by Jane Austen
Catherine was so agitated that the angels began to fly about in sympathetic extraordinary clamor, some of them colliding with each other, and one landing distastefully on top of Thorpe’s rakish yet clod-like hat.
“Unsafe! Oh, lord! What is there in that? They will only get a roll if it does break down; and there is plenty of dirt; it will be excellent falling. Oh, curse it! The carriage is safe enough, if a man knows how to drive it. A thing of that sort in good hands will last above twenty years after it is fairly worn out. Lord bless you! I would undertake for five pounds to drive it to York and back again, without losing a nail.”
Catherine listened with astonishment. She knew not how to reconcile two such very different accounts of the same thing. She had not been brought up to understand the propensities of such a vain rattle for idle assertions and impudent falsehoods.
Her own family were plain, matter-of-fact people who seldom aimed at wit of any kind. Her father was content with a pun, her mother with a proverb. Neither were in the habit of telling lies to increase their importance, or of asserting at one moment what they would contradict the next.
Catherine reflected on all this in much perplexity, and was on the point of requesting from Mr. Thorpe a clarification of his real opinion on the subject. But she checked herself—clearly he did not excel in being plain. And surely he would not suffer his sister and his friend to be exposed to the dangers of an unsafe carriage. There was decidedly no need to be alarmed.
In that exact same moment, an event took place, which no one could have predicted on such a fine mild day in February.
They were passing a copse of trees, and suddenly a dark, large, swiftly moving object came hurtling down upon them—seemingly from out of nowhere, possibly from the branches or possibly even from heaven itself.
There were no words to properly describe it. Fairly, it was winged, with a great wide wingspan, silhouetted black against the sky, and it made loud horrifying thunderous noises, not unlike honks, and very similar to a foghorn, yet more sonorous, and altogether dreadful.
The creature, flapping wildly, screeching like a flock of banshees (and nearly as terribly as Isabella), lunged directly at the carriage driven by Thorpe.
While Thorpe had one hand on the reins, the other clutching the whip, he could not very well do anything appropriate to defend himself or his fair passenger, except roar.
Catherine squeaked only once, briefly, in horror. She naturally shrank away from the beating wings, then grew instantly silent. Because what followed was a truly heart-stopping, intestine-curdling shriek from the other carriage—worthy of Udolpho and Mrs. Radcliffe’s darkest sanguined nightmare.
It was Isabella—who had seen the thing attacking them and reacted as was expected of a lady.
“Ah! Heaven help us!” cried James next to her, jumping in sudden terror and nearly losing control of his carriage (and lord knows what else).
“What in blazes is this? What?” exclaimed Thorpe, baring his long yellow ogre teeth which only Catherine could see. He then brandished his whip in an attempt to fight off the thing attacking him in the face with its powerful wings, beating at him, clawing at his hat, his nose—
And not even once touching Catherine.
Therefore our heroine remained silent, shocked into horrified amazement, but not particularly alarmed for her own safety. Even the angels nearest to her were surprisingly unresponsive, as they soared gently in the vicinity, watching also it seemed, as John Thorpe was being thoroughly mauled and assailed.
Isabella shrieked again, and Catherine almost reacted by stopping her ears with her fingers, but held herself back from such an unseemly, rudely inappropriate action.
“What is this, oh lord! What is this?” she finally exclaimed, blinking from the feathers flying in every direction, into her face, as Thorpe was snarling, huffing and puffing, and wallowing in his seat, while the horse blessedly stood in place.
“Some kind of horrid bird!” shrieked Isabella.
“Is that a wild . . . chicken? A pheasant, mayhap?” Catherine was not sure what it could possibly be, considering its white-tipped grayish feathers. “Could it perchance be rabid?” she ventured.
“No! This is no blasted rabbit!” roared Thorpe. “Lord help you! whoever heard of a flying rabbit? What kind of blazing nonsense do they teach the ladies these days—”
“Oh, I know it, wait, I know it!” James attempted to calm his own horse, as he yelled out. “It’s that famous duck, is it not? What is it called again? You know, the horrid one, the Bath Duck? No—the Brighton Duck!”
“By Jove, yes! The monster!” cried John Thorpe, as the flying thing swooped away, then came back for another pass. “That’s it, yes! It has to be! It’s none other than the Brighton Duck! Just look at the size of it!”
Catherine recalled the frightful stories told of a monstrous, decidedly unnatural duck terrorizing various neighborhoods, mostly in the county of Northampton, but seen also in Portsmouth and London and various other locales. Supposedly it originally hailed from Peking, then was purchased by a gentleman in Brighton and raised by that same gentleman, an heir to a baronetcy, to be a killer. The duck escaped, and had been blamed in the death of a prominent dowager—indeed, a half a dozen ladies of rank—and the collapse of an admiral and several otherwise valiant gentlemen . . .
What horrors, worthy of Udolpho!
Catherine shivered despite the waves of heat streaming from her carriage companion, and observed the duck continue to assault the gentleman at her side.
“But is it not nocturnal, then?” she ventured once more. “Why is it out and about now? And why attack us?—or, attack Mr. Thorpe, to be precise?”
“No one knows the ways of such abominations, my dearest!” screeched Isabella from the other carriage. “You must remain brave, my sweet Catherine, my dearest friend! For I cannot bear to lose you! No, I cannot! Not to this horrid creature! And you, John, you must stand firm against it! Fight, fight valiantly, and we shall venture to get help!” And with those loyal words of friendship and sisterly concern, she turned to James, exclaiming, “Drive on, Mr. Morland, this instant! You must not sit still here another moment, we must flee!”
Before James could make any reasonable decision related to the situation, the duck abruptly gave one truly horrible screech-honk. It then rose high overhead and suddenly let go of some goodly amount of an unmentionable but completely natural material which landed precisely with a filthy plop on top of Thorpe’s hat.
John Thorpe roared like a herd of elephants, and spun around with the whip, missing everything thankfully, including Catherine, the carriage, and the long-suffering horse.
The Brighton Duck trumpeted its victory, circled once more, higher, and then took off, unscathed, wings beating rapidly, somewhere into the trees.
It was gone.
For a long moment everyone remained motionless and silent. And then Thorpe removed his hat, shook it out over the side of the carriage (not particularly taking care not to splatter Catherine), spat unceremoniously, said a few dire oaths, and then put the hat back on his frightful head.
“Hah!” he then cried. “I taught that monster a lesson, did I not? Hah!” And he brandished his whip for good measure.
“Are you well, Catherine, dearest?” Isabella intoned from the other carriage. “I was just telling Mr. Morland, he is to come to your rescue immediately, but men are such slow-witted creatures—”
“I am quite well,” Catherine reassured her friend. “But I am concerned, is Mr. Thorpe in any way hurt? Are you, sir?”
“Hurt? Me, Miss Morland, hurt? Hah!” roared Thorpe. “I just drove off a giant of a monster, did I not? As everyone is my witness, it was the size of a goat at least, nay, a bullock! I showed it who is master, it was thoroughly thrashed by my whip, and will never venture to harm anyone again!”
“But,” Catherine said, “it appeared to fly off on its own.”
“On its own? By heaven, what nonsense! I drove it away, wounding it
, and it is even now suffering from a mortal blow to itself! It slunk away to expire, Miss Morland, did not you see? Even now it probably staggers somewhere in the shrubbery, croaking its last unholy breath! Mark my words, the monster will be found legs up and stiff as a board, upon the morrow!”
Catherine wisely decided not to say another word. Meanwhile, James and Thorpe conversed briefly, and it was mutually decided that everyone was sufficiently well and unperturbed to continue their excursion.
The carriages thus resumed motion, and John Thorpe periodically roared out “Hah!” every several paces, for at least a quarter of an hour.
Soon enough the details of the whole matter seemed entirely forgotten by him. All the rest of his talk covered his usual concerns—horses bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums; racing matches, in which he infallibly foretold the winner; shooting parties, in which he had killed more birds than all his companions together (and each bird twice the size of that Brighton Duck!); and some famous day’s sport with the fox-hounds, in which his skill had surmounted that of the most experienced huntsman, and the boldness of his riding, though never endangering his own life for a moment—he calmly concluded—had broken the necks of many.
Catherine was not in the habit of judging others, and her general notions were unfixed. But while she endured his endless conceit, she could not repress a sense that John Thorpe was altogether completely and hopelessly disagreeable. Yes, he was a naphil, a strange unnatural creature, and rather a frightful ogre with large yellow teeth, but up to this moment she had done him the honor of keeping a charitable open mind.
But, as of now, the gentleman had crossed the line of all good breeding, manners, and charity.
It was a bold surmise. For he was Isabella’s brother; and she had been assured by James that his manners would recommend him to all her sex. But in spite of this, the increasingly oppressive weariness of Thorpe’s company—from the beginning till they stopped in Pulteney Street again—induced Catherine to resist such high fraternal authority. After all, James had been bewitched by Isabella! Catherine was yet to have a painful discussion with him about that unfortunate circumstance.
When they arrived at Mrs. Allen’s door, Isabella was suddenly astonished to find that it was too late in the day for them to attend her friend into the house: “Past three o’clock!” Isabella refused to believe any watch, but could only protest that no two hours and a half had ever gone off so swiftly before, as Catherine was called on to confirm.
Catherine could not tell such a blunt falsehood even to please Isabella; but, happily, the latter did not wait for her answer. She was wretchedly obliged to go directly home. It was ages since she had had a moment’s conversation with her dearest Catherine; with thousands of things to say, yet apparently they were never to be together again. So, with smiles of most exquisite misery, and the laughing eye of utter despondency, Isabella rushed away.
Catherine found Mrs. Allen just returned from all the busy morning idleness, and was greeted with, “Well, my dear, here you are, and I hope you have had a pleasant airing?”
“Yes, ma’am, we could not have had a nicer day.” As she spoke thus, Catherine glanced at the dear angels all around her with a measure of guilt, recalling infernal heat, horrid tedious ogre Mr. Thorpe, and the frightful duck.
“Mrs. Thorpe was vastly pleased at your all going.”
“You have seen Mrs. Thorpe, then?”
“Yes, I went to the pump-room as soon as you were gone, and there I met her, and we had a great deal of talk together.”
“Did you see anybody else of our acquaintance?”
“Yes; we agreed to take a turn in the Crescent, and there we met Mrs. Hughes, and Mr. and Miss Tilney walking with her.”
“Did you indeed? And did they speak to you?”
“Yes, we walked along the Crescent together for half an hour. They seem very agreeable people. Miss Tilney was in a very pretty spotted muslin, and I fancy, she always dresses very handsomely. Mrs. Hughes talked a great deal about the family.”
“And what did she tell you of them?”
“Oh! A vast deal indeed; she hardly talked of anything else. That is, also something about treasure, rumored to be in Bath. Upon my word, she says there is a secret hoard of immense riches fit for a king, hidden somewhere hereabouts—”
“Did she tell you what part of Gloucestershire they come from?”
“Yes, she did; but I cannot recollect now; all that talk of secret clues and treasure had me all agitated and inclined to quiz everyone passing by—But yes, they are very good people, and very rich. Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Tilney were schoolfellows. Back then Mrs. Tilney was a Miss Drummond with a very large fortune. When she married, her father gave her twenty thousand pounds, and five hundred to buy wedding-clothes.”
“And are Mr. and Mrs. Tilney in Bath?”
“Yes, I fancy they are, but I am not quite certain. Or, I have a notion they are both dead; at least the mother is. Yes, I am sure Mrs. Tilney is dead. Mrs. Hughes told me that Mr. Drummond gave his daughter very beautiful pearls on her wedding-day, and Miss Tilney has them now, for they were to be hers when her mother died.”
“And is Mr. Tilney, my dancing partner, the only son?”
“I cannot be quite positive about that, my dear; I have some idea he is. A very fine young man, and likely to do very well.”
Catherine inquired no further; Mrs. Allen had no real intelligence to give. Catherine had missed a delightful meeting with both brother and sister.
Could she have foreseen such a circumstance, nothing should have persuaded her to go out with the others. She could only lament her ill luck, and think over what she had lost in exchange for a disagreeable drive with a gentleman ogre.
Chapter 10
The Allens, Thorpes, and Morlands all met in the evening at the theatre. As Catherine and Isabella sat together, here was an opportunity for the latter to utter the many thousand things which had been collecting within her.
“Oh, heavens! My beloved Catherine, have I got you at last?” was her address on Catherine’s entering the box and sitting by her. “Now, Mr. Morland,” for he was close to her on the other side, “I shall not speak another word to you all the rest of the evening.”
And then Isabella proceeded to regale Catherine with inquiry-styled commentary that neither begged nor allowed a response, but consisted of gusts of ice-cold air and screeching praise of her hairstyle, dress and appearance, insinuations that John Thorpe was besotted with her, and inquiries as to the whereabouts of the elusive Mr. Tilney who was obviously the most delightful man in the world and perfectly attached to Catherine, and where in the world was he, and could Catherine see him in the theatre?
“No,” said Catherine, shivering, “he is not here; I cannot see him anywhere.”
“Oh, horrid! Am I never to be acquainted with him? How do you like my gown?” And Isabella raised her voice in amazing modulations distinguished only by Catherine and the angels in the vicinity who rose up in startled flocks with great frequency whenever she reached a certain pitch.
“Do you know, I get so immoderately sick of Bath; your brother and I were agreeing this morning that, though it is vastly well to be here for a few weeks, we would not live here for millions.”
“But what about the secret hidden treasure? Do you not want to say here long enough to discover it?” Catherine artlessly spoke her mind, while pulling her wrap closer about her for desperate warmth against the polar freezing atmosphere. “I thought that was the primary object of your visit here? That is, Mr. Thorpe mentioned that there were hidden clues—”
“Oh heavens! Whatever do you mean, dearest? However did you hear that? What has my very silly brother said to you?” Isabella’s voice went from screeching to hollow and scraping, and her sallow countenance turned even more unhealthy and possibly bluish-green, while her yellow eyes glowed a veritable chartreuse.
“Oh! Well, I simply inquired what he was going on about at the ball the other day—I o
verheard Mr. Thorpe conversing with himself, and he admitted he was apparently very interested in discovering the whereabouts of this treasure; and for that matter James was too—”
“James! Goodness, how does James know about it? Could it be possible, has John told this silly nonsense to everyone in Bath?”
“Well, apparently so, for it is spoken of plainly on the streets, and Mrs. Allen mentioned it; I believe Mrs. Hughes talked about it the other day; or maybe not—”
Isabella looked as if she were about to collapse in a faint, or use her rapidly fluttering fan as an implement of murder.
“Well!” she said after a few moments, seeming to recover. “Upon my word, this is indeed an interesting development. My dearest brother has been very loose with his tongue, and we must now make the best of it.”
“I am sorry if it were intended to be a great secret,” said Catherine. “But I truly could not help overhearing—”
“Oh, my darling, never mind, and it is perfectly dear of you to be intrigued with this. Indeed, now that you know about this silly little secret, we can speak of it freely, and—” here Isabella’s voice rose into a particularly high screech—“perchance you can even help me discover the secret clues! Yes! We will have a splendid time!”
Catherine was somewhat relieved that she did not have to withhold her awareness of this particular subject from Isabella any longer, for she had felt dreadfully uncomfortable when Thorpe had divulged it under such dire threats to secrecy.
“Since it is not such a secret any longer,” said Catherine, “maybe we will indeed discover it and decrypt the clues. Mr. Thorpe did say that it had something to do with Udolpho or Mrs. Radcliffe’s other novels?”
Isabella’s yellow eyes were lit with greedy excitement. “Why yes, dear Catherine! We—John and I that is, no one else knows about it—we believe the clues lie within the novels, possibly in the titles of the novels themselves! Remember I had given you a list of those titles that absolutely must be read? They are in fact not written by Mrs. Radcliffe (which John constantly forgets), but they are all the same kind of novel.”