by Jane Austen
In the meantime, the town bookshops had been stripped of every copy of every volume ever written by Mrs. Radcliffe and her literary colleagues, and the lending libraries had a run on all her works by patrons swiftly reserving and withdrawing all editions—with one location witnessing an unfortunate incident that concluded in a duel of honor between a marquis and a baronet, all because of a single remaining unreserved volume of The Mysteries of Udolpho which was considered the masterwork and the key to the decryption of the entire grand mystery.
Wherever one went in Bath, quizzing glasses were pointed at inanimate objects on street corners, and erudite gentlemen and ladies wisely commented on every street sign, every statue of a saint, angel, and classical or historic personage, frozen in aspects that were somehow deigned meaningful. That figure had its upraised arm pointing at the bell tower; this was surely inclined to the right to indicate the theatre; that one bowing to the ground to suggest, “Dig here!”
And thus they dug—here, there, and everywhere—in planters, around columns and posts, in backyard gardens (cultivating meaningful root vegetables—and then simply any roots of any plant that appeared in the least bit guilty of secrets) underneath every spot where a pick or shovel could be made to disturb the earth in response to “Mysterious Warnings.” Gentlemen walking the street no longer carried walking sticks but cleverly designed shovels they could unfold at any opportunity of impending Clue, like an umbrella for sudden precipitation. Ladies were equipped with small hand baskets, and wild random trinkets filled them; “Midnight Bells” being most common, followed closely by turnips, potatoes, carrots, or other edible roots.
Mrs. “Clermont” and her daughters were subjected to more daily visitors than they could handle—indeed, a steady relentless stream of perfect strangers coming to call, often at scandalous hours. They were constantly stopped on the streets or interviewed in their own parlor as to the significance of this or that, and their opinion on practically everything. They were introduced to orphans and presented with discreet cowbells. In addition, they each received several dozen marriage proposals, which Mrs. Clermont, an impoverished but genteel widow, found extremely gratifying for all (indeed, she and her spinster daughters were now suddenly all settled in way of impending matrimony to gentlemen of excellent connections, and all within one remarkable season).
A similar wave of attention plagued every lady and gentleman with the initials MW, and in some cases merely with the surname W. And oh, poor Beatrice Foster! How many times must the dear lady prove to practical strangers that she was not something or another; and if she was not, then surely she must know someone who was, or is—whatever that is or is not, or was or was not[21]. In particular had she resisted being thought the “Necromancer of the Black Forest” which, to put it plain, was entirely unseemly.
Two local orphanages became exceedingly popular, and the children were quizzed and examined, and inquiries were made as far as their Germanic origin. Indeed, the headmasters and proprietors soon recognized the advantage, and suddenly every darling child was discovered to be an “Orphan of the Rhine.”
One gentleman of poor hearing took the above notion to an unfortunate extreme, and made relentless inquiries at the selfsame orphanages, as to whether there were any rye fields in the neighborhood, and if any of the dear orphans had been discovered “in the rye.”
A certain Lord Wolfe was driven to distraction by inquiries as to whether he had the right to an ancestral title of “Wolfenbach”—and if so, if it had for its symbol a toothy grand wolf—and whether he owned a hoary castle somewhere in Austria; and if so, if it was called the “Castle of Wolfenbach.” Meanwhile, various fine dining establishments made a point of emphasizing that they served cow, and fresh milk, and that the beef and dairy had indeed come from the grassy cow-teeming fields and green cow-overrun glades surrounding the “Castle of Wolfenbach”—with or without the blessing of Lord Wolfe and his supposed bovine-or-wolf-infested family.
A clever lady proposed that “Horrid Mysteries” indicated HM and was a secret royal treasure designator. An overly clever gentleman insisted that MB, the initials of “Midnight Bell,” were to be reversed as BM, which indicated a certain bodily function not to be mentioned in polite society (but eagerly to be analyzed and poked and prodded—to pardon the putrid pun—in less sensitive company at the private clubs).
Indeed, things had generated to the point of being delightful to the extreme, and Mr. Allen and Mrs. Allen both had acquired a new fascination with all of it.
Thus, they all had to stay in Bath. How could they not stay, when the whole world was now here, running around in search of wonderfully amusing secret clues, or looking overhead to quiz the heavens for a glimpse of flying dragons?
Oh dear! And all of it is my fault, thought Catherine. If only I had not divulged my silly thoughts on those horrid clues to Mr. Thorpe who then shared them with so many—
In that additional time allotted to their visit here, our heroine herself had other more serious intentions. Secrets of the Udolpho Code to be unraveled were splendid in themselves. But Catherine was also hoping to gather enough courage to address her brother and have a discussion about certain unnatural and dangerous cold-front-inducing females who in reality were not lovely beauties but leathery stick-like scarecrows, with hay for hair, angular frightful countenances and bright yellow eyes—not to mention, with infernal ogre brothers. . . .
But every time Catherine found herself alone with James, she felt tongue-tied, and no words would come out. How to even begin to describe her reasons for the evil of this engagement without describing her ability to see angels and demons and everything else? In addition, despite everything wicked she knew about the naphil, she genuinely pitied Isabella. And so Catherine experienced agonies of guilt with every passing day.
What this additional fortnight was to produce to her beyond the fright of talking to James and the pleasure of sometimes seeing Henry Tilney made but a small part of Catherine’s speculation. Once or twice indeed, since James’s engagement had given her certain notions, she had got so far as to indulge in a secret “perhaps.” But in general, the felicity of being with Mr. Tilney for the present bounded her views—the present was now comprised in another three weeks of happiness, while the future was too remote to excite interest.
In the course of the morning, she visited Miss Tilney, and poured forth her joyful feelings. But no sooner had she expressed her delight in Mr. Allen’s lengthened stay than Miss Tilney told her of her father’s having just determined upon quitting Bath by the end of another week.
Here was a blow! Catherine’s countenance fell. In a small voice she echoed Miss Tilney, “By the end of another week!”
“Yes, my father can seldom be prevailed on to give the waters a fair trial. He is now in a hurry to get home.”
“I am very sorry for it,” said Catherine dejectedly; “if I had known this before—”
“Perhaps,” said Miss Tilney in an embarrassed manner, “you would be so good—it would make me very happy if—”
The entrance of her father put a stop to the civility, which Catherine hoped might introduce a desire of their corresponding. After addressing her with his usual politeness, he turned to his daughter and said, “Well, Eleanor, may I congratulate you on being successful in your application to your fair friend?”
“I was just beginning to make the request, sir, as you came in.”
“Well, proceed by all means. I know how much your heart is in it. My daughter, Miss Morland,” he continued, without leaving his daughter time to speak, “has been forming a very bold wish. We leave Bath, as she has perhaps told you, on Saturday. My presence is wanted at home; and disappointed in my hope of seeing some of my very old friends, there is nothing to detain me longer in Bath. And but for you, we should leave it without regret. Can you, in short, be prevailed on to quit this scene of public triumph and treasure hunting and oblige your friend Eleanor with your company in Gloucestershire?”
The
general then added, “I am almost ashamed to make the request, though its presumption would certainly appear greater to every creature in Bath than yourself. Modesty such as yours—If you can be induced to honour us with a visit, you will make us happy beyond expression. ’Tis true, we can offer you nothing like the gaieties of this lively place; neither amusement nor splendour, for our mode of living, as you see, is plain and unpretending. Yet nothing shall be wanting on our side to make Northanger Abbey not wholly disagreeable.”
Northanger Abbey! These were thrilling words, and wound up Catherine’s feelings to the highest point of ecstasy.
Her grateful and gratified heart could hardly restrain its expressions. To receive so flattering an invitation! To have her company so warmly solicited! Everything honourable and wonderful was generously implied. And her acceptance, hinging only on parental approbation, was eagerly given. “I will write home directly,” said she, “I dare say they will not object—”
Meanwhile, General Tilney had already waited on her excellent friends in Pulteney Street, and obtained their sanction. “Since they can consent to part with you,” said he, “we may expect success.”
Miss Tilney was gently earnest in her secondary civilities, and in a few minutes the affair became nearly settled.
Catherine’s morning had started with uncertainty but now was safely lodged in perfect bliss. With spirits elated to rapture, with Henry at her heart, and Northanger Abbey on her lips, she hurried home to write her letter.
Mr. and Mrs. Morland felt no doubt of the propriety of entrusting their daughter on this new fine acquaintance; and their ready consent to her visit in Gloucestershire was sent by return post. This indulgence completed her conviction of being favoured beyond every other human creature, in friends and fortune, circumstance and chance—and of course angelic oversight and guidance.
Everything seemed to cooperate for her advantage. By the kindness of the Allens she had been introduced into scenes where pleasures of every kind had met her. Her feelings and preferences were reciprocated. Wherever she felt attachment, she had been able to create it.
There was even the unnatural affection of a naphil, Isabella, who apparently had every sincere intent to be her dearest sister.
The Tilneys—they, by whom, above all, she desired to be favourably thought of—outstripped even her wishes in the flattering measures by which their intimacy was to be continued. She was to be their chosen visitor! She was to be for weeks under the same roof with the person whose society she mostly prized—and, in addition, this roof was to be the roof of an abbey!
Her passion for ancient edifices was next in degree to her passion for Henry Tilney—and castles and abbeys made usually the charm of those reveries which his image did not fill. To see and explore either the ramparts and keep of the one, or the cloisters of the other, had been for many weeks a darling wish. And now, this was to happen. Verily, Udolpho itself was to be before her, unraveling in all its occult glory!
“Take care, dear child!” whispered the angels. “There is indeed danger to be found here!”
“Criminy! Danger abides everywhere, including Bath, and I dare say, Fullerton!” replied Catherine, emboldened by the near fulfillment of her oldest desire.
With all the chances against her of house, hall, place, park, court, and cottage, Northanger turned up an abbey—a glorious haunted, ancient, twisted, menacing, drafty (the draftier the better) horrid delight of an abbey!—and she was to be its inhabitant!
Oh, its long, damp passages! Oh, its narrow cells and ruined chapel; oh, its dark, wicked, accursed, thoroughly sanguined, goodness-knows-whatsits!—All were to be within her daily reach! Who needed silly hidden treasure hoards (and strange, unidentified, and not-sufficiently-determined-to-be-real airborne dragons), when there was to be metaphysical ancient mystery? And she could not entirely subdue the hope of some traditional legends, some awful memorials of an injured and ill-fated nun. Or several nuns! Fie, an entire abbey of them!
And in all this, it was a wonder that her friends should seem so little elated by the possession of such a home. The power of early habit only could account for it. A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride. Their superiority of horrid abode was no more to them than their superiority of person.
Many were the inquiries that Catherine was eager to make of Miss Tilney. But so active were her thoughts, that when these inquiries were answered, she was hardly more assured than before—of Northanger Abbey having been a richly endowed convent at the time of the Reformation, of its having fallen into the hands of an ancestor of the Tilneys on its dissolution, of a large portion of the ancient building still making a part of the present dwelling although the rest was decayed, or of its standing low in a valley, sheltered from the north and east by rising woods of oak.
Catherine listened pointedly but heard mostly words such as “fallen . . . dissolution . . . ancient . . . decayed . . . sheltered . . .”
And oh, it was all such horrid Udolpho-worthy delight!
Chapter 18
With a mind thus full of happiness, Catherine was hardly aware that two or three days had passed away, without her seeing Isabella for more than a few minutes together.
She began first to be sensible of this, and to almost miss her conversation, as she walked along the pump-room one morning, by Mrs. Allen’s side, without anything to say or to hear, and feeling not even a twinge of icy Isabella-air to give her an invigorating chill. Scarcely had she felt a five minutes’ longing of friendship and climate adjustment before the frost-bearing creature herself appeared, and inviting her to a secret conference, led the way to a seat.
“This is my favourite place,” said Isabella as they sat down on a bench between the doors, which commanded a tolerable view of everybody entering at either; “it is so out of the way.”
Catherine, observing that Isabella’s eyes were continually bent towards one door or the other, as in eager expectation, gaily said, “Do not be uneasy, Isabella, James will soon be here.”
“Psha! My dear creature,” she replied in a gentle screech, “do not think me such a simpleton as to be always wanting to confine him to my elbow. It would be hideous to be always together; we should be the jest of the place. And so you are going to Northanger! I am amazingly glad of it. It is one of the finest old places in England, I understand. I shall depend upon a most particular description of it.”
“You shall certainly have the best in my power to give. But who are you looking for? Are your sisters coming? Was that Maria over there, quizzing a statue with a bell, next to that gentleman with a walking-shovel?”
“I dare say not; they are off near the markets, collecting orphans or turnips—I forget which. And—I am not looking for anybody. One’s eyes must be somewhere, and you know what a foolish trick I have of fixing mine, when my thoughts are an hundred miles off. I am amazingly absent—the most absent creature in the world. Tilney says it is always the case with minds of a certain stamp.”
“But I thought, Isabella, you had something in particular to tell me?”
“Oh! Yes, and so I have. But here is a proof of what I was saying. My poor head, I had quite forgot it. Well, the thing is this: I have just had a letter from John; you can guess the contents.”
“No, indeed, I cannot.” Catherine rather felt her forehead requiring a handkerchief, just remembering that certain inferno.
“My sweet love, do not be so abominably affected. What can he write about, but yourself? You know he is over head and ears in love with you.”
“With me, dear Isabella!”
“Nay, my sweetest Catherine, this is being quite absurd! Modesty is very well in its way, but really! His attentions were such as a child must have noticed. And it was but half an hour before he left Bath that you gave him the most positive encouragement. He says so in this letter—says that he as good as made you an offer, and that you received his advances in the kindest way. And now he wants me to urge his suit.”
Catherine, with
all earnestness, expressed her astonishment at such a charge. She protested her innocence of any thought of Mr. Thorpe’s being in love with her, and it was impossible she had ever encouraged him. “As to any attentions on his side, I do declare, upon my honour, I never was sensible of them for a moment—except just his asking me to dance the first day of his coming. And as to making me an offer, or anything like it, there must be some unaccountable mistake. I could not have misunderstood a thing of that kind! Indeed, I did not see him once that whole morning.”
“But that you certainly did, for you spent the whole morning in Edgar’s Buildings—it was the day your father’s consent came; mother and Mrs. Allen had gone somewhere in search of muslin, or cows, or both. You and John were alone in the parlour some time—I venture, not discussing secret Clues!”
“Well, if you say it, it was so, I dare say—but for the life of me, I cannot recollect it. I do remember now being with you, and seeing him as well as the rest—but that we were ever alone for five minutes—However, it is not worth arguing about. You must be convinced that I never thought, nor expected, nor wished for anything of the kind from him. I am excessively concerned that he should have any regard for me. Pray undeceive him, and tell him I beg his pardon—that is—I do not know what I ought to say—but make him understand what I mean. I would not speak disrespectfully of a brother of yours, Isabella, I am sure; but you know very well that if I could think of one man more than another—he is not the person.”
Isabella was silent like an iceberg floating in the Arctic.
Catherine shivered, while an angel began to fan the warmer air from the other side in her direction. “My dear Isabella, you must not be angry with me. I cannot suppose your brother cares so very much about me. And we shall still be sisters.”