Bab Bab 10 · 第10章

The Allens, Thorpes, and Morlands all met in the evening at the

theatre; and, as Catherine and Isabella sat together, there was then an

opportunity for the latter to utter some few of the many thousand

things which had been collecting within her for communication in the

immeasurable length of time which had divided them. “Oh, heavens! my

beloved Catherine, have I got you at last?” was her address on

Catherine’s entering the box and sitting by her. “Now, Mr. Morland,”

for he was close to her on the other side, “I shall not speak another

word to you all the rest of the evening; so I charge you not to expect

it. My sweetest Catherine, how have you been this long age? But I need

not ask you, for you look delightfully. You really have done your hair

in a more heavenly style than ever; you mischievous creature, do you

want to attract everybody? I assure you, my brother is quite in love

with you already; and as for Mr. Tilney—but _that_ is a settled

thing—even _your_ modesty cannot doubt his attachment now; his coming

back to Bath makes it too plain. Oh! what would not I give to see him!

I really am quite wild with impatience. My mother says he is the most

delightful young man in the world; she saw him this morning, you know;

you must introduce him to me. Is he in the house now? Look about, for

heaven’s sake! i assure you, I can hardly exist till I see him.”

“No,” said Catherine, “he is not here; I cannot see him anywhere.”

“Oh, horrid! am I never to be acquainted with him? How do you like my

gown? I think it does not look amiss; the sleeves were entirely my own

thought. Do you know, I get so immoderately sick of Bath; your brother

and I were agreeing this morning that, though it is vastly well to be

here for a few weeks, we would not live here for millions. We soon

found out that our tastes were exactly alike in preferring the country

to every other place; really, our opinions were so exactly the same, it

was quite ridiculous! there was not a single point in which we

differed; I would not have had you by for the world; you are such a sly

thing, I am sure you would have made some droll remark or other about

it.”

“No, indeed I should not.”

“Oh, yes you would indeed; I know you better than you know yourself.

You would have told us that we seemed born for each other, or some

nonsense of that kind, which would have distressed me beyond

conception; my cheeks would have been as red as your roses; I would not

have had you by for the world.”

“Indeed you do me injustice; I would not have made so improper a remark

upon any account; and besides, I am sure it would never have entered my

head.”

Isabella smiled incredulously and talked the rest of the evening to

James.

Catherine’s resolution of endeavouring to meet Miss Tilney again

continued in full force the next morning; and till the usual moment of

going to the pump-room, she felt some alarm from the dread of a second

prevention. But nothing of that kind occurred, no visitors appeared to

delay them, and they all three set off in good time for the pump-room,

where the ordinary course of events and conversation took place; Mr.

Allen, after drinking his glass of water, joined some gentlemen to talk

over the politics of the day and compare the accounts of their

newspapers; and the ladies walked about together, noticing every new

face, and almost every new bonnet in the room. The female part of the

Thorpe family, attended by James Morland, appeared among the crowd in

less than a quarter of an hour, and Catherine immediately took her

usual place by the side of her friend. James, who was now in constant

attendance, maintained a similar position, and separating themselves

from the rest of their party, they walked in that manner for some time,

till Catherine began to doubt the happiness of a situation which,

confining her entirely to her friend and brother, gave her very little

share in the notice of either. They were always engaged in some

sentimental discussion or lively dispute, but their sentiment was

conveyed in such whispering voices, and their vivacity attended with so

much laughter, that though Catherine’s supporting opinion was not

unfrequently called for by one or the other, she was never able to give

any, from not having heard a word of the subject. At length however she

was empowered to disengage herself from her friend, by the avowed

necessity of speaking to Miss Tilney, whom she most joyfully saw just

entering the room with Mrs. Hughes, and whom she instantly joined, with

a firmer determination to be acquainted, than she might have had

courage to command, had she not been urged by the disappointment of the

day before. Miss Tilney met her with great civility, returned her

advances with equal goodwill, and they continued talking together as

long as both parties remained in the room; and though in all

probability not an observation was made, nor an expression used by

either which had not been made and used some thousands of times before,

under that roof, in every Bath season, yet the merit of their being

spoken with simplicity and truth, and without personal conceit, might

be something uncommon.

“How well your brother dances!” was an artless exclamation of

Catherine’s towards the close of their conversation, which at once

surprised and amused her companion.

“Henry!” she replied with a smile. “Yes, he does dance very well.”

“He must have thought it very odd to hear me say I was engaged the

other evening, when he saw me sitting down. But I really had been

engaged the whole day to Mr. Thorpe.” Miss Tilney could only bow. “You

cannot think,” added Catherine after a moment’s silence, “how surprised

I was to see him again. I felt so sure of his being quite gone away.”

“When Henry had the pleasure of seeing you before, he was in Bath but

for a couple of days. He came only to engage lodgings for us.”

“_That_ never occurred to me; and of course, not seeing him anywhere, I

thought he must be gone. Was not the young lady he danced with on

Monday a Miss Smith?”

“Yes, an acquaintance of Mrs. Hughes.”

“I dare say she was very glad to dance. Do you think her pretty?”

“Not very.”

“He never comes to the pump-room, I suppose?”

“Yes, sometimes; but he has rid out this morning with my father.”

Mrs. Hughes now joined them, and asked Miss Tilney if she was ready to

go. “I hope I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again soon,” said

Catherine. “Shall you be at the cotillion ball to-morrow?”

“Perhaps we—Yes, I think we certainly shall.”

“I am glad of it, for we shall all be there.” This civility was duly

returned; and they parted—on Miss Tilney’s side with some knowledge of

her new acquaintance’s feelings, and on Catherine’s, without the

smallest consciousness of having explained them.

She went home very happy. The morning had answered all her hopes, and

the evening of the following day was now the object of expectation, the

future good. What gown and what head-dress she should wear on the

occasion became her chief concern. She cannot be justified in it. Dress

is at all times a frivolous distinction, and excessive solicitude about

it often destroys its own aim. Catherine knew all this very well; her

great aunt had read her a lecture on the subject only the Christmas

before; and yet she lay awake ten minutes on Wednesday night debating

between her spotted and her tamboured muslin, and nothing but the

shortness of the time prevented her buying a new one for the evening.

This would have been an error in judgment, great though not uncommon,

from which one of the other sex rather than her own, a brother rather

than a great aunt, might have warned her, for man only can be aware of

the insensibility of man towards a new gown. It would be mortifying to

the feelings of many ladies, could they be made to understand how

little the heart of man is affected by what is costly or new in their

attire; how little it is biased by the texture of their muslin, and how

unsusceptible of peculiar tenderness towards the spotted, the sprigged,

the mull, or the jackonet. Woman is fine for her own satisfaction

alone. No man will admire her the more, no woman will like her the

better for it. Neatness and fashion are enough for the former, and a

something of shabbiness or impropriety will be most endearing to the

latter. But not one of these grave reflections troubled the

tranquillity of Catherine.

She entered the rooms on Thursday evening with feelings very different

from what had attended her thither the Monday before. She had then been

exulting in her engagement to Thorpe, and was now chiefly anxious to

avoid his sight, lest he should engage her again; for though she could

not, dared not expect that Mr. Tilney should ask her a third time to

dance, her wishes, hopes, and plans all centred in nothing less. Every

young lady may feel for my heroine in this critical moment, for every

young lady has at some time or other known the same agitation. All have

been, or at least all have believed themselves to be, in danger from

the pursuit of someone whom they wished to avoid; and all have been

anxious for the attentions of someone whom they wished to please. As

soon as they were joined by the Thorpes, Catherine’s agony began; she

fidgeted about if John Thorpe came towards her, hid herself as much as

possible from his view, and when he spoke to her pretended not to hear

him. The cotillions were over, the country-dancing beginning, and she

saw nothing of the Tilneys.

“Do not be frightened, my dear Catherine,” whispered Isabella, “but I

am really going to dance with your brother again. I declare positively

it is quite shocking. I tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself, but

you and John must keep us in countenance. Make haste, my dear creature,

and come to us. John is just walked off, but he will be back in a

moment.”

Catherine had neither time nor inclination to answer. The others walked

away, John Thorpe was still in view, and she gave herself up for lost.

That she might not appear, however, to observe or expect him, she kept

her eyes intently fixed on her fan; and a self-condemnation for her

folly, in supposing that among such a crowd they should even meet with

the Tilneys in any reasonable time, had just passed through her mind,

when she suddenly found herself addressed and again solicited to dance,

by Mr. Tilney himself. With what sparkling eyes and ready motion she

granted his request, and with how pleasing a flutter of heart she went

with him to the set, may be easily imagined. To escape, and, as she

believed, so narrowly escape John Thorpe, and to be asked, so

immediately on his joining her, asked by Mr. Tilney, as if he had

sought her on purpose!—it did not appear to her that life could supply

any greater felicity.

Scarcely had they worked themselves into the quiet possession of a

place, however, when her attention was claimed by John Thorpe, who

stood behind her. “Heyday, Miss Morland!” said he. “What is the meaning

of this? I thought you and I were to dance together.”

“I wonder you should think so, for you never asked me.”

“That is a good one, by Jove! i asked you as soon as I came into the

room, and I was just going to ask you again, but when I turned round,

you were gone! this is a cursed shabby trick! i only came for the sake

of dancing with _you_, and I firmly believe you were engaged to me ever

since Monday. Yes; I remember, I asked you while you were waiting in

the lobby for your cloak. And here have I been telling all my

acquaintance that I was going to dance with the prettiest girl in the

room; and when they see you standing up with somebody else, they will

quiz me famously.”

“Oh, no; they will never think of _me_, after such a description as

that.”

“By heavens, if they do not, I will kick them out of the room for

blockheads. What chap have you there?” Catherine satisfied his

curiosity. “Tilney,” he repeated. “Hum—I do not know him. A good figure

of a man; well put together. Does he want a horse? Here is a friend of

mine, Sam Fletcher, has got one to sell that would suit anybody. A

famous clever animal for the road—only forty guineas. I had fifty minds

to buy it myself, for it is one of my maxims always to buy a good horse

when I meet with one; but it would not answer my purpose, it would not

do for the field. I would give any money for a real good hunter. I have

three now, the best that ever were backed. I would not take eight

hundred guineas for them. Fletcher and I mean to get a house in

Leicestershire, against the next season. It is so d—— uncomfortable,

living at an inn.”

This was the last sentence by which he could weary Catherine’s

attention, for he was just then borne off by the resistless pressure of

a long string of passing ladies. Her partner now drew near, and said,

“That gentleman would have put me out of patience, had he stayed with

you half a minute longer. He has no business to withdraw the attention

of my partner from me. We have entered into a contract of mutual

agreeableness for the space of an evening, and all our agreeableness

belongs solely to each other for that time. Nobody can fasten

themselves on the notice of one, without injuring the rights of the

other. I consider a country-dance as an emblem of marriage. Fidelity

and complaisance are the principal duties of both; and those men who do

not choose to dance or marry themselves, have no business with the

partners or wives of their neighbours.”

“But they are such very different things!”

“—That you think they cannot be compared together.”

“To be sure not. People that marry can never part, but must go and keep

house together. People that dance only stand opposite each other in a

long room for half an hour.”

“And such is your definition of matrimony and dancing. Taken in that

light certainly, their resemblance is not striking; but I think I could

place them in such a view. You will allow, that in both, man has the

advantage of choice, woman only the power of refusal; that in both, it

is an engagement between man and woman, formed for the advantage of

each; and that when once entered into, they belong exclusively to each

other till the moment of its dissolution; that it is their duty, each

to endeavour to give the other no cause for wishing that he or she had

bestowed themselves elsewhere, and their best interest to keep their

own imaginations from wandering towards the perfections of their

neighbours, or fancying that they should have been better off with

anyone else. You will allow all this?”

“Yes, to be sure, as you state it, all this sounds very well; but still

they are so very different. I cannot look upon them at all in the same

light, nor think the same duties belong to them.”

“In one respect, there certainly is a difference. In marriage, the man

is supposed to provide for the support of the woman, the woman to make

the home agreeable to the man; he is to purvey, and she is to smile.

But in dancing, their duties are exactly changed; the agreeableness,

the compliance are expected from him, while she furnishes the fan and

the lavender water. _That_, I suppose, was the difference of duties

which struck you, as rendering the conditions incapable of comparison.”

“No, indeed, I never thought of that.”

“Then I am quite at a loss. One thing, however, I must observe. This

disposition on your side is rather alarming. You totally disallow any

similarity in the obligations; and may I not thence infer that your

notions of the duties of the dancing state are not so strict as your

partner might wish? Have I not reason to fear that if the gentleman who

spoke to you just now were to return, or if any other gentleman were to

address you, there would be nothing to restrain you from conversing

with him as long as you chose?”

“Mr. Thorpe is such a very particular friend of my brother’s, that if

he talks to me, I must talk to him again; but there are hardly three

young men in the room besides him that I have any acquaintance with.”

“And is that to be my only security? Alas, alas!”

“Nay, I am sure you cannot have a better; for if I do not know anybody,

it is impossible for me to talk to them; and, besides, I do not _want_

to talk to anybody.”

“Now you have given me a security worth having; and I shall proceed

with courage. Do you find Bath as agreeable as when I had the honour of

making the inquiry before?”

“Yes, quite—more so, indeed.”

“More so! take care, or you will forget to be tired of it at the proper

time. You ought to be tired at the end of six weeks.”

“I do not think I should be tired, if I were to stay here six months.”

“Bath, compared with London, has little variety, and so everybody finds

out every year. ‘For six weeks, I allow Bath is pleasant enough; but

beyond _that_, it is the most tiresome place in the world.’ You would

be told so by people of all descriptions, who come regularly every

winter, lengthen their six weeks into ten or twelve, and go away at

last because they can afford to stay no longer.”

“Well, other people must judge for themselves, and those who go to

London may think nothing of Bath. But I, who live in a small retired

village in the country, can never find greater sameness in such a place

as this than in my own home; for here are a variety of amusements, a

variety of things to be seen and done all day long, which I can know

nothing of there.”

“You are not fond of the country.”

“Yes, I am. I have always lived there, and always been very happy. But

certainly there is much more sameness in a country life than in a Bath

life. One day in the country is exactly like another.”

“But then you spend your time so much more rationally in the country.”

“Do I?”

“Do you not?”

“I do not believe there is much difference.”

“Here you are in pursuit only of amusement all day long.”

“And so I am at home—only I do not find so much of it. I walk about

here, and so I do there; but here I see a variety of people in every

street, and there I can only go and call on Mrs. Allen.”

Mr. Tilney was very much amused.

“Only go and call on Mrs. Allen!” he repeated. “What a picture of

intellectual poverty! however, when you sink into this abyss again, you

will have more to say. You will be able to talk of Bath, and of all

that you did here.”

“Oh! yes. I shall never be in want of something to talk of again to

Mrs. Allen, or anybody else. I really believe I shall always be talking

of Bath, when I am at home again—I _do_ like it so very much. If I

could but have Papa and Mamma, and the rest of them here, I suppose I

should be too happy! james’s coming (my eldest brother) is quite

delightful—and especially as it turns out that the very family we are

just got so intimate with are his intimate friends already. Oh! who can

ever be tired of Bath?”

“Not those who bring such fresh feelings of every sort to it as you do.

But papas and mammas, and brothers, and intimate friends are a good

deal gone by, to most of the frequenters of Bath—and the honest relish

of balls and plays, and everyday sights, is past with them.”

Here their conversation closed, the demands of the dance becoming now

too importunate for a divided attention.

Soon after their reaching the bottom of the set, Catherine perceived

herself to be earnestly regarded by a gentleman who stood among the

lookers-on, immediately behind her partner. He was a very handsome man,

of a commanding aspect, past the bloom, but not past the vigour of

life; and with his eye still directed towards her, she saw him

presently address Mr. Tilney in a familiar whisper. Confused by his

notice, and blushing from the fear of its being excited by something

wrong in her appearance, she turned away her head. But while she did

so, the gentleman retreated, and her partner, coming nearer, said, “I

see that you guess what I have just been asked. That gentleman knows

your name, and you have a right to know his. It is General Tilney, my

father.”

Catherine’s answer was only “Oh!”—but it was an “Oh!” expressing

everything needful: attention to his words, and perfect reliance on

their truth. With real interest and strong admiration did her eye now

follow the General, as he moved through the crowd, and “How handsome a

family they are!” was her secret remark.

In chatting with Miss Tilney before the evening concluded, a new source

of felicity arose to her. She had never taken a country walk since her

arrival in Bath. Miss Tilney, to whom all the commonly frequented

environs were familiar, spoke of them in terms which made her all

eagerness to know them too; and on her openly fearing that she might

find nobody to go with her, it was proposed by the brother and sister

that they should join in a walk, some morning or other. “I shall like

it,” she cried, “beyond anything in the world; and do not let us put it

off—let us go to-morrow.” This was readily agreed to, with only a

proviso of Miss Tilney’s, that it did not rain, which Catherine was

sure it would not. At twelve o’clock, they were to call for her in

Pulteney Street; and “Remember—twelve o’clock,” was her parting speech

to her new friend. Of her other, her older, her more established

friend, Isabella, of whose fidelity and worth she had enjoyed a

fortnight’s experience, she scarcely saw anything during the evening.

Yet, though longing to make her acquainted with her happiness, she

cheerfully submitted to the wish of Mr. Allen, which took them rather

early away, and her spirits danced within her, as she danced in her

chair all the way home.