Northanger Abbey — EN

CHAPTER 2

In addi­tion to what has been already said of Cather­ine Mor­lands per­son­al and men­tal endow­ments, when about to be launched into all the dif­fi­cul­ties and dan­gers of a six weeks’ res­i­dence in Bath, it may be stat­ed, for the reader’s more cer­tain infor­ma­tion, lest the fol­low­ing pages should oth­er­wise fail of giv­ing any idea of what her char­ac­ter is meant to be, that her heart was affec­tion­ate; her dis­po­si­tion cheer­ful and open, with­out con­ceit or affec­ta­tion of any kind – her man­ners just removed from the awk­ward­ness and shy­ness of a girl; her per­son pleas­ing, and, when in good looks, pret­ty – and her mind about as igno­rant and unin­formed as the female mind at sev­en­teen usu­al­ly is.

When the hour of depar­ture drew near, the mater­nal anx­i­ety of Mrs. Mor­land will be nat­u­ral­ly sup­posed to be most severe. A thou­sand alarm­ing pre­sen­ti­ments of evil to her beloved Cather­ine from this ter­rif­ic sep­a­ra­tion must oppress her heart with sad­ness, and drown her in tears for the last day or two of their being togeth­er; and advice of the most impor­tant and applic­a­ble nature must of course flow from her wise lips in their part­ing con­fer­ence in her clos­et. Cau­tions against the vio­lence of such noble­men and baronets as delight in forc­ing young ladies away to some remote farm-house, must, at such a moment, relieve the ful­ness of her heart. Who would not think so? But Mrs. Mor­land knew so lit­tle of lords and baronets, that she enter­tained no notion of their gen­er­al mis­chie­vous­ness, and was whol­ly unsus­pi­cious of dan­ger to her daugh­ter from their machi­na­tions. Her cau­tions were con­fined to the fol­low­ing points. “I beg, Cather­ine, you will always wrap your­self up very warm about the throat, when you come from the rooms at night; and I wish you would try to keep some account of the mon­ey you spend; I will give you this lit­tle book on purpose.

Sal­ly, or rather Sarah (for what young lady of com­mon gen­til­i­ty will reach the age of six­teen with­out alter­ing her name as far as she can?), must from sit­u­a­tion be at this time the inti­mate friend and con­fi­dante of her sis­ter. It is remark­able, how­ev­er, that she nei­ther insist­ed on Catherine’s writ­ing by every post, nor exact­ed her promise of trans­mit­ting the char­ac­ter of every new acquain­tance, nor a detail of every inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tion that Bath might pro­duce. Every­thing indeed rel­a­tive to this impor­tant jour­ney was done, on the part of the Mor­lands, with a degree of mod­er­a­tion and com­po­sure, which seemed rather con­sis­tent with the com­mon feel­ings of com­mon life, than with the refined sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ties, the ten­der emo­tions which the first sep­a­ra­tion of a hero­ine from her fam­i­ly ought always to excite. Her father, instead of giv­ing her an unlim­it­ed order on his banker, or even putting an hun­dred pounds bank-bill into her hands, gave her only ten guineas, and promised her more when she want­ed it.

Under these unpromis­ing aus­pices, the part­ing took place, and the jour­ney began. It was per­formed with suit­able quiet­ness and unevent­ful safe­ty. Nei­ther rob­bers nor tem­pests befriend­ed them, nor one lucky over­turn to intro­duce them to the hero. Noth­ing more alarm­ing occurred than a fear, on Mrs. Allen’s side, of hav­ing once left her clogs behind her at an inn, and that for­tu­nate­ly proved to be groundless.

They arrived at Bath. Cather­ine was all eager delight – her eyes were here, there, every­where, as they approached its fine and strik­ing envi­rons, and after­wards drove through those streets which con­duct­ed them to the hotel. She was come to be hap­py, and she felt hap­py already.

They were soon set­tled in com­fort­able lodg­ings in Pul­teney Street.

It is now expe­di­ent to give some descrip­tion of Mrs. Allen, that the read­er may be able to judge in what man­ner her actions will here­after tend to pro­mote the gen­er­al dis­tress of the work, and how she will, prob­a­bly, con­tribute to reduce poor Cather­ine to all the des­per­ate wretched­ness of which a last vol­ume is capa­ble – whether by her impru­dence, vul­gar­i­ty, or jeal­ousy – whether by inter­cept­ing her let­ters, ruin­ing her char­ac­ter, or turn­ing her out of doors.

Mrs. Allen was one of that numer­ous class of females, whose soci­ety can raise no oth­er emo­tion than sur­prise at there being any men in the world who could like them well enough to mar­ry them. She had nei­ther beau­ty, genius, accom­plish­ment, nor man­ner. The air of a gen­tle­woman, a great deal of qui­et, inac­tive good tem­per, and a tri­fling turn of mind were all that could account for her being the choice of a sen­si­ble, intel­li­gent man like Mr. Allen. In one respect she was admirably fit­ted to intro­duce a young lady into pub­lic, being as fond of going every­where and see­ing every­thing her­self as any young lady could be. Dress was her pas­sion. She had a most harm­less delight in being fine; and our heroine’s entree into life could not take place till after three or four days had been spent in learn­ing what was most­ly worn, and her chap­er­one was pro­vid­ed with a dress of the newest fash­ion. Cather­ine too made some pur­chas­es her­self, and when all these mat­ters were arranged, the impor­tant evening came which was to ush­er her in Upper Rooms. Her hair was cut and dressed by the best hand, her clothes put on with care, and both Mrs. Allen and her maid declared she looked quite as she should do. With such encour­age­ment, Cather­ine hoped at least to pass uncen­sured through the crowd. As for admi­ra­tion, it was always very wel­come when it came, but she did not depend on it.

Mrs. Allen was so long in dress­ing that they did not enter the ball­room till late. The sea­son was full, the room crowd­ed, and the two ladies squeezed in as well as they could. As for Mr. Allen, he repaired direct­ly to the card-room, and left them to enjoy a mob by them­selves. With more care for the safe­ty of her new gown than for the com­fort of her pro­tégée, Mrs. Allen made her way through the throng of men by the door, as swift­ly as the nec­es­sary cau­tion would allow; Cather­ine, how­ev­er, kept close at her side, and linked her arm too firm­ly with­in her friend’s to be torn asun­der by any com­mon effort of a strug­gling assem­bly. But to her utter amaze­ment she found that to pro­ceed along the room was by no means the way to dis­en­gage them­selves from the crowd; it seemed rather to increase as they went on, where­as she had imag­ined that when once fair­ly with­in the door, they should eas­i­ly find seats and be able to watch the dances with per­fect con­ve­nience. But this was far from being the case, and though by unwea­ried dili­gence they gained even the top of the room, their sit­u­a­tion was just the same; they saw noth­ing of the dancers but the high feath­ers of some of the ladies. Still they moved on – some­thing bet­ter was yet in view; and by a con­tin­ued exer­tion of strength and inge­nu­ity they found them­selves at last in the pas­sage behind the high­est bench. Here there was some­thing less of crowd than below; and hence Miss Mor­land had a com­pre­hen­sive view of all the com­pa­ny beneath her, and of all the dan­gers of her late pas­sage through them. It was a splen­did sight, and she began, for the first time that evening, to feel her­self at a ball: she longed to dance, but she had not an acquain­tance in the room. Mrs. Allen did all that she could do in such a case by say­ing very placid­ly, every now and then, “I wish you could dance, my dear – I wish you could get a part­ner.” For some time her young friend felt oblig­ed to her for these wish­es; but they were repeat­ed so often, and proved so total­ly inef­fec­tu­al, that Cather­ine grew tired at last, and would thank her no more.

They were not long able, how­ev­er, to enjoy the repose of the emi­nence they had so labo­ri­ous­ly gained. Every­body was short­ly in motion for tea, and they must squeeze out like the rest. Cather­ine began to feel some­thing of dis­ap­point­ment – she was tired of being con­tin­u­al­ly pressed against by peo­ple, the gen­er­al­i­ty of whose faces pos­sessed noth­ing to inter­est, and with all of whom she was so whol­ly unac­quaint­ed that she could not relieve the irk­some­ness of impris­on­ment by the exchange of a syl­la­ble with any of her fel­low cap­tives; and when at last arrived in the tea-room, she felt yet more the awk­ward­ness of hav­ing no par­ty to join, no acquain­tance to claim, no gen­tle­man to assist them. They saw noth­ing of Mr. Allen; and after look­ing about them in vain for a more eli­gi­ble sit­u­a­tion, were oblig­ed to sit down at the end of a table, at which a large par­ty were already placed, with­out hav­ing any­thing to do there, or any­body to speak to, except each other.

Mrs. Allen con­grat­u­lat­ed her­self, as soon as they were seat­ed, on hav­ing pre­served her gown from injury. “It would have been very shock­ing to have it torn,” said she, “would not it? It is such a del­i­cate muslin. For my part I have not seen any­thing I like so well in the whole room, I assure you.”

“How uncom­fort­able it is,” whis­pered Cather­ine, “not to have a sin­gle acquain­tance here!”

“Yes, my dear,” replied Mrs. Allen, with per­fect seren­i­ty, “it is very uncom­fort­able indeed.”

“What shall we do? The gen­tle­men and ladies at this table look as if they won­dered why we came here – we seem forc­ing our­selves into their par­ty.”

“Aye, so we do. That is very dis­agree­able. I wish we had a large acquain­tance here.”

“I wish we had any – it would be some­body to go to.”

“Very true, my dear; and if we knew any­body we would join them direct­ly. The Skin­ners were here last year – I wish they were here now.”

“Had not we bet­ter go away as it is? Here are no tea-things for us, you see.”

“No more there are, indeed. How very pro­vok­ing! But I think we had bet­ter sit still, for one gets so tum­bled in such a crowd! How is my head, my dear? Some­body gave me a push that has hurt it, I am afraid.”

“No, indeed, it looks very nice. But, dear Mrs. Allen, are you sure there is nobody you know in all this mul­ti­tude of peo­ple? I think you must know somebody.”

“I don’t, upon my word – I wish I did. I wish I had a large acquain­tance here with all my heart, and then I should get you a part­ner. I should be so glad to have you dance. There goes a strange-look­ing woman! What an odd gown she has got on! How old-fash­ioned it is! Look at the back.”

After some time they received an offer of tea from one of their neigh­bours; it was thank­ful­ly accept­ed, and this intro­duced a light con­ver­sa­tion with the gen­tle­man who offered it, which was the only time that any­body spoke to them dur­ing the evening, till they were dis­cov­ered and joined by Mr. Allen when the dance was over.

“Well, Miss Mor­land,” said he, direct­ly, “I hope you have had an agree­able ball.”

“Very agree­able indeed,” she replied, vain­ly endeav­our­ing to hide a great yawn.

“I wish she had been able to dance,” said his wife; “I wish we could have got a part­ner for her. I have been say­ing how glad I should be if the Skin­ners were here this win­ter instead of last; or if the Par­rys had come, as they talked of once, she might have danced with George Par­ry. I am so sor­ry she has not had a partner!”

“We shall do bet­ter anoth­er evening I hope,” was Mr. Allen’s con­so­la­tion.

The com­pa­ny began to dis­perse when the danc­ing was over – enough to leave space for the remain­der to walk about in some com­fort; and now was the time for a hero­ine, who had not yet played a very dis­tin­guished part in the events of the evening, to be noticed and admired. Every five min­utes, by remov­ing some of the crowd, gave greater open­ings for her charms. She was now seen by many young men who had not been near her before. Not one, how­ev­er, start­ed with rap­tur­ous won­der on behold­ing her, no whis­per of eager inquiry ran round the room, nor was she once called a divin­i­ty by any­body. Yet Cather­ine was in very good looks, and had the com­pa­ny only seen her three years before, they would now have thought her exceed­ing­ly handsome.

She was looked at, how­ev­er, and with some admi­ra­tion; for, in her own hear­ing, two gen­tle­men pro­nounced her to be a pret­ty girl. Such words had their due effect; she imme­di­ate­ly thought the evening pleas­an­ter than she had found it before – her hum­ble van­i­ty was con­tent­ed – she felt more oblig­ed to the two young men for this sim­ple praise than a true-qual­i­ty hero­ine would have been for fif­teen son­nets in cel­e­bra­tion of her charms, and went to her chair in good humour with every­body, and per­fect­ly sat­is­fied with her share of pub­lic attention.