“‘Yes,’ added Miss Tilney; ‘and I remember that you undertook to read it aloud to me; and that when I was called away for only five minutes to answer a note, instead of waiting for me, you took the volume into the Hermitage Walk; and I was obliged to stay till you had finished it.’[30]
“‘But I really thought before,’ persisted Catherine, ‘young men despised novels amazingly?’
“‘It is amazingly; it may well suggest amazement, if they do, for they read nearly as many as women. I myself have read hundreds and hundreds. Do not imagine that you can cope with me in a knowledge of Julias and Louisas. If we proceed to particulars, and engage in the never-ceasing inquiry of ‘Have you read this?’ or ‘Have you read that?’ I shall soon leave you as far behind me as—what shall I say? I want an appropriate simile—as far as your friend Emily herself left poor Valancourt, when she went with her aunt into Italy. Consider how many years I have had the start of you. I had entered on my studies at Oxford while you were a good little girl, working your sampler at home.’”
About this time Captain Tilney, General Tilney’s eldest son, a handsome, fashionable young man, arrives on a visit to his family. Catherine is most willing to acknowledge his advantages, but his tastes and manners are decidedly inferior, in her opinion, after she hears him, at one of the assemblies, not only protest against every thought of dancing himself, but even laugh openly at his brother Henry for finding it possible.
Isabella, who has begun by announcing her intention to sit all the evening, in compliment to James Morland’s temporary absence, is soon seen dancing with Captain Tilney, in spite of his and her protest.
James Morland’s application to his father for his consent to his marriage with Isabella Thorpe brings a kind and considerate answer. A family living of four hundred a year is to be resigned to James; an estate of nearly equal value is secured to him. The greatest trial is that the young couple must wait two or three years, till James Morland can take orders.
James and Catherine, being good and reasonable children, are perfectly satisfied with their father’s generosity.
Isabella says the prospect is very charming, but says it with a grave face.
The period of the Allens’ visit to Bath is drawing to a close; and the question whether they may stay longer or not seems to involve the happiness of Catherine’s whole life; and so, when the lodgings are taken for another fortnight, everything appears secured. “What this additional fortnight was to produce to her beyond the pleasure of sometimes seeing Henry Tilney, made but a small part of Catherine’s speculation;” Jane Austen comments with regard to her heroine’s unreasonable joy. “Once or twice, indeed, since James’s engagement had taught her what could be done, she had got so far as to indulge in a secret ‘perhaps;’ but, in general, the felicity of being with him for the present bounded her views. The present was now comprised in another three weeks; and her happiness being certain for that period, the rest of her life was at such a distance as to excite but little interest.” This is pre-eminently the calculation of seventeen, when a month in anticipation reckons as a year, a year as a lifetime.
However, when Catherine calls for Miss Tilney with the glad news, she receives an unexpected blow. The Tilneys are to quit Bath soon. Poor Catherine cannot hide her dejection, but an ample compensation, far beyond her brightest hopes, awaits her.