Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons (41 page)

The angels mingled in common among the family, and lent a distinctive glow to the joyfulness of family love. Everything for a short time was subdued, and the pleasure of seeing her left them little leisure for calm curiosity. They were all seated round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveler (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 did she then begin an extended explanation. But the listeners were hardly given a firm cause of her sudden return. They were far from being an irritable race—far from catching affronts, or harboring bitter resentment. 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 regard to their daughter’s long and lonely journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland recognized it was unpleasant to her. Thus, they could never have voluntarily approved it. 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 an unresolved matter.

But it did not oppress them overlong. “It was a strange business, and that he must be a very strange man,” was their calm conclusion.

“Why did he not send Catherine away civilly?” said Sarah.

“I am sorry for the young people,” returned Mrs. Morland; “they must have a sad time of it. But 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 all over, and no great harm done. My dear Catherine, you always were a sad little scatter-brained creature, what with all the
reciting
to yourself and talking to furniture. But now you must have been forced to have your wits about you—with so much changing of chaises and so forth. I hope that you have not left anything behind you in any of the pockets.”

Catherine hoped so too. But her spirits were quite worn down. And, in order to be silent and alone, she readily agreed to her mother’s counsel of going early to bed. Her parents, seeing nothing in her ill looks but the natural consequence of mortified feelings and fatigue of a journey, parted from her easily. Though, when they all met the next morning, and her recovery was not equal to their hopes, they were perfectly unsuspicious of 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 fulfill her promise to Miss Tilney and write a letter. The strength of her feelings, however, made it most difficult to write. To compose a letter which might do full justice to her sentiments and possibly be seen by Henry himself was a near impossibility. In the end she was brief, conveying confidence of her safety, and enclosing the money which Eleanor had advanced, with grateful thanks.

“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. Verily, the Whore of Babylon! Ah! Poor James! Well, we must live and learn. The next new friends you make I hope will be better worth keeping.”

Oh, dear heaven! The Whore of Babylon!
How indeed had she had forgotten that strange demand by the Legion? And oh, surely now it fit Isabella’s behavior, at least in spirit.

But why had the Legion asked
her
for Isabella? What claim had she on the naphil? What
power
had she to withhold or give?

Suddenly Catherine wondered a great many things.

She wondered indeed about power. The power she had, and the power attributed to her, and the effects of her actions and words, and indeed, her
thoughts!

Not everything was entirely clear as of yet, but it occurred to Catherine that the Legion had
tested
her in some manner. Tested her
resolve
and her
power
and her ability to
choose
. Tested her
compassion,
and her
friendship
toward even those whose friendship was not worth keeping.

And now Catherine coloured as she warmly answered, “No friend can be better worth keeping than Eleanor.”

“If so, my dear, do not be uneasy. I dare say you will be thrown together again in the course of a few years; and then what a pleasure it will be!”

Mrs. Morland was not effective 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—!

Her eyes filled with tears as she pictured her acquaintance so renewed. And so her mother 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. 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 desirable to have him engaged to a girl so entirely without fortune, and of such ill behaviour. At present it is hard for poor James; but will not be forever. He will be a discreeter man all his life, for the foolishness of his first choice.”

Catherine could not easily listen to this. Soon all her thinking powers were swallowed up in the reflection of her own changes since last she had trodden this well-known road between her home and the Allen’s. It was not three months ago since, wild with joyful expectation, she had there run backwards and forwards some ten times a day, with a light heart and angels in her wake.

She had been as 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 affectionate kindness which her appearance would naturally call forth. And great was their surprise, and warm their displeasure, on hearing how she had been treated by General Tilney.

“Catherine took us quite by surprise yesterday evening.” And Mrs. Morland told them the circumstances, adding, “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, as usual, echoed. 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.

After Mr. Allen left the room, and echoing him and herself for good measure, 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. Bath is a nice place, Catherine, after all. I assure you I did not above half like coming away. All those amusing Clues and gentlemen with their walking-shovels—Indeed, I told Mr. Allen he ought to procure one himself; quite useful in case of an unforseen need of excavation, as it might be, around
roots
for
treasure
—though, I dare say, we had not discovered any, and neither did Mrs. Hughes—however they did adopt a poor little
orphan
of the Rhine or its whereabouts. Though, Mrs. Thorpe’s being there was such a comfort to us, was not it? 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, and I have worn them a great deal since, with the addition of tiny
cowbells
. 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!”

As they walked home again, Mrs. Morland tried to impress on her daughter’s mind the happiness of having such steady well-wishers as Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and the unimportance of the slight acquaintance with the Tilneys.

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. Catherine’s feelings contradicted almost every position her mother advanced. It was upon the behaviour of these very slight acquaintances that all her present happiness depended.

Soon Catherine was silently reflecting that now Henry must have arrived at Northanger . . . now he must have heard of her departure . . . and now, perhaps—

Now what?

C
atherine’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 perceived them now to be greatly increased.

Catherine could neither sit still nor employ herself for ten minutes. She walked round the garden and orchard again and again, trailing angels. 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 palpable. 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. Not a word was said to berate inanimate objects (as Mrs. Morland referred to it, ignorant of the angels). Not once did Catherine argue with her dressing table or apologize to the bed.

For two days Mrs. Morland allowed it to pass. But when a third night’s rest had not restored her cheerfulness, useful activity, or inclination for needlework, she could no longer refrain from a gentle reproof.

“My dear Catherine, I am afraid you are growing quite a fine lady. 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. 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. You should be contented anywhere, especially at home. I did not 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 clever essay in one of the books upstairs, about young girls that have been spoilt for home by great acquaintance. I will find it for you. It ought to do you good.”

Catherine said no more, and applied to her work. But in minutes she sunk again into languor and listlessness, moving herself in her chair much oftener than she moved her needle.

Mrs. Morland watched the relapse, and seeing in her daughter’s absent and dissatisfied look the proof of that repining spirit, hastily left the room to fetch the essay book in question. It was some time before she could find what she looked for; and a quarter of an hour had elapsed ere she returned downstairs with the helpful volume.

She knew not that a visitor had arrived within the last few minutes. 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. Introduced to her by her conscious daughter as “Mr. Henry Tilney,” with the embarrassment of real sensibility he began to apologize for his appearance there—acknowledging that after what had passed he had little right to expect a welcome at Fullerton. His impatience to be assured of Miss Morland’s having reached her home in safety was the cause of his intrusion.

He did not address himself to a ruthless judge or a resentful heart. Far from blaming him or his sister in their father’s misconduct, Mrs. Morland had been always kindly disposed towards each. Instantly pleased by his appearance, she received him with simple unaffected benevolence. She thanked him for such an attention to her daughter, assured him that the friends of her children were always welcome, and entreated him to say not another word of the past.