Northanger Abbey — EN

Every morn­ing now brought its reg­u­lar duties – shops were to be vis­it­ed; some new part of the town to be looked at; and the pump-room to be attend­ed, where they parad­ed up and down for an hour, look­ing at every­body and speak­ing to no one. The wish of a numer­ous acquain­tance in Bath was still upper­most with Mrs. Allen, and she repeat­ed it after every fresh proof, which every morn­ing brought, of her know­ing nobody at all.

They made their appear­ance in the Low­er Rooms; and here for­tune was more favourable to our hero­ine. The mas­ter of the cer­e­monies intro­duced to her a very gen­tle­man­like young man as a part­ner; his name was Tilney. He seemed to be about four or five and twen­ty, was rather tall, had a pleas­ing coun­te­nance, a very intel­li­gent and live­ly eye, and, if not quite hand­some, was very near it. His address was good, and Cather­ine felt her­self in high luck. There was lit­tle leisure for speak­ing while they danced; but when they were seat­ed at tea, she found him as agree­able as she had already giv­en him cred­it for being. He talked with flu­en­cy and spir­it – and there was an arch­ness and pleas­antry in his man­ner which inter­est­ed, though it was hard­ly under­stood by her. After chat­ting some time on such mat­ters as nat­u­ral­ly arose from the objects around them, he sud­den­ly addressed her with – “I have hith­er­to been very remiss, madam, in the prop­er atten­tions of a part­ner here; I have not yet asked you how long you have been in Bath; whether you were ever here before; whether you have been Upper Rooms, the the­atre, and the con­cert; and how you like the place alto­geth­er. I have been very neg­li­gent – but are you now at leisure to sat­is­fy me in these par­tic­u­lars? If you are I will begin directly.”

“You need not give your­self that trou­ble, sir.”

“No trou­ble, I assure you, madam.” Then form­ing his fea­tures into a set smile, and affect­ed­ly soft­en­ing his voice, he added, with a sim­per­ing air, “Have you been long in Bath, madam?”

“About a week, sir,” replied Cather­ine, try­ing not to laugh.

“Real­ly!” with affect­ed astonishment.

“Why should you be sur­prised, sir?”

“Why, indeed!” said he, in his nat­ur­al tone. “But some emo­tion must appear to be raised by your reply, and sur­prise is more eas­i­ly assumed, and not less rea­son­able than any oth­er. Now let us go on. Were you nev­er here before, madam?”

“Nev­er, sir.”

“Indeed! Have you yet hon­oured the Upper Rooms?”

“Yes, sir, I was there last Monday.”

“Have you been to the theatre?”

“Yes, sir, I was at the play on Tuesday.”

“To the concert?”

“Yes, sir, on Wednesday.”

“And are you alto­geth­er pleased with Bath?”

“Yes – I like it very well.”

“Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be ratio­nal again.” Cather­ine turned away her head, not know­ing whether she might ven­ture to laugh. “I see what you think of me,” said he grave­ly – “I shall make but a poor fig­ure in your jour­nal tomorrow.”

“My jour­nal!” “Yes, I know exact­ly what you will say: Fri­day, went to the Low­er Rooms; wore my sprigged muslin robe with blue trim­mings – plain black shoes – appeared to much advan­tage; but was strange­ly harassed by a queer, half-wit­ted man, who would make me dance with him, and dis­tressed me by his nonsense.”

“Indeed I shall say no such thing.”

“Shall I tell you what you ought to say?”

“If you please.”

“I danced with a very agree­able young man, intro­duced by Mr. King; had a great deal of con­ver­sa­tion with him – seems a most extra­or­di­nary genius – hope I may know more of him. That, madam, is what I wish you to say.”

“But, per­haps, I keep no jour­nal.”

“Per­haps you are not sit­ting in this room, and I am not sit­ting by you. These are points in which a doubt is equal­ly pos­si­ble. Not keep a jour­nal! How are your absent cousins to under­stand the tenour of your life in Bath with­out one? How are the civil­i­ties and com­pli­ments of every day to be relat­ed as they ought to be, unless not­ed down every evening in a jour­nal? How are your var­i­ous dress­es to be remem­bered, and the par­tic­u­lar state of your com­plex­ion, and curl of your hair to be described in all their diver­si­ties, with­out hav­ing con­stant recourse to a jour­nal? My dear madam, I am not so igno­rant of young ladies’ ways as you wish to believe me; it is this delight­ful habit of jour­nal­ing which large­ly con­tributes to form the easy style of writ­ing for which ladies are so gen­er­al­ly cel­e­brat­ed. Every­body allows that the tal­ent of writ­ing agree­able let­ters is pecu­liar­ly female. Nature may have done some­thing, but I am sure it must be essen­tial­ly assist­ed by the prac­tice of keep­ing a jour­nal.”

“I have some­times thought,” said Cather­ine, doubt­ing­ly, “whether ladies do write so much bet­ter let­ters than gen­tle­men! That is – I should not think the supe­ri­or­i­ty was always on our side.”

“As far as I have had oppor­tu­ni­ty of judg­ing, it appears to me that the usu­al style of let­ter-writ­ing among women is fault­less, except in three particulars.”

“And what are they?”

“A gen­er­al defi­cien­cy of sub­ject, a total inat­ten­tion to stops, and a very fre­quent igno­rance of grammar.”

“Upon my word! I need not have been afraid of dis­claim­ing the com­pli­ment. You do not think too high­ly of us in that way.”

“I should no more lay it down as a gen­er­al rule that women write bet­ter let­ters than men, than that they sing bet­ter duets, or draw bet­ter land­scapes. In every pow­er, of which taste is the foun­da­tion, excel­lence is pret­ty fair­ly divid­ed between the sexes.”

They were inter­rupt­ed by Mrs. Allen: “My dear Cather­ine,” said she, “do take this pin out of my sleeve; I am afraid it has torn a hole already; I shall be quite sor­ry if it has, for this is a favourite gown, though it cost but nine shillings a yard.”

“That is exact­ly what I should have guessed it, madam,” said Mr. Tilney, look­ing at the muslin.

“Do you under­stand muslins, sir?”

“Par­tic­u­lar­ly well; I always buy my own cra­vats, and am allowed to be an excel­lent judge; and my sis­ter has often trust­ed me in the choice of a gown. I bought one for her the oth­er day, and it was pro­nounced to be a prodi­gious bar­gain by every lady who saw it. I gave but five shillings a yard for it, and a true Indi­an muslin.”

Mrs. Allen was quite struck by his genius. “Men com­mon­ly take so lit­tle notice of those things,” said she; “I can nev­er get Mr. Allen to know one of my gowns from anoth­er. You must be a great com­fort to your sis­ter, sir.”

“I hope I am, madam.”

“And pray, sir, what do you think of Miss Morland’s gown?”

“It is very pret­ty, madam,” said he, grave­ly exam­in­ing it; “but I do not think it will wash well; I am afraid it will fray.”

“How can you,” said Cather­ine, laugh­ing, “be so – “ She had almost said “strange.”

“I am quite of your opin­ion, sir,” replied Mrs. Allen; “and so I told Miss Mor­land when she bought it.”

“But then you know, madam, muslin always turns to some account or oth­er; Miss Mor­land will get enough out of it for a hand­ker­chief, or a cap, or a cloak. Muslin can nev­er be said to be wast­ed. I have heard my sis­ter say so forty times, when she has been extrav­a­gant in buy­ing more than she want­ed, or care­less in cut­ting it to pieces.”

“Bath is a charm­ing place, sir; there are so many good shops here. We are sad­ly off in the coun­try; not but what we have very good shops in Sal­is­bury, but it is so far to go – eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, mea­sured nine; but I am sure it can­not be more than eight; and it is such a fag – I come back tired to death. Now, here one can step out of doors and get a thing in five minutes.”

Mr. Tilney was polite enough to seem inter­est­ed in what she said; and she kept him on the sub­ject of muslins till the danc­ing recom­menced. Cather­ine feared, as she lis­tened to their dis­course, that he indulged him­self a lit­tle too much with the foibles of oth­ers. “What are you think­ing of so earnest­ly?” said he, as they walked back to the ball­room; “not of your part­ner, I hope, for, by that shake of the head, your med­i­ta­tions are not satisfactory.”

Cather­ine coloured, and said, “I was not think­ing of anything.”

“That is art­ful and deep, to be sure; but I had rather be told at once that you will not tell me.”

“Well then, I will not.”

“Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquaint­ed, as I am autho­rized to tease you on this sub­ject when­ev­er we meet, and noth­ing in the world advances inti­ma­cy so much.”

They danced again; and, when the assem­bly closed, part­ed, on the lady’s side at least, with a strong incli­na­tion for con­tin­u­ing the acquain­tance. Whether she thought of him so much, while she drank her warm wine and water, and pre­pared her­self for bed, as to dream of him when there, can­not be ascer­tained; but I hope it was no more than in a slight slum­ber, or a morn­ing doze at most; for if it be true, as a cel­e­brat­ed writer has main­tained, that no young lady can be jus­ti­fied in falling in love before the gentleman’s love is declared,* it must be very improp­er that a young lady should dream of a gen­tle­man before the gen­tle­man is first known to have dreamt of her. How prop­er Mr. Tilney might be as a dream­er or a lover had not yet per­haps entered Mr. Allen’s head, but that he was not objec­tion­able as a com­mon acquain­tance for his young charge he was on inquiry sat­is­fied; for he had ear­ly in the evening tak­en pains to know who her part­ner was, and had been assured of Mr. Tilney’s being a cler­gy­man, and of a very respectable fam­i­ly in Glouces­ter­shire.

* Vide a let­ter from Mr. Richard­son, No. 97. vol ii. Ram­bler.