Northanger Abbey — EN

The fol­low­ing con­ver­sa­tion, which took place between the two friends in the pump-room one morn­ing, after an acquain­tance of eight or nine days, is giv­en as a spec­i­men of their very warm attach­ment, and of the del­i­ca­cy, dis­cre­tion, orig­i­nal­i­ty of thought, and lit­er­ary taste which marked the rea­son­able­ness of that attach­ment.

They met by appoint­ment; and as Isabel­la had arrived near­ly five min­utes before her friend, her first address nat­u­ral­ly was, “My dear­est crea­ture, what can have made you so late? I have been wait­ing for you at least this age!”

“Have you, indeed! I am very sor­ry for it; but real­ly I thought I was in very good time. It is but just one. I hope you have not been here long?”

“Oh! These ten ages at least. I am sure I have been here this half hour. But now, let us go and sit down at the oth­er end of the room, and enjoy our­selves. I have an hun­dred things to say to you. In the first place, I was so afraid it would rain this morn­ing, just as I want­ed to set off; it looked very show­ery, and that would have thrown me into ago­nies! Do you know, I saw the pret­ti­est hat you can imag­ine, in a shop win­dow in Mil­som Street just now—very like yours, only with coqueli­cot rib­bons instead of green; I quite longed for it. But, my dear­est Cather­ine, what have you been doing with your­self all this morn­ing? Have you gone on with Udolpho?”

“Yes, I have been read­ing it ever since I woke; and I am got to the black veil.”

“Are you, indeed? How delight­ful! Oh! I would not tell you what is behind the black veil for the world! Are not you wild to know?”

“Oh! Yes, quite; what can it be? But do not tell me—I would not be told upon any account. I know it must be a skele­ton, I am sure it is Laurentina’s skele­ton. Oh! I am delight­ed with the book! I should like to spend my whole life in read­ing it. I assure you, if it had not been to meet you, I would not have come away from it for all the world.”

“Dear crea­ture! How much I am oblig­ed to you; and when you have fin­ished Udolpho, we will read the Ital­ian togeth­er; and I have made out a list of ten or twelve more of the same kind for you.”

“Have you, indeed! How glad I am! What are they all?”

“I will read you their names direct­ly; here they are, in my pock­et­book. Cas­tle of Wolfen­bach, Cler­mont, Mys­te­ri­ous Warn­ings, Necro­mancer of the Black For­est, Mid­night Bell, Orphan of the Rhine, and Hor­rid Mys­ter­ies. Those will last us some time.”

“Yes, pret­ty well; but are they all hor­rid, are you sure they are all hor­rid?”

“Yes, quite sure; for a par­tic­u­lar friend of mine, a Miss Andrews, a sweet girl, one of the sweet­est crea­tures in the world, has read every one of them. I wish you knew Miss Andrews, you would be delight­ed with her. She is net­ting her­self the sweet­est cloak you can con­ceive. I think her as beau­ti­ful as an angel, and I am so vexed with the men for not admir­ing her! I scold them all amaz­ing­ly about it.”

“Scold them! Do you scold them for not admir­ing her?”

“Yes, that I do. There is noth­ing I would not do for those who are real­ly my friends. I have no notion of lov­ing peo­ple by halves; it is not my nature. My attach­ments are always exces­sive­ly strong. I told Cap­tain Hunt at one of our assem­blies this win­ter that if he was to tease me all night, I would not dance with him, unless he would allow Miss Andrews to be as beau­ti­ful as an angel. The men think us inca­pable of real friend­ship, you know, and I am deter­mined to show them the dif­fer­ence. Now, if I were to hear any­body speak slight­ing­ly of you, I should fire up in a moment: but that is not at all like­ly, for you are just the kind of girl to be a great favourite with the men.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Cather­ine, colour­ing. “How can you say so?”

“I know you very well; you have so much ani­ma­tion, which is exact­ly what Miss Andrews wants, for I must con­fess there is some­thing amaz­ing­ly insipid about her. Oh! I must tell you, that just after we part­ed yes­ter­day, I saw a young man look­ing at you so earnest­ly—I am sure he is in love with you.” Cather­ine coloured, and dis­claimed again. Isabel­la laughed. “It is very true, upon my hon­our, but I see how it is; you are indif­fer­ent to everybody’s admi­ra­tion, except that of one gen­tle­man, who shall be name­less. Nay, I can­not blame you”—speaking more seriously—“your feel­ings are eas­i­ly under­stood. Where the heart is real­ly attached, I know very well how lit­tle one can be pleased with the atten­tion of any­body else. Every­thing is so insipid, so unin­ter­est­ing, that does not relate to the beloved object! I can per­fect­ly com­pre­hend your feelings.”

“But you should not per­suade me that I think so very much about Mr. Tilney, for per­haps I may nev­er see him again.”

“Not see him again! My dear­est crea­ture, do not talk of it. I am sure you would be mis­er­able if you thought so!”

“No, indeed, I should not. I do not pre­tend to say that I was not very much pleased with him; but while I have Udolpho to read, I feel as if nobody could make me mis­er­able. Oh! The dread­ful black veil! My dear Isabel­la, I am sure there must be Laurentina’s skele­ton behind it.”

“It is so odd to me, that you should nev­er have read Udolpho before; but I sup­pose Mrs. Mor­land objects to nov­els.”

“No, she does not. She very often reads Sir Charles Gran­di­son her­self; but new books do not fall in our way.”

“Sir Charles Gran­di­son! That is an amaz­ing hor­rid book, is it not? I remem­ber Miss Andrews could not get through the first volume.”

“It is not like Udolpho at all; but yet I think it is very enter­tain­ing.”

“Do you indeed! You sur­prise me; I thought it had not been read­able. But, my dear­est Cather­ine, have you set­tled what to wear on your head tonight? I am deter­mined at all events to be dressed exact­ly like you. The men take notice of that some­times, you know.”

“But it does not sig­ni­fy if they do,” said Cather­ine, very innocently.

“Sig­ni­fy! Oh, heav­ens! I make it a rule nev­er to mind what they say. They are very often amaz­ing­ly imper­ti­nent if you do not treat them with spir­it, and make them keep their dis­tance.”

“Are they? Well, I nev­er observed that. They always behave very well to me.”

“Oh! They give them­selves such airs. They are the most con­ceit­ed crea­tures in the world, and think them­selves of so much impor­tance! By the by, though I have thought of it a hun­dred times, I have always for­got to ask you what is your favourite com­plex­ion in a man. Do you like them best dark or fair?”

“I hard­ly know. I nev­er much thought about it. Some­thing between both, I think. Brown—not fair, and—and not very dark.”

“Very well, Cather­ine. That is exact­ly he. I have not for­got your descrip­tion of Mr. Tilney—‘a brown skin, with dark eyes, and rather dark hair.’ Well, my taste is dif­fer­ent. I pre­fer light eyes, and as to com­plex­ion—do you know—I like a sal­low bet­ter than any oth­er. You must not betray me, if you should ever meet with one of your acquain­tance answer­ing that description.”

“Betray you! What do you mean?”

“Nay, do not dis­tress me. I believe I have said too much. Let us drop the sub­ject.”

Cather­ine, in some amaze­ment, com­plied, and after remain­ing a few moments silent, was on the point of revert­ing to what inter­est­ed her at that time rather more than any­thing else in the world, Laurentina’s skele­ton, when her friend pre­vent­ed her, by say­ing, “For heaven’s sake! Let us move away from this end of the room. Do you know, there are two odi­ous young men who have been star­ing at me this half hour. They real­ly put me quite out of coun­te­nance. Let us go and look at the arrivals. They will hard­ly fol­low us there.”

Away they walked to the book; and while Isabel­la exam­ined the names, it was Catherine’s employ­ment to watch the pro­ceed­ings of these alarm­ing young men.

“They are not com­ing this way, are they? I hope they are not so imper­ti­nent as to fol­low us. Pray let me know if they are com­ing. I am deter­mined I will not look up.”

In a few moments Cather­ine, with unaf­fect­ed plea­sure, assured her that she need not be longer uneasy, as the gen­tle­men had just left the pump-room.

“And which way are they gone?” said Isabel­la, turn­ing hasti­ly round. “One was a very good-look­ing young man.”

“They went towards the church-yard.”

“Well, I am amaz­ing­ly glad I have got rid of them! And now, what say you to going to Edgar’s Build­ings with me, and look­ing at my new hat? You said you should like to see it.”

Cather­ine read­i­ly agreed. “Only,” she added, “per­haps we may over­take the two young men.”

“Oh! mind that. If we make haste, we shall pass by them present­ly, and I am dying to show you my hat.”

“But if we only wait a few min­utes, there will be no dan­ger of our see­ing them at all.”

“I shall not pay them any such com­pli­ment, I assure you. I have no notion of treat­ing men with such respect. That is the way to spoil them.”

Cather­ine had noth­ing to oppose against such rea­son­ing; and there­fore, to show the inde­pen­dence of Miss Thor­pe, and her res­o­lu­tion of hum­bling the sex, they set off imme­di­ate­ly as fast as they could walk, in pur­suit of the two young men.