John Thorpe, in his vanity and bluster, had bragged his very best. He was not content with representing the Morlands’ prospects invested with the brilliance which his credulous imagination and that of Isabella, stimulated by self-interest, had already bestowed on them, but added twice as much to everything, for the grandeur of the moment. “By doubling what he chose to think the amount of Mr. Morland’s preferment, trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt, and sinking half the children, he was able to represent the whole family to the General in a most respectable light. For Catherine, however, the peculiar object of the General’s curiosity and his own speculations, he had yet something more in reserve; and the ten or fifteen thousand which her father could give her would be a pretty addition to Mr. Allen’s estate. Her intimacy there had made him seriously determine on her being handsomely legacied hereafter, and to speak of her as the almost acknowledged future heiress of Fullerton naturally followed.”
General Tilney had not doubted the authority of his informant, and had shaped his course accordingly. He had been enlightened as to his mistake by the very person who had deceived him. The General had encountered Thorpe in town, when under the influence of exactly opposite feelings—irritated by Catherine’s refusal, and yet more by the failure of an endeavour to reconcile James Morland to Isabella—John Thorpe turned, and not only coolly contradicted every word he had ever said to the advantage of the Morlands, he went as far in lying to their disadvantage. Mr. Morland was not a man either of substance or credit. He had not been able to give his son even a decent maintenance in the contemplation of his marriage. The whole Morland family were necessitous—numerous, too, almost beyond example; by no means respected in their own neighbourhood; aiming at a style of life to which they were not entitled; seeking to better themselves by wealthy connections; a forward, scheming race. (I hope my readers admire the accuracy with which, in slandering the Morlands, John Thorpe describes himself and his sister, in fulfilment of the adage, that as we do ourselves we judge our neighbours.)
The horrified General pronounced the name of Allen.
Here, too, Thorpe had found out his error. The Allens had lived near the Morlands too long; besides, John Thorpe knew the young man on whom the Fullerton estate must devolve.
General Tilney had heard enough. He set off in a fury for the Abbey, to undo his own performance.
In the meantime Catherine is travelling home to Fullerton. “To return in such a manner was almost to destroy the pleasure of a meeting with those whom she loved best, even after an absence such as hers—an eleven weeks’ absence.”
“She rather dreaded than sought for the first view of that well-known spire, which would announce her within twenty miles of home. Salisbury she had known to be her point on leaving Northanger; but after the first stage, she had been indebted to the post-masters for the names of the places which were then to conduct her to it, so great had been her ignorance of her route. She met with nothing, however, to distress or frighten her. Her gentle, civil manners, and liberal pay, procured her all the attention that a traveller like herself could require; and stopping only to change horses, she travelled on for about eleven hours,[41] without accident or alarm; and between six and seven o’clock in the evening found herself entering Fullerton.”
VI.
Jane Austen has here an excellent opportunity for one of her ironical paragraphs. “A heroine returning at the close of her career to her native village in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the dignity of a countess, with a long train of noble relations in their several phaetons, and three waiting-maids in a travelling chaise-and-four behind her, is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight to dwell; it gives credit to every conclusion, and the author must share in the glory she so liberally bestows. But my affair is widely different: I bring back my heroine to her home in solitude and disgrace, and no sweet elation of spirits can lead me into minuteness. A heroine in a hack post-chaise is such a blow upon sentiment as no attempt at grandeur or pathos can withstand. Swiftly, therefore, shall her postboy drive through the village, amid the gaze of sundry groups, and speedy shall be her descent from it.”
But the very next sentences are full of the warm human kindness of the humourist in opposition to the cold cynicism of the mere satirist. “But whatever might be the distress of Catherine’s mind as she thus advanced towards the parsonage, and whatever the humiliation of her biographer in relating it, she was preparing enjoyment of no every-day nature for those to whom she went; first, in the appearance of her carriage, and secondly, in herself. The chaise of a traveller being a rare sight in Fullerton, the whole family were immediately at the window; and to have it stop at the sweep-gate was a pleasure to brighten every eye, and occupy every fancy—a pleasure quite unlooked-for by all but the two youngest children, a boy and a girl of six and four years old, who expected a brother and a sister in every carriage. Happy the glance that first distinguished Catherine! Happy the voice that proclaimed the discovery! But whether such happiness were the lawful property of George or Harriet could never be exactly understood.