Northanger Abbey 17 страница

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against them, should they be thought of unfavourably,

on their father`s account, it would cut her to the heart.

With these feelings, she rather dreaded than sought

for the first view of that well-known spire which would

announce her within twenty miles of home. Salisbury she

had known to be her point on leaving Northanger; but after

the first stage she had been indebted to the post-masters

for the names of the places which were then to conduct

her to it; so great had been her ignorance of her route.

She met with nothing, however, to distress or frighten her.

Her youth, civil manners, and liberal pay procured her all

the attention that a traveller like herself could require;

and stopping only to change horses, she travelled

on for about eleven hours without accident or alarm,

and between six and seven o`clock in the evening found

herself entering Fullerton.

A heroine returning, at the close of her career,

to her native village, in all the triumph of recovered

reputation, and all the dignity of a countess, with a long

train of noble relations in their several phaetons,

and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise and four,

behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver

may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every

conclusion, and the author must share in the glory she

so liberally bestows. But my affair is widely different;

I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace;

and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness.

A heroine in a hack post-chaise is such a blow upon sentiment,

as no attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand.

Swiftly therefore shall her post-boy drive through

the village, amid the gaze of Sunday groups, and speedy

shall be her descent from it.

But, whatever might be the distress of Catherine`s mind,

as she thus advanced towards the parsonage, and whatever

the humiliation of her biographer in relating it,

she was preparing enjoyment of no everyday nature

for those to whom she went; first, in the appearance

of her carriage--and secondly, in herself. The chaise

of a traveller being a rare sight in Fullerton, the whole

family were immediately at the window; and to have it

stop at the sweep-gate was a pleasure to brighten every

eye and occupy every fancy--a pleasure quite unlooked

for by all but the two youngest children, a boy and girl

of six and four years old, who expected a brother or

sister in every carriage. Happy the glance that first

distinguished Catherine! Happy the voice that proclaimed

the discovery! But whether such happiness were the lawful

property of George or Harriet could never be exactly understood.

Her father, mother, Sarah, George, and Harriet,

all assembled at the door to welcome her with affectionate

eagerness, was a sight to awaken the best feelings

of Catherine`s heart; and in the embrace of each, as she

stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond

anything that she had believed possible. So surrounded,

so caressed, she was even happy! In the joyfulness

of family love everything for a short time was subdued,

and the pleasure of seeing her, leaving them at first

little leisure for calm curiosity, they were all seated

round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland had hurried

for the comfort of the poor traveller, whose pale and

jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any inquiry

so direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed to her.

Reluctantly, and with much hesitation, did she then

begin what might perhaps, at the end of half an hour,

be termed, by the courtesy of her hearers, an explanation;

but scarcely, within that time, could they at all discover

the cause, or collect the particulars, of her sudden return.

They were far from being an irritable race; far from

any quickness in catching, or bitterness in resenting,

affronts: but here, when the whole was unfolded,

was an insult not to be overlooked, nor, for the first

half hour, to be easily pardoned. Without suffering any

romantic alarm, in the consideration of their daughter`s

long and lonely journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland could

not but feel that it might have been productive of much

unpleasantness to her; that it was what they could never

have voluntarily suffered; and that, in forcing her on such

a measure, General Tilney had acted neither honourably

nor feelingly--neither as a gentleman nor as a parent.

Why he had done it, what could have provoked him to such

a breach of hospitality, and so suddenly turned all his

partial regard for their daughter into actual ill will,

was a matter which they were at least as far from

divining as Catherine herself; but it did not oppress

them by any means so long; and, after a due course

of useless conjecture, that " it was a strange business,

and that he must be a very strange man, " grew enough

for all their indignation and wonder; though Sarah indeed

still indulged in the sweets of incomprehensibility,

exclaiming and conjecturing with youthful ardour. " My dear,

you give yourself a great deal of needless trouble, "

said her mother at last; " depend upon it, it is something

not at all worth understanding. "

" I can allow for his wishing Catherine away,

when he recollected this engagement, " said Sarah,

" but why not do it civilly? "

" I am sorry for the young people, " returned Mrs. Morland;

" they must have a sad time of it; but as for anything else,

it is no matter now; Catherine is safe at home,

and our comfort does not depend upon General Tilney. "

Catherine sighed. " Well, " continued her philosophic mother,

" I am glad I did not know of your journey at the time;

but now it is an over, perhaps there is no great harm done.

It is always good for young people to be put upon

exerting themselves; and you know, my dear Catherine,

you always were a sad little shatter-brained creature;

but now you must have been forced to have your wits about you,

with so much changing of chaises and so forth; and I hope

it will appear that you have not left anything behind you

in any of the pockets. "

Catherine hoped so too, and tried to feel an interest

in her own amendment, but her spirits were quite worn down;

and, to be silent and alone becoming soon her only wish,

she readily agreed to her mother`s next counsel of going early

to bed. Her parents, seeing nothing in her ill looks and

agitation but the natural consequence of mortified feelings,

and of the unusual exertion and fatigue of such a journey,

parted from her without any doubt of their being soon

slept away; and though, when they all met the next morning,

her recovery was not equal to their hopes, they were still

perfectly unsuspicious of there being any deeper evil.

They never once thought of her heart, which, for the

parents of a young lady of seventeen, just returned

from her first excursion from home, was odd enough!

As soon as breakfast was over, she sat down to fulfil

her promise to Miss Tilney, whose trust in the effect

of time and distance on her friend`s disposition was

already justified, for already did Catherine reproach

herself with having parted from Eleanor coldly, with having

never enough valued her merits or kindness, and never

enough commiserated her for what she had been yesterday

left to endure. The strength of these feelings, however,

was far from assisting her pen; and never had it been

harder for her to write than in addressing Eleanor Tilney.

To compose a letter which might at once do justice

to her sentiments and her situation, convey gratitude

without servile regret, be guarded without coldness,

and honest without resentment--a letter which Eleanor

might not be pained by the perusal of--and, above all,

which she might not blush herself, if Henry should chance

to see, was an undertaking to frighten away all her powers

of performance; and, after long thought and much perplexity,

to be very brief was all that she could determine on with any

confidence of safety. The money therefore which Eleanor had

advanced was enclosed with little more than grateful thanks,

and the thousand good wishes of a most affectionate heart.

" This has been a strange acquaintance, "

observed Mrs. Morland, as the letter was finished;

" soon made and soon ended. I am sorry it happens so,

for Mrs. Allen thought them very pretty kind of young people;

and you were sadly out of luck too in your Isabella.

Ah! Poor James! Well, we must live and learn; and the next

new friends you make I hope will be better worth keeping. "

Catherine coloured as she warmly answered, " No friend

can be better worth keeping than Eleanor. "

" If so, my dear, I dare say you will meet again some

time or other; do not be uneasy. It is ten to one but you

are thrown together again in the course of a few years;

and then what a pleasure it will be! "

Mrs. Morland was not happy in her attempt at consolation.

The hope of meeting again in the course of a few years

could only put into Catherine`s head what might happen

within that time to make a meeting dreadful to her.

She could never forget Henry Tilney, or think of him with

less tenderness than she did at that moment; but he might

forget her; and in that case, to meet--! Her eyes filled

with tears as she pictured her acquaintance so renewed;

and her mother, perceiving her comfortable suggestions

to have had no good effect, proposed, as another expedient

for restoring her spirits, that they should call on

Mrs. Allen.

The two houses were only a quarter of a mile apart;

and, as they walked, Mrs. Morland quickly dispatched all

that she felt on the score of James`s disappointment.

" We are sorry for him, " said she; " but otherwise there

is no harm done in the match going off; for it could not

be a desirable thing to have him engaged to a girl whom

we had not the smallest acquaintance with, and who was so

entirely without fortune; and now, after such behaviour,

we cannot think at all well of her. Just at present it

comes hard to poor James; but that will not last forever;

and I dare say he will be a discreeter man all his life,

for the foolishness of his first choice. "

This was just such a summary view of the affair

as Catherine could listen to; another sentence might have

endangered her complaisance, and made her reply less rational;

for soon were all her thinking powers swallowed up in

the reflection of her own change of feelings and spirits

since last she had trodden that well-known road. It was

not three months ago since, wild with joyful expectation,

she had there run backwards and forwards some ten times

a day, with an heart light, gay, and independent;

looking forward to pleasures untasted and unalloyed,

and free from the apprehension of evil as from the knowledge

of it. Three months ago had seen her all this; and now,

how altered a being did she return!

She was received by the Allens with all the kindness

which her unlooked-for appearance, acting on a steady affection,

would naturally call forth; and great was their surprise,

and warm their displeasure, on hearing how she had been

treated--though Mrs. Morland`s account of it was no

inflated representation, no studied appeal to their passions.

" Catherine took us quite by surprise yesterday evening, "

said she. " She travelled all the way post by herself, and knew

nothing of coming till Saturday night; for General Tilney,

from some odd fancy or other, all of a sudden grew tired

of having her there, and almost turned her out of the house.

Very unfriendly, certainly; and he must be a very odd man;

but we are so glad to have her amongst us again! And

it is a great comfort to find that she is not a poor

helpless creature, but can shift very well for herself. "

Mr. Allen expressed himself on the occasion with the

reasonable resentment of a sensible friend; and Mrs. Allen

thought his expressions quite good enough to be immediately

made use of again by herself. His wonder, his conjectures,

and his explanations became in succession hers, with the

addition of this single remark--" I really have not patience

with the general" --to fill up every accidental pause.

And, " I really have not patience with the general, "

was uttered twice after Mr. Allen left the room,

without any relaxation of anger, or any material digression

of thought. A more considerable degree of wandering

attended the third repetition; and, after completing

the fourth, she immediately added, " Only think, my dear,

of my having got that frightful great rent in my best

Mechlin so charmingly mended, before I left Bath, that one

can hardly see where it was. I must show it you some day

or other. Bath is a nice place, Catherine, after all.

I assure you I did not above half like coming away.

Mrs. Thorpe`s being there was such a comfort to us,

was not it? You know, you and I were quite forlorn at first. "

" Yes, but that did not last long, " said Catherine,

her eyes brightening at the recollection of what had first

given spirit to her existence there.

" Very true: we soon met with Mrs. Thorpe, and then we

wanted for nothing. My dear, do not you think these silk

gloves wear very well? I put them on new the first time

of our going to the Lower Rooms, you know, and I have worn

them a great deal since. Do you remember that evening? "

" Do I! Oh! Perfectly. "

" It was very agreeable, was not it? Mr. Tilney drank

tea with us, and I always thought him a great addition,

he is so very agreeable. I have a notion you danced with him,

but am not quite sure. I remember I had my favourite

gown on. "

Catherine could not answer; and, after a short trial

of other subjects, Mrs. Allen again returned to--" I really

have not patience with the general! Such an agreeable,

worthy man as he seemed to be! I do not suppose,

Mrs. Morland, you ever saw a better-bred man in your life.

His lodgings were taken the very day after he left

them, Catherine. But no wonder; Milsom Street, you know. "

As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland endeavoured

to impress on her daughter`s mind the happiness of

having such steady well-wishers as Mr. and Mrs. Allen,

and the very little consideration which the neglect

or unkindness of slight acquaintance like the Tilneys

ought to have with her, while she could preserve the

good opinion and affection of her earliest friends.

There was a great deal of good sense in all this;

but there are some situations of the human mind in which

good sense has very little power; and Catherine`s feelings

contradicted almost every position her mother advanced.

It was upon the behaviour of these very slight acquaintance

that all her present happiness depended; and while

Mrs. Morland was successfully confirming her own opinions

by the justness of her own representations, Catherine was

silently reflecting that now Henry must have arrived

at Northanger; now he must have heard of her departure;

and now, perhaps, they were all setting off for Hereford.

CHAPTER 30

Catherine`s disposition was not naturally sedentary,

nor had her habits been ever very industrious; but whatever

might hitherto have been her defects of that sort, her mother

could not but perceive them now to be greatly increased.

She could neither sit still nor employ herself for ten

minutes together, walking round the garden and orchard

again and again, as if nothing but motion was voluntary;

and it seemed as if she could even walk about the house

rather than remain fixed for any time in the parlour.

Her loss of spirits was a yet greater alteration. In her

rambling and her idleness she might only be a caricature

of herself; but in her silence and sadness she was the very

reverse of all that she had been before.

For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass even

without a hint; but when a third night`s rest had neither

restored her cheerfulness, improved her in useful activity,

nor given her a greater inclination for needlework,

she could no longer refrain from the gentle reproof of,

" My dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite

a fine lady. I do not know when poor Richard`s cravats

would be done, if he had no friend but you. Your head runs

too much upon Bath; but there is a time for everything--a

time for balls and plays, and a time for work.

You have had a long run of amusement, and now you must

try to be useful. "

Catherine took up her work directly, saying, in a

dejected voice, that " her head did not run upon Bath--much. "

" Then you are fretting about General Tilney,

and that is very simple of you; for ten to one whether you

ever see him again. You should never fret about trifles. "

After a short silence--" I hope, my Catherine, you are

not getting out of humour with home because it is not

so grand as Northanger. That would be turning your visit

into an evil indeed. Wherever you are you should always

be contented, but especially at home, because there you

must spend the most of your time. I did not quite like,

at breakfast, to hear you talk so much about the French

bread at Northanger. "

" I am sure I do not care about the bread.

it is all the same to me what I eat. "

" There is a very clever essay in one of the books

upstairs upon much such a subject, about young girls that

have been spoilt for home by great acquaintance--The Mirror,

I think. I will look it out for you some day or other,

because I am sure it will do you good. "

Catherine said no more, and, with an endeavour to do right,

applied to her work; but, after a few minutes, sunk again,

without knowing it herself, into languor and listlessness,

moving herself in her chair, from the irritation

of weariness, much oftener than she moved her needle.

Mrs. Morland watched the progress of this relapse;

and seeing, in her daughter`s absent and dissatisfied look,

the full proof of that repining spirit to which she

had now begun to attribute her want of cheerfulness,

hastily left the room to fetch the book in question,

anxious to lose no time in attacking so dreadful a malady.

It was some time before she could find what she looked for;

and other family matters occurring to detain her,

a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere she returned

downstairs with the volume from which so much was hoped.

Her avocations above having shut out all noise but what she

created herself, she knew not that a visitor had arrived

within the last few minutes, till, on entering the room,

the first object she beheld was a young man whom she

had never seen before. With a look of much respect,

he immediately rose, and being introduced to her by her

conscious daughter as " Mr. Henry Tilney, " with the

embarrassment of real sensibility began to apologize

for his appearance there, acknowledging that after

what had passed he had little right to expect a welcome

at Fullerton, and stating his impatience to be assured

of Miss Morland`s having reached her home in safety,

as the cause of his intrusion. He did not address himself

to an uncandid judge or a resentful heart. Far from

comprehending him or his sister in their father`s misconduct,

Mrs. Morland had been always kindly disposed towards each,

and instantly, pleased by his appearance, received him

with the simple professions of unaffected benevolence;

thanking him for such an attention to her daughter,

assuring him that the friends of her children were always

welcome there, and entreating him to say not another word of

the past.

He was not ill-inclined to obey this request, for,

though his heart was greatly relieved by such unlooked-for

mildness, it was not just at that moment in his power

to say anything to the purpose. Returning in silence

to his seat, therefore, he remained for some minutes most

civilly answering all Mrs. Morland`s common remarks about

the weather and roads. Catherine meanwhile--the anxious,

agitated, happy, feverish Catherine--said not a word;

but her glowing cheek and brightened eye made her mother

trust that this good-natured visit would at least set

her heart at ease for a time, and gladly therefore

did she lay aside the first volume of The Mirror for a future hour.

Desirous of Mr. Morland`s assistance, as well in

giving encouragement, as in finding conversation for

her guest, whose embarrassment on his father`s account she

earnestly pitied, Mrs. Morland had very early dispatched

one of the children to summon him; but Mr. Morland was from

home--and being thus without any support, at the end of a

quarter of an hour she had nothing to say. After a couple

of minutes` unbroken silence, Henry, turning to Catherine

for the first time since her mother`s entrance, asked her,

with sudden alacrity, if Mr. and Mrs. Allen were now at

Fullerton? And on developing, from amidst all her perplexity

of words in reply, the meaning, which one short syllable

would have given, immediately expressed his intention

of paying his respects to them, and, with a rising colour,

asked her if she would have the goodness to show him

the way. " You may see the house from this window, sir, "

was information on Sarah`s side, which produced only a bow

of acknowledgment from the gentleman, and a silencing nod

from her mother; for Mrs. Morland, thinking it probable,

as a secondary consideration in his wish of waiting on their

worthy neighbours, that he might have some explanation

to give of his father`s behaviour, which it must be

more pleasant for him to communicate only to Catherine,

would not on any account prevent her accompanying him.

They began their walk, and Mrs. Morland was not entirely

mistaken in his object in wishing it. Some explanation

on his father`s account he had to give; but his first

purpose was to explain himself, and before they reached

Mr. Allen`s grounds he had done it so well that Catherine

did not think it could ever be repeated too often.

She was assured of his affection; and that heart in return

was solicited, which, perhaps, they pretty equally knew

was already entirely his own; for, though Henry was now

sincerely attached to her, though he felt and delighted

in all the excellencies of her character and truly loved

her society, I must confess that his affection originated

in nothing better than gratitude, or, in other words,

that a persuasion of her partiality for him had been the

only cause of giving her a serious thought. It is a new

circumstance in romance, I acknowledge, and dreadfully

derogatory of an heroine`s dignity; but if it be as new

in common life, the credit of a wild imagination will

at least be all my own.

A very short visit to Mrs. Allen, in which Henry talked

at random, without sense or connection, and Catherine,

rapt in the contemplation of her own unutterable happiness,

scarcely opened her lips, dismissed them to the ecstasies

of another tete-a-tete; and before it was suffered to close,

she was enabled to judge how far he was sanctioned

by parental authority in his present application.

On his return from Woodston, two days before, he had

been met near the abbey by his impatient father,

hastily informed in angry terms of Miss Morland`s departure,

and ordered to think of her no more.

Such was the permission upon which he had now offered

her his hand. The affrighted Catherine, amidst all the

terrors of expectation, as she listened to this account,

could not but rejoice in the kind caution with which Henry

had saved her from the necessity of a conscientious rejection,

by engaging her faith before he mentioned the subject;

and as he proceeded to give the particulars, and explain

the motives of his father`s conduct, her feelings soon

hardened into even a triumphant delight. The general had

had nothing to accuse her of, nothing to lay to her charge,

but her being the involuntary, unconscious object

of a deception which his pride could not pardon,

and which a better pride would have been ashamed to own.

She was guilty only of being less rich than he had supposed

her to be. Under a mistaken persuasion of her possessions

and claims, he had courted her acquaintance in Bath,

solicited her company at Northanger, and designed her

for his daughter-in-law. On discovering his error, to turn

her from the house seemed the best, though to his feelings

an inadequate proof of his resentment towards herself,

and his contempt of her family.

John Thorpe had first misled him. The general,

perceiving his son one night at the theatre to be paying

considerable attention to Miss Morland, had accidentally

inquired of Thorpe if he knew more of her than her name.

Thorpe, most happy to be on speaking terms with a man

of General Tilney`s importance, had been joyfully and

proudly communicative; and being at that time not only in daily

expectation of Morland`s engaging Isabella, but likewise

pretty well resolved upon marrying Catherine himself,

his vanity induced him to represent the family as yet more

wealthy than his vanity and avarice had made him believe them.

With whomsoever he was, or was likely to be connected,

his own consequence always required that theirs should

be great, and as his intimacy with any acquaintance grew,

so regularly grew their fortune. The expectations of his

friend Morland, therefore, from the first overrated,

had ever since his introduction to Isabella been

gradually increasing; and by merely adding twice as much

for the grandeur of the moment, by doubling what he

chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland`s preferment,

trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt,

and sinking half the children, he was able to represent

the whole family to the general in a most respectable light.

For Catherine, however, the peculiar object of the general`s

curiosity, and his own speculations, he had yet something

more in reserve, and the ten or fifteen thousand pounds

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