‘No.’
‘It has been your own doing entirely’Catherine said nothing -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,which does honour to her memory.The world,I believe,never saw a better woman.But it is not often that virtue can boast an interest such as this.The domestic,unpretending merits of a person never known,do not often create that kind of fervent,venerating tenderness which would 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.’
‘And from these circumstances,’he replied,(his quick eye fixed on hers,)‘you infer perhaps the probability of some negligence some (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.‘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 of 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 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,‘it would have been very shocking!’
‘If I understand you rightly,you have 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?Remember the country and the age in which we live.Remember that we are English,that we are Christians.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?’
They had reached the end of the gallery;and with tears of shame she ran off to her own room.
Chapter 25
The visions of romance were over.Catherine was completely awakened.Henry's address,short as it had been,had more thoroughly opened her eyes to the extravagance of her late fancies than all their several disappointments had done.Most grievously was she humbled.Most bitterly did she cry.It was not only with herself that she was sunk but with Henry.Her folly,which now seemed even criminal,was all exposed to him,and he must despise her for ever.The liberty which her imagination had dared to take with the character of his father,could he ever forgive it?The absurdity of her curiosity and her fears,could they ever be forgotten?She hated herself more than she could express.He had she thought he had,once or twice before this fatal morning,shown something like affection for her. But now in short,she made herself as miserable as possible for about half an hour,went down when the clock struck five,with a broken heart,and could scarcely give an intelligible answer to Eleanor's inquiry,if she was well.The formidable Henry soon followed her into the room,and the only difference in his behaviour to her,was that he paid her rather more attention than usual.Catherine had never wanted comfort more and he looked as if he was aware of it.
The evening wore away with no abatement of this soothing politeness;and her spirits were gradually raised to a modest tranquillity.She did not learn either to forget or defend the past;but she learned to hope that it would never transpire farther,and that it might not cost her Henry's entire regard.Her thoughts being still chiefly fixed on what she had with such causeless terror felt and done,nothing could shortly be clearer,than that it had been all a voluntary,self created delusion,each trifling circumstance receiving importance from an imagination resolved on alarm,and everything forced to bend to one purpose by a mind which,before she entered the Abbey,had been craving to be frightened.She remembered with what feelings she had prepared for a knowledge of Northanger.She saw that the infatuation had been created,the mischief settled long before her quitting Bath,and it seemed as if the whole might be traced to the influence of that sort of reading which she had there indulged.
