Catherine is recalled from her compunction and mortification, which
unquestionably Henry Tilney soothes to the best of his power, by the
trials of real life. After nine successive mornings of looking in vain
for letters, Catherine receives one from James at Oxford. It is a
short, manly letter, full of pain, but full also of self-command and
forbearance, announcing the breaking off of his engagement with Miss
Thorpe, and hoping, for his sister’s sake, that her visit to Northanger
Abbey may be over before Captain Tilney makes known his engagement.
Catherine cannot conceal her sorrow for James, and is soon induced to
tell what will not remain long concealed to her sympathising friends,
Eleanor and Henry Tilney. Isabella Thorpe has given up Catherine’s
brother, and is to marry theirs. Both her listeners--Henry Tilney
especially--are full of pity for Catherine’s wondering sorrow that
such fickleness and everything which is bad can exist in the world
and make her brother James their victim; but the Tilneys doubt that
part of her information which relates to their brother. They do
not dispute Frederick’s share in the lovers’ quarrel, but they are
exceedingly sceptical with regard to Frederick’s marrying Isabella
Thorpe--a lawyer’s daughter without any portion. Henry’s incredulity is
only shaken by the recollection of Frederick’s former pretensions and
confidence in himself, and by the fact that he, Henry, has too good an
opinion of Miss Thorpe’s prudence to suppose that she would part with
one gentleman before another was secured.
Henry Tilney’s humour asserts itself, as usual, through his vexation.
He begs Eleanor to prepare for a sister-in-law open and guileless as
the day. He heartily endorses Catherine’s innocent argument--intended
to be consolatory--that, perhaps, though Isabella has behaved so badly
to the Morland family, she may behave better to the Tilneys--she may be
constant to Captain Tilney.
“‘Indeed, I am afraid she will,’ replied Henry Tilney, ‘unless a
baronet should come in her way; that is Frederick’s only chance. I will
get the Bath paper and look over the arrivals.’
“‘You think it is all for ambition, then?’ inquired Catherine, at
length beginning to see there were some things which looked very like
it. ‘I never was so deceived in any one’s character in my life.’
“‘Among all the great variety you have known and studied,’ Henry Tilney
cannot resist saying.” And really the masterful young lover makes game
of his simple mistress so habitually, that one is tempted to imagine he
is purposely testing the sweetness of her temper, and her freedom from
pride and vanity.
He is soon rallying her on the loss which she herself has sustained.
Society must have become irksome--the very idea of such amusements as
she has shared with Isabella Thorpe cannot but prove abhorrent to her.
Catherine would not now, for instance, go to a ball for the world.
She must feel that she has no longer any friend to whom she can speak
without reserve, on whose regard she can depend.
But Catherine answers him very sensibly, and with a charming sincerity
that disarms his mocking mood. “No,” said Catherine, “ought I? To say
the truth, though I am hurt and grieved that I cannot still love her,
that I am never to hear from her, perhaps never to see her again, I do
not feel so very much afflicted as one would have thought.”
“You feel as you always do, what is most to the credit of human nature.
Such feelings ought to be investigated, that they may know themselves.”
We can easily understand how Catherine’s spirits revive under this
conversation.
The happiest episode of Catherine’s visit to Northanger Abbey is her
going with the Tilneys--the idea of the visit having originated with
the General--to “eat their mutton” with Henry in his parsonage at
Woodston. An abbey has become no more to Catherine than any other
building. There is nothing now so alluring to her imagination as the
unpretending comfort of a “well-connected parsonage”--something like
Catherine’s home at Fullerton, but better. Fullerton has its faults,
but Woodston probably has none.
Before the visit, it has seemed to Catherine that the Wednesday when
she is to go to Woodston will never come. She dreads the arrival in
the meantime of Captain Tilney to ask his father’s consent to his
marriage. But no Captain Tilney makes his appearance, and all goes
well. The day comes, proves fine, and Catherine treads on air. “By ten
o’clock the chaise and four conveyed the party from the Abbey, and
after an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles they entered Woodston,
a large and populous village in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine
was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it, as the General seemed to
think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country and size
of the village; but in her heart she preferred it to any place she
had ever been at, and looked with great admiration at every neat house
above the rank of a cottage, and at all the little chandler’s shops
which they passed. At the farther end of the village, and tolerably
disengaged from the rest of it, stood the parsonage, a new-built,
substantial, stone house, with its semi-circular sweep and green gates;
and as they drove up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his
solitude--a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers--was
ready to receive and make much of them.”
The General’s hints and allusions, with his requests for Catherine’s
opinion and approval, which now become more conspicuous and significant
than ever, may be embarrassing, but it is a delicious embarrassment.
Catherine thinks the house the most comfortable in England, and cannot
hide her admiration of the prettily-shaped unfurnished drawing-room.
“‘Oh! why do you not fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What a pity not
to have it fitted up. It is the prettiest room I ever saw; it is the
prettiest room in the world!’
“‘I trust,’ said the General with a most satisfied smile, ‘that it will
very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady’s taste.’
“‘Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh! what
a sweet little cottage there is among the trees; apple-trees too! It is
the prettiest cottage----’
“‘You like it? you approve of it as an object? It is enough. Henry,
remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains.’
“Such a compliment recalled all Catherine’s consciousness and silenced
her directly; and though pointedly applied to by the General for her
choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings, nothing like
an opinion on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence of
fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating
those embarrassing associations; and having reached the ornamental part
of the premises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow, on
which Henry’s genius had begun to act about half a year ago, she was
sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground
she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher
than the green branch in the corner.
“A saunter into other meadows, and through part of the village, with a
visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming game
of play with a litter of puppies just able to roll about, brought them
to four o’clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At
four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never
had any day passed so quickly.”
Yet reflection might have suggested one drawback to the delights of
Woodston. Catherine had already marvelled and even exclaimed when
Henry Tilney proposed to go away from Northanger several days before
the date of their visit, in order to make preparations for their
entertainment at Woodston. How could he think so much trouble necessary
for their dinner, when the General had particularly desired him not
to put himself about, and had made a point of his providing nothing
extraordinary? But Henry had only smiled, and started betimes for
Woodston.
Now on the occasion of the visit, Catherine “could not but observe
that the abundance of the dinner did not seem to create the smallest
astonishment in the General; nay, that he was even looking at the
side-table for cold meat which was not there. His son and daughter’s
observations were of a different kind. They had seldom seen him eat so
heartily at any table but his own; and never before known him so little
disconcerted by the melted butter being oiled.”
Catherine might at least have foreseen that, however eager the General
was to welcome her as a daughter-in-law, he would prove an alarming
parent to visit Woodston in days to come.
The morning after the happy day at Woodston, Catherine is surprised by
a letter from Isabella Thorpe, which is so cleverly characteristic of
that transparently designing and entertaining girl, I must give it all.
“_Bath, April_----.
“MY DEAREST CATHERINE,--I received your two kind letters with the
greatest delight, and have a thousand apologies to make for not
answering them sooner. I really am quite ashamed of my idleness; but
in this horrid place one can find time for nothing. I have had my pen
in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every day since you left
Bath, but have always been prevented by some silly trifler or other.
Pray write to me soon, and direct at my own home. Thank God! we leave
this vile place to-morrow. Since you went away I have had no pleasure
in it; the dust is beyond anything; and everybody one cares for is
gone. I believe if I could see you I should not mind the rest, for you
are dearer to me than anybody can conceive. I am quite uneasy about
your dear brother, not having heard from him since he went to Oxford,
and am fearful of some misunderstanding. Your kind offices will set
all right. He is the only man I ever did or could love, and I trust
you will convince him of it. The spring fashions are partly down,
and the hats the most frightful you can imagine. I hope you spend
your time pleasantly, but am afraid you never think of me. I will not
say all that I could of the family you are with, because I would not
be ungenerous, and set you against those you esteem; but it is very
difficult to know whom to trust, and young men never know their minds
two days together. I rejoice to say that the young man whom of all
others I particularly abhor has left Bath. You will know from this
description I must mean Captain Tilney, who, as you may remember,
was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me, before you went away.
Afterwards he got worse, and became quite my shadow. Many girls might
have been taken in, for never were such attentions; but I knew the
fickle sex too well. He went away to his regiment two days ago, and
I trust I shall never be plagued with him again. He is the greatest
coxcomb I ever saw, and amazingly disagreeable. The last two days he
was always by the side of Charlotte Davis. I pitied his taste, but
took no notice of him. The last time we met was in Bath Street, and
I turned directly into a shop that he might not speak to me; I would
not even look at him. He went into the Pump-room afterwards, but I
would not have followed for all the world. Such a contrast between him
and your brother! Pray send me some news of the latter; I am quite
unhappy about him; he seemed so uncomfortable when he went away, with
a cold, or something that affected his spirits. I would write to him
myself, but have mislaid his direction; and as I hinted above, am
afraid he took something in my conduct amiss. Pray explain everything
to his satisfaction; or if he still harbours any doubt, a line from
himself to me, or a call at Putney when next in town, might set all to
rights. I have not been to the rooms this age, nor to the play, except
going in last night with the Hodges, for a frolic, at half-price.
They teased me into it; and I was determined they should not say I
shut myself up because Tilney was gone. We happened to sit by the
Mitchells, and they pretended to be quite surprised to see me out. I
knew their spite: at one time they could not be civil to me, but now
they are all friendship; but I am not such a fool as to be taken in by
them. You know I have a pretty good spirit of my own. Anne Mitchell
has tried to put on a turban like mine, as I wore it the week before
at the concert, but made wretched work of it. It happened to become my
odd face, I believe; at least Tilney told me so at the time, and said
every eye was upon me; but he is the last man whose word I would take.
I wear nothing but purple now; I know I look hideous in it, but no
matter; it is your dear brother’s favourite colour. Lose no time, my
dearest, sweetest Catherine, in writing to him and to me,
“Who ever am, &c.”
But the upright, unsuspicious young girl who thinks no evil, is not a
fool, and in this respect she has a great advantage over such female
characters as the Amelia of another great humourist, Thackeray. It
is refreshing to learn that the inconsistencies, contradictions, and
falsehoods of that letter strike Catherine from the very first. “She
was ashamed of Isabella, and ashamed of having ever loved her. The
professions of attachment were now as disgusting, as her excuses were
empty, and her demands impudent.” “Write to James on her behalf! No,
James should never hear Isabella’s name mentioned by her again.”
On Henry’s arrival from Woodston, Catherine makes known to him and
Eleanor their brother’s safety, congratulating them with sincerity on
it, and reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with
strong indignation. When she has finished it, “So much for Isabella,”
she cries, “and for all our intimacy. She must think me an idiot, or
she could not have written so; but perhaps this has served to make her
character better known to me than mine is to her. I see what she has
been about. She is a vain coquette, and her tricks have not answered. I
do not believe she had ever any regard either for James or for me, and
I wish I had never known her.”
“It will soon be as if you never had,” said Henry.