by Jane Austen
“The very picture of him indeed!” cried the mother—and “I should have known her anywhere for his sister!” was repeated by them all, two or three times over (while the air in the room continued to grow curiously cold).
For a moment Catherine was surprised. No, it was not at the chill and the strange heavy stillness all around (if only she had been paying proper attention)—it was merely at the coincidence of such familiarity with her family.
Incidentally, the eldest Miss Thorpe—why, she was indeed so decidedly extraordinary, so remarkable looking, it occurred to Catherine. But in what manner exactly, she was uncertain.
But Mrs. Thorpe and her daughters had scarcely begun the history of their acquaintance with Mr. James Morland, before Catherine remembered that her eldest brother had lately formed an intimacy with a young man of his own college, of the name of Thorpe; and that he had spent Christmas vacation with his family, near London.
The whole being explained, many obliging things were said by the Miss Thorpes of their wish of being better acquainted with her; of being considered as already friends, through the friendship of their brothers, etc., which Catherine heard with pleasure, and answered with all the pretty expressions she could command.
Indeed, all this sudden pleasure was rather remarkable. Catherine was put in a wonderful, even giddy mood—especially the longer she looked upon the decidedly handsome eldest Miss Thorpe.
And, as the first proof of amity, she was soon invited to accept an arm of the same Miss Thorpe, and take a turn with her about the room. It hardly mattered that the arm Catherine touched sent an odd chill right through her gloves, and seemed to grow icy the longer they stayed in contact—Miss Isabella Thorpe radiated uncanny charm and amiability. And all other things and people and temperatures paled in comparison.
Catherine was so delighted with this extension of her Bath acquaintance, that she almost forgot Mr. Tilney while she talked to Miss Thorpe. Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.
Their conversation turned upon subjects which perfect a sudden intimacy between two young ladies: dress, balls, flirtations, and quizzes[8]. Miss Thorpe, being four years older, and at least four years better informed, had a very decided advantage in discussing such points. She could compare the balls of Bath with those of Tunbridge, its fashions with London. She could rectify the opinions of her new friend in many articles of tasteful attire; could discover a flirtation between any gentleman and lady who only smiled on each other; and point out a quiz through the thickness of a crowd.
These powers received due admiration from Catherine, to whom they were entirely new. And the respect which they naturally inspired might have been too great for familiarity, had not the easy gaiety of Miss Thorpe’s manners, and her frequent expressions of delight on their acquaintance, softened down every feeling of awe, and left nothing but tender affection.
And an arm chilled to the bone . . .
Their increasing attachment was not to be satisfied with half a dozen turns in the pump-room, but required, when they all quitted it together, that Miss Thorpe should accompany Miss Morland to the very door of Mr. Allen’s house; and that they should there part with a most affectionate and lengthened shake of hands, after learning, to their mutual relief, that they should see each other across the theatre at night, and say their prayers in the same chapel the next morning.
Catherine then ran directly upstairs, and watched Miss Thorpe’s progress down the street from the drawing-room window; admired the graceful spirit of her walk, the fashionable air of her figure and dress; and felt grateful for the chance which had procured her such a friend.
It was only then that she felt the pulls and tugs on her lace and once more heard the chorus of angelic voices that bloomed into focus once more. Indeed they were teeming in an agitated cloud all about her.
“Dear child!” Terence was crying—or possibly Lawrence—“Oh, what a terrifying sorrow has come upon us!”
“Sorrow? Gracious, what is it?” said Catherine, feeling a tiny twinge of guilt for having genuinely forgotten all about her faithful companions for most of the afternoon.
“Why, it is witnessing you unable to hear us, and not paying any attention, as if you could no longer see us all around you!”
Catherine thought back for a moment. It was true, she did not recall any angels at all for the duration of her delightful new acquaintance. Possibly, they had been there as usual, but she simply did not recall.
“How odd!” admitted Catherine out loud. “I do not remember observing you, Terence—”
“Dear child, it is I, Clarence.”
Catherine coughed.
“I wonder what happened?” she continued. “I must have been so engrossed with the sweet Miss Thorpe—”
“Sweet? Oh, no, you are sorely mistaken, dear Catherine! This Miss Thorpe, as you call her—she is not what she seems!”
“Oh?” Catherine grew more puzzled by the moment. “Whatever is she, then?”
“She is dangerous!”
“She is dark!”
“She is filled with deceit! Corruption!”
“She is wicked—”
“Oh, stop it!” Catherine exclaimed, unable to bear it any longer. “Please stop saying these terrible things! Miss Thorpe is amiable and charming, and she is now my friend!”
At that, the angels settled all around her in unhappy silence.
Mrs. Thorpe was a widow, and not a very rich one. She was a good-humoured, well-meaning woman, and a very indulgent mother. There was entirely nothing metaphysically out of the ordinary about her. But the same could not be said about her two eldest children.
Dear Reader, it must now be told—in her time, Mrs. Thorpe had unluckily given birth to two nephilim.
During her first lying in, a dark being—some might call him a demon of the highest ranks, or possibly a fallen angel—flew over their residence, sensed the quickening of new life and, on a whim, decided to pay an unwelcome visit. That first time he merely touched the sleeping mother’s brow with his fiery breath, and slipped away. The resulting naphil child was a son, and scalding hellfires burned inside him.
The second time the dark being chose to return, a year later, on an equally wicked whim, he breathed an icy breath of the tomb over the mother-to-be, before disappearing. This time the resulting naphil issue was a daughter, with the coldest heart of hell instilled within her.
Poor Mrs. Thorpe! She had no idea. She bore both unknowingly, and all her other children since had been normal, amiable and human.
But the eldest, John and Isabella, were wicked fire and ice. And they had been instructed from below with a dark purpose.
Mrs. Thorpe’s eldest daughter Isabella had great personal physical beauty, and—by virtue of her unnatural tainted bloodline—a great beguiling attraction, to all in general and to the members of the opposite sex in particular. The younger daughters, by pretending to be as handsome as their sister, imitating her air, and dressing in the same style, did very well.
This brief but accurate account of the family is intended to supersede the necessity of a long and minute detail from Mrs. Thorpe herself, of her past adventures and sufferings, which might otherwise occupy three or four tedious chapters while completely failing to mention the supernatural aspects.
Instead, the estimable Reader is forewarned to pay particular heed to the two unnatural children and their dark intentions—with Catherine Morland as their intended prize!
Chapter 5
Catherine was not so engaged at the theatre that evening, in returning the nods and smiles of Miss Thorpe (though they certainly claimed much of her leisure, as did the immediate distracting angelic sighs and whispers in both her ears), as to forget to look inquiringly for Mr. Tilney in every box which her eye could reach.
But she looked in vain. Apparently Mr. Tilney was no fonder of the play than the pump-room.
She hoped to be more fortunate the next day. And when her wishes for fine weather we
re answered by seeing a beautiful morning, Catherine hardly felt a doubt of it—a fine Sunday in Bath empties every house of its inhabitants, and all the world appears to tell their acquaintance what a charming day it is.
As soon as divine service was over (the delightful angelic chorus following her out of the church for quite some time longer than necessary, so that Catherine had to engage in meaningful eye-widening grimaces and facial ticks which were thankfully and mostly unobserved by those in her vicinity), the Thorpes and Allens eagerly joined each other. In vain did Lawrence or Clarence attempt to lecture Catherine when Isabella drew near. Indeed, an angel’s dulcet voice only grew thin and distant, while still saying: “Did you not wonder, dear child, why Miss Thorpe sat at the farthest pew in the back, nearest the exit, and farthest from the sacred altar?”
But, with her ears still ringing from the volume of angelic hymn and therefore somewhat less amenable to their advice in general, Catherine chose to ignore the familiar heavenly admonition and the growing chill in the air. She instead returned her new friend’s exceedingly charming and vibrant smile.
The families stayed long enough in the pump-room to discover that the crowd was insupportable, with not a genteel face to be seen. And so they hastened away to the Crescent, to breathe the fresh air of better company.
Here Catherine and Isabella, arm in arm (Catherine’s going numb from the cold, and yet unheeded), again tasted the sweets of friendship in an unreserved conversation. They talked with much enjoyment; but again was Catherine disappointed in her hope of catching sight of her gentleman partner.
He was nowhere to be met with; neither in morning lounges nor evening assemblies. Neither was he at the Upper nor Lower Rooms, at dressed or undressed balls; nor among the walkers, horsemen, or curricle-drivers. His name was not in the pump-room book, and curiosity could do no more. He must be gone from Bath.
Yet he had not mentioned that his stay would be so short! This sort of mysteriousness, always so becoming in a hero, threw a fresh grace in Catherine’s imagination around his person, and increased her anxiety to know more of him.
From the Thorpes she could learn nothing, for they had been only two days in Bath before they met with Mrs. Allen.
It was a subject, however, in which Catherine often indulged with her fair friend, from whom she received every possible encouragement to continue to think of him. Thus, his impression on her fancy was not to weaken.
Isabella was very sure that he must be a charming young man, and was equally sure that he must have been delighted with her dear Catherine, and would therefore shortly return. She liked him the better for being a clergyman, “for she must confess herself very partial to the profession”; and something like a sigh escaped her as she said it.
Perhaps Catherine was wrong in not demanding the cause of that gentle emotion—but she was not experienced enough in the finesse of love, or the duties of friendship, to know when delicate raillery was properly called for, or when a confidence should be forced. And at that moment there were no angelic voices within awareness to offer the sort of guidance she was willing to hear.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Allen was now quite happy—quite satisfied with Bath. She had at last found some acquaintance in the family of a most worthy old friend; and furthermore had found these friends by no means so expensively dressed as herself. Her previous sad daily expressions were changed into, “How glad I am we have met with Mrs. Thorpe!” and she was as eager in promoting the intercourse[9] of the two families, as her young charge and Isabella themselves could be; spending the chief of each day by the side of Mrs. Thorpe, in what they called conversation (scarcely any exchange of opinion, and hardly any resemblance of subject), for Mrs. Thorpe talked of her children, and Mrs. Allen of her gowns.
Contrary to angelic warning, the progress of the friendship between Catherine and Isabella was quick, as its beginning had been warm (at least in the figurative sense—without admitting it even to herself, Catherine resorted to wearing additional wraps in her friend’s chill-inducing presence; even Mrs. Allen started to notice the cold and complain about it, without clearly knowing its cause).
The two friends passed rapidly through every gradation of increasing tenderness. They called each other by their Christian name, were always arm in (frozen) arm when they walked, pinned up each other’s train for the dance, and were not to be divided in the set. And if a rainy morning deprived them of other enjoyments, they were still resolute in meeting, and shut themselves up, to read novels together.
Yes, novels. For I will not adopt that ungenerous custom so common with novel-writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very things which they are producing—and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine. If she is to accidentally take up a novel[10], she must turn over its insipid pages with disgust.[11]
Alas! If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers[12] to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure, and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans.[13]
Let us not desert one another; we are an injured body. Although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world, no species of composition has been so much decried.[14]
From pride, ignorance, or fashion, our foes are almost as many as our readers.[15] There seems almost a general wish of decrying the capacity and undervaluing the labour of the novelist,[16] and of slighting the performances which have only genius, wit, and taste to recommend them.
“I am no novel-reader—I seldom look into novels—Do not imagine that I often read novels—It is really very well for a novel.” Such is the common cant.
“And what are you reading, Miss—?”
“Oh! It is only a novel!” replies the young lady, while she lays down her book with affected indifference, or momentary shame. “It is only Cecilia, or Camilla, or Belinda”—only some work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest delineation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, are conveyed to the world in the best-chosen language. Now, had the same young lady been engaged with a volume of the Spectator,[17] instead of such a work, how proudly would she have produced the book!
Thus ends the Authorial Aside, and we may now proceed with the Story.
Chapter 6
The following momentous 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, of delicacy, originality of thought, of literary taste . . . and of the dreadful danger in which our heroine was about to find herself.
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!”
Catherine, who had been making haste but was being invariably detained by trifles of suspiciously angelic origin—such as her gown catching on stationary objects every few steps, her lace and ribbons pulled and tweaked by invisible breezes, her sash nearly getting pulled by a closing door, and her bonnet swept sideways by a particularly ferocious gust in an otherwise calm day—could only respond with apologies.
“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,” said Isabella, smiling in delightful honeyed reproach.
Catherine felt the familiar gathering of cold as she found herself standing at her dear friend’s side, and resolutely ignoring the drop in degrees. A few gentlemen passerby threw them curious glances, lingering in particular on irresistible Miss Thorpe despite her arctic clime.
“But now, let us go and sit down at the other end of the room, and enjoy ourselves.” Isabella continued, taking Catherine by the arm and leading her along (it occurred to Catherine yet again she might consider bringing along a fur muff, just for that arm). “I have an hundred things to say to you. In the first place, I was so afraid it would rain this morning, and that would have thrown me into agonies! Do you know, I saw the prettiest hat in a shop window in Milsom Street just now—very like yours; 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?”
She was referring, of course, to the dire and dreadful and wonderful novel—the one that Catherine had been reading with passionate horror before bed the previous eve, and the one which several angels attempted to hide from her nightstand, locking it in a commode.
“Yes, I have been reading it ever since I woke; and I am got to the black veil.” Catherine was not the least bit ashamed to admit her engrossed interest in Mrs. Radcliffe’s creation of wild fancy.
Isabella’s lovely eyes seemed brighter than usual in response. Or possibly they changed hue to a peculiar yellowish tinge—that could not be, of course, it was just a trick of the morning light . . .
“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?”
“No, dear child! You must not be tricked into agreeing!”
The words came as though from a great distance, then grew louder—Angels! Her familiar angels were clamoring all around, and suddenly once again Catherine could hear them all; and she blinked, as though coming awake.
“Catherine!” exclaimed a tiny being of light, darting just below her ear. “Believe us! This is the moment of truth! If you reply in agreement to her innocently veiled question—nay, a secret request to claim your soul—you are in fact agreeing to her dark influence! Her query is a trick!’