‘On the right hand pavement she must be almost out of sight now.’Catherine looked round and saw Miss Tilney leaning on her brother's arm,walking slowly down the street.She saw them both looking back at her.‘Stop,stop,Mr Thorpe,’she impatiently cried,‘it is Miss Tilney;it is indeed. How could you tell me they were gone? Stop,stop,I will get out this moment and go to them.’But to what purpose did she speak? Thorpe only lashed his horse into a brisker trot;the Tilneys,who had soon ceased to look after her,were in a moment out of sight round the corner of Laura Place,and in another moment she was herself whisked into the Market Place.Still,however,and during the length of another street,she entreated him to stop.‘Pray,pray stop,Mr Thorpe. I cannot go on. I will not go on. I must go back to Miss Tilney.’But Mr Thorpe only laughed,smacked his whip,encouraged his horse,made odd noises,and drove on;and Catherine,angry and vexed as she was,having no power of getting away,was obliged to give up the point and submit.Her reproaches,however,were not spared.‘How could you deceive me so,Mr Thorpe? How could you say,that you saw them driving up the Lansdown Road? I would not have had it happen so for the world. They must think it so strange;so rude of me!to go by them,too,without saying a word!You do not know how vexed I am. I shall have no pleasure at Clifton,nor in anything else.I had rather,ten thousand times rather get out now,and walk back to them.How could you say,you saw them driving out in a phaeton?’Thorpe defended himself very stoutly,declared he had never seen two men so much alike in his life,and would hardly give up the point of its having been Tilney himself.
Their drive,even when this subject was over,was not likely to be very agreeable.Catherine's complaisance was no longer what it had been in their former airing.She listened reluctantly,and her replies were short.Blaize Castle remained her only comfort;towards that,she still looked at intervals with pleasure;though rather than be disappointed of the promised walk,and especially rather than be thought ill of by the Tilneys,she would willingly have given up all the happiness which its walls could supply the happiness of a progress through a long suite of lofty rooms,exhibiting the remains of magnificent furniture,though now for many years deserted the happiness of being stopped in their way along narrow,winding vaults,by a low,grated door;or even of having their lamp,their only lamp,extinguished by a sudden gust of wind,and of being left in total darkness.In the meanwhile,they proceeded on their journey without any mischance;and were within view of the town of Keynsham,when a halloo from Morland,who was behind them,made his friend pull up,to know what was the matter.The others then came close enough for conversation,and Morland said,‘We had better go back,Thorpe;it is too late to go on today;your sister thinks so as well as I.We have been exactly an hour coming from Pulteney Street,very little more than seven miles;and,I suppose,we have at least eight more to go.It will never do.We set out a great deal too late.We had much better put it off till another day,and turn round.’
‘It is all one to me,’replied Thorpe rather angrily;and instantly turning his horse,they were on their way back to Bath.
‘If your brother had not got such a d beast to drive,’said he soon afterwards,‘we might have done it very well.My horse would have trotted to Clifton within the hour,if left to himself,and I have almost broke my arm with pulling him in to that cursed broken winded jade's pace.Morland is a fool for not keeping a horse and gig of his own.’
‘No,he is not,’said Catherine warmly,‘for I am sure he could not afford it.’
‘And why cannot he afford it?’
‘Because he has not money enough.’
‘And whose fault is that?’
‘Nobody's ,that I know of.’Thorpe then said something in the loud,incoherent way to which he had often recourse,about its being a d thing to be miserly;and that if people who rolled in money could not afford things,he did not know who could;which Catherine did not even endeavour to understand.Disappointed of what was to have been the consolation for her first disappointment,she was less and less disposed either to be agreeable herself,or to find her companion so;and they returned to Pulteney Street without her speaking twenty words.
As she entered the house,the footman told her,that a gentleman and lady had called and inquired for her a few minutes after her setting off;that,when he told them she was gone out with Mr Thorpe,the lady had asked whether any message had been left for her;and on his saying no,had felt for a card,but said she had none about her,and went away.Pondering over these heart rending tidings,Catherine walked slowly upstairs.At the head of them she was met by Mr Allen,who,on hearing the reason of their speedy return,said,‘I am glad your brother had so much sense;I am glad you are come back.It was a strange,wild scheme.’
They all spent the evening together at Thorpe's .Catherine was disturbed and out of spirits;but Isabella seemed to find a pool of commerce,in the fate of which she shared,by private partnership with Morland,a very good equivalent for the quiet and country air of an inn at Clifton.Her satisfaction,too,in not being at the Lower Rooms,was spoken more than once.‘How I pity the poor creatures that are going there!How glad I am that I am not amongst them!I wonder whether it will be a full ball or not!They have not begun dancing yet.I would not be there for all the world.It is so delightful to have an evening now and then to oneself.I dare say it will not be a very good ball.I know the Mitchells will not be there.I am sure I pity everybody that is.But I dare say,Mr Morland,you long to be at it,do not you?I am sure you do.Well,pray do not let anybody here be a restraint on you.I dare say we could do very well without you;but you men think yourselves of such consequence.’
