Chapter 26

From this tim e, the subj ect was frequently canvassed by the three

y oung people; and Catherine found, with som e surprise, that her two y oung friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella’s want of consequence and fortune as likely to throw great difficulties in the way of her m arry ing their brother. Their persuasion that the general would, upon this ground alone, independent of the obj ection that m ight be raised against her character, oppose the connection, turned her feelings m oreover with som e alarm towards herself. She was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless, as Isabella; and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and wealth enough in him self, at what point of interest were the dem ands of his y ounger brother to rest? The very painful reflections to which this thought led could only be dispersed by a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality, which, as she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions, she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the general; and by a recollection of som e m ost generous and disinterested sentim ents on the subj ect of m oney, which she had m ore than once heard him utter, and which tem pted her to think his disposition in such m atters m isunderstood by his children.

They were so fully convinced, however, that their brother would not

have the courage to apply in person for his father’s consent, and so repeatedly assured her that he had never in his life been less likely to com e to Northanger than at the present tim e, that she suffered her m ind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden rem oval of her own. But as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney, whenever he m ade his application, would give his father any j ust idea of Isabella’s conduct, it occurred to her as highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him as it really was, enabling the general by that m eans to form a cool and im partial opinion, and prepare his obj ections on a fairer ground than inequality of situations. She proposed it to him accordingly ; but he did not catch at the m easure so eagerly as she had expected. “No,” said he, “m y father’s hands need not be strengthened, and Frederick’s confession of folly need not be forestalled. He m ust tell his own story.”

“But he will tell only half of it.”

“A quarter would be enough.”

A day or two passed away and brought no tidings of Captain Tilney. His

brother and sister knew not what to think. Som etim es it appeared to them as if his silence would be the natural result of the suspected engagem ent, and at others that it was wholly incom patible with it. The general, m eanwhile, though offended every m orning by Frederick’s rem issness in writing, was free from any real anxiety about him , and had no m ore pressing solicitude than that of m aking Miss Morland’s tim e at Northanger pass pleasantly. He often expressed his uneasiness on this head, feared the sam eness of every day ’s society and em ploy m ents would disgust her with the place, wished the Lady Frasers had been in the country, talked every now and then of having a large party to dinner, and once or twice began even to calculate the num ber of y oung dancing people in the neighbourhood. But then it was such a dead tim e of y ear, no wild-fowl, no gam e, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country. And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one m orning that when he next went to Woodston, they would take him by surprise there som e day or other, and eat their m utton with him . Henry was greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted with the schem e. “And when do y ou think, sir, I m ay look forward to this pleasure? I m ust be at Woodston on Monday to attend the parish m eeting, and shall probably be obliged to stay two or three day s.”

“Well, well, we will take our chance som e one of those day s. There is

no need to fix. You are not to put y ourself at all out of y our way. Whatever y ou m ay happen to have in the house will be enough. I think I can answer for the y oung ladies m aking allowance for a bachelor’s table. Let m e see; Monday will be a busy day with y ou, we will not com e on Monday ; and Tuesday will be a busy one with m e. I expect m y survey or from Brockham with his report in the m orning; and afterwards I cannot in decency fail attending the club. I really could not face m y acquaintance if I stay ed away now; for, as I am known to be in the country, it would be taken exceedingly am iss; and it is a rule with m e, Miss Morland, never to give offence to any of m y neighbours, if a sm all sacrifice of tim e and attention can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy m en. They have half a buck from Northanger twice a y ear; and I dine with them whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore, we m ay say is out of the question. But on Wednesday, I think, Henry, y ou m ay expect us; and we shall be with y ou early, that we m ay have tim e to look about us. Two hours and three quarters will carry us to Woodston, I suppose; we shall be in the carriage by ten; so, about a quarter before one on Wednesday, y ou m ay look for us.”

A ball itself could not have been m ore welcom e to Catherine than this

little excursion, so strong was her desire to be acquainted with Woodston; and her heart was still bounding with j oy when Henry, about an hour afterwards, cam e booted and greatcoated into the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said, “I am com e, y oung ladies, in a very m oralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world are alway s to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready -m onied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that m ay not be honoured. Witness m y self, at this present hour. Because I am to hope for the satisfaction of seeing y ou at Woodston on Wednesday, which bad weather, or twenty other causes, m ay prevent, I m ust go away directly, two day s before I intended it.”

“Go away !” said Catherine, with a very long face. “And why ?”

“Why ! How can y ou ask the question? Because no tim e is to be lost in

frightening m y old housekeeper out of her wits, because I m ust go and prepare a dinner for y ou, to be sure.”

“Oh! Not seriously !”

“Ay e, and sadly too, for I had m uch rather stay.”

“But how can y ou think of such a thing, after what the general said?

When he so particularly desired y ou not to give y ourself any trouble, because any thing would do.”

Henry only sm iled. “I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon y our sister’s

account and m ine. You m ust know it to be so; and the general m ade such a point of y our providing nothing extraordinary : besides, if he had not said half so m uch as he did, he has alway s such an excellent dinner at hom e, that sitting down to a m iddling one for one day could not signify.”

“I wish I could reason like y ou, for his sake and m y own. Good-by e. As

tom orrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return.”

He went; and, it being at any tim e a m uch sim pler operation to

Catherine to doubt her own j udgm ent than Henry ’s, she was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right, however disagreeable to her his going. But the inexplicability of the general’s conduct dwelt m uch on her thoughts. That he was very particular in his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation, already discovered; but why he should say one thing so positively, and m ean another all the while, was m ost unaccountable! How were people, at that rate, to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware of what his father was at?

From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now to be without

Henry. This was the sad finale of every reflection: and Captain Tilney ’s letter would certainly com e in his absence; and Wednesday she was very sure would be wet. The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom . Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great; and Eleanor’s spirits alway s affected by Henry ’s absence! What was there to interest or am use her? She was tired of the woods and the shrubberies – alway s so sm ooth and so dry ; and the abbey in itself was no m ore to her now than any other house. The painful rem em brance of the folly it had helped to nourish and perfect was the only em otion which could spring from a consideration of the building. What a revolution in her ideas! She, who had so longed to be in an abbey ! Now, there was nothing so charm ing to her im agination as the unpretending com fort of a well-connected parsonage, som ething like Fullerton, but better: Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If Wednesday should ever com e!

It did com e, and exactly when it m ight be reasonably looked for. It

cam e – it was fine – and Catherine trod on air. By ten o’clock, the chaise and four convey ed the two from the abbey ; and, after an agreeable drive of alm ost twenty m iles, they entered Woodston, a large and populous village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine was asham ed to say how pretty she thought it, as the general seem ed to think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country, and the size of the village; but in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever been at, and looked with great adm iration at every neat house above the rank of a cottage, and at all the little chandler’s shops which they passed. At the further end of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of it, stood the parsonage, a new-built substantial stone house, with its sem icircular sweep and green gates; and, as they drove up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude, a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers, was ready to receive and m ake m uch of them .

Catherine’s m ind was too full, as she entered the house, for her either to

observe or to say a great deal; and, till called on by the general for her opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it then, she perceived in a m om ent that it was the m ost com fortable room in the world; but she was too guarded to say so, and the coldness of her praise disappointed him .

“We are not calling it a good house,” said he. “We are not com paring it

with Fullerton and Northanger – we are considering it as a m ere parsonage, sm all and confined, we allow, but decent, perhaps, and habitable; and altogether not inferior to the generality ; or, in other words, I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so good. It m ay adm it of im provem ent, however. Far be it from m e to say otherwise; and any thing in reason – a bow thrown out, perhaps – though, between ourselves, if there is one thing m ore than another m y aversion, it is a patched-on bow.”

Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be pained

by it; and other subj ects being studiously brought forward and supported by Henry, at the sam e tim e that a tray full of refreshm ents was introduced by his servant, the general was shortly restored to his com placency, and Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits.

The room in question was of a com m odious, well-proportioned size, and

handsom ely fitted up as a dining-parlour; and on their quitting it to walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a sm aller apartm ent, belonging peculiarly to the m aster of the house, and m ade unusually tidy on the occasion; and afterwards into what was to be the drawing-room , with the appearance of which, though unfurnished, Catherine was delighted enough even to satisfy the general. It was a prettily shaped room , the windows reaching to the ground, and the view from them pleasant, though only over green m eadows; and she expressed her adm iration at the m om ent with all the honest sim plicity with which she felt it. “Oh! Why do not y ou fit up this room , Mr. Tilney ? What a pity not to have it fitted up! It is the prettiest room I ever saw; it is the prettiest room in the world!”

“I trust,” said the general, with a m ost satisfied sm ile, “that it will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady ’s taste!”

“Well, if it was m y house, I should never sit any where else. Oh! What a

sweet little cottage there is am ong the trees – apple trees, too! It is the prettiest cottage!”

“You like it – y ou approve it as an obj ect – it is enough. Henry,

rem em ber that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage rem ains.”

Such a com plim ent recalled all Catherine’s consciousness, and silenced

her directly ; and, though pointedly applied to by the general for her choice of the prevailing colour of the paper and hangings, nothing like an opinion on the subj ect could be drawn from her. The influence of fresh obj ects and fresh air, however, was of great use in dissipating these em barrassing associations; and, having reached the ornam ental part of the prem ises, consisting of a walk round two sides of a m eadow, on which Henry ’s genius had begun to act about half a y ear ago, she was sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in the corner.

A saunter into other m eadows, and through part of the village, with a

visit to the stables to exam ine som e im provem ents, and a charm ing gam e of play with a litter of puppies j ust able to roll about, brought them to four o’clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could be three. At four they were to dine, and at six to set off on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly !

She could not but observe that the abundance of the dinner did not seem

to create the sm allest astonishm ent in the general; nay, that he was even looking at the side-table for cold m eat which was not there. His son and daughter’s observations were of a different kind. They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table but his own, and never before known him so little disconcerted by the m elted butter’s being oiled.

At six o’clock, the general having taken his coffee, the carriage again

received them ; and so gratify ing had been the tenor of his conduct throughout the whole visit, so well assured was her m ind on the subj ect of his expectations, that, could she have felt equally confident of the wishes of his son, Catherine would have quitted Woodston with little anxiety as to the How or the When she m ight return to it.