NORTHANGER ABBEY
PART 2
CHAPTER 4
With more than usual eagerness did Catherine hasten
to the pump-room the next day, secure within herself of seeing Mr. Tilney there
before the morning were over, and ready to meet him with a smile; but no smile
was demanded—Mr. Tilney did not appear. Every creature in Bath, except himself,
was to be seen in the room at different periods of the fashionable hours;
crowds of people were every moment passing in and out, up the steps and down;
people whom nobody cared about, and nobody wanted to see; and he only was
absent. "What a delightful place Bath is," said Mrs. Allen as they
sat down near the great clock, after parading the room till they were tired;
"and how pleasant it would be if we had any acquaintance here."
This sentiment had been uttered so often in vain
that Mrs. Allen had no particular reason to hope it would be followed with more
advantage now; but we are told to "despair of nothing we would
attain," as "unwearied diligence our point would gain"; and the
unwearied diligence with which she had every day wished for the same thing was
at length to have its just reward, for hardly had she been seated ten minutes
before a lady of about her own age, who was sitting by her, and had been
looking at her attentively for several minutes, addressed her with great
complaisance in these words: "I think, madam, I cannot be mistaken; it is
a long time since I had the pleasure of seeing you, but is not your name
Allen?" This question answered, as it readily was, the stranger pronounced
hers to be Thorpe; and Mrs. Allen immediately recognized the features of a
former schoolfellow and intimate, whom she had seen only once since their
respective marriages, and that many years ago. Their joy on this meeting was
very great, as well it might, since they had been contented to know nothing of
each other for the last fifteen years. Compliments on good looks now passed;
and, after observing how time had slipped away since they were last together,
how little they had thought of meeting in Bath, and what a pleasure it was to see
an old friend, they proceeded to make inquiries and give intelligence as to
their families, sisters, and cousins, talking both together, far more ready to
give than to receive information, and each hearing very little of what the
other said. Mrs. Thorpe, however, had one great advantage as a talker, over
Mrs. Allen, in a family of children; and when she expatiated on the talents of
her sons, and the beauty of her daughters, when she related their different
situations and views—that John was at Oxford, Edward at Merchant Taylors', and
William at sea—and all of them more beloved and respected in their different
station than any other three beings ever were, Mrs. Allen had no similar
information to give, no similar triumphs to press on the unwilling and unbelieving
ear of her friend, and was forced to sit and appear to listen to all these
maternal effusions, consoling herself, however, with the discovery, which her
keen eye soon made, that the lace on Mrs. Thorpe's pelisse was not half so
handsome as that on her own.
"Here come my dear girls," cried Mrs.
Thorpe, pointing at three smart-looking females who, arm in arm, were then
moving towards her. "My dear Mrs. Allen, I long to introduce them; they
will be so delighted to see you: the tallest is Isabella, my eldest; is not she
a fine young woman? The others are very much admired too, but I believe
Isabella is the handsomest."
The Miss Thorpes were introduced; and Miss Morland,
who had been for a short time forgotten, was introduced likewise. The name
seemed to strike them all; and, after speaking to her with great civility, the
eldest young lady observed aloud to the rest, "How excessively like her
brother Miss Morland is!"
"The very picture of him indeed!" cried
the mother—and "I should have known her anywhere for his sister!" was
repeated by them all, two or three times over. For a moment Catherine was
surprised; but Mrs. Thorpe and her daughters had scarcely begun the history of
their acquaintance with Mr. James Morland, before she remembered that her eldest
brother had lately formed an intimacy with a young man of his own college, of
the name of Thorpe; and that he had spent the last week of the Christmas
vacation with his family, near London.
The whole being explained, many obliging things
were said by the Miss Thorpes of their wish of being better acquainted with
her; of being considered as already friends, through the friendship of their
brothers, etc., which Catherine heard with pleasure, and answered with all the
pretty expressions she could command; and, as the first proof of amity, she was
soon invited to accept an arm of the eldest Miss Thorpe, and take a turn with
her about the room. Catherine was delighted with this extension of her Bath
acquaintance, and almost forgot Mr. Tilney while she talked to Miss Thorpe.
Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Their conversation turned upon those subjects, of
which the free discussion has generally much to do in perfecting a sudden
intimacy between two young ladies: such as dress, balls, flirtations, and
quizzes. Miss Thorpe, however, being four years older than Miss Morland, and at
least four years better informed, had a very decided advantage in discussing
such points; she could compare the balls of Bath with those of Tunbridge, its
fashions with the fashions of London; could rectify the opinions of her new
friend in many articles of tasteful attire; could discover a flirtation between
any gentleman and lady who only smiled on each other; and point out a quiz
through the thickness of a crowd. These powers received due admiration from
Catherine, to whom they were entirely new; and the respect which they naturally
inspired might have been too great for familiarity, had not the easy gaiety of
Miss Thorpe's manners, and her frequent expressions of delight on this
acquaintance with her, softened down every feeling of awe, and left nothing but
tender affection. Their increasing attachment was not to be satisfied with half
a dozen turns in the pump-room, but required, when they all quitted it
together, that Miss Thorpe should accompany Miss Morland to the very door of
Mr. Allen's house; and that they should there part with a most affectionate and
lengthened shake of hands, after learning, to their mutual relief, that they
should see each other across the theatre at night, and say their prayers in the
same chapel the next morning. Catherine then ran directly upstairs, and watched
Miss Thorpe's progress down the street from the drawing-room window; admired
the graceful spirit of her walk, the fashionable air of her figure and dress;
and felt grateful, as well she might, for the chance which had procured her
such a friend.
Mrs. Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one;
she was a good-humoured, well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent mother. Her
eldest daughter had great personal beauty, and the younger ones, by pretending
to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and dressing in the same
style, did very well.
This brief account of the family is intended to
supersede the necessity of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself,
of her past adventures and sufferings, which might otherwise be expected to
occupy the three or four following chapters; in which the worthlessness of
lords and attorneys might be set forth, and conversations, which had passed
twenty years before, be minutely repeated.
CHAPTER 5
Catherine was not so much engaged at the theatre
that evening, in returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe, though they
certainly claimed much of her leisure, as to forget to look with an inquiring
eye for Mr. Tilney in every box which her eye could reach; but she looked in
vain. Mr. Tilney was no fonder of the play than the pump-room. She hoped to be
more fortunate the next day; and when her wishes for fine weather were answered
by seeing a beautiful morning, she hardly felt a doubt of it; for a fine Sunday
in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears on
such an occasion to walk about and tell their acquaintance what a charming day it
is.
As soon as divine service was over, the Thorpes and
Allens eagerly joined each other; and after staying long enough in the
pump-room to discover that the crowd was insupportable, and that there was not
a genteel face to be seen, which everybody discovers every Sunday throughout
the season, they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of
better company. Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in arm, again tasted the
sweets of friendship in an unreserved conversation; they talked much, and with
much enjoyment; but again was Catherine disappointed in her hope of reseeing
her partner. He was nowhere to be met with; every search for him was equally
unsuccessful, in morning lounges or evening assemblies; neither at the Upper
nor Lower Rooms, at dressed or undressed balls, was he perceivable; nor among
the walkers, the horsemen, or the curricle-drivers of the morning. His name was
not in the pump-room book, and curiosity could do no more. He must be gone from
Bath. Yet he had not mentioned that his stay would be so short! This sort of
mysteriousness, which is always so becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in
Catherine's imagination around his person and manners, and increased her
anxiety to know more of him. From the Thorpes she could learn nothing, for they
had been only two days in Bath before they met with Mrs. Allen. It was a
subject, however, in which she often indulged with her fair friend, from whom
she received every possible encouragement to continue to think of him; and his
impression on her fancy was not suffered therefore to weaken. Isabella was very
sure that he must be a charming young man, and was equally sure that he must
have been delighted with her dear Catherine, and would therefore shortly
return. She liked him the better for being a clergyman, "for she must
confess herself very partial to the profession"; and something like a sigh
escaped her as she said it. Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the
cause of that gentle emotion—but she was not experienced enough in the finesse
of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery was
properly called for, or when a confidence should be forced.
Mrs. Allen was now quite happy—quite satisfied with
Bath. She had found some acquaintance, had been so lucky too as to find in them
the family of a most worthy old friend; and, as the completion of good fortune,
had found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself. Her
daily expressions were no longer, "I wish we had some acquaintance in
Bath!" They were changed into, "How glad I am we have met with Mrs.
Thorpe!" and she was as eager in promoting the intercourse of the two
families, as her young charge and Isabella themselves could be; never satisfied
with the day unless she spent the chief of it by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in
what they called conversation, but in which there was scarcely ever any
exchange of opinion, and not often any resemblance of subject, for Mrs. Thorpe
talked chiefly of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.
The progress of the friendship between Catherine
and Isabella was quick as its beginning had been warm, and they passed so
rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness that there was shortly
no fresh proof of it to be given to their friends or themselves. They called
each other by their Christian name, were always arm in arm when they walked,
pinned up each other's train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the
set; and if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still
resolute in meeting in defiance of wet and dirt, and shut themselves up, to
read novels together. Yes, novels; for I will not adopt that ungenerous and
impolitic custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their
contemptuous censure the very performances, to the number of which they are
themselves adding—joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest
epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their
own heroine, who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its
insipid pages with disgust. Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized
by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I
cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions
of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare
strains of the trash with which the press now groans. Let us not desert one
another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more
extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation
in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried. From pride,
ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers. And while
the abilities of the nine-hundredth abridger of the History of England, or of
the man who collects and publishes in a volume some dozen lines of Milton,
Pope, and Prior, with a paper from the Spectator, and a chapter from Sterne,
are eulogized by a thousand pens—there seems almost a general wish of decrying
the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist, and of slighting the
performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them. "I
am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read
novels—It is really very well for a novel." Such is the common cant.
"And what are you reading, Miss—?" "Oh! It is only a
novel!" replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected
indifference, or momentary shame. "It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or
Belinda"; or, in short, only some work in which the greatest powers of the
mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the
happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and
humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the
same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator, instead of such a
work, how proudly would she have produced the book, and told its name; though
the chances must be against her being occupied by any part of that voluminous publication,
of which either the matter or manner would not disgust a young person of taste:
the substance of its papers so often consisting in the statement of improbable
circumstances, unnatural characters, and topics of conversation which no longer
concern anyone living; and their language, too, frequently so coarse as to give
no very favourable idea of the age that could endure it.
CHAPTER 6
The following conversation, which took place
between the two friends in the pump-room one morning, after an acquaintance of
eight or nine days, is given as a specimen of their very warm attachment, and
of the delicacy, discretion, originality of thought, and literary taste which
marked the reasonableness of that attachment.
They met by appointment; and as Isabella had
arrived nearly five minutes before her friend, her first address naturally was,
"My dearest creature, what can have made you so late? I have been waiting
for you at least this age!"
"Have you, indeed! I am very sorry for it; but
really I thought I was in very good time. It is but just one. I hope you have
not been here long?"
"Oh! These ten ages at least. I am sure I have
been here this half hour. But now, let us go and sit down at the other end of
the room, and enjoy ourselves. I have an hundred things to say to you. In the
first place, I was so afraid it would rain this morning, just as I wanted to
set off; it looked very showery, and that would have thrown me into agonies! Do
you know, I saw the prettiest hat you can imagine, in a shop window in Milsom
Street just now—very like yours, only with coquelicot ribbons instead of green;
I quite longed for it. But, my dearest Catherine, what have you been doing with
yourself all this morning? Have you gone on with Udolpho?"
"Yes, I have been reading it ever since I
woke; and I am got to the black veil."
"Are you, indeed? How delightful! Oh! I would
not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world! Are not you wild to
know?"
"Oh! Yes, quite; what can it be? But do not
tell me—I would not be told upon any account. I know it must be a skeleton, I
am sure it is Laurentina's skeleton. Oh! I am delighted with the book! I should
like to spend my whole life in reading it. I assure you, if it had not been to
meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the world."
"Dear creature! How much I am obliged to you;
and when you have finished Udolpho, we will read the Italian together; and I
have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you."
"Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are
they all?"
"I will read you their names directly; here
they are, in my pocketbook. Castle of Wolfenbach, Clermont, Mysterious
Warnings, Necromancer of the Black Forest, Midnight Bell, Orphan of the Rhine,
and Horrid Mysteries. Those will last us some time."
"Yes, pretty well; but are they all horrid,
are you sure they are all horrid?"
"Yes, quite sure; for a particular friend of
mine, a Miss Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweetest creatures in the world,
has read every one of them. I wish you knew Miss Andrews, you would be
delighted with her. She is netting herself the sweetest cloak you can conceive.
I think her as beautiful as an angel, and I am so vexed with the men for not admiring
her! I scold them all amazingly about it."
"Scold them! Do you scold them for not
admiring her?"
"Yes, that I do. There is nothing I would not
do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by
halves; it is not my nature. My attachments are always excessively strong. I
told Captain Hunt at one of our assemblies this winter that if he was to tease
me all night, I would not dance with him, unless he would allow Miss Andrews to
be as beautiful as an angel. The men think us incapable of real friendship, you
know, and I am determined to show them the difference. Now, if I were to hear
anybody speak slightingly of you, I should fire up in a moment: but that is not
at all likely, for you are just the kind of girl to be a great favourite with
the men."
"Oh, dear!" cried Catherine, colouring.
"How can you say so?"
"I know you very well; you have so much
animation, which is exactly what Miss Andrews wants, for I must confess there
is something amazingly insipid about her. Oh! I must tell you, that just after
we parted yesterday, I saw a young man looking at you so earnestly—I am sure he
is in love with you." Catherine coloured, and disclaimed again. Isabella
laughed. "It is very true, upon my honour, but I see how it is; you are
indifferent to everybody's admiration, except that of one gentleman, who shall
be nameless. Nay, I cannot blame you"—speaking more seriously—"your
feelings are easily understood. Where the heart is really attached, I know very
well how little one can be pleased with the attention of anybody else.
Everything is so insipid, so uninteresting, that does not relate to the beloved
object! I can perfectly comprehend your feelings."
"But you should not persuade me that I think
so very much about Mr. Tilney, for perhaps I may never see him again."
"Not see him again! My dearest creature, do
not talk of it. I am sure you would be miserable if you thought so!"
"No, indeed, I should not. I do not pretend to
say that I was not very much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho to
read, I feel as if nobody could make me miserable. Oh! The dreadful black veil!
My dear Isabella, I am sure there must be Laurentina's skeleton behind it."
"It is so odd to me, that you should never
have read Udolpho before; but I suppose Mrs. Morland objects to novels."
"No, she does not. She very often reads Sir
Charles Grandison herself; but new books do not fall in our way."
"Sir Charles Grandison! That is an amazing
horrid book, is it not? I remember Miss Andrews could not get through the first
volume."
"It is not like Udolpho at all; but yet I
think it is very entertaining."
"Do you indeed! You surprise me; I thought it
had not been readable. But, my dearest Catherine, have you settled what to wear
on your head tonight? I am determined at all events to be dressed exactly like
you. The men take notice of that sometimes, you know."
"But it does not signify if they do,"
said Catherine, very innocently.
"Signify! Oh, heavens! I make it a rule never
to mind what they say. They are very often amazingly impertinent if you do not
treat them with spirit, and make them keep their distance."
"Are they? Well, I never observed that. They
always behave very well to me."
"Oh! They give themselves such airs. They are
the most conceited creatures in the world, and think themselves of so much
importance! By the by, though I have thought of it a hundred times, I have
always forgot to ask you what is your favourite complexion in a man. Do you
like them best dark or fair?"
"I hardly know. I never much thought about it.
Something between both, I think. Brown—not fair, and—and not very dark."
"Very well, Catherine. That is exactly he. I
have not forgot your description of Mr. Tilney—'a brown skin, with dark eyes,
and rather dark hair.' Well, my taste is different. I prefer light eyes, and as
to complexion—do you know—I like a sallow better than any other. You must not
betray me, if you should ever meet with one of your acquaintance answering that
description."
"Betray you! What do you mean?"
"Nay, do not distress me. I believe I have
said too much. Let us drop the subject."
Catherine, in some amazement, complied, and after
remaining a few moments silent, was on the point of reverting to what
interested her at that time rather more than anything else in the world,
Laurentina's skeleton, when her friend prevented her, by saying, "For
heaven's sake! Let us move away from this end of the room. Do you know, there
are two odious young men who have been staring at me this half hour. They
really put me quite out of countenance. Let us go and look at the arrivals.
They will hardly follow us there."
Away they walked to the book; and while Isabella
examined the names, it was Catherine's employment to watch the proceedings of
these alarming young men.
"They are not coming this way, are they? I
hope they are not so impertinent as to follow us. Pray let me know if they are
coming. I am determined I will not look up."
In a few moments Catherine, with unaffected
pleasure, assured her that she need not be longer uneasy, as the gentlemen had
just left the pump-room.
"And which way are they gone?" said
Isabella, turning hastily round. "One was a very good-looking young man."
"They went towards the church-yard."
"Well, I am amazingly glad I have got rid of
them! And now, what say you to going to Edgar's Buildings with me, and looking
at my new hat? You said you should like to see it."
Catherine readily agreed. "Only," she
added, "perhaps we may overtake the two young men."
"Oh! Never mind that. If we make haste, we
shall pass by them presently, and I am dying to show you my hat."
"But if we only wait a few minutes, there will
be no danger of our seeing them at all."
"I shall not pay them any such compliment, I
assure you. I have no notion of treating men with such respect. That is the way
to spoil them."
Catherine had nothing to oppose against such
reasoning; and therefore, to show the independence of Miss Thorpe, and her
resolution of humbling the sex, they set off immediately as fast as they could
walk, in pursuit of the two young men.
