Miss Tilney stammers some words of invitation, which are at once seconded by her father. The General, so far from being haughty to Catherine, has distinguished her by an oppressively marked degree of attention, which has rather a tendency to extinguish the frank kindness of his son and daughter.
Catherine is now pressed in the most flatteringly solicitous manner, by this somewhat overpowering fine gentleman, to go with the family to Northanger Abbey, and give his daughter the pleasure of her company there, for a few weeks.
Catherine is to be the Tilneys’ chosen visitor: “She was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society she most prized; and in addition to all the rest; this roof was to be the roof of an Abbey! Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney, and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill. To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish, though to be more than the visitor of an hour had seemed too nearly impossible for desire; and yet this was to happen. With all the chances against her of house, hall, place, court and cottage, Northanger turned up an Abbey, and she was to be its inhabitant. Its long damp passages, its narrow cells and ruined chapel, were to be within her daily reach; and she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun.”
Catherine’s happiness is not without alloy. Isabella improves the occasion of being with Catherine at the Pump-room one morning, to tell her that John Thorpe is over head and ears in love with her, and to urge his suit, greatly to Catherine’s astonishment and discomfiture. For has not Isabella long professed herself convinced of a mutual attachment between Henry Tilney and her friend?
Catherine, with all the innocence of truth, protests her ignorance of Mr. Thorpe’s wishes, and her incapacity to respond to them.
Isabella accepts her brother’s disappointment with a wonderfully good grace, though she will imply, in spite of Catherine’s indignant denial, that there has been a relinquished flirtation, a change of mind on Catherine’s part, which Isabella would be the last person to blame.
As the girls are speaking, they are joined by Captain Tilney, and Catherine is first bewildered and then shocked to find him addressing her friend and future sister in terms which cannot be mistaken. “‘What! always to be watched in person or proxy?’ he said low, but not too low for Catherine to hear.
“‘Pshaw! nonsense!’ was Isabella’s answer, in the same half-whisper; ‘why do you put such things into my head? If I could believe it! my spirit, you know, is pretty independent.’
“‘I wish your heart were independent, that would be enough for me.’
“‘My heart, indeed! What can you have to do with hearts? You men have none of you any hearts.’