Chapter 9

The progress of Catherine’s unhappiness from the events of the evening

was as follows. It appeared first in a general dissatisfaction with every body about her, while she rem ained in the room s, which speedily brought on considerable weariness and a violent desire to go hom e. This, on arriving in Pulteney Street, took the direction of extraordinary hunger, and when that was appeased, changed into an earnest longing to be in bed; such was the extrem e point of her distress; for when there she im m ediately fell into a sound sleep which lasted nine hours, and from which she awoke perfectly revived, in excellent spirits, with fresh hopes and fresh schem es. The first wish of her heart was to im prove her acquaintance with Miss Tilney, and alm ost her first resolution, to seek her for that purpose, in the pum p-room at noon. In the pum p-room , one so newly arrived in Bath m ust be m et with, and that building she had already found so favourable for the discovery of fem ale excellence, and the com pletion of fem ale intim acy, so adm irably adapted for secret discourses and unlim ited confidence, that she was m ost reasonably encouraged to expect another friend from within its walls. Her plan for the m orning thus settled, she sat quietly down to her book after breakfast, resolving to rem ain in the sam e place and the sam e em ploy m ent till the clock struck one; and from habitude very little incom m oded by the rem arks and ej aculations of Mrs. Allen, whose vacancy of m ind and incapacity for thinking were such, that as she never talked a great deal, so she could never be entirely silent; and, therefore, while she sat at her work, if she lost her needle or broke her thread, if she heard a carriage in the street, or saw a speck upon her gown, she m ust observe it aloud, whether there were any one at leisure to answer her or not. At about half past twelve, a rem arkably loud rap drew her in haste to the window, and scarcely had she tim e to inform Catherine of there being two open carriages at the door, in the first only a servant, her brother driving Miss Thorpe in the second, before John Thorpe cam e running upstairs, calling out, “Well, Miss Morland, here I am . Have y ou been waiting long? We could not com e before; the old devil of a coachm aker was such an eternity finding out a thing fit to be got into, and now it is ten thousand to one but they break down before we are out of the street. How do y ou do, Mrs. Allen? A fam ous ball last night, was not it? Com e, Miss Morland, be quick, for the others are in a confounded hurry to be off. They want to get their tum ble over.”

“What do y ou m ean?” said Catherine. “Where are y ou all going to?”

“Going to? Why, y ou have not forgot our engagem ent! Did not we

agree together to take a drive this m orning? What a head y ou have! We are going up Claverton Down.”

“Som ething was said about it, I rem em ber,” said Catherine, looking at

Mrs. Allen for her opinion; “but really I did not expect y ou.”

“Not expect m e! That’s a good one! And what a dust y ou would have

m ade, if I had not com e.”

Catherine’s silent appeal to her friend, m eanwhile, was entirely thrown

away, for Mrs. Allen, not being at all in the habit of convey ing any expression herself by a look, was not aware of its being ever intended by any body else; and Catherine, whose desire of seeing Miss Tilney again could at that m om ent bear a short delay in favour of a drive, and who thought there could be no im propriety in her going with Mr. Thorpe, as Isabella was going at the sam e tim e with Jam es, was therefore obliged to speak plainer. “Well, m a’am , what do y ou say to it? Can y ou spare m e for an hour or two? Shall I go?”

“Do j ust as y ou please, m y dear,” replied Mrs. Allen, with the m ost

placid indifference. Catherine took the advice, and ran off to get ready. In a very few m inutes she reappeared, having scarcely allowed the two others tim e enough to get through a few short sentences in her praise, after Thorpe had procured Mrs. Allen’s adm iration of his gig; and then receiving her friend’s parting good wishes, they both hurried downstairs. “My dearest creature,” cried Isabella, to whom the duty of friendship im m ediately called her before she could get into the carriage, “y ou have been at least three hours getting ready. I was afraid y ou were ill. What a delightful ball we had last night. I have a thousand things to say to y ou; but m ake haste and get in, for I long to be off.”

Catherine followed her orders and turned away, but not too soon to hear

her friend exclaim aloud to Jam es, “What a sweet girl she is! I quite dote on her.”

“You will not be frightened, Miss Morland,” said Thorpe, as he handed

her in, “if m y horse should dance about a little at first setting off. He will, m ost likely, give a plunge or two, and perhaps take the rest for a m inute; but he will soon know his m aster. He is full of spirits, play ful as can be, but there is no vice in him .”

Catherine did not think the portrait a very inviting one, but it was too late

to retreat, and she was too y oung to own herself frightened; so, resigning herself to her fate, and trusting to the anim al’s boasted knowledge of its owner, she sat peaceably down, and saw Thorpe sit down by her. Every thing being then arranged, the servant who stood at the horse’s head was bid in an im portant voice “to let him go,” and off they went in the quietest m anner im aginable, without a plunge or a caper, or any thing like one. Catherine, delighted at so happy an escape, spoke her pleasure aloud with grateful surprise; and her com panion im m ediately m ade the m atter perfectly sim ple by assuring her that it was entirely owing to the peculiarly j udicious m anner in which he had then held the reins, and the singular discernm ent and dexterity with which he had directed his whip. Catherine, though she could not help wondering that with such perfect com m and of his horse, he should think it necessary to alarm her with a relation of its tricks, congratulated herself sincerely on being under the care of so excellent a coachm an; and perceiving that the anim al continued to go on in the sam e quiet m anner, without showing the sm allest propensity towards any unpleasant vivacity, and (considering its inevitable pace was ten m iles an hour) by no m eans alarm ingly fast, gave herself up to all the enj oy m ent of air and exercise of the m ost invigorating kind, in a fine m ild day of February, with the consciousness of safety. A silence of several m inutes succeeded their first short dialogue; it was broken by Thorpe’s say ing very abruptly, “Old Allen is as rich as a Jew – is not he?” Catherine did not understand him – and he repeated his question, adding in explanation, “Old Allen, the m an y ou are with.”

“Oh! Mr. Allen, y ou m ean. Yes, I believe, he is very rich.”

“And no children at all?”

“No, not any.”

“A fam ous thing for his next heirs. He is y our godfather, is not he?”

“My godfather! No.”

“But y ou are alway s very m uch with them .”

“Yes, very m uch.”

“Ay e, that is what I m eant. He seem s a good kind of old fellow enough,

and has lived very well in his tim e, I dare say ; he is not gouty for nothing. Does he drink his bottle a day now?”

“His bottle a day ! No. Why should y ou think of such a thing? He is a

very tem perate m an, and y ou could not fancy him in liquor last night?”

“Lord help y ou! You wom en are alway s thinking of m en’s being in

liquor. Why, y ou do not suppose a m an is overset by a bottle? I am sure of this... that if every body was to drink their bottle a day, there would not be half the disorders in the world there are now. It would be a fam ous good thing for us all.”

“I cannot believe it.”

“Oh! Lord, it would be the saving of thousands. There is not the

hundredth part of the wine consum ed in this kingdom that there ought to be. Our foggy clim ate wants help.”

“And y et I have heard that there is a great deal of wine drunk in

Oxford.”

“Oxford! There is no drinking at Oxford now, I assure y ou. Nobody

drinks there. You would hardly m eet with a m an who goes bey ond his four pints at the utm ost. Now, for instance, it was reckoned a rem arkable thing, at the last party in m y room s, that upon an average we cleared about five pints a head. It was looked upon as som ething out of the com m on way. Mine is fam ous good stuff, to be sure. You would not often m eet with any thing like it in Oxford – and that m ay account for it. But this will j ust give y ou a notion of the general rate of drinking there.”

“Yes, it does give a notion,” said Catherine warm ly, “and that is, that

y ou all drink a great deal m ore wine than I thought y ou did. However, I am sure Jam es does not drink so m uch.”

This declaration brought on a loud and overpowering reply, of which no

part was very distinct, except the frequent exclam ations, am ounting alm ost to oaths, which adorned it, and Catherine was left, when it ended, with rather a strengthened belief of there being a great deal of wine drunk in Oxford, and the sam e happy conviction of her brother’s com parative sobriety.

Thorpe’s ideas then all reverted to the m erits of his own equipage, and

she was called on to adm ire the spirit and freedom with which his horse m oved along, and the ease which his paces, as well as the excellence of the springs, gave the m otion of the carriage. She followed him in all his adm iration as well as she could. To go before or bey ond him was im possible. His knowledge and her ignorance of the subj ect, his rapidity of expression, and her diffidence of herself put that out of her power; she could strike out nothing new in com m endation, but she readily echoed whatever he chose to assert, and it was finally settled between them without any difficulty that his equipage was altogether the m ost com plete of its kind in England, his carriage the neatest, his horse the best goer, and him self the best coachm an. “You do not really think, Mr. Thorpe,” said Catherine, venturing after som e tim e to consider the m atter as entirely decided, and to offer som e little variation on the subj ect, “that Jam es’s gig will break down?”

“Break down! Oh! Lord! Did y ou ever see such a little tittuppy thing in

y our life? There is not a sound piece of iron about it. The wheels have been fairly worn out these ten y ears at least – and as for the body ! Upon m y soul, y ou m ight shake it to pieces y ourself with a touch. It is the m ost devilish little rickety business I ever beheld! Thank God! we have got a better. I would not be bound to go two m iles in it for fifty thousand pounds.”

“Good heavens!” cried Catherine, quite frightened. “Then pray let us

turn back; they will certainly m eet with an accident if we go on. Do let us turn back, Mr. Thorpe; stop and speak to m y brother, and tell him how very unsafe it is.”

“Unsafe! Oh, lord! What is there in that? They will only get a roll if it

does break down; and there is plenty of dirt; it will be excellent falling. Oh, curse it! The carriage is safe enough, if a m an knows how to drive it; a thing of that sort in good hands will last above twenty y ears after it is fairly worn out. Lord bless y ou! I would undertake for five pounds to drive it to York and back again, without losing a nail.”

Catherine listened with astonishm ent; she knew not how to reconcile two

such very different accounts of the sam e thing; for she had not been brought up to understand the propensities of a rattle, nor to know to how m any idle assertions and im pudent falsehoods the excess of vanity will lead. Her own fam ily were plain, m atter-of-fact people who seldom aim ed at wit of any kind; her father, at the utm ost, being contented with a pun, and her m other with a proverb; they were not in the habit therefore of telling lies to increase their im portance, or of asserting at one m om ent what they would contradict the next. She reflected on the affair for som e tim e in m uch perplexity, and was m ore than once on the point of requesting from Mr. Thorpe a clearer insight into his real opinion on the subj ect; but she checked herself, because it appeared to her that he did not excel in giving those clearer insights, in m aking those things plain which he had before m ade am biguous; and, j oining to this, the consideration that he would not really suffer his sister and his friend to be exposed to a danger from which he m ight easily preserve them , she concluded at last that he m ust know the carriage to be in fact perfectly safe, and therefore would alarm herself no longer. By him the whole m atter seem ed entirely forgotten; and all the rest of his conversation, or rather talk, began and ended with him self and his own concerns. He told her of horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sum s; of racing m atches, in which his j udgm ent had infallibly foretold the winner; of shooting parties, in which he had killed m ore birds (though without having one good shot) than all his com panions together; and described to her som e fam ous day ’s sport, with the fox-hounds, in which his foresight and skill in directing the dogs had repaired the m istakes of the m ost experienced huntsm an, and in which the boldness of his riding, though it had never endangered his own life for a m om ent, had been constantly leading others into difficulties, which he calm ly concluded had broken the necks of m any.

Little as Catherine was in the habit of j udging for herself, and unfixed as

were her general notions of what m en ought to be, she could not entirely repress a doubt, while she bore with the effusions of his endless conceit, of his being altogether com pletely agreeable. It was a bold surm ise, for he was Isabella’s brother; and she had been assured by Jam es that his m anners would recom m end him to all her sex; but in spite of this, the extrem e weariness of his com pany, which crept over her before they had been out an hour, and which continued unceasingly to increase till they stopped in Pulteney Street again, induced her, in som e sm all degree, to resist such high authority, and to distrust his powers of giving universal pleasure.

When they arrived at Mrs. Allen’s door, the astonishm ent of Isabella

was hardly to be expressed, on finding that it was too late in the day for them to attend her friend into the house: “Past three o’clock!” It was inconceivable, incredible, im possible! And she would neither believe her own watch, nor her brother’s, nor the servant’s; she would believe no assurance of it founded on reason or reality, till Morland produced his watch, and ascertained the fact; to have doubted a m om ent longer then would have been equally inconceivable, incredible, and im possible; and she could only protest, over and over again, that no two hours and a half had ever gone off so swiftly before, as Catherine was called on to confirm ; Catherine could not tell a falsehood even to please Isabella; but the latter was spared the m isery of her friend’s dissenting voice, by not waiting for her answer. Her own feelings entirely engrossed her; her wretchedness was m ost acute on finding herself obliged to go directly hom e. It was ages since she had had a m om ent’s conversation with her dearest Catherine; and, though she had such thousands of things to say to her, it appeared as if they were never to be together again; so, with sm iles of m ost exquisite m isery, and the laughing ey e of utter despondency, she bade her friend adieu and went on.

Catherine found Mrs. Allen j ust returned from all the busy idleness of

the m orning, and was im m ediately greeted with, “Well, m y dear, here y ou are,” a truth which she had no greater inclination than power to dispute; “and I hope y ou have had a pleasant airing?”

“Yes, m a’am , I thank y ou; we could not have had a nicer day.”

“So Mrs. Thorpe said; she was vastly pleased at y our all going.”

“You have seen Mrs. Thorpe, then?”

“Yes, I went to the pum p-room as soon as y ou were gone, and there I

m et her, and we had a great deal of talk together. She say s there was hardly any veal to be got at m arket this m orning, it is so uncom m only scarce.”

“Did y ou see any body else of our acquaintance?”

“Yes; we agreed to take a turn in the Crescent, and there we m et Mrs.

Hughes, and Mr. and Miss Tilney walking with her.”

“Did y ou indeed? And did they speak to y ou?”

“Yes, we walked along the Crescent together for half an hour. They

seem very agreeable people. Miss Tilney was in a very pretty spotted m uslin, and I fancy, by what I can learn, that she alway s dresses very handsom ely. Mrs. Hughes talked to m e a great deal about the fam ily.”

“And what did she tell y ou of them ?”

“Oh! A vast deal indeed; she hardly talked of any thing else.”

“Did she tell y ou what part of Gloucestershire they com e from ?”

“Yes, she did; but I cannot recollect now. But they are very good kind of

people, and very rich. Mrs. Tilney was a Miss Drum m ond, and she and Mrs. Hughes were schoolfellows; and Miss Drum m ond had a very large fortune; and, when she m arried, her father gave her twenty thousand pounds, and five hundred to buy wedding-clothes. Mrs. Hughes saw all the clothes after they cam e from the warehouse.”

“And are Mr. and Mrs. Tilney in Bath?”

“Yes, I fancy they are, but I am not quite certain. Upon recollection,

however, I have a notion they are both dead; at least the m other is; y es, I am sure Mrs. Tilney is dead, because Mrs. Hughes told m e there was a very beautiful set of pearls that Mr. Drum m ond gave his daughter on her wedding-day and that Miss Tilney has got now, for they were put by for her when her m other died.”

“And is Mr. Tilney, m y partner, the only son?”

“I cannot be quite positive about that, m y dear; I have som e idea he is;

but, however, he is a very fine y oung m an, Mrs. Hughes say s, and likely to do very well.”

Catherine inquired no further; she had heard enough to feel that Mrs.

Allen had no real intelligence to give, and that she was m ost particularly unfortunate herself in having m issed such a m eeting with both brother and sister. Could she have foreseen such a circum stance, nothing should have persuaded her to go out with the others; and, as it was, she could only lam ent her ill luck, and think over what she had lost, till it was clear to her that the drive had by no m eans been very pleasant and that John Thorpe him self was quite disagreeable.