CHAPTER 23

Northanger Abbey

by Jane Austen

CHAPTER 23, NORTHANGER ABBEY by Jane Austen


An hour passed away before the general
came in, spent, on the part of his young guest,
in no very favourable consideration of his character.
"This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not
speak a mind at ease, or a conscience void of reproach."
At length he appeared; and, whatever might have been the
gloom of his meditations, he could still smile with them.
Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend's
curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject;
and her father being, contrary to Catherine's expectations,
unprovided with any pretence for further delay,
beyond that of stopping five minutes to order refreshments
to be in the room by their return, was at last ready
to escort them.

They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air,
a dignified step, which caught the eye, but could not
shake the doubts of the well-read Catherine, he led
the way across the hall, through the common drawing-room
and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent
both in size and furniture--the real drawing-room, used
only with company of consequence. It was very noble--very
grand--very charming!--was all that Catherine had to say,
for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned the colour
of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praise
that had much meaning, was supplied by the general:
the costliness or elegance of any room's fitting-up
could be nothing to her; she cared for no furniture
of a more modern date than the fifteenth century.
When the general had satisfied his own curiosity,
in a close examination of every well-known ornament,
they proceeded into the library, an apartment, in its way,
of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books,
on which an humble man might have looked with pride.
Catherine heard, admired, and wondered with more genuine
feeling than before--gathered all that she could from
this storehouse of knowledge, by running over the titles
of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed. But suites
of apartments did not spring up with her wishes.
Large as was the building, she had already visited
the greatest part; though, on being told that,
with the addition of the kitchen, the six or seven rooms
she had now seen surrounded three sides of the court,
she could scarcely believe it, or overcome the suspicion
of there being many chambers secreted. It was some relief,
however, that they were to return to the rooms in
common use, by passing through a few of less importance,
looking into the court, which, with occasional passages,
not wholly unintricate, connected the different sides;
and she was further soothed in her progress by being told
that she was treading what had once been a cloister,
having traces of cells pointed out, and observing several
doors that were neither opened nor explained to her--by
finding herself successively in a billiard-room, and in
the general's private apartment, without comprehending
their connection, or being able to turn aright when she
left them; and lastly, by passing through a dark little room,
owning Henry's authority, and strewed with his litter
of books, guns, and greatcoats.

From the dining-room, of which, though already seen,
and always to be seen at five o'clock, the general
could not forgo the pleasure of pacing out the length,
for the more certain information of Miss Morland,
as to what she neither doubted nor cared for,
they proceeded by quick communication to the kitchen--
the ancient kitchen of the convent, rich in the massy walls
and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hot
closets of the present. The general's improving hand had
not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate
the labour of the cooks had been adopted within this,
their spacious theatre; and, when the genius of others
had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted.
His endowments of this spot alone might at any time
have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent.

With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity
of the abbey; the fourth side of the quadrangle having,
on account of its decaying state, been removed by the
general's father, and the present erected in its place.
All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was
not only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only
for offices, and enclosed behind by stable-yards, no
uniformity of architecture had been thought necessary.
Catherine could have raved at the hand which had swept
away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest,
for the purposes of mere domestic economy; and would
willingly have been spared the mortification of a walk
through scenes so fallen, had the general allowed it;
but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of
his offices; and as he was convinced that, to a mind like
Miss Morland's, a view of the accommodations and comforts,
by which the labours of her inferiors were softened,
must always be gratifying, he should make no apology
for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all;
and Catherine was impressed, beyond her expectation,
by their multiplicity and their convenience. The purposes
for which a few shapeless pantries and a comfortless
scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton, were here
carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy.
The number of servants continually appearing did not
strike her less than the number of their offices.
Wherever they went, some pattened girl stopped to curtsy,
or some footman in dishabille sneaked off. Yet this was
an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic
arrangements from such as she had read about--from
abbeys and castles, in which, though certainly larger
than Northanger, all the dirty work of the house was
to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost.
How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen;
and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began
to be amazed herself.

They returned to the hall, that the chief staircase
might be ascended, and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments
of rich carving might be pointed out: having gained
the top, they turned in an opposite direction from the
gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered one
on the same plan, but superior in length and breadth.
She was here shown successively into three large
bed-chambers, with their dressing-rooms, most completely
and handsomely fitted up; everything that money and taste
could do, to give comfort and elegance to apartments,
had been bestowed on these; and, being furnished within
the last five years, they were perfect in all that would
be generally pleasing, and wanting in all that could give
pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last,
the general, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished
characters by whom they had at times been honoured,
turned with a smiling countenance to Catherine,
and ventured to hope that henceforward some of their
earliest tenants might be "our friends from Fullerton."
She felt the unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted
the impossibility of thinking well of a man so kindly disposed
towards herself, and so full of civility to all her family.

The gallery was terminated by folding doors, which Miss
Tilney, advancing, had thrown open, and passed through,
and seemed on the point of doing the same by the first
door to the left, in another long reach of gallery,
when the general, coming forwards, called her hastily, and,
as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whether
she were going?--And what was there more to be seen?--Had
not Miss Morland already seen all that could be worth
her notice?--And did she not suppose her friend might be
glad of some refreshment after so much exercise? Miss
Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors were
closed upon the mortified Catherine, who, having seen,
in a momentary glance beyond them, a narrower passage,
more numerous openings, and symptoms of a winding staircase,
believed herself at last within the reach of something
worth her notice; and felt, as she unwillingly paced back
the gallery, that she would rather be allowed to examine
that end of the house than see all the finery of all
the rest. The general's evident desire of preventing
such an examination was an additional stimulant.
Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy,
though it had trespassed lately once or twice,
could not mislead her here; and what that something was,
a short sentence of Miss Tilney's, as they followed
the general at some distance downstairs, seemed to point
out: "I was going to take you into what was my mother's
room--the room in which she died--" were all her words;
but few as they were, they conveyed pages of intelligence
to Catherine. It was no wonder that the general should
shrink from the sight of such objects as that room
must contain; a room in all probability never entered
by him since the dreadful scene had passed, which released
his suffering wife, and left him to the stings of conscience.

She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor,
to express her wish of being permitted to see it,
as well as all the rest of that side of the house;
and Eleanor promised to attend her there, whenever they
should have a convenient hour. Catherine understood her:
the general must be watched from home, before that room
could be entered. "It remains as it was, I suppose?"
said she, in a tone of feeling.

"Yes, entirely."

"And how long ago may it be that your mother died?"

"She has been dead these nine years." And nine years,
Catherine knew, was a trifle of time, compared with what
generally elapsed after the death of an injured wife,
before her room was put to rights.

"You were with her, I suppose, to the last?"

"No," said Miss Tilney, sighing; "I was unfortunately
from home. Her illness was sudden and short; and, before I
arrived it was all over."

Catherine's blood ran cold with the horrid
suggestions which naturally sprang from these words.
Could it be possible? Could Henry's father--? And yet
how many were the examples to justify even the blackest
suspicions! And, when she saw him in the evening,
while she worked with her friend, slowly pacing the
drawing-room for an hour together in silent thoughtfulness,
with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt secure
from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air
and attitude of a Montoni! What could more plainly speak
the gloomy workings of a mind not wholly dead to every
sense of humanity, in its fearful review of past scenes
of guilt? Unhappy man! And the anxiousness of her spirits
directed her eyes towards his figure so repeatedly,
as to catch Miss Tilney's notice. "My father,"
she whispered, "often walks about the room in this way;
it is nothing unusual."

"So much the worse!" thought Catherine; such ill-timed
exercise was of a piece with the strange unseasonableness
of his morning walks, and boded nothing good.

After an evening, the little variety and seeming
length of which made her peculiarly sensible of Henry's
importance among them, she was heartily glad to be dismissed;
though it was a look from the general not designed for
her observation which sent his daughter to the bell.
When the butler would have lit his master's candle, however,
he was forbidden. The latter was not going to retire.
"I have many pamphlets to finish," said he to Catherine,
"before I can close my eyes, and perhaps may be poring over
the affairs of the nation for hours after you are asleep.
Can either of us be more meetly employed? My eyes will
be blinding for the good of others, and yours preparing
by rest for future mischief."

But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent
compliment, could win Catherine from thinking that some
very different object must occasion so serious a delay
of proper repose. To be kept up for hours, after the family
were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely.
There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done
which could be done only while the household slept;
and the probability that Mrs. Tilney yet lived, shut up
for causes unknown, and receiving from the pitiless
hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food,
was the conclusion which necessarily followed.
Shocking as was the idea, it was at least better than
a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural course
of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness
of her reputed illness, the absence of her daughter,
and probably of her other children, at the time--all favoured
the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin--jealousy
perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to be unravelled.

In revolving these matters, while she undressed,
it suddenly struck her as not unlikely that she might
that morning have passed near the very spot of this
unfortunate woman's confinement--might have been within a few
paces of the cell in which she languished out her days;
for what part of the abbey could be more fitted for the
purpose than that which yet bore the traces of monastic
division? In the high-arched passage, paved with stone,
which already she had trodden with peculiar awe,
she well remembered the doors of which the general
had given no account. To what might not those doors
lead? In support of the plausibility of this conjecture,
it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery,
in which lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney,
must be, as certainly as her memory could guide her,
exactly over this suspected range of cells, and the staircase
by the side of those apartments of which she had caught
a transient glimpse, communicating by some secret means
with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarous
proceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she
had perhaps been conveyed in a state of well-prepared
insensibility!

Catherine sometimes started at the boldness of her
own surmises, and sometimes hoped or feared that she had
gone too far; but they were supported by such appearances
as made their dismissal impossible.

The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed
the guilty scene to be acting, being, according to
her belief, just opposite her own, it struck her that,
if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the
general's lamp might glimmer through the lower windows,
as he passed to the prison of his wife; and, twice before
she stepped into bed, she stole gently from her room to the
corresponding window in the gallery, to see if it appeared;
but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too early.
The various ascending noises convinced her that the
servants must still be up. Till midnight, she supposed
it would be in vain to watch; but then, when the clock
had struck twelve, and all was quiet, she would, if not
quite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more.
The clock struck twelve--and Catherine had been half
an hour asleep.