Chương Chương 23 · 第23章

An hour passed away before the General came in, spent, on the part of

his young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his character.

“This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mind

at ease, or a conscience void of reproach.” At length he appeared; and,

whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could still

smile with _them_. Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend’s

curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject; and her father

being, contrary to Catherine’s expectations, unprovided with any

pretence for further delay, beyond that of stopping five minutes to

order refreshments to be in the room by their return, was at last ready

to escort them.

They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air, a dignified step, which

caught the eye, but could not shake the doubts of the well-read

Catherine, he led the way across the hall, through the common

drawing-room and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent both

in size and furniture—the real drawing-room, used only with company of

consequence. It was very noble—very grand—very charming!—was all that

Catherine had to say, for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned

the colour of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praise that

had much meaning, was supplied by the General: the costliness or

elegance of any room’s fitting-up could be nothing to her; she cared

for no furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century. When

the General had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close examination of

every well-known ornament, they proceeded into the library, an

apartment, in its way, of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection

of books, on which an humble man might have looked with pride.

Catherine heard, admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than

before—gathered all that she could from this storehouse of knowledge,

by running over the titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed.

But suites of apartments did not spring up with her wishes. Large as

was the building, she had already visited the greatest part; though, on

being told that, with the addition of the kitchen, the six or seven

rooms she had now seen surrounded three sides of the court, she could

scarcely believe it, or overcome the suspicion of there being many

chambers secreted. It was some relief, however, that they were to

return to the rooms in common use, by passing through a few of less

importance, looking into the court, which, with occasional passages,

not wholly unintricate, connected the different sides; and she was

further soothed in her progress by being told that she was treading

what had once been a cloister, having traces of cells pointed out, and

observing several doors that were neither opened nor explained to

her—by finding herself successively in a billiard-room, and in the

General’s private apartment, without comprehending their connection, or

being able to turn aright when she left them; and lastly, by passing

through a dark little room, owning Henry’s authority, and strewed with

his litter of books, guns, and greatcoats.

From the dining-room, of which, though already seen, and always to be

seen at five o’clock, the General could not forgo the pleasure of

pacing out the length, for the more certain information of Miss

Morland, as to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded

by quick communication to the kitchen—the ancient kitchen of the

convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the

stoves and hot closets of the present. The General’s improving hand had

not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of

the cooks had been adopted within this, their spacious theatre; and,

when the genius of others had failed, his own had often produced the

perfection wanted. His endowments of this spot alone might at any time

have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent.

With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey; the

fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying state,

been removed by the General’s father, and the present erected in its

place. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was not

only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only for offices, and

enclosed behind by stable-yards, no uniformity of architecture had been

thought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the hand which had

swept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest, for

the purposes of mere domestic economy; and would willingly have been

spared the mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the

General allowed it; but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement

of his offices; and as he was convinced that, to a mind like Miss

Morland’s, a view of the accommodations and comforts by which the

labours of her inferiors were softened, must always be gratifying, he

should make no apology for leading her on. They took a slight survey of

all; and Catherine was impressed, beyond her expectation, by their

multiplicity and their convenience. The purposes for which a few

shapeless pantries and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at

Fullerton, were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious

and roomy. The number of servants continually appearing did not strike

her less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some

pattened girl stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked

off. Yet this was an abbey! how inexpressibly different in these

domestic arrangements from such as she had read about—from abbeys and

castles, in which, though certainly larger than Northanger, all the

dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands at

the utmost. How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs.

Allen; and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began to be

amazed herself.

They returned to the hall, that the chief staircase might be ascended,

and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments of rich carving might be

pointed out: having gained the top, they turned in an opposite

direction from the gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered

one on the same plan, but superior in length and breadth. She was here

shown successively into three large bed-chambers, with their

dressing-rooms, most completely and handsomely fitted up; everything

that money and taste could do, to give comfort and elegance to

apartments, had been bestowed on these; and, being furnished within the

last five years, they were perfect in all that would be generally

pleasing, and wanting in all that could give pleasure to Catherine. As

they were surveying the last, the General, after slightly naming a few

of the distinguished characters by whom they had at times been

honoured, turned with a smiling countenance to Catherine, and ventured

to hope that henceforward some of their earliest tenants might be “our

friends from Fullerton.” She felt the unexpected compliment, and deeply

regretted the impossibility of thinking well of a man so kindly

disposed towards herself, and so full of civility to all her family.

The gallery was terminated by folding doors, which Miss Tilney,

advancing, had thrown open, and passed through, and seemed on the point

of doing the same by the first door to the left, in another long reach

of gallery, when the General, coming forwards, called her hastily, and,

as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whither she were

going?—And what was there more to be seen?—Had not Miss Morland already

seen all that could be worth her notice?—And did she not suppose her

friend might be glad of some refreshment after so much exercise? Miss

Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors were closed upon the

mortified Catherine, who, having seen, in a momentary glance beyond

them, a narrower passage, more numerous openings, and symptoms of a

winding staircase, believed herself at last within the reach of

something worth her notice; and felt, as she unwillingly paced back the

gallery, that she would rather be allowed to examine that end of the

house than see all the finery of all the rest. The General’s evident

desire of preventing such an examination was an additional stimulant.

Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy, though it had

trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here; and what

that something was, a short sentence of Miss Tilney’s, as they followed

the General at some distance downstairs, seemed to point out: “I was

going to take you into what was my mother’s room—the room in which she

died—” were all her words; but few as they were, they conveyed pages of

intelligence to Catherine. It was no wonder that the General should

shrink from the sight of such objects as that room must contain; a room

in all probability never entered by him since the dreadful scene had

passed, which released his suffering wife, and left him to the stings

of conscience.

She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, to express her wish of

being permitted to see it, as well as all the rest of that side of the

house; and Eleanor promised to attend her there, whenever they should

have a convenient hour. Catherine understood her: the General must be

watched from home, before that room could be entered. “It remains as it

was, I suppose?” said she, in a tone of feeling.

“Yes, entirely.”

“And how long ago may it be that your mother died?”

“She has been dead these nine years.” And nine years, Catherine knew,

was a trifle of time, compared with what generally elapsed after the

death of an injured wife, before her room was put to rights.

“You were with her, I suppose, to the last?”

“No,” said Miss Tilney, sighing; “I was unfortunately from home. Her

illness was sudden and short; and, before I arrived it was all over.”

Catherine’s blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions which naturally

sprang from these words. Could it be possible? Could Henry’s father—?

And yet how many were the examples to justify even the blackest

suspicions! and, when she saw him in the evening, while she worked with

her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in

silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt

secure from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air and

attitude of a Montoni! what could more plainly speak the gloomy

workings of a mind not wholly dead to every sense of humanity, in its

fearful review of past scenes of guilt? Unhappy man! and the

anxiousness of her spirits directed her eyes towards his figure so

repeatedly, as to catch Miss Tilney’s notice. “My father,” she

whispered, “often walks about the room in this way; it is nothing

unusual.”

“So much the worse!” thought Catherine; such ill-timed exercise was of

a piece with the strange unseasonableness of his morning walks, and

boded nothing good.

After an evening, the little variety and seeming length of which made

her peculiarly sensible of Henry’s importance among them, she was

heartily glad to be dismissed; though it was a look from the General

not designed for her observation which sent his daughter to the bell.

When the butler would have lit his master’s candle, however, he was

forbidden. The latter was not going to retire. “I have many pamphlets

to finish,” said he to Catherine, “before I can close my eyes, and

perhaps may be poring over the affairs of the nation for hours after

you are asleep. Can either of us be more meetly employed? _My_ eyes

will be blinding for the good of others, and _yours_ preparing by rest

for future mischief.”

But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment, could

win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must

occasion so serious a delay of proper repose. To be kept up for hours,

after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely.

There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done which could

be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs.

Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the

pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the

conclusion which necessarily followed. Shocking as was the idea, it was

at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural

course of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her

reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other

children, at the time—all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment.

Its origin—jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty—was yet to be

unravelled.

In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her

as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very

spot of this unfortunate woman’s confinement—might have been within a

few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what

part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which

yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched passage,

paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, she

well remembered the doors of which the General had given no account. To

what might not those doors lead? In support of the plausibility of this

conjecture, it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery, in

which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be, as

certainly as her memory could guide her, exactly over this suspected

range of cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments of

which she had caught a transient glimpse, communicating by some secret

means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous

proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she had perhaps been

conveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!

Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her own surmises, and

sometimes hoped or feared that she had gone too far; but they were

supported by such appearances as made their dismissal impossible.

The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed the guilty scene to

be acting, being, according to her belief, just opposite her own, it

struck her that, if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the

General’s lamp might glimmer through the lower windows, as he passed to

the prison of his wife; and, twice before she stepped into bed, she

stole gently from her room to the corresponding window in the gallery,

to see if it appeared; but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too

early. The various ascending noises convinced her that the servants

must still be up. Till midnight, she supposed it would be in vain to

watch; but then, when the clock had struck twelve, and all was quiet,

she would, if not quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once

more. The clock struck twelve—and Catherine had been half an hour

asleep.