Henry Tilney's Diary (9781101559024) (20 page)

‘Oh, yes, it is very grand,' she said. ‘I have never seen a finer chamber.'

‘There are no headless spectres?' I asked her innocently.

She blushed.

My father frowned and drew her attention back to the dinner. But when he had left us, called away by some letters he needed to answer, the mood grew lighter and I was able to tease her at my leisure. The night was stormy and the wind, which had been rising at intervals the whole afternoon, was heard to moan on occasion down the chimney.

‘Can it really be the wind?' I said, ‘or is it the low moan of a nun, walled up behind the chimney?'

She shivered and her eyes sparkled.

‘Are there really nuns here? Were there, I mean?'

‘This being an abbey, it is probable,' I said. ‘Who knows what terrible rites have been enacted within these walls?'

‘Henry!' said Eleanor.

But she need not have worried, Miss Morland was entranced by the idea. To be in a real abbey was a great excitement to her, and as I watched her I found myself well entertained. To be able to tease a woman is surely as important a part of love as being able to like her or respect her.

‘But what is that?' I said. ‘The curtain moved! What malevolent being roams outside, waiting to enter?'

Miss Morland was thrilled but said stoutly, ‘It is only the wind, stirring the curtain.'

‘If I could only be sure.'

‘Then pray, Mr Tilney, go and look,' she said.

‘I am afraid!' I said.

Eleanor laughed and said, ‘I will.'

‘Ah! Shamed by my sister! A slip of a girl! Then I must do the manly thing.'

And so saying I took a candle from the mantelpiece and made a show of looking behind the curtain, much to Miss Morland's delight.

‘It is as you say, just the wind,' I remarked.

By the time the party broke up, it was raining violently. As the storm raged round a corner of the abbey, it closed a distant door with a bang and Miss Morland jumped. Her candle flickered, and her face was a sight to behold.

‘What evil beast pursues us?' I asked.

She looked at me in awe, then caught my laughter and blushed at her own ready thoughts, but although she knew I had been teasing her, there was still a sense of expectancy about her; enough to give her a few pleasurable thrills before her first night in such an ancient building was passed.

‘Do not forget that I am only two doors down from you if you should need anything,' said Eleanor to Miss Morland, as I left them to go to my own room.

Miss Morland looked grateful; for, whilst it is undoubtedly exciting to think of all the terrible things that might happen in the deep, dark reaches of the night, it is also comforting to know that help is on hand if any headless spectres should happen to creep out of the woodwork.

 

 

 

A bright morning succeeded the tempest of the night, and the sun was streaming in at the windows as I sat down to breakfast at a little after eight o'clock. The ladies were not yet up and my father had already eaten so that I was alone, until Miss Morland hurried into the room; afraid, no doubt, that my father would be there, and that he would be as angry about timekeeping as he had been yesterday evening.

‘Miss Morland! You are up bright and early. And how are you this morning. You slept well, I hope? No sinister apparitions disturbed you in the night? No weeping nuns or dreadful monks made their way into your room, their faces hidden by cowled habits, and dangerously flickering candles held in their bloodstained hands?'

She looked embarrassed and confessed that the wind had kept her awake.

‘But we have a charming morning after it,' she added, eager to change the subject, for she was ashamed of her weakness; another thing which endeared her to me. ‘Storms and sleeplessness are nothing when they are over.' Her eyes wandered out to the gardens. ‘What beautiful hyacinths!' she remarked. ‘I have just learnt to love a hyacinth.'

I allowed her to change the subject and we discussed flowers at length, until my father walked in. His smiling compliments announced a happy state of mind, but his hint of early rising unsettled her and evidently brought all her memories of his dislike of tardiness to mind. She murmured something about having been kept awake by the wind and therefore sleeping longer than usual, and he apologized for the weather, as though it had been his fault, and said he hoped she would not be similarly discommoded this evening. She sought for a safe topic of conversation and found it in the breakfast set. She remarked on its fineness and my father, who had chosen it, was restored to good humour.

‘It is very kind of you to say so; you, who must have seen much finer things in Mrs Allen's house,' he said expansively. ‘But it is neat and simple, and I have a great liking for it. Moreover, I think it right to encourage the manufacture of my own country; and for my part, to my uncritical palate, the tea is as well-flavoured from the clay of Staffordshire, as from that of Dresden or Sèvres. It is quite an old set, of course, purchased two years ago. The manufacture has much improved since that time; I have seen some beautiful specimens when last in town, and if I were not perfectly without vanity of that kind, I might have been tempted to order a new set. I trust, however, that an opportunity might ere long occur of selecting one – though not for myself.'

My father's comment took me by surprise, but I could not fail to understand it. Indeed, I think that Miss Morland was the only one at the table who did not understand him. He saw her as a bride for me! I was astonished. He had always wanted me to marry well, and the idea of him smiling on a match between me and a country miss was entirely out of character for him. I found myself wondering whether he thought the Morlands were an old family, perhaps related to some titled person, and if that was the attraction for him, not money. I put the idea to Eleanor when we were alone after breakfast, Miss Morland having left us to write to her family.

‘It is possible, I suppose,' she said.

‘I will endeavour to find out. I have to go to Woodston for a few days and will soon be on my way. There are sermons to be preached, parishioners to be visited and pen-wipers to be accepted. Then, too, there is parish business to discuss. The possibility of diverting the stream is as important to the people of Woodston as the battles raging on the continent are to my brother. But I mean to look into Miss Morland's ancestry. It seems clear, from everything she has said, that she is not wealthy, and so my father is either deluding himself for reasons we cannot begin to fathom, or else he thinks she will bring with her an antique pedigree that will add to our consequence in the world.'

We parted, but met again in the hall, where Miss Morland and my father were also gathered in time to see me mount my horse and set out for my parish. I caught a glimpse of Miss Morland at the window of the breakfast-room, and I smiled to think of her eyes following me as I disappeared down the drive.

The day being fine, the journey was a pleasant one and I found myself thinking of my affections and wondering if they would prosper. Would Miss Morland be descended from an old and venerable branch of a mighty family, delighting my father and allowing him to overlook her lack of fortune? Or would she be nothing more than Miss Morland of Fullerton, and would my father's interest in her wane? Would he send her away at the end of her visit with an invitation to visit again, or with nothing more than a half hearted wish for the comfort of her journey?

And I? What did I want? As I turned into the drive of the parsonage, I thought it would be brightened by her amusing fantasies, her adoration – I am only human! – and her smiling face.

I could almost hear Frederick laughing at me.
Women! Never trust them! Play with them, amuse yourself, but never let them close to the heart of you
. But the spring air was having its effect on me and I thought that nothing would please me more than Catherine – yes, Catherine! – at Woodston.

When I reached the parsonage I retired to the library and took down the peerage in order to seek for an explanation of my father's partiality for her, but I could not find any evidence that she was important enough to appeal to him. A thought flickered into my mind that he must be growing more mellow with age, but it quickly flickered out again, and wasting no more time on his quixotic behaviour I set out for the church to preach my sermon.

There were fewer coughs and colds than previously, and more attention paid to my words of wisdom. Indeed, from the comments afterwards I was delighted to find that almost as much attention had been paid to my words of wisdom as to the new style of knot in my cravat.

 

 

 

It is amazing how many things there are to be seen to here after only a week's absence: parishioners to be visited and either soothed, berated, congratulated, comforted or uplifted; plans for new stiles to be approved; gardens to be examined; matchmakers to be avoided – and sisters to be aided and abetted, for a note arrived from Morris and I have instructed one of the grooms to take it over to the abbey tomorrow, since I do not plan to return there until Tuesday and I am sure she will like it as soon as possible.

 

 

 

Having finished my business sooner than expected, and being, I must confess, eager to see Catherine again, I returned to the abbey this afternoon. I found that Catherine was both more foolish and more adorable than I had suspected, for when I took the back stairs to my chamber I came upon her suddenly, and she looked at me as if I were a spectre.

‘Good God!' she said in horrified accents. ‘How came you here? How came you up that staircase?'

Surprised, I said that it was my nearest way from the stable-yard to my own chamber, at which she blushed deeply and said no more, but she was clearly disturbed and I could not rest until I had found out why.

On enquiring how she came to such a remote part of the house, she said that she had been to see my mother's room. I should have known at once what was in her mind, for what mother in a novel can ever have died a natural death? She must always have been dispatched by some cruel hand; either that or imprisoned in the labyrinthine caves beneath the crumbling edifice whilst being reported as dead. But I was still in a business frame of mind and I had not yet adjusted my thoughts to Northanger Abbey or to Catherine's sensibilities, and I asked in surprise if there was anything extraordinary to be seen there.

She replied quickly, ‘No, nothing at all.'

She still looked pale, however, and I thought she might have become lost and not liked to admit it. I was surprised that Eleanor had left her to wander the house alone, and said so, to which she replied quickly that Eleanor had shown her over the greatest part of the house on Saturday, but that they had been prevented from visiting this part – dropping her voice – ‘because your father was with us.'

Since she seemed interested in my mother's room, I remarked that it was commodious, ‘Large and cheerful-looking, and the dressing-closets so well disposed! It always strikes me as the most comfortable apartment in the house,' I said, ‘and I rather wonder that Eleanor should not take it for her own. She sent you to look at it, I suppose?'

‘No.'

I was surprised.

‘It has been your own doing entirely?' I enquired.

She said nothing.

‘Eleanor, I suppose, has talked of her a great deal?' I wondered.

‘Yes, a great deal. That is – no, not much, but what she did say was very interesting. Her dying so suddenly,' she said slowly, and with hesitation, ‘and you – none of you being at home – and your father, I thought – perhaps had not been very fond of her.'

A light began to dawn.

‘And from these circumstances, 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 me searchingly and I was at once amused and appalled at her terrible imaginings, as well as being filled with an ache of tolerant tenderness for her naïveté.

‘My mother's illness,' I said, ‘the seizure which ended in her death, was sudden, but the malady itself was constitutional. 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.'

‘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 – we have not all, you know, the same tenderness of disposition – and I will not pretend to say that while she lived, she might not often have had much to bear, but though his temper injured her, his judgment never did. His value of her was sincere; and, if not permanently, he was truly afflicted by her death.'

‘I am very glad of it,' said Catherine, blushing. ‘It would have been very shocking!'

‘If I understand you rightly,' I said, wondering how far her dreadful imaginings had gone, ‘you had formed a surmise of such horror as I have hardly words to—'

Her eyes fell.

‘Dear Miss Morland, consider the dreadful nature of the suspicions you have entertained,' I said more kindly. ‘Remember the country and the age in which we live. Consult your own understanding, 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 connive at them? Could they 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?'