by Jane Austen
The portrait represented a very lovely woman, with a mild and pensive countenance. But Catherine’s expectations were not in every respect answered. She had expected to see features, hair, complexion, that should be the very image, if not of Henry’s, then of Eleanor’s. But here she was obliged to look and consider and study for a likeness. She contemplated it, however, in spite of this drawback, with much emotion, and, but for a yet stronger interest, would have left it unwillingly.
As she turned her back, she thought she heard a woman’s gentle, ghostly whisper of farewell. . . .
Her agitation as they entered the great gallery was too much for speech. She could only look at her companion. Indeed, how could she even begin to tell her friend that her deceased mother was in the room?
Eleanor’s countenance was dejected, yet sedate. She was clearly inured to all the gloomy objects to which they were advancing.
Again she passed through the folding doors, again her hand was upon the important lock. Catherine, hardly able to breathe, was turning to close the former with fearful caution, when the figure—the dreaded figure of the general himself at the further end of the gallery, stood before her!
The name of “Eleanor” uttered in his loudest tone, resounded through the building—giving to his daughter the first intimation of his presence, and to Catherine terror upon terror.
The angels flew about the chamber in agitation, attempting to console both the young women with their calming touch of wings. Catherine was terrified a hundred times more than she had been of the Legion of demons! This, this was far more real!
An urge to hide had been her first instinctive movement on perceiving him. Yet she could scarcely hope to have escaped his eye. And when her friend—who with an apologizing look darted hastily by her—had joined and disappeared with him, Catherine ran for safety to her own room, and, locking herself in, believed that she should never have courage to go down again.
Oh dear heaven!
She remained there at least an hour, in the greatest agitation, deeply commiserating the state of her poor friend, and expecting a summons herself from the angry general. No summons, however, arrived.
At last, on seeing a carriage drive up to the abbey, she was emboldened to descend and meet him under the protection of visitors. The breakfast-room was gay[28] with company. Catherine was named to them by the general as the friend of his daughter, in a complimentary style, which so well concealed his resentful ire, as to make her feel secure at least for the present.
Eleanor, with a noble command of countenance, also reassured her. “My father only wanted me to answer a note.”
Catherine began to hope that she had either been unseen by the general, or her transgression somehow ignored. Thus she dared still to remain in his presence. And after the company left them, nothing violent occurred.
In the course of this morning’s reflections, she resolved to make her next attempt on the forbidden door alone.
It would be much better in every respect that Eleanor should know nothing of the matter. To involve her friend in the danger of a second detection, was unjust. The general’s anger at herself would pale, compared to his fury at his daughter.
Besides, the examination itself would be more satisfactory if pursued by herself. It would be impossible to explain to Eleanor the ugly suspicions. Nor could she, in her friend’s presence, search for those proofs of the general’s cruelty—some fragmented journal, perhaps, continued to the last gasp. . . .
She knew the way to the apartment quite well. And as she wished to get it over before Henry’s return, who was expected on the morrow, there was no time to be lost. The day was bright, her courage high, the angels danced overhead in encouraging radiance. At four o’clock, the sun was now two hours above the horizon, and it would be only her retiring to dress half an hour earlier than usual.
It was done. Catherine found herself alone in the gallery before the clocks had ceased to strike. She hurried on, slipped noiselessly through the folding doors, and without stopping to look or breathe, rushed forward to the one in question.
The lock yielded to her hand, in silence. On tiptoe she entered. The room was before her. But it was some minutes before she could advance another step. She beheld what fixed her to the spot and agitated every feature. . . .
She saw a large, well-proportioned apartment—a handsome dimity bed, arranged as unoccupied with a housemaid’s care, a bright Bath stove, mahogany wardrobes, and neatly painted chairs, on which the warm beams of a western sun gaily poured through two sash windows!
Catherine had expected to have her feelings worked, and worked they were. Astonishment and doubt seized them. Then, a ray of common sense added some bitter emotions of shame.
She could not be mistaken as to the room; but how grossly mistaken in everything else!—in Miss Tilney’s meaning, in her own calculation! This modern apartment—to which she had given a date so ancient, a position so awful—proved to be one end of what the general’s father had built.
There were two other doors in the chamber, leading probably into dressing-closets. But she had no inclination to open either. Would the veil in which Mrs. Tilney had last walked, or the volume which she had last read, remain to tell what nothing else was allowed to whisper? No: whatever might have been the general’s crimes, he had certainly too much wit to let them sue for detection.
She was sick of exploring, and desired but to be safe in her own room, with her own heart only privy to its folly. And she was on the point of retreating as softly as she had entered, when a shadow-light interplay movement in the corner alerted her.
Catherine observed a milk-white translucent form take shape . . . And in seconds a lovely woman stood before her, in the dignity of her second bloom, with composed gentle features bearing a fine resemblance to the portrait in Eleanor’s room, and a great, though imperfect, resemblance to the Tilney children.
The ghost was clad in what appeared to be a long white dressing gown suitable for sleeping—or possibly it was a wedding dress—it occurred to Catherine, while shivers started making way down her spine.
But our heroine, as usual, was bravest when the world was most strange around her. And besides, the angels at her side were suitably calm, so there was surely no cause for alarm on her part.
“Pardon me, but are you Mrs. Tilney?” asked Catherine in a polite but shaky voice.
The woman nodded once, very slowly. Her countenance remained placid as though in sleep. But her eyes were distinctly open, pale, watery, and gently trained on Catherine.
“Oh, I am so sorry for your loss!” burst out of Catherine, before she realized how absurd that was to say to someone actually dead, as opposed to their grieving relative. And yet, was it not also true?
But the ghost apparently understood, and continued to watch her, kindly.
Here was Catherine’s chance to ask all manner of things. “Did—did the general—hurt you?”
The ghost’s eyes appeared to fill with tears, glittering in moisture, like a rainbow in the sunlight. She spoke not a word, but this time moved her head negatively side to side.
“Oh!” said Catherine, surprised. “But then, perhaps—he did—he caused your death in any way?”
Again, came the gesture of a “no.”
Oh dear! thought Catherine. How wrong again I was!
And then she thought to ask: “Did he love you?”
The ghost nodded “yes.”
And did you love him?
Catherine did not even need to voice her thought; the ghost had apparently read her mind—or maybe her heart—and she nodded in affirmative with a slowly blooming smile.
Catherine opened her mouth to ask a great deal more, but in that moment there was definitely the sound of footsteps, she could hardly tell where—and this time it made her pause and tremble.
To be found here, even by a servant, would be unpleasant. But by the general, much worse!
Catherine threw one look at the ghostly Mrs. Tilney, but she was al
ready dissolving back into the fabric of the air, having apparently accomplished what she had come here for. With a final nod, Henry’s mother gifted Catherine with a glorious smile.
And was gone. . . .
Now Catherine listened—the sound of footfalls had ceased. Resolving not to lose a moment, she passed through and closed the door.
At that instant a door underneath was hastily opened. Someone ascended the stairs with swift steps—stairs which she had yet to pass before she could gain the gallery.
She had no power to move. With a feeling of terror not very definable (yet perfectly opposite the ethereal awe she felt with the ghost), she fixed her eyes on the staircase . . . and in a few moments it gave Henry to her view.
“Mr. Tilney!” she exclaimed in a voice of uncommon astonishment.
He looked astonished too.
“Good God!” she continued, not attending to his address. “How came you here? How came you up that staircase?”
“How came I up that staircase!” he replied, greatly surprised. “Because it is my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber; and why should I not come up it?”
Catherine recollected herself, blushed deeply, and could say no more. He seemed to be looking in her countenance for that explanation which her lips did not afford. She moved on towards the gallery.
“And may I not, in my turn,” said he, as he pushed back the folding doors, “ask how you came here? This passage is at least as extraordinary a road from the breakfast-parlour to your apartment, as that staircase can be from the stables to mine.”
“I have been,” said Catherine, looking down, “to see your mother’s room.”
“My mother’s room! Is there anything extraordinary to be seen there?”
Catherine gulped, finding it impossibly hard not to tell all truth. “N-no, nothing at all. I thought you did not mean to come back till tomorrow.”
“I did not expect to be able to return sooner, when I went away; but three hours ago I had the pleasure of finding nothing to detain me. You look pale. I am afraid I alarmed you by running so fast up those stairs. Perhaps you were not aware of their leading from the offices in common use?”
“No, I was not. You have had a very fine day for your ride.”
“Very; and does Eleanor leave you to find your way into all the rooms in the house by yourself?”
“Oh, no! She showed me over the greatest part on Saturday—and we were coming here to these rooms—but only”—dropping her voice—“your father was with us.”
“And that prevented you,” said Henry, earnestly regarding her. “Have you looked into all the rooms in that passage?”
“No, I only wanted to see—Is not it very late? I must go and dress.”
“It is only a quarter past four” (showing his watch); “and you are not now in Bath. No theatre, no rooms to prepare for, no clandestine roots to collect amid bells and orphans. Half an hour at Northanger must be enough.”
She could not contradict it, and therefore suffered herself to be detained—though her head was spinning with myriad conflicting emotions. But dread of further questions made her, for the first time in their acquaintance, wish to leave him.
They walked slowly up the gallery. “Have you had any letter from Bath since I saw you?”
“No, and I am very much surprised. Isabella promised so faithfully to write directly.”
“Promised so faithfully! A faithful promise! That puzzles me. I have heard of a faithful performance. But a faithful promise—My mother’s room is very commodious, is it not? Large and cheerful-looking, and the dressing-closets so well disposed! It always strikes me as the most comfortable apartment in the house, and I rather wonder that Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent you to look at it, I suppose?”
“No.”
“It has been your own doing entirely?”
Catherine said nothing. Only her heart beat painfully.
After a short silence, during which he had closely observed her, he added, “As there is nothing in the room in itself to raise curiosity, this must have proceeded from a sentiment of respect for my mother’s character, as described by Eleanor. The world never saw a better woman. But the merits of an unknown person do not often prompt a visit like yours. Eleanor, I suppose, has talked of her a great deal?”
“Yes, a great deal. That is—no, not much, but what she did say was very interesting. Her dying so suddenly” (slowly, and with hesitation it was spoken), “and you—none of you being at home—and your father, I thought—perhaps had not been very fond of her. But I am sure now I was wrong!”
“And from these circumstances,” he replied (his quick eye fixed on hers), “you infer perhaps the probability of some negligence”—(involuntarily she shook her head)—“or it may be—of something still less pardonable.”
She raised her eyes towards him more fully than she had ever done before. She wanted to negate, deny, excuse herself—anything. She wanted to admit all that she now knew, and the manner of knowing it—the wonder, the truth of it. And yet—
“My mother’s illness,” he continued, “the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden. The malady itself, one from which she had often suffered, a bilious fever—its cause therefore constitutional. On the third day, in short, as soon as she could be prevailed on, a physician attended her, a very respectable man, and one in whom she had always placed great confidence. Upon his opinion of her danger, two others were called in the next day, and remained in almost constant attendance for four and twenty hours. On the fifth day she died. During the progress of her disorder, Frederick and I (we were both at home) saw her repeatedly; and from our own observation can bear witness to her having received every possible attention which could spring from the affection of those about her, or which her situation in life could command. Poor Eleanor was absent, and at such a distance as to return only to see her mother in her coffin.”
“But your father,” said Catherine, “was he afflicted?”
“For a time, greatly so. You have erred in supposing him not attached to her. He loved her, I am persuaded, as well as it was possible for him to, and one day I might speak of his affection in detail, and more plainly, but now—I will not pretend to say that while she lived, she might not often have had much to bear, for he is a complicated man. But though his temper injured her, his judgment never did. His value of her was sincere. And he was truly and permanently afflicted by her death.”
“I am very glad of it,” said Catherine; “it would have been very shocking—but I do understand now—”
“And if in turn I understand you rightly, you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to—Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained! What have you been judging from? Were you looking here also for your silly Udolpho Clues? Remember the country and the age in which we live. Remember that we are English, that we are Christians. We do not slay dragons nor do we slay our wives!”
Catherine wanted to speak, but verily could not.
“Consult your own understanding,” he went on, “your own sense of the probable, your own observation of what is passing around you. Does our education prepare us for such atrocities? Do our laws? Could evil be perpetrated without being known, in a country like this, where social and literary intercourse is on such a footing, where every man is surrounded by a neighbourhood of voluntary spies, and where roads and newspapers lay everything open? Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?”
Evil in secret code can be perpetrated under one’s nose, Catherine thought—the least innocent thought of her life.
They had reached the end of the gallery, and with tears of shame, of experience, she ran off to her own room.
But here was to be no peace—Catherine distinctly heard a now extremely familiar, extremely horrid, and extremely poorly-timed sound of humming, of a million angry bees.
Roiling darkness swept into her apartment as she opened her door. Screeching c
ontorted shapes of the Legion screamed at her, while angels formed their steadfast battle line in-between.
But Catherine almost ignored both the angels and demons in her room.
She stood instead motionless, tears pouring down her face, surrounded by a maelstrom of darkness and light.
“GIVVE USSS THE WHOOORREE OF BABYLOOON!” resumed the darkness.
In reply, Catherine bawled. Huge tears cascaded down her face, and she pulled out a handkerchief to blow her nose loudly, and entirely unlike a lady, narrowly missing striking a whirling demon’s forked appendage with her effort.
“Dearest child, take courage, we are always here at your side,” spoke the angels in bright voices.
Catherine bawled louder, sniffling tremendously, and went to her small clothes chest to look for another handkerchief. To do that, she had to walk directly through the middle of the swirling demon hive, and involuntarily it parted before her, scattering itself widely around the room—while Catherine went through piles of clothing, and threw occasional ribbons, pieces of muslin, lace, satin, and other fabric at the demons—all quite unintentionally.
“GIVVE USSS THE WHOOORREE OF BABYLOOON!” shrieked the Legion, not least of it for the fact that it was now wallowing in ribbons, parts of it wrapped up in muslin and lace.
“NO!” Catherine replied suddenly, ceasing to cry.
She swallowed her tears, straightened to her full height, and then said, in a strange new voice of power: “BEGONE!”
The screeching, wailing, howling—all of it ceased. The sound was torn off as though by a veil of silence. Everything stopped moving; the black smoke congealed, and froze. They stared at her with myriad burning, infernal eyes.
And then the Legion was gone.
Just like that; and this time, for good.
In its place, all that remained was a pile of ribbons, discarded fabric, and one decidedly soggy handkerchief.
Chapter 25
The visions of romance were over. Catherine was completely awakened, and she was swept in tragedy.