife, and left him to the stings of conscience.

She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor,

to express her wish of being permitted to see it,

as well as all the rest of that side of the house;

and Eleanor promised to attend her there, whenever they

should have a convenient hour. Catherine understood her:

the general must be watched from home, before that room

could be entered. " It remains as it was, I suppose? "

said she, in a tone of feeling.

" Yes, entirely. "

" And how long ago may it be that your mother died? "

" She has been dead these nine years. " And nine years,

Catherine knew, was a trifle of time, compared with what

generally elapsed after the death of an injured wife,

before her room was put to rights.

" You were with her, I suppose, to the last? "

" No, " said Miss Tilney, sighing; " I was unfortunately

from home. Her illness was sudden and short; and, before I

arrived it was all over. "

Catherine`s blood ran cold with the horrid

suggestions which naturally sprang from these words.

Could it be possible? Could Henry`s father--? And yet

how many were the examples to justify even the blackest

suspicions! And, when she saw him in the evening,

while she worked with her friend, slowly pacing the

drawing-room for an hour together in silent thoughtfulness,

with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt secure

from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air

and attitude of a Montoni! What could more plainly speak

the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead to every

sense of humanity, in its fearful review of past scenes

of guilt? Unhappy man! And the anxiousness of her spirits

directed her eyes towards his figure so repeatedly,

as to catch Miss Tilney`s notice. " My father, "

she whispered, " often walks about the room in this way;

it is nothing unusual. "

" So much the worse! " thought Catherine; such ill-timed

exercise was of a piece with the strange unseasonableness

of his morning walks, and boded nothing good.

After an evening, the little variety and seeming

length of which made her peculiarly sensible of Henry`s

importance among them, she was heartily glad to be dismissed;

though it was a look from the general not designed for

her observation which sent his daughter to the bell.

When the butler would have lit his master`s candle, however,

he was forbidden. The latter was not going to retire.

" I have many pamphlets to finish, " said he to Catherine,

" before I can close my eyes, and perhaps may be poring over

the affairs of the nation for hours after you are asleep.

Can either of us be more meetly employed? My eyes will

be blinding for the good of others, and yours preparing

by rest for future mischief. "

But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent

compliment, could win Catherine from thinking that some

very different object must occasion so serious a delay

of proper repose. To be kept up for hours, after the family

were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely.

There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done

which could be done only while the household slept;

and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up

for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless

hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food,

was the conclusion which necessarily followed.

Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better than

a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course

of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness

of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter,

and probably of her other children, at the time--all favoured

the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin--jealousy

perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to be unravelled.

In revolving these matters, while she undressed,

it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might

that morning have passed near the very spot of this

unfortunate woman`s confinement--might have been within a few

paces of the cell in which she languished out her days;

for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the

purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic

division? In the high-arched passage, paved with stone,

which already she had trodden with peculiar awe,

she well remembered the doors of which the general

had given no account. To what might not those doors

lead? In support of the plausibility of this conjecture,

it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery,

in which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney,

must be, as certainly as her memory could guide her,

exactly over this suspected range of cells, and the staircase

by the side of those apartments of which she had caught

a transient glimpse, communicating by some secret means

with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous

proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she

had perhaps been conveyed in a state of well-prepared

insensibility!

Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her

own surmises, and sometimes hoped or feared that she had

gone too far; but they were supported by such appearances

as made their dismissal impossible.

The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed

the guilty scene to be acting, being, according to

her belief, just opposite her own, it struck her that,

if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the

general`s lamp might glimmer through the lower windows,

as he passed to the prison of his wife; and, twice before

she stepped into bed, she stole gently from her room to the

corresponding window in the gallery, to see if it appeared;

but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too early.

The various ascending noises convinced her that the

servants must still be up. Till midnight, she supposed

it would be in vain to watch; but then, when the clock

had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not

quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more.

The clock struck twelve--and Catherine had been half

an hour asleep.

CHAPTER 24

The next day afforded no opportunity for the proposed

examination of the mysterious apartments. It was Sunday,

and the whole time between morning and afternoon service

was required by the general in exercise abroad or eating

cold meat at home; and great as was Catherine`s curiosity,

her courage was not equal to a wish of exploring them

after dinner, either by the fading light of the sky between

six and seven o`clock, or by the yet more partial though

stronger illumination of a treacherous lamp. The day was

unmarked therefore by anything to interest her imagination

beyond the sight of a very elegant monument to the memory

of Mrs. Tilney, which immediately fronted the family pew.

By that her eye was instantly caught and long retained;

and the perusal of the highly strained epitaph, in which every

virtue was ascribed to her by the inconsolable husband,

who must have been in some way or other her destroyer,

affected her even to tears.

That the general, having erected such a monument,

should be able to face it, was not perhaps very strange,

and yet that he could sit so boldly collected within its view,

maintain so elevated an air, look so fearlessly around,

nay, that he should even enter the church, seemed wonderful

to Catherine. Not, however, that many instances of beings

equally hardened in guilt might not be produced. She could

remember dozens who had persevered in every possible vice,

going on from crime to crime, murdering whomsoever

they chose, without any feeling of humanity or remorse;

till a violent death or a religious retirement closed

their black career. The erection of the monument itself

could not in the smallest degree affect her doubts of

Mrs. Tilney`s actual decease. Were she even to descend into

the family vault where her ashes were supposed to slumber,

were she to behold the coffin in which they were said

to be enclosed--what could it avail in such a case?

Catherine had read too much not to be perfectly aware

of the ease with which a waxen figure might be introduced,

and a supposititious funeral carried on.

The succeeding morning promised something better.

The general`s early walk, ill-timed as it was in every

other view, was favourable here; and when she knew

him to be out of the house, she directly proposed

to Miss Tilney the accomplishment of her promise.

Eleanor was ready to oblige her; and Catherine reminding

her as they went of another promise, their first visit

in consequence was to the portrait in her bed-chamber. It

represented a very lovely woman, with a mild and pensive

countenance, justifying, so far, the expectations of its

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