Northanger Abbey, Page 23

  CHAPTER 23

  An hour passed away before the general came in, spent, on the part ofhis young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his character."This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mindat ease, or a conscience void of reproach." At length he appeared; and,whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could stillsmile with them. Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend'scuriosity to see the house, soon revived the subject; and her fatherbeing, contrary to Catherine's expectations, unprovided with anypretence for further delay, beyond that of stopping five minutes toorder refreshments to be in the room by their return, was at last readyto 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-readCatherine, he led the way across the hall, through the commondrawing-room and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent bothin size and furniture--the real drawing-room, used only with company ofconsequence. It was very noble--very grand--very charming!--was all thatCatherine had to say, for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discernedthe colour of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praisethat had much meaning, was supplied by the general: the costliness orelegance of any room's fitting-up could be nothing to her; she cared forno furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century. When thegeneral had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close examination of everywell-known ornament, they proceeded into the library, an apartment, inits way, of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection of books, onwhich an humble man might have looked with pride. Catherine heard,admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than before--gatheredall that she could from this storehouse of knowledge, by running overthe titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed. But suites ofapartments 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 nowseen surrounded three sides of the court, she could scarcely believe it,or overcome the suspicion of there being many chambers secreted. It wassome relief, however, that they were to return to the rooms in commonuse, by passing through a few of less importance, looking into thecourt, which, with occasional passages, not wholly unintricate,connected the different sides; and she was further soothed in herprogress by being told that she was treading what had once been acloister, having traces of cells pointed out, and observing severaldoors that were neither opened nor explained to her--by finding herselfsuccessively in a billiard-room, and in the general's private apartment,without comprehending their connection, or being able to turn arightwhen 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 beseen at five o'clock, the general could not forgo the pleasure of pacingout the length, for the more certain information of Miss Morland, asto what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded by quickcommunication to the kitchen--the ancient kitchen of the convent, richin the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the stoves and hotclosets of the present. The general's improving hand had not loiteredhere: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of the cooks hadbeen adopted within this, their spacious theatre; and, when the geniusof others had failed, his own had often produced the perfection wanted.His endowments of this spot alone might at any time have placed him highamong the benefactors of the convent.

  With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey; thefourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying state,been removed by the general's father, and the present erected in itsplace. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was notonly new, but declared itself to be so; intended only for offices, andenclosed behind by stable-yards, no uniformity of architecture had beenthought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the hand which hadswept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest, for thepurposes of mere domestic economy; and would willingly have been sparedthe mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the generalallowed it; but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement of hisoffices; 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 herinferiors were softened, must always be gratifying, he should makeno apology for leading her on. They took a slight survey of all; andCatherine was impressed, beyond her expectation, by their multiplicityand their convenience. The purposes for which a few shapeless pantriesand a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at Fullerton, werehere carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious and roomy. Thenumber of servants continually appearing did not strike her less thanthe number of their offices. Wherever they went, some pattened girlstopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked off. Yet thiswas an abbey! How inexpressibly different in these domestic arrangementsfrom such as she had read about--from abbeys and castles, in which,though certainly larger than Northanger, all the dirty work of the housewas to be done by two pair of female hands at the utmost. How they couldget through it all had often amazed Mrs. Allen; and, when Catherine sawwhat 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 bepointed out: having gained the top, they turned in an opposite directionfrom the gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered one onthe same plan, but superior in length and breadth. She was here shownsuccessively into three large bed-chambers, with their dressing-rooms,most completely and handsomely fitted up; everything that money andtaste could do, to give comfort and elegance to apartments, had beenbestowed on these; and, being furnished within the last five years, theywere perfect in all that would be generally pleasing, and wanting in allthat could give pleasure to Catherine. As they were surveying the last,the general, after slightly naming a few of the distinguished charactersby whom they had at times been honoured, turned with a smilingcountenance to Catherine, and ventured to hope that henceforward some oftheir earliest tenants might be "our friends from Fullerton." She feltthe unexpected compliment, and deeply regretted the impossibility ofthinking well of a man so kindly disposed towards herself, and so fullof 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 pointof doing the same by the first door to the left, in another long reachof gallery, when the general, coming forwards, called her hastily, and,as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whether she weregoing?--And what was there more to be seen?--Had not Miss Morlandalready seen all that could be worth her notice?--And did she notsuppose her friend might be glad of some refreshment after so muchexercise? Miss Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors wereclosed upon the mortified Catherine, who, having seen, in a momentaryglance beyond them, a narrower passage, more numerous openings, andsymptoms of a winding staircase, believed herself at last within thereach of something worth her notice; and felt, as she unwillingly pacedback the gallery, that she would rather be allowed to examine that endof the house than see all the finery of all the rest. The general'sevident desire of preventing such an examination was an additionalstimulant. Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy, thoughit had trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here;and what that something was, a short sentence of Miss Tilney's, as theyfollowed the general at some distance downstairs, seemed to point out:"I was going to take you into what was my mother's room--the roomin which she died--" were all her words; but few as they were, theyconveyed pages of intelligence to Catherine. It was no wonder that thegeneral should shrink from the sight of such objects as that roommust contain; a room in all probability never entered by him since thedreadful scene had passed, which released his suffering wife, and lefthim to the stings of conscience.

  She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, t
o express her wish of beingpermitted 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 aconvenient hour. Catherine understood her: the general must be watchedfrom home, before that room could be entered. "It remains as it was, Isuppose?" 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 thedeath 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. Herillness was sudden and short; and, before I arrived it was all over."

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

  "So much the worse!" thought Catherine; such ill-timed exercise was of apiece with the strange unseasonableness of his morning walks, and bodednothing good.

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

  But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment,could win Catherine from thinking that some very different object mustoccasion 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 couldbe done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs.Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from thepitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was theconclusion which necessarily followed. Shocking as was the idea, itwas at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the naturalcourse of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of herreputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her otherchildren, at the time--all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment.Its origin--jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty--was yet to beunravelled.

  In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck heras not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the veryspot of this unfortunate woman's confinement--might have been withina few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for whatpart of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that whichyet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched passage,paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, shewell remembered the doors of which the general had given no account. Towhat might not those doors lead? In support of the plausibility of thisconjecture, it further occurred to her that the forbidden gallery, inwhich lay the apartments of the unfortunate Mrs. Tilney, must be, ascertainly as her memory could guide her, exactly over this suspectedrange of cells, and the staircase by the side of those apartments ofwhich she had caught a transient glimpse, communicating by somesecret means with those cells, might well have favoured the barbarousproceedings of her husband. Down that staircase she had perhaps beenconveyed in a state of well-prepared insensibility!

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

  The side of the quadrangle, in which she supposed the guilty scene to beacting, being, according to her belief, just opposite her own, it struckher that, if judiciously watched, some rays of light from the general'slamp might glimmer through the lower windows, as he passed to the prisonof his wife; and, twice before she stepped into bed, she stole gentlyfrom her room to the corresponding window in the gallery, to see if itappeared; but all abroad was dark, and it must yet be too early. Thevarious ascending noises convinced her that the servants must still beup. 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 notquite appalled by darkness, steal out and look once more. The clockstruck twelve--and Catherine had been half an hour asleep.