From this time, the subject was frequently canvassed by the three
young people; and Catherine found, with some surprise, that her
two young friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's
want of consequence and fortune as likely to throw great difficulties
in the way of her marrying their brother. Their persuasion that
the general would, upon this ground alone, independent of the
objection that might be raised against her character, oppose the
connection, turned her feelings moreover with some 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 himself, at what point of interest were the
demands of his younger 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 some most generous and disinterested sentiments on
the subject of money, which she had more than once heard him utter,
and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters
misunderstood 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 come to Northanger than at the present time, that she
suffered her mind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden
removal of her own. But as it was not to be supposed that Captain
Tilney, whenever he made his application, would give his father
any just 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 means to form a cool
and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections on a fairer ground
than inequality of situations. She proposed it to him accordingly;
but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected.
"No," said he, "my father's hands need not be strengthened, and
Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled. He must
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. Sometimes it
appeared to them as if his silence would be the natural result of
the suspected engagement, and at others that it was wholly incompatible
with it. The general, meanwhile, though offended every morning by
Frederick's remissness in writing, was free from any real anxiety
about him, and had no more pressing solicitude than that of making
Miss Morland's time at Northanger pass pleasantly. He often
expressed his uneasiness on this head, feared the sameness of every
day's society and employments 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 number of young dancing people in
the neighbourhood. But then it was such a dead time of year, no
wild-fowl, no game, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country.
And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one morning that
when he next went to Woodston, they would take him by surprise
there some day or other, and eat their mutton with him. Henry was
greatly honoured and very happy, and Catherine was quite delighted
with the scheme. "And when do you think, sir, I may look forward
to this pleasure? I must be at Woodston on Monday to attend the
parish meeting, and shall probably be obliged to stay two or three
days."
"Well, well, we will take our chance some one of those days. There
is no need to fix. You are not to put yourself at all out of your
way. Whatever you may happen to have in the house will be enough.
I think I can answer for the young ladies making allowance for a
bachelor's table. Let me see; Monday will be a busy day with you,
we will not come on Monday; and Tuesday will be a busy one with me.
I expect my surveyor from Brockham with his report in the morning;
and afterwards I cannot in decency fail attending the club. I
really could not face my acquaintance if I stayed away now; for,
as I am known to be in the country, it would be taken exceedingly
amiss; and it is a rule with me, Miss Morland, never to give
offence to any of my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of time and
attention can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy men. They
have half a buck from Northanger twice a year; and I dine with
them whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore, we may say is out of the
question. But on Wednesday, I think, Henry, you may expect us; and
we shall be with you early, that we may have time 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, you may look for us."
A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than
this little excursion, so strong was her desire to be acquainted
with Woodston; and her heart was still bounding with joy when
Henry, about an hour afterwards, came booted and greatcoated into
the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said, "I am come,
young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our
pleasures in this world are always to be paid for, and that we often
purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual
happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.
Witness myself, at this present hour. Because I am to hope for
the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodston on Wednesday, which
bad weather, or twenty other causes, may prevent, I must go away
directly, two days before I intended it."
"Go away!" said Catherine, with a very long face. "And why?"
"Why! How can you ask the question? Because no time is to be lost
in frightening my old housekeeper out of her wits, because I must
go and prepare a dinner for you, to be sure."
"Oh! Not seriously!"
"Aye, and sadly too -- for I had much rather stay."
"But how can you think of such a thing, after what the general
said? When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself
any trouble, because anything would do."
Henry only smiled. "I am sure it is quite unnecessary upon your
sister's account and mine. You must know it to be so; and the
general made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary:
besides, if he had not said half so much as he did, he has always
such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting down to a middling
one for one day could not signify."
"I wish I could reason like you, for his sake and my own. Good-bye.
As tomorrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return."
He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler operation to
Catherine to doubt her own judgment 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 much 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 mean
another all the while, was most 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 come 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 always affected by
Henry's absence! What was there to interest or amuse her? She was
tired of the woods and the shrubberies -- always so smooth and so
dry; and the abbey in itself was no more to her now than any other
house. The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped to
nourish and perfect was the only emotion 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 charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of
a well-connected parsonage, something like Fullerton, but better:
Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably had none. If
Wednesday should ever come!
It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably looked for. It
came -- it was fine -- and Catherine trod on air. By ten o'clock,
the chaise and four conveyed the two from the abbey; and, after
an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston,
a large and populous village, in a situation not unpleasant. Catherine
was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it, as the general seemed
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 admiration
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
semicircular 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 make much
of them.
Catherine's mind 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 moment that it was the most comfortable 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 comparing
it with Fullerton and Northanger -- we are considering it as a mere
parsonage, small 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 may admit of improvement, however. Far be it
from me to say otherwise; and anything in reason -- a bow thrown
out, perhaps -- though, between ourselves, if there is one thing
more than another my aversion, it is a patched-on bow."
Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be
pained by it; and other subjects being studiously brought forward
and supported by Henry, at the same time that a tray full of
refreshments was introduced by his servant, the general was shortly
restored to his complacency, and Catherine to all her usual ease
of spirits.
The room in question was of a commodious, well-proportioned size,
and handsomely fitted up as a dining-parlour; and on their quitting
it to walk round the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller
apartment, belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made
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 meadows;
and she expressed her admiration at the moment with all the honest
simplicity with which she felt it. "Oh! Why do not you 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 most satisfied smile, "that it
will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for a lady's taste!"
"Well, if it was my house, I should never sit anywhere else. Oh!
What a sweet little cottage there is among the trees -- apple trees,
too! It is the prettiest cottage!"
"You like it -- you approve it as an object -- it is enough. Henry,
remember that Robinson is spoken to about it. The cottage remains."
Such a compliment 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 subject could be drawn from her.
The influence of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great
use in dissipating these embarrassing associations; and, having
reached the ornamental part of the premises, consisting of a walk
round two sides of a meadow, on which Henry's genius had begun to
act about half a year 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 meadows, and through part of the village, with
a visit to the stables to examine some improvements, and a charming
game of play with a litter of puppies just 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 smallest astonishment in the general; nay, that
he was even looking at the side-table for cold meat 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
melted butter's being oiled.
At six o'clock, the general having taken his coffee, the carriage
again received them; and so gratifying had been the tenor of his
conduct throughout the whole visit, so well assured was her mind on
the subject 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 might
return to it.
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