On Henry’s arrival from Woodston, Catherine makes known to him and Eleanor their brother’s safety, congratulating them with sincerity on it, and reading aloud the most material passages of her letter with strong indignation. When she has finished it, “So much for Isabella,” she cries, “and for all our intimacy. She must think me an idiot, or she could not have written so; but perhaps this has served to make her character better known to me than mine is to her. I see what she has been about. She is a vain coquette, and her tricks have not answered. I do not believe she had ever any regard either for James or for me, and I wish I had never known her.”
“It will soon be as if you never had,” said Henry.
V.
The unpleasant sequel of Catherine Morland’s visit to Northanger Abbey is, we trust, barely possible in our day. The unworthy resentment, unworthily vented on an innocent victim by an arrogant, worldly-minded man, foiled in his selfish schemes, and enraged at finding himself taken in by so shallow a conspirator as John Thorpe, may be common enough at all times; but, at least, we live in a generation when men do not wear their tempers, any more than their vices, on their sleeves.
General Tilney has gone up to London, while Catherine’s visit to Northanger Abbey is prolonged at Eleanor Tilney’s request, with her father’s full approval. The girls have been left alone one evening, by Henry’s having found himself under the necessity of taking his curate’s place at Woodston. They are about to separate at eleven o’clock at night, when they hear a carriage drive up to the door, followed by the loud noise of the door-bell.
Eleanor predicts the unexpected arrival of her elder brother Frederick, and Catherine retreats to her room in some discomposure. But her trepidation at the notion of encountering her brother’s rival is nothing compared to her affright when, half an hour later, she discovers her friend Eleanor hovering about Catherine’s door, in a state of extreme agitation. Eleanor is the reluctant, grieved, and affronted messenger from her father to the guest whom he has hitherto delighted to honour. General Tilney has recollected an engagement which will take the whole family away from Northanger Abbey on Monday (this day is Saturday). The Tilneys are all going to Lord Longtown’s, near Hereford, for a fortnight. General Tilney has sent Eleanor, her heart swelling with sorrow and shame, to tell Catherine of a departure which, in the most unceremonious and unkind manner, compels her own.
Great and unpleasant as her surprise is, I am glad to say Catherine displays dawning dignity. She suppresses her feelings, speaks of a second engagement’s yielding to a first, and declines to take offence. She will finish her visit to Northanger Abbey at some other time, and cannot Eleanor come to her? Happy thought! cannot Eleanor come to Fullerton on her way back from Herefordshire?
“It will not be in my power, Catherine,” Eleanor answers briefly, in awkwardness and dejection.
Still Catherine continues resolutely cheerful. Let Eleanor come when she can. Then Catherine betrays she is calculating on bidding another friend good-bye. She will be able to go when the rest set out on Monday, she says. It does not matter, though word has not been forwarded to her father and mother. The General, she hopes, will send a servant with her half-way. She will soon be at Salisbury, and then she will only be nine miles from home.
My readers must remember that the inconveniences of young ladies travelling alone were multiplied indefinitely, and even magnified to dangers, when girls had to go in post-chaises, or by coaches, over rough roads, and in a very deliberate fashion—largely affected by the merits or defects of the inns on the route, the horses, and, above all, the weather—even granting that highwaymen had waxed scarce by the close of last century.