الفصل الفصل 30 · 第30章

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, wrapt in the contemplation

of her own unutterable happiness, scarcely opened her lips, dismissed

them to the ecstasies of another tête-à-tête; 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 ease 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 ill 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.