CHAPTER 21

Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

CHAPTER 21, NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen


A moment's glance was enough to satisfy Catherine
that her apartment was very unlike the one which Henry
had endeavoured to alarm her by the description of.
It was by no means unreasonably large, and contained neither
tapestry nor velvet. The walls were papered, the floor
was carpeted; the windows were neither less perfect nor more
dim than those of the drawing-room below; the furniture,
though not of the latest fashion, was handsome and comfortable,
and the air of the room altogether far from uncheerful.
Her heart instantaneously at ease on this point, she resolved
to lose no time in particular examination of anything,
as she greatly dreaded disobliging the general by any delay.
Her habit therefore was thrown off with all possible haste,
and she was preparing to unpin the linen package, which the
chaise-seat had conveyed for her immediate accommodation,
when her eye suddenly fell on a large high chest,
standing back in a deep recess on one side of the fireplace.
The sight of it made her start; and, forgetting everything
else, she stood gazing on it in motionless wonder,
while these thoughts crossed her:

"This is strange indeed! I did not expect such a sight
as this! An immense heavy chest! What can it hold? Why
should it be placed here? Pushed back too, as if meant to
be out of sight! I will look into it--cost me what it may,
I will look into it--and directly too--by daylight.
If I stay till evening my candle may go out."
She advanced and examined it closely: it was of cedar,
curiously inlaid with some darker wood, and raised,
about a foot from the ground, on a carved stand of the same.
The lock was silver, though tarnished from age; at each
end were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver,
broken perhaps prematurely by some strange violence;
and, on the centre of the lid, was a mysterious cipher,
in the same metal. Catherine bent over it intently,
but without being able to distinguish anything with certainty.
She could not, in whatever direction she took it,
believe the last letter to be a T; and yet that it should
be anything else in that house was a circumstance to raise
no common degree of astonishment. If not originally theirs,
by what strange events could it have fallen into the Tilney
family?

Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater;
and seizing, with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock,
she resolved at all hazards to satisfy herself at least
as to its contents. With difficulty, for something seemed
to resist her efforts, she raised the lid a few inches;
but at that moment a sudden knocking at the door of the
room made her, starting, quit her hold, and the lid
closed with alarming violence. This ill-timed intruder
was Miss Tilney's maid, sent by her mistress to be of
use to Miss Morland; and though Catherine immediately
dismissed her, it recalled her to the sense of what she
ought to be doing, and forced her, in spite of her anxious
desire to penetrate this mystery, to proceed in her dressing
without further delay. Her progress was not quick,
for her thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object
so well calculated to interest and alarm; and though
she dared not waste a moment upon a second attempt,
she could not remain many paces from the chest.
At length, however, having slipped one arm into her gown,
her toilette seemed so nearly finished that the impatience
of her curiosity might safely be indulged. One moment
surely might be spared; and, so desperate should be
the exertion of her strength, that, unless secured
by supernatural means, the lid in one moment should
be thrown back. With this spirit she sprang forward,
and her confidence did not deceive her. Her resolute
effort threw back the lid, and gave to her astonished eyes
the view of a white cotton counterpane, properly folded,
reposing at one end of the chest in undisputed possession!

She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise
when Miss Tilney, anxious for her friend's being ready,
entered the room, and to the rising shame of having
harboured for some minutes an absurd expectation, was then
added the shame of being caught in so idle a search.
"That is a curious old chest, is not it?" said Miss Tilney,
as Catherine hastily closed it and turned away to the glass.
"It is impossible to say how many generations it has
been here. How it came to be first put in this room I
know not, but I have not had it moved, because I thought
it might sometimes be of use in holding hats and bonnets.
The worst of it is that its weight makes it difficult
to open. In that corner, however, it is at least out of
the way."

Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at
once blushing, tying her gown, and forming wise resolutions
with the most violent dispatch. Miss Tilney gently hinted
her fear of being late; and in half a minute they ran
downstairs together, in an alarm not wholly unfounded,
for General Tilney was pacing the drawing-room, his watch
in his hand, and having, on the very instant of their entering,
pulled the bell with violence, ordered "Dinner to be
on table directly!"

Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke,
and sat pale and breathless, in a most humble mood,
concerned for his children, and detesting old chests;
and the general, recovering his politeness as he looked
at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter
for so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely
out of breath from haste, when there was not the least
occasion for hurry in the world: but Catherine could not
at all get over the double distress of having involved
her friend in a lecture and been a great simpleton herself,
till they were happily seated at the dinner-table, when
the general's complacent smiles, and a good appetite
of her own, restored her to peace. The dining-parlour
was a noble room, suitable in its dimensions to a much
larger drawing-room than the one in common use, and fitted
up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost
on the unpractised eye of Catherine, who saw little more
than its spaciousness and the number of their attendants.
Of the former, she spoke aloud her admiration;
and the general, with a very gracious countenance,
acknowledged that it was by no means an ill-sized room,
and further confessed that, though as careless on such
subjects as most people, he did look upon a tolerably
large eating-room as one of the necessaries of life;
he supposed, however, "that she must have been used
to much better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen's?"

"No, indeed," was Catherine's honest assurance;
"Mr. Allen's dining-parlour was not more than half as large,"
and she had never seen so large a room as this in her life.
The general's good humour increased. Why, as he had
such rooms, he thought it would be simple not to make
use of them; but, upon his honour, he believed there
might be more comfort in rooms of only half their size.
Mr. Allen's house, he was sure, must be exactly of the true
size for rational happiness.

The evening passed without any further disturbance,
and, in the occasional absence of General Tilney, with much
positive cheerfulness. It was only in his presence that
Catherine felt the smallest fatigue from her journey;
and even then, even in moments of languor or restraint,
a sense of general happiness preponderated, and she could
think of her friends in Bath without one wish of being
with them.

The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at
intervals the whole afternoon; and by the time the party
broke up, it blew and rained violently. Catherine, as she
crossed the hall, listened to the tempest with sensations
of awe; and, when she heard it rage round a corner of the
ancient building and close with sudden fury a distant door,
felt for the first time that she was really in an abbey.
Yes, these were characteristic sounds; they brought to her
recollection a countless variety of dreadful situations
and horrid scenes, which such buildings had witnessed,
and such storms ushered in; and most heartily did
she rejoice in the happier circumstances attending
her entrance within walls so solemn! She had nothing
to dread from midnight assassins or drunken gallants.
Henry had certainly been only in jest in what he had told
her that morning. In a house so furnished, and so guarded,
she could have nothing to explore or to suffer, and might
go to her bedroom as securely as if it had been her own
chamber at Fullerton. Thus wisely fortifying her mind,
as she proceeded upstairs, she was enabled, especially on
perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her,
to enter her room with a tolerably stout heart; and her
spirits were immediately assisted by the cheerful blaze
of a wood fire. "How much better is this," said she,
as she walked to the fender--"how much better to find a fire
ready lit, than to have to wait shivering in the cold
till all the family are in bed, as so many poor girls
have been obliged to do, and then to have a faithful old
servant frightening one by coming in with a faggot! How
glad I am that Northanger is what it is! If it had been
like some other places, I do not know that, in such a night
as this, I could have answered for my courage: but now,
to be sure, there is nothing to alarm one."

She looked round the room. The window curtains seemed
in motion. It could be nothing but the violence of the
wind penetrating through the divisions of the shutters;
and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune,
to assure herself of its being so, peeped courageously
behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window seat
to scare her, and on placing a hand against the shutter,
felt the strongest conviction of the wind's force.
A glance at the old chest, as she turned away from
this examination, was not without its use; she scorned
the causeless fears of an idle fancy, and began with a
most happy indifference to prepare herself for bed.
"She should take her time; she should not hurry herself;
she did not care if she were the last person up in the house.
But she would not make up her fire; that would seem cowardly,
as if she wished for the protection of light after she
were in bed." The fire therefore died away, and Catherine,
having spent the best part of an hour in her arrangements,
was beginning to think of stepping into bed, when, on giving
a parting glance round the room, she was struck by the
appearance of a high, old-fashioned black cabinet, which,
though in a situation conspicuous enough, had never caught
her notice before. Henry's words, his description of the
ebony cabinet which was to escape her observation at first,
immediately rushed across her; and though there could
be nothing really in it, there was something whimsical,
it was certainly a very remarkable coincidence! She
took her candle and looked closely at the cabinet.
It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but it was japan,
black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she
held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect
of gold. The key was in the door, and she had a strange
fancy to look into it; not, however, with the smallest
expectation of finding anything, but it was so very odd,
after what Henry had said. In short, she could not
sleep till she had examined it. So, placing the candle
with great caution on a chair, she seized the key with a
very tremulous hand and tried to turn it; but it resisted
her utmost strength. Alarmed, but not discouraged,
she tried it another way; a bolt flew, and she believed
herself successful; but how strangely mysterious!
The door was still immovable. She paused a moment
in breathless wonder. The wind roared down the chimney,
the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and everything
seemed to speak the awfulness of her situation.
To retire to bed, however, unsatisfied on such a point,
would be vain, since sleep must be impossible with the
consciousness of a cabinet so mysteriously closed in her
immediate vicinity. Again, therefore, she applied herself
to the key, and after moving it in every possible way
for some instants with the determined celerity of hope's
last effort, the door suddenly yielded to her hand: her
heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and having
thrown open each folding door, the second being secured
only by bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock,
though in that her eye could not discern anything unusual,
a double range of small drawers appeared in view,
with some larger drawers above and below them; and in
the centre, a small door, closed also with a lock and key,
secured in all probability a cavity of importance.

Catherine's heart beat quick, but her courage did
not fail her. With a cheek flushed by hope, and an eye
straining with curiosity, her fingers grasped the handle
of a drawer and drew it forth. It was entirely empty.
With less alarm and greater eagerness she seized a second,
a third, a fourth; each was equally empty. Not one was
left unsearched, and in not one was anything found.
Well read in the art of concealing a treasure, the possibility
of false linings to the drawers did not escape her,
and she felt round each with anxious acuteness in vain.
The place in the middle alone remained now unexplored;
and though she had "never from the first had the smallest
idea of finding anything in any part of the cabinet,
and was not in the least disappointed at her ill success
thus far, it would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly
while she was about it." It was some time however before
she could unfasten the door, the same difficulty occurring
in the management of this inner lock as of the outer;
but at length it did open; and not vain, as hitherto,
was her search; her quick eyes directly fell on a roll
of paper pushed back into the further part of the cavity,
apparently for concealment, and her feelings at that
moment were indescribable. Her heart fluttered,
her knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale. She seized,
with an unsteady hand, the precious manuscript, for half
a glance sufficed to ascertain written characters;
and while she acknowledged with awful sensations this
striking exemplification of what Henry had foretold,
resolved instantly to peruse every line before she attempted
to rest.

The dimness of the light her candle emitted made
her turn to it with alarm; but there was no danger
of its sudden extinction; it had yet some hours to burn;
and that she might not have any greater difficulty
in distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date
might occasion, she hastily snuffed it. Alas! It was snuffed
and extinguished in one. A lamp could not have expired
with more awful effect. Catherine, for a few moments,
was motionless with horror. It was done completely;
not a remnant of light in the wick could give hope
to the rekindling breath. Darkness impenetrable and
immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind,
rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment.
Catherine trembled from head to foot. In the pause
which succeeded, a sound like receding footsteps and the
closing of a distant door struck on her affrighted ear.
Human nature could support no more. A cold sweat stood
on her forehead, the manuscript fell from her hand,
and groping her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in,
and sought some suspension of agony by creeping far
underneath the clothes. To close her eyes in sleep
that night, she felt must be entirely out of the question.
With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every
way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossible.
The storm too abroad so dreadful! She had not been used
to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast seemed fraught
with awful intelligence. The manuscript so wonderfully found,
so wonderfully accomplishing the morning's prediction,
how was it to be accounted for? What could it contain? To
whom could it relate? By what means could it have been
so long concealed? And how singularly strange that it
should fall to her lot to discover it! Till she had made
herself mistress of its contents, however, she could
have neither repose nor comfort; and with the sun's first
rays she was determined to peruse it. But many were the
tedious hours which must yet intervene. She shuddered,
tossed about in her bed, and envied every quiet sleeper.
The storm still raged, and various were the noises,
more terrific even than the wind, which struck at intervals
on her startled ear. The very curtains of her bed seemed
at one moment in motion, and at another the lock of her door
was agitated, as if by the attempt of somebody to enter.
Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along the gallery, and more than
once her blood was chilled by the sound of distant moans.
Hour after hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine
had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house
before the tempest subsided or she unknowingly fell
fast asleep.