V.

The unpleasant sequel of Catherine Morland’s visit to Northanger Abbey

is, we trust, barely possible in our day. The unworthy resentment,

unworthily vented on an innocent victim by an arrogant, worldly-minded

man, foiled in his selfish schemes, and enraged at finding himself

taken in by so shallow a conspirator as John Thorpe, may be common

enough at all times; but, at least, we live in a generation when men

do not wear their tempers, any more than their vices, on their sleeves.

General Tilney has gone up to London, while Catherine’s visit to

Northanger Abbey is prolonged at Eleanor Tilney’s request, with her

father’s full approval. The girls have been left alone one evening, by

Henry’s having found himself under the necessity of taking his curate’s

place at Woodston. They are about to separate at eleven o’clock at

night, when they hear a carriage drive up to the door, followed by the

loud noise of the door-bell.

Eleanor predicts the unexpected arrival of her elder brother

Frederick, and Catherine retreats to her room in some discomposure.

But her trepidation at the notion of encountering her brother’s rival

is nothing compared to her affright when, half an hour later, she

discovers her friend Eleanor hovering about Catherine’s door, in a

state of extreme agitation. Eleanor is the reluctant, grieved, and

affronted messenger from her father to the guest whom he has hitherto

delighted to honour. General Tilney has recollected an engagement which

will take the whole family away from Northanger Abbey on Monday (this

day is Saturday). The Tilneys are all going to Lord Longtown’s, near

Hereford, for a fortnight. General Tilney has sent Eleanor, her heart

swelling with sorrow and shame, to tell Catherine of a departure which,

in the most unceremonious and unkind manner, compels her own.

Great and unpleasant as her surprise is, I am glad to say Catherine

displays dawning dignity. She suppresses her feelings, speaks of a

second engagement’s yielding to a first, and declines to take offence.

She will finish her visit to Northanger Abbey at some other time, and

cannot Eleanor come to her? Happy thought! cannot Eleanor come to

Fullerton on her way back from Herefordshire?

“It will not be in my power, Catherine,” Eleanor answers briefly, in

awkwardness and dejection.

Still Catherine continues resolutely cheerful. Let Eleanor come

when she can. Then Catherine betrays she is calculating on bidding

another friend good-bye. She will be able to go when the rest set out

on Monday, she says. It does not matter, though word has not been

forwarded to her father and mother. The General, she hopes, will send a

servant with her half-way. She will soon be at Salisbury, and then she

will only be nine miles from home.

My readers must remember that the inconveniences of young ladies

travelling alone were multiplied indefinitely, and even magnified to

dangers, when girls had to go in post-chaises, or by coaches, over

rough roads, and in a very deliberate fashion--largely affected by the

merits or defects of the inns on the route, the horses, and, above all,

the weather--even granting that highwaymen had waxed scarce by the

close of last century.

Poor Eleanor has the still harder task of dashing these modest

expectations to the ground. The General has sent his daughter with the

unconscionably insulting and unfeeling message that Catherine must

leave early next morning. Even the choice of the hour is not left to

her: the carriage is ordered at seven o’clock, and no servant will be

offered to her.

I am fain to think such rude insolence, such an ungentlemanlike and

unfatherly breach of hospitality to, and consideration for, a young

girl--his invited guest, his daughter’s friend--could seldom have been

perpetrated by the most irresponsible member of the old “quality”--the

most selfish tyrant who ever figured in an antiquated army list. I

believe General Tilney’s action on this occasion to be one of the

few-and-far-between exaggerations to be found in Jane Austen’s earlier

novels.

Catherine sits down breathless and speechless under the outrage.

She can scarcely listen to Eleanor’s earnest, humble apologies, her

faltering explanations that her father’s temper is not happy, and

something has occurred recently to ruffle it in an uncommon degree.

When Catherine speaks, after she has put the one wistful, fruitless

question, “Have I offended the General?” it is to say, quietly and

firmly, that she is very sorry if she has offended Eleanor’s father; it

is the last thing she would willingly have done. She bids Eleanor not

be unhappy; a few days longer would not have made any great difference.

The journey of seventy miles by post will be nothing. She can be ready

at seven. She begs to be called in time.

In short, Catherine behaves at this crisis with a simple self-respect

and an absence of either rancour or frenzy which brings her out in

striking and agreeable contrast to the rampaging termagants of later

fiction.

But when she is left alone, poor young Catherine cannot so much as

attempt to persuade herself that she has not been very badly treated,

and that she is not smarting under the sense of the unprovoked

ill-usage in addition to her own little private stock of wretchedness.

For not only has the polite, high-bred General Tilney, who had seemed

so particularly fond of her, behaved to her with gross incivility,

there is the crowning misery of the knowledge that the false and

barbarous General is Henry Tilney’s father, and that she will not even

see Henry to hear what he thinks of the cruel injustice, and to bid him

farewell. Besides, what will her father and mother, the Allens, and the

world think of the disgraceful indignity which has been put upon her,

the bitter mortification to which she has been subjected?

But there is no help for it, and though sleep is impossible, Catherine

can be as punctual as her friend Eleanor, who is up to do all that the

most sincere affection and hearty regret can contrive, to atone for

her father’s conduct. Catherine may be unable to swallow a mouthful

when she thinks of the last breakfast in the same room: “Happy, happy

breakfast! for Henry had been there; Henry had sat by her and helped

her.” But she is able to decline decidedly, though tenderly, to write

to Eleanor when Catherine finds that correspondence has been prohibited

between the girls, and the one letter, announcing Catherine’s safe

arrival, for which Eleanor entreats, must be directed under cover to

her maid Alice. It is only Eleanor’s distress at her refusal which

draws from Catherine a promise to commit this single infringement of

the prohibition.

At the last moment, had it not been for Eleanor Tilney’s anxious

forethought in ascertaining whether Catherine’s purse would meet

the requirements of the journey, the inexperienced young girl would

have found herself “turned from the house without even the means of

getting home.” The necessary loan is quickly offered and accepted, but

this realisation of the situation so overwhelms the two girls that

they exchange their parting embrace in silence. Catherine forces her

quivering lips to leave “My kind remembrance for my absent friend,” but

the reference is too much for her, and she has to hide her face as she

jumps into the chaise and is driven from the door.

The only solution which Catherine can think of, for the unaccountable

change in the General’s behaviour to her, is too dreadful for her to

dwell upon, though it has a serio-comic effect, as Jane Austen no

doubt intended, on the reader. Can General Tilney have found out, by

any means short of a tremendous breach of faith on the part of Henry

or Eleanor Tilney, that Catherine has been so foolish and wicked as to

suspect him of being a murderer, and is he now revenging himself upon

her, almost justifiably, by refusing to let her remain in the same

house with him, or to hold any farther communication with his family?

The real explanation may as well be given here. Catherine’s one great

offence in the General’s eyes is that she is less rich and prosperous

in every way than he had believed her to be. The fine gentleman is

capable of the most mercenary efforts for the aggrandisement of his

family. His greed has caused him to fall an easy prey to so vulgar

a schemer as John Thorpe. In the days when Isabella Thorpe and her

brother were ready to hail the probability of a double family alliance

with James Morland and his sister. General Tilney had chanced to notice

his son’s attentions to Catherine in the theatre at Bath. Being on

speaking terms with John Thorpe, the General had not disdained to fish

for some information with regard to the young lady’s circumstances.

John Thorpe, in his vanity and bluster, had bragged his very best. He

was not content with representing the Morlands’ prospects invested with

the brilliance which his credulous imagination and that of Isabella,

stimulated by self-interest, had already bestowed on them, but added

twice as much to everything, 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 which

her father could give her would be a pretty addition to Mr. Allen’s

estate. Her intimacy there had made him seriously determine on her

being handsomely legacied hereafter, and to speak of her as the almost

acknowledged future heiress of Fullerton naturally followed.”

General Tilney had not doubted the authority of his informant, and

had shaped his course accordingly. He had been enlightened as to

his mistake by the very person who had deceived him. The General

had encountered Thorpe in town, when under the influence of exactly

opposite feelings--irritated by Catherine’s refusal, and yet more

by the failure of an endeavour to reconcile James Morland to

Isabella--John Thorpe turned, and not only coolly contradicted every

word he had ever said to the advantage of the Morlands, he went as

far in lying to their disadvantage. Mr. Morland was not a man either

of substance or credit. He had not been able to give his son even a

decent maintenance in the contemplation of his marriage. The whole

Morland family were necessitous--numerous, too, almost beyond example;

by no means respected in their own neighbourhood; aiming at a style

of life to which they were not entitled; seeking to better themselves

by wealthy connections; a forward, scheming race. (I hope my readers

admire the accuracy with which, in slandering the Morlands, John Thorpe

describes himself and his sister, in fulfilment of the adage, that as

we do ourselves we judge our neighbours.)

The horrified General pronounced the name of Allen.

Here, too, Thorpe had found out his error. The Allens had lived near

the Morlands too long; besides, John Thorpe knew the young man on whom

the Fullerton estate must devolve.

General Tilney had heard enough. He set off in a fury for the Abbey, to

undo his own performance.

In the meantime Catherine is travelling home to Fullerton. “To return

in such a manner was almost to destroy the pleasure of a meeting with

those whom she loved best, even after an absence such as hers--an

eleven weeks’ absence.”

“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 gentle, 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,[41] without accident or alarm; and between six and seven o’clock

in the evening found herself entering Fullerton.”