Northanger Abbey — EN

In spite of Udolpho and the dress­mak­er, how­ev­er, the par­ty from Pul­teney Street reached the Upper Rooms in very good time. The Thor­pes and James Mor­land were there only two min­utes before them; and Isabel­la hav­ing gone through the usu­al cer­e­mo­ni­al of meet­ing her friend with the most smil­ing and affec­tion­ate haste, of admir­ing the set of her gown, and envy­ing the curl of her hair, they fol­lowed their chap­er­ones, arm in arm, into the ball­room, whis­per­ing to each oth­er when­ev­er a thought occurred, and sup­ply­ing the place of many ideas by a squeeze of the hand or a smile of affection.

The danc­ing began with­in a few min­utes after they were seat­ed; and James, who had been engaged quite as long as his sis­ter, was very impor­tu­nate with Isabel­la to stand up; but John was gone into the card-room to speak to a friend, and noth­ing, she declared, should induce her to join the set before her dear Cather­ine could join it too. “I assure you,” said she, “I would not stand up with­out your dear sis­ter for all the world; for if I did we should cer­tain­ly be sep­a­rat­ed the whole evening.” Cather­ine accept­ed this kind­ness with grat­i­tude, and they con­tin­ued as they were for three min­utes longer, when Isabel­la, who had been talk­ing to James on the oth­er side of her, turned again to his sis­ter and whis­pered, “My dear crea­ture, I am afraid I must leave you, your broth­er is so amaz­ing­ly impa­tient to begin; I know you will not mind my going away, and I dare say John will be back in a moment, and then you may eas­i­ly find me out.” Cather­ine, though a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ed, had too much good nature to make any oppo­si­tion, and the oth­ers ris­ing up, Isabel­la had only time to press her friend’s hand and say, “Good-bye, my dear love,” before they hur­ried off. The younger Miss Thor­pes being also danc­ing, Cather­ine was left to the mer­cy of Mrs. Thor­pe and Mrs. Allen, between whom she now remained. She could not help being vexed at the non-appear­ance of Mr. Thor­pe, for she not only longed to be danc­ing, but was like­wise aware that, as the real dig­ni­ty of her sit­u­a­tion could not be known, she was shar­ing with the scores of oth­er young ladies still sit­ting down all the dis­cred­it of want­i­ng a part­ner. To be dis­graced in the eye of the world, to wear the appear­ance of infamy while her heart is all puri­ty, her actions all inno­cence, and the mis­con­duct of anoth­er the true source of her debase­ment, is one of those cir­cum­stances which pecu­liar­ly belong to the heroine’s life, and her for­ti­tude under it what par­tic­u­lar­ly dig­ni­fies her char­ac­ter. Cather­ine had for­ti­tude too; she suf­fered, but no mur­mur passed her lips.

From this state of humil­i­a­tion, she was roused, at the end of ten min­utes, to a pleas­an­ter feel­ing, by see­ing, not Mr. Thor­pe, but Mr. Tilney, with­in three yards of the place where they sat; he seemed to be mov­ing that way, but he did not see her, and there­fore the smile and the blush, which his sud­den reap­pear­ance raised in Cather­ine, passed away with­out sul­ly­ing her hero­ic impor­tance. He looked as hand­some and as live­ly as ever, and was talk­ing with inter­est to a fash­ion­able and pleas­ing-look­ing young woman, who leant on his arm, and whom Cather­ine imme­di­ate­ly guessed to be his sis­ter; thus unthink­ing­ly throw­ing away a fair oppor­tu­ni­ty of con­sid­er­ing him lost to her for­ev­er, by being mar­ried already. But guid­ed only by what was sim­ple and prob­a­ble, it had nev­er entered her head that Mr. Tilney could be mar­ried; he had not behaved, he had not talked, like the mar­ried men to whom she had been used; he had nev­er men­tioned a wife, and he had acknowl­edged a sis­ter. From these cir­cum­stances sprang the instant con­clu­sion of his sister’s now being by his side; and there­fore, instead of turn­ing of a death­like pale­ness and falling in a fit on Mrs. Allen’s bosom, Cather­ine sat erect, in the per­fect use of her sens­es, and with cheeks only a lit­tle red­der than usual.

Mr. Tilney and his com­pan­ion, who con­tin­ued, though slow­ly, to approach, were imme­di­ate­ly pre­ced­ed by a lady, an acquain­tance of Mrs. Thor­pe; and this lady stop­ping to speak to her, they, as belong­ing to her, stopped like­wise, and Cather­ine, catch­ing Mr. Tilney’s eye, instant­ly received from him the smil­ing trib­ute of recog­ni­tion. She returned it with plea­sure, and then advanc­ing still near­er, he spoke both to her and Mrs. Allen, by whom he was very civil­ly acknowl­edged. “I am very hap­py to see you again, sir, indeed; I was afraid you had left Bath.” He thanked her for her fears, and said that he had quit­ted it for a week, on the very morn­ing after his hav­ing had the plea­sure of see­ing her.

“Well, sir, and I dare say you are not sor­ry to be back again, for it is just the place for young people—and indeed for every­body else too. I tell Mr. Allen, when he talks of being sick of it, that I am sure he should not com­plain, for it is so very agree­able a place, that it is much bet­ter to be here than at home at this dull time of year. I tell him he is quite in luck to be sent here for his health.”

“And I hope, madam, that Mr. Allen will be oblig­ed to like the place, from find­ing it of ser­vice to him.”

“Thank you, sir. I have no doubt that he will. A neigh­bour of ours, Dr. Skin­ner, was here for his health last win­ter, and came away quite stout.”

“That cir­cum­stance must give great encouragement.”

“Yes, sir—and Dr. Skin­ner and his fam­i­ly were here three months; so I tell Mr. Allen he must not be in a hur­ry to get away.”

Here they were inter­rupt­ed by a request from Mrs. Thor­pe to Mrs. Allen, that she would move a lit­tle to accom­mo­date Mrs. Hugh­es and Miss Tilney with seats, as they had agreed to join their par­ty. This was accord­ing­ly done, Mr. Tilney still con­tin­u­ing stand­ing before them; and after a few min­utes’ con­sid­er­a­tion, he asked Cather­ine to dance with him. This com­pli­ment, delight­ful as it was, pro­duced severe mor­ti­fi­ca­tion to the lady; and in giv­ing her denial, she expressed her sor­row on the occa­sion so very much as if she real­ly felt it that had Thor­pe, who joined her just after­wards, been half a minute ear­li­er, he might have thought her suf­fer­ings rather too acute. The very easy man­ner in which he then told her that he had kept her wait­ing did not by any means rec­on­cile her more to her lot; nor did the par­tic­u­lars which he entered into while they were stand­ing up, of the hors­es and dogs of the friend whom he had just left, and of a pro­posed exchange of ter­ri­ers between them, inter­est her so much as to pre­vent her look­ing very often towards that part of the room where she had left Mr. Tilney. Of her dear Isabel­la, to whom she par­tic­u­lar­ly longed to point out that gen­tle­man, she could see noth­ing. They were in dif­fer­ent sets. She was sep­a­rat­ed from all her par­ty, and away from all her acquain­tance; one mor­ti­fi­ca­tion suc­ceed­ed anoth­er, and from the whole she deduced this use­ful les­son, that to go pre­vi­ous­ly engaged to a ball does not nec­es­sar­i­ly increase either the dig­ni­ty or enjoy­ment of a young lady. From such a mor­al­iz­ing strain as this, she was sud­den­ly roused by a touch on the shoul­der, and turn­ing round, per­ceived Mrs. Hugh­es direct­ly behind her, attend­ed by Miss Tilney and a gen­tle­man. “I beg your par­don, Miss Mor­land,” said she, “for this liberty—but I can­not any­how get to Miss Thor­pe, and Mrs. Thor­pe said she was sure you would not have the least objec­tion to let­ting in this young lady by you.” Mrs. Hugh­es could not have applied to any crea­ture in the room more hap­py to oblige her than Cather­ine. The young ladies were intro­duced to each oth­er, Miss Tilney express­ing a prop­er sense of such good­ness, Miss Mor­land with the real del­i­ca­cy of a gen­er­ous mind mak­ing light of the oblig­a­tion; and Mrs. Hugh­es, sat­is­fied with hav­ing so respectably set­tled her young charge, returned to her party.

Miss Tilney had a good fig­ure, a pret­ty face, and a very agree­able coun­te­nance; and her air, though it had not all the decid­ed pre­ten­sion, the res­olute styl­ish­ness of Miss Thorpe’s, had more real ele­gance. Her man­ners showed good sense and good breed­ing; they were nei­ther shy nor affect­ed­ly open; and she seemed capa­ble of being young, attrac­tive, and at a ball with­out want­i­ng to fix the atten­tion of every man near her, and with­out exag­ger­at­ed feel­ings of ecsta­t­ic delight or incon­ceiv­able vex­a­tion on every lit­tle tri­fling occur­rence. Cather­ine, inter­est­ed at once by her appear­ance and her rela­tion­ship to Mr. Tilney, was desirous of being acquaint­ed with her, and read­i­ly talked there­fore when­ev­er she could think of any­thing to say, and had courage and leisure for say­ing it. But the hin­drance thrown in the way of a very speedy inti­ma­cy, by the fre­quent want of one or more of these req­ui­sites, pre­vent­ed their doing more than going through the first rudi­ments of an acquain­tance, by inform­ing them­selves how well the oth­er liked Bath, how much she admired its build­ings and sur­round­ing coun­try, whether she drew, or played, or sang, and whether she was fond of rid­ing on horseback.

The two dances were scarce­ly con­clud­ed before Cather­ine found her arm gen­tly seized by her faith­ful Isabel­la, who in great spir­its exclaimed, “At last I have got you. My dear­est crea­ture, I have been look­ing for you this hour. What could induce you to come into this set, when you knew I was in the oth­er? I have been quite wretched with­out you.”

“My dear Isabel­la, how was it pos­si­ble for me to get at you? I could not even see where you were.”

“So I told your broth­er all the time—but he would not believe me. Do go and see for her, Mr. Mor­land, said I—but all in vain—he would not stir an inch. Was not it so, Mr. Mor­land? But you men are all so immod­er­ate­ly lazy! I have been scold­ing him to such a degree, my dear Cather­ine, you would be quite amazed. You know I nev­er stand upon cer­e­mo­ny with such people.”

“Look at that young lady with the white beads round her head,” whis­pered Cather­ine, detach­ing her friend from James. “It is Mr. Tilney’s sister.”

“Oh! Heav­ens! You don’t say so! Let me look at her this moment. What a delight­ful girl! I nev­er saw any­thing half so beau­ti­ful! But where is her all-con­quer­ing broth­er? Is he in the room? Point him out to me this instant, if he is. I die to see him. Mr. Mor­land, you are not to lis­ten. We are not talk­ing about you.”

“But what is all this whis­per­ing about? What is going on?”

“There now, I knew how it would be. You men have such rest­less curios­i­ty! Talk of the curios­i­ty of women, indeed! ‘Tis noth­ing. But be sat­is­fied, for you are not to know any­thing at all of the matter.”

“And is that like­ly to sat­is­fy me, do you think?”

“Well, I declare I nev­er knew any­thing like you. What can it sig­ni­fy to you, what we are talk­ing of. Per­haps we are talk­ing about you; there­fore I would advise you not to lis­ten, or you may hap­pen to hear some­thing not very agreeable.”

In this com­mon­place chat­ter, which last­ed some time, the orig­i­nal sub­ject seemed entire­ly for­got­ten; and though Cather­ine was very well pleased to have it dropped for a while, she could not avoid a lit­tle sus­pi­cion at the total sus­pen­sion of all Isabella’s impa­tient desire to see Mr. Tilney. When the orches­tra struck up a fresh dance, James would have led his fair part­ner away, but she resist­ed. “I tell you, Mr. Mor­land,” she cried, “I would not do such a thing for all the world. How can you be so teas­ing; only con­ceive, my dear Cather­ine, what your broth­er wants me to do. He wants me to dance with him again, though I tell him that it is a most improp­er thing, and entire­ly against the rules. It would make us the talk of the place, if we were not to change partners.”

“Upon my hon­our,” said James, “in these pub­lic assem­blies, it is as often done as not121.”

“Non­sense, how can you say so? But when you men have a point to car­ry, you nev­er stick at any­thing. My sweet Cather­ine, do sup­port me; per­suade your broth­er how impos­si­ble it is. Tell him that it would quite shock you to see me do such a thing; now would not it?”

“No, not at all; but if you think it wrong, you had much bet­ter change.”

“There,” cried Isabel­la, “you hear what your sis­ter says, and yet you will not mind her. Well, remem­ber that it is not my fault, if we set all the old ladies in Bath in a bus­tle. Come along, my dear­est Cather­ine, for heaven’s sake, and stand by me.” And off they went, to regain their for­mer place. John Thor­pe, in the mean­while, had walked away; and Cather­ine, ever will­ing to give Mr. Tilney an oppor­tu­ni­ty of repeat­ing the agree­able request which had already flat­tered her once, made her way to Mrs. Allen and Mrs. Thor­pe as fast as she could, in the hope of find­ing him still with them—a hope which, when it proved to be fruit­less, she felt to have been high­ly unrea­son­able. “Well, my dear,” said Mrs. Thor­pe, impa­tient for praise of her son, “I hope you have had an agree­able partner.”

“Very agree­able, madam.”

“I am glad of it. John has charm­ing spir­its, has not he?”

“Did you meet Mr. Tilney, my dear?” said Mrs. Allen.

“No, where is he?”

“He was with us just now, and said he was so tired of loung­ing about, that he was resolved to go and dance; so I thought per­haps he would ask you, if he met with you.”

“Where can he be?” said Cather­ine, look­ing round; but she had not looked round long before she saw him lead­ing a young lady to the dance.

“Ah! He has got a part­ner; I wish he had asked you,” said Mrs. Allen; and after a short silence, she added, “he is a very agree­able young man.”

“Indeed he is, Mrs. Allen,” said Mrs. Thor­pe, smil­ing com­pla­cent­ly; “I must say it, though I am his moth­er, that there is not a more agree­able young man in the world.”

This inap­plic­a­ble answer might have been too much for the com­pre­hen­sion of many; but it did not puz­zle Mrs. Allen, for after only a moment’s con­sid­er­a­tion, she said, in a whis­per to Cather­ine, “I dare say she thought I was speak­ing of her son.”

Cather­ine was dis­ap­point­ed and vexed. She seemed to have missed by so lit­tle the very object she had had in view; and this per­sua­sion did not incline her to a very gra­cious reply, when John Thor­pe came up to her soon after­wards and said, “Well, Miss Mor­land, I sup­pose you and I are to stand up and jig it togeth­er again.”

“Oh, no; I am much oblig­ed to you, our two dances are over; and, besides, I am tired, and do not mean to dance any more.”

“Do not you? Then let us walk about and quiz peo­ple. Come along with me, and I will show you the four great­est quizzers in the room; my two younger sis­ters and their part­ners. I have been laugh­ing at them this half hour.”

Again Cather­ine excused her­self; and at last he walked off to quiz his sis­ters by him­self. The rest of the evening she found very dull; Mr. Tilney was drawn away from their par­ty at tea, to attend that of his part­ner; Miss Tilney, though belong­ing to it, did not sit near her, and James and Isabel­la were so much engaged in con­vers­ing togeth­er that the lat­ter had no leisure to bestow more on her friend than one smile, one squeeze, and one “dear­est Catherine.”