CHAPTER 30

Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

CHAPTER 30, NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen


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
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 therefore as the almost acknowledged
future heiress of Fullerton naturally followed.
Upon such intelligence the general had proceeded;
for never had it occurred to him to doubt its authority.
Thorpe's interest in the family, by his sister's approaching
connection with one of its members, and his own views
on another (circumstances of which he boasted with almost
equal openness), seemed sufficient vouchers for his truth;
and to these were added the absolute facts of the Allens
being wealthy and childless, of Miss Morland's being under
their care, and--as soon as his acquaintance allowed him
to judge--of their treating her with parental kindness.
His resolution was soon formed. Already had he discerned
a liking towards Miss Morland in the countenance of his son;
and thankful for Mr. Thorpe's communication, he almost
instantly determined to spare no pains in weakening
his boasted interest and ruining his dearest hopes.
Catherine herself could not be more ignorant at the time
of all this, than his own children. Henry and Eleanor,
perceiving nothing in her situation likely to engage their
father's particular respect, had seen with astonishment
the suddenness, continuance, and extent of his attention;
and though latterly, from some hints which had accompanied
an almost positive command to his son of doing everything
in his power to attach her, Henry was convinced of his
father's believing it to be an advantageous connection,
it was not till the late explanation at Northanger that they
had the smallest idea of the false calculations which
had hurried him on. That they were false, the general
had learnt from the very person who had suggested them,
from Thorpe himself, whom he had chanced to meet again
in town, and who, under the influence of exactly
opposite feelings, irritated by Catherine's refusal,
and yet more by the failure of a very recent endeavour
to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella,
convinced that they were separated forever, and spurning
a friendship which could be no longer serviceable,
hastened to contradict all that he had said before to the
advantage of the Morlands--confessed himself to have been
totally mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances
and character, misled by the rhodomontade of his friend
to believe his father a man of substance and credit,
whereas the transactions of the two or three last weeks
proved him to be neither; for after coming eagerly forward
on the first overture of a marriage between the families,
with the most liberal proposals, he had, on being
brought to the point by the shrewdness of the relator,
been constrained to acknowledge himself incapable of giving
the young people even a decent support. They were, in fact,
a necessitous family; numerous, too, almost beyond example;
by no means respected in their own neighbourhood, as he
had lately had particular opportunities of discovering;
aiming at a style of life which their fortune could not warrant;
seeking to better themselves by wealthy connections;
a forward, bragging, scheming race.

The terrified general pronounced the name of Allen
with an inquiring look; and here too Thorpe had learnt
his error. The Allens, he believed, had lived near them
too long, and he knew the young man on whom the Fullerton
estate must devolve. The general needed no more.
Enraged with almost everybody in the world but himself,
he set out the next day for the abbey, where his performances
have been seen.

I leave it to my reader's sagacity to determine how
much of all this it was possible for Henry to communicate
at this time to Catherine, how much of it he could have
learnt from his father, in what points his own conjectures
might assist him, and what portion must yet remain to be
told in a letter from James. I have united for their case
what they must divide for mine. Catherine, at any rate,
heard enough to feel that in suspecting General Tilney of
either murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely
sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.

Henry, in having such things to relate of his father,
was almost as pitiable as in their first avowal to himself.
He blushed for the narrow-minded counsel which he
was obliged to expose. The conversation between them
at Northanger had been of the most unfriendly kind.
Henry's indignation on hearing how Catherine had been treated,
on comprehending his father's views, and being ordered
to acquiesce in them, had been open and bold. The general,
accustomed on every ordinary occasion to give the law
in his family, prepared for no reluctance but of feeling,
no opposing desire that should dare to clothe itself
in words, could in brook the opposition of his son,
steady as the sanction of reason and the dictate of
conscience could make it. But, in such a cause, his anger,
though it must shock, could not intimidate Henry, who was
sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice.
He felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection
to Miss Morland, and believing that heart to be his own
which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction
of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable anger,
could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions
it prompted.

He steadily refused to accompany his father
into Herefordshire, an engagement formed almost at the
moment to promote the dismissal of Catherine, and as
steadily declared his intention of offering her his hand.
The general was furious in his anger, and they parted
in dreadful disagreement. Henry, in an agitation of mind
which many solitary hours were required to compose,
had returned almost instantly to Woodston, and, on the
afternoon of the following day, had begun his journey to Fullerton.