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 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—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 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? 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 forever. 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. Charming as were all Mrs. Radcliffe’s works, and charming even as were
the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human
nature, at least in the Midland counties of England, was to be looked
for. Of the Alps and Pyrenees, with their pine forests and their vices,
they might give a faithful delineation; and Italy, Switzerland, and the
south of France might be as fruitful in horrors as they were there
represented. Catherine dared not doubt beyond her own country, and even
of that, if hard pressed, would have yielded the northern and western
extremities. But in the central part of England there was surely some
security for the existence even of a wife not beloved, in the laws of
the land, and the manners of the age. Murder was not tolerated,
servants were not slaves, and neither poison nor sleeping potions to be
procured, like rhubarb, from every druggist. Among the Alps and
Pyrenees, perhaps, there were no mixed characters. There, such as were
not as spotless as an angel might have the dispositions of a fiend.