In the course of this morning’s reflections, she came to a resolution
of making her next attempt on the forbidden door alone. It would
be much better in every respect that Eleanor should know nothing
of the matter. To involve her in the danger of a second detection,
to court her into an apartment which must wring her heart, could
not be the office of a friend. The general’s utmost anger could
not be to herself what it might be to a daughter; and, besides, she
thought the examination itself would be more satisfactory if made
without any companion. It would be impossible to explain to Eleanor
the suspicions, from which the other had, in all likelihood, been
hitherto happily exempt; nor could she therefore, in her presence,
search for those proofs of the general’s cruelty, which however they
might yet have escaped discovery, she felt confident of somewhere
drawing forth, in the shape of some fragmented journal, continued
to the last gasp. Of the way to the apartment she was now perfectly
mistress; and as she wished to get it over before Henry’s return,
who was expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost. The
day was bright, her courage high; at four o’clock, the sun was now
two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to
dress half an hour earlier than usual.
It was done; and Catherine found herself alone in the gallery
before the clocks had ceased to strike. It was no time for thought;
she hurried on, slipped with the least possible noise through the
folding doors, and without stopping to look or breathe, rushed
forward to the one in question. The lock yielded to her hand, and,
luckily, with no sullen sound that could alarm a human being. On
tiptoe she entered; the room was before her; but it was some
minutes before she could advance another step. She beheld what
fixed her to the spot and agitated every feature. She saw a large,
well-proportioned apartment, an handsome dimity bed, arranged as
unoccupied with an housemaid’s care, a bright Bath stove, mahogany
wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams of
a western sun gaily poured through two sash windows! Catherine
had expected to have her feelings worked, and worked they were.
Astonishment and doubt first seized them; and a shortly succeeding
ray of common sense added some bitter emotions of shame. She
could not be mistaken as to the room; but how grossly mistaken in
everything else!–in Miss Tilney’s meaning, in her own calculation!
This apartment, to which she had given a date so ancient, a position
so awful, proved to be one end of what the general’s father had
built. There were two other doors in the chamber, leading probably
into dressing-closets; but she had no inclination to open either.
Would the veil in which Mrs. Tilney had last walked, or the volume
in which she had last read, remain to tell what nothing else was
allowed to whisper? No: whatever might have been the general’s crimes,
he had certainly too much wit to let them sue for detection. She
was sick of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her own room,
with her own heart only privy to its folly; and she was on the
point of retreating as softly as she had entered, when the sound of
footsteps, she could hardly tell where, made her pause and tremble.
To be found there, even by a servant, would be unpleasant; but by
the general (and he seemed always at hand when least wanted), much
worse! She listened–the sound had ceased; and resolving not
to lose a moment, she passed through and closed the door. At that
instant a door underneath was hastily opened; someone seemed with
swift steps to ascend the stairs, by the head of which she had yet
to pass before she could gain the gallery. She had no power to
move. With a feeling of terror not very definable, she fixed her
eyes on the staircase, and in a few moments it gave Henry to her
view. “Mr. Tilney!” she exclaimed in a voice of more than common
astonishment. He looked astonished too. “Good God!” she continued,
not attending to his address. “How came you here? How came you
up that staircase?”
“How came I up that staircase!” he replied, greatly surprised.
“Because it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber;
and why should I not come up it?”
Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more.
He seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation
which her lips did not afford. She moved on towards the gallery.
“And may I not, in my turn,” said he, as he pushed back the
folding doors, “ask how you came here? This passage is at least as
extraordinary a road from the breakfast-parlour to your apartment,
as that staircase can be from the stables to mine.”
“I have been,” said Catherine, looking down, “to see your mother’s
room.”
“My mother’s room! Is there anything extraordinary to be seen
there?”
“No, nothing at all. I thought you did not mean to come back till
tomorrow.”
“I did not expect to be able to return sooner, when I went away;
but three hours ago I had the pleasure of finding nothing to detain
me. You look pale. I am afraid I alarmed you by running so fast
up those stairs. Perhaps you did not know–you were not aware
of their leading from the offices in common use?”
“No, I was not. You have had a very fine day for your ride.”
“Very; and does Eleanor leave you to find your way into all the
rooms in the house by yourself?”
“Oh! No; she showed me over the greatest part on Saturday–and
we were coming here to these rooms–but only”–dropping her
voice–“your father was with us.”
“And that prevented you,” said Henry, earnestly regarding her.
“Have you looked into all the rooms in that passage?”
“No, I only wanted to see–Is not it very late? I must go and
dress.”
“It is only a quarter past four” showing his watch–“and you are
not now in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for. Half an
hour at Northanger must be enough.”
She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself to be
detained, though her dread of further questions made her, for the
first time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him. They walked
slowly up the gallery. “Have you had any letter from Bath since
I saw you?”
“No, and I am very much surprised. Isabella promised so faithfully
to write directly.”
“Promised so faithfully! A faithful promise! That puzzles me. I
have heard of a faithful performance. But a faithful promise–the
fidelity of promising! It is a power little worth knowing,
however, since it can deceive and pain you. My mother’s room is
very commodious, is it not? Large and cheerful-looking, and the
dressing-closets so well disposed! It always strikes me as the
most comfortable apartment in the house, and I rather wonder that
Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent you to look at
it, I suppose?”
“No.”
“It has been your own doing entirely?” Catherine said nothing.
After a short silence, during which he had closely observed her,
he added, “As there is nothing in the room in itself to raise
curiosity, this must have proceeded from a sentiment of respect for
my mother’s character, as described by Eleanor, which does honour
to her memory. The world, I believe, never saw a better woman.
But it is not often that virtue can boast an interest such as this.
The domestic, unpretending merits of a person never known do not
often create that kind of fervent, venerating tenderness which would
prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose, has talked of her
a great deal?”
“Yes, a great deal. That is–no, not much, but what she did say
was very interesting. Her dying so suddenly” (slowly, and with
hesitation it was spoken), “and you–none of you being at home–and
your father, I thought–perhaps had not been very fond of
her.”
“And from these circumstances,” he replied (his quick eye fixed on
hers), “you infer perhaps the probability of some
negligence–some”–(involuntarily she shook her head)–“or it may
be–of something still less pardonable.” She raised her eyes towards
him more fully than she had ever done before. “My mother’s illness,”
he continued, “the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden.
The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious
fever–its cause therefore constitutional. On the third day, in
short, as soon as she could be prevailed on, a physician attended
her, a very respectable man, and one in whom she had always placed
great confidence. Upon his opinion of her danger, two others were
called in the next day, and remained in almost constant attendance
for four and twenty hours. On the fifth day she died. During the
progress of her disorder, Frederick and I (we were both at home)
saw her repeatedly; and from our own observation can bear witness
to her having received every possible attention which could spring
from the affection of those about her, or which her situation in
life could command. Poor Eleanor was absent, and at such a distance
as to return only to see her mother in her coffin.”
“But your father,” said Catherine, “was he afflicted?”
“For a time, greatly so. You have erred in supposing him not
attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was
possible for him to–we have not all, you know, the same tenderness
of disposition–and I will not pretend to say that while she
lived, she might not often have had much to bear, but though his
temper injured her, his judgment never did. His value of her was
sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her
death.”
“I am very glad of it,” said Catherine; “it would have been very
shocking!”
“If I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such
horror as I have hardly words to–Dear Miss Morland, consider
the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained. What
have you been judging from? Remember the country and the age in
which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians.
Consult your own understanding, your own sense of the probable, your
own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education
prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws connive at them? Could
they be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this,
where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where
every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies,
and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss
Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”
They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame
she ran off to her own room.
Return to the Jane Austen Page
Passage taken from Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, Volume II, Chapter 9, pages 161-164.
Austen, Jane. Northanger Abbey. New York: Modern Library, 2002.
Contributor:
Stephanie Polukis