From this time, the subject was frequently canvassed
by the three young people; and Catherine found,
with some surprise, that her two young friends were
perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's want
of consequence and fortune as likely to throw great
difficulties in the way of her marrying their brother.
Their persuasion that the general would, upon this
ground alone, independent of the objection that might
be raised against her character, oppose the connection,
turned her feelings moreover with some alarm towards herself.
She was as insignificant, and perhaps as portionless,
as Isabella; and if the heir of the Tilney property had
not grandeur and wealth enough in himself, at what point
of interest were the demands of his younger brother to
rest? The very painful reflections to which this thought
led could only be dispersed by a dependence on the effect
of that particular partiality, which, as she was given
to understand by his words as well as his actions,
she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite
in the general; and by a recollection of some most generous
and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money,
which she had more than once heard him utter, and which
tempted her to think his disposition in such matters
misunderstood by his children.
They were so fully convinced, however, that their
brother would not have the courage to apply in person
for his father's consent, and so repeatedly assured her
that he had never in his life been less likely to come
to Northanger than at the present time, that she suffered
her mind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden
removal of her own. But as it was not to be supposed
that Captain Tilney, whenever he made his application,
would give his father any just idea of Isabella's conduct,
it occurred to her as highly expedient that Henry should
lay the whole business before him as it really was,
enabling the general by that means to form a cool
and impartial opinion, and prepare his objections
on a fairer ground than inequality of situations.
She proposed it to him accordingly; but he did not
catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected.
"No," said he, "my father's hands need not be strengthened,
and Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled.
He must tell his own story."
"But he will tell only half of it."
"A quarter would be enough."
A day or two passed away and brought no tidings
of Captain Tilney. His brother and sister knew not what
to think. Sometimes it appeared to them as if his silence
would be the natural result of the suspected engagement,
and at others that it was wholly incompatible with it.
The general, meanwhile, though offended every morning by
Frederick's remissness in writing, was free from any real
anxiety about him, and had no more pressing solicitude
than that of making Miss Morland's time at Northanger
pass pleasantly. He often expressed his uneasiness on
this head, feared the sameness of every day's society
and employments would disgust her with the place,
wished the Lady Frasers had been in the country,
talked every now and then of having a large party
to dinner, and once or twice began even to calculate
the number of young dancing people in the neighbourhood.
But then it was such a dead time of year, no wild-fowl,
no game, and the Lady Frasers were not in the country.
And it all ended, at last, in his telling Henry one morning
that when he next went to Woodston, they would take him
by surprise there some day or other, and eat their mutton
with him. Henry was greatly honoured and very happy,
and Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme.
"And when do you think, sir, I may look forward to this
pleasure? I must be at Woodston on Monday to attend the
parish meeting, and shall probably be obliged to stay two
or three days."
"Well, well, we will take our chance some one
of those days. There is no need to fix. You are not
to put yourself at all out of your way. Whatever you
may happen to have in the house will be enough.
I think I can answer for the young ladies making allowance
for a bachelor's table. Let me see; Monday will be
a busy day with you, we will not come on Monday;
and Tuesday will be a busy one with me. I expect my
surveyor from Brockham with his report in the morning;
and afterwards I cannot in decency fail attending the club.
I really could not face my acquaintance if I stayed
away now; for, as I am known to be in the country,
it would be taken exceedingly amiss; and it is a rule
with me, Miss Morland, never to give offence to any of
my neighbours, if a small sacrifice of time and attention
can prevent it. They are a set of very worthy men.
They have half a buck from Northanger twice a year;
and I dine with them whenever I can. Tuesday, therefore,
we may say is out of the question. But on Wednesday,
I think, Henry, you may expect us; and we shall be with
you early, that we may have time to look about us.
Two hours and three quarters will carry us to Woodston,
I suppose; we shall be in the carriage by ten; so, about a
quarter before one on Wednesday, you may look for us."
A ball itself could not have been more welcome
to Catherine than this little excursion, so strong
was her desire to be acquainted with Woodston;
and her heart was still bounding with joy when Henry,
about an hour afterwards, came booted and greatcoated into
the room where she and Eleanor were sitting, and said,
"I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain,
to observe that our pleasures in this world are always
to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a
great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual happiness
for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured.
Witness myself, at this present hour. Because I am
to hope for the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodston
on Wednesday, which bad weather, or twenty other causes,
may prevent, I must go away directly, two days before I
intended it."
"Go away!" said Catherine, with a very long face.
"And why?"
"Why! How can you ask the question? Because no time
is to be lost in frightening my old housekeeper out of
her wits, because I must go and prepare a dinner for you,
to be sure."
"Oh! Not seriously!"
"Aye, and sadly too--for I had much rather stay."
"But how can you think of such a thing, after what
the general said? When he so particularly desired you
not to give yourself any trouble, because anything would do."
Henry only smiled. "I am sure it is quite
unnecessary upon your sister's account and mine.
You must know it to be so; and the general made such a
point of your providing nothing extraordinary: besides,
if he had not said half so much as he did, he has
always such an excellent dinner at home, that sitting
down to a middling one for one day could not signify."
"I wish I could reason like you, for his sake and my own.
Good-bye. As tomorrow is Sunday, Eleanor, I shall not return."
He went; and, it being at any time a much simpler
operation to Catherine to doubt her own judgment than
Henry's, she was very soon obliged to give him credit
for being right, however disagreeable to her his going.
But the inexplicability of the general's conduct dwelt
much on her thoughts. That he was very particular in
his eating, she had, by her own unassisted observation,
already discovered; but why he should say one thing
so positively, and mean another all the while,
was most unaccountable! How were people, at that rate,
to be understood? Who but Henry could have been aware
of what his father was at?
From Saturday to Wednesday, however, they were now
to be without Henry. This was the sad finale of every
reflection: and Captain Tilney's letter would certainly come
in his absence; and Wednesday she was very sure would be wet.
The past, present, and future were all equally in gloom.
Her brother so unhappy, and her loss in Isabella so great;
and Eleanor's spirits always affected by Henry's absence!
What was there to interest or amuse her? She was tired of
the woods and the shrubberies--always so smooth and so dry;
and the abbey in itself was no more to her now than any
other house. The painful remembrance of the folly it
had helped to nourish and perfect was the only emotion
which could spring from a consideration of the building.
What a revolution in her ideas! She, who had so longed
to be in an abbey! Now, there was nothing so charming
to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a
well-connected parsonage, something like Fullerton,
but better: Fullerton had its faults, but Woodston probably
had none. If Wednesday should ever come!
It did come, and exactly when it might be reasonably
looked for. It came--it was fine--and Catherine trod
on air. By ten o'clock, the chaise and four conveyed
the two from the abbey; and, after an agreeable drive
of almost twenty miles, they entered Woodston, a large
and populous village, in a situation not unpleasant.
Catherine was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it,
as the general seemed to think an apology necessary for
the flatness of the country, and the size of the village;
but in her heart she preferred it to any place she had ever
been at, and looked with great admiration at every neat
house above the rank of a cottage, and at all the little
chandler's shops which they passed. At the further end
of the village, and tolerably disengaged from the rest of it,
stood the parsonage, a new-built substantial stone house,
with its semicircular sweep and green gates; and, as they
drove up to the door, Henry, with the friends of his solitude,
a large Newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers,
was ready to receive and make much of them.
Catherine's mind was too full, as she entered
the house, for her either to observe or to say a
great deal; and, till called on by the general for her
opinion of it, she had very little idea of the room
in which she was sitting. Upon looking round it then,
she perceived in a moment that it was the most comfortable
room in the world; but she was too guarded to say so,
and the coldness of her praise disappointed him.
"We are not calling it a good house," said he.
"We are not comparing it with Fullerton and Northanger--we
are considering it as a mere parsonage, small and confined,
we allow, but decent, perhaps, and habitable; and altogether
not inferior to the generality; or, in other words,
I believe there are few country parsonages in England half
so good. It may admit of improvement, however. Far be
it from me to say otherwise; and anything in reason--a
bow thrown out, perhaps--though, between ourselves,
if there is one thing more than another my aversion,
it is a patched-on bow."
Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand
or be pained by it; and other subjects being studiously
brought forward and supported by Henry, at the same time that
a tray full of refreshments was introduced by his servant,
the general was shortly restored to his complacency,
and Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits.
The room in question was of a commodious,
well-proportioned size, and handsomely fitted up as
a dining-parlour; and on their quitting it to walk round
the grounds, she was shown, first into a smaller apartment,
belonging peculiarly to the master of the house, and made
unusually tidy on the occasion; and afterwards into what
was to be the drawing-room, with the appearance of which,
though unfurnished, Catherine was delighted enough even
to satisfy the general. It was a prettily shaped room,
the windows reaching to the ground, and the view
from them pleasant, though only over green meadows;
and she expressed her admiration at the moment with
all the honest simplicity with which she felt it.
"Oh! Why do not you fit up this room, Mr. Tilney? What
a pity not to have it fitted up! It is the prettiest
room I ever saw; it is the prettiest room in the world!"
"I trust," said the general, with a most satisfied smile,
"that it will very speedily be furnished: it waits only for
a lady's taste!"
"Well, if it was my house, I should never sit
anywhere else. Oh! What a sweet little cottage there is
among the trees--apple trees, too! It is the prettiest cottage!"
"You like it--you approve it as an object--it is enough.
Henry, remember that Robinson is spoken to about it.
The cottage remains."
Such a compliment recalled all Catherine's consciousness,
and silenced her directly; and, though pointedly applied
to by the general for her choice of the prevailing colour
of the paper and hangings, nothing like an opinion
on the subject could be drawn from her. The influence
of fresh objects and fresh air, however, was of great
use in dissipating these embarrassing associations;
and, having reached the ornamental part of the premises,
consisting of a walk round two sides of a meadow, on which
Henry's genius had begun to act about half a year ago,
she was sufficiently recovered to think it prettier than any
pleasure-ground she had ever been in before, though there
was not a shrub in it higher than the green bench in the corner.
A saunter into other meadows, and through part
of the village, with a visit to the stables to examine
some improvements, and a charming game of play with a
litter of puppies just able to roll about, brought them
to four o'clock, when Catherine scarcely thought it could
be three. At four they were to dine, and at six to set
off on their return. Never had any day passed so quickly!
She could not but observe that the abundance of the
dinner did not seem to create the smallest astonishment
in the general; nay, that he was even looking at the
side-table for cold meat which was not there. His son
and daughter's observations were of a different kind.
They had seldom seen him eat so heartily at any table
but his own, and never before known him so little
disconcerted by the melted butter's being oiled.
At six o'clock, the general having taken his coffee,
the carriage again received them; and so gratifying had been
the tenor of his conduct throughout the whole visit, so well
assured was her mind on the subject of his expectations,
that, could she have felt equally confident of the wishes
of his son, Catherine would have quitted Woodston with
little anxiety as to the How or the When she might return to it.