Being no longer able,
however, to receive pleasure from the surrounding objects, she soon
began to walk with lassitude; the General perceived it, and with a
concern for her health, which seemed to reproach her for her opinion of
him, was most urgent for returning with his daughter to the house. He
would follow them in a quarter of an hour. Again they parted—but
Eleanor was called back in half a minute to receive a strict charge
against taking her friend round the abbey till his return. This second
instance of his anxiety to delay what she so much wished for struck
Catherine as very remarkable. CHAPTER 23


An hour passed away before the General came in, spent, on the part of
his young guest, in no very favourable consideration of his character. “This lengthened absence, these solitary rambles, did not speak a mind
at ease, or a conscience void of reproach.” At length he appeared; and,
whatever might have been the gloom of his meditations, he could still
smile with _them_. Miss Tilney, understanding in part her friend’s
curiosity to see the house, soon revived the subject; and her father
being, contrary to Catherine’s expectations, unprovided with any
pretence for further delay, beyond that of stopping five minutes to
order refreshments to be in the room by their return, was at last ready
to escort them. They set forward; and, with a grandeur of air, a dignified step, which
caught the eye, but could not shake the doubts of the well-read
Catherine, he led the way across the hall, through the common
drawing-room and one useless antechamber, into a room magnificent both
in size and furniture—the real drawing-room, used only with company of
consequence. It was very noble—very grand—very charming!—was all that
Catherine had to say, for her indiscriminating eye scarcely discerned
the colour of the satin; and all minuteness of praise, all praise that
had much meaning, was supplied by the General: the costliness or
elegance of any room’s fitting-up could be nothing to her; she cared
for no furniture of a more modern date than the fifteenth century. When
the General had satisfied his own curiosity, in a close examination of
every well-known ornament, they proceeded into the library, an
apartment, in its way, of equal magnificence, exhibiting a collection
of books, on which an humble man might have looked with pride. Catherine heard, admired, and wondered with more genuine feeling than
before—gathered all that she could from this storehouse of knowledge,
by running over the titles of half a shelf, and was ready to proceed. But suites of apartments did not spring up with her wishes. Large as
was the building, she had already visited the greatest part; though, on
being told that, with the addition of the kitchen, the six or seven
rooms she had now seen surrounded three sides of the court, she could
scarcely believe it, or overcome the suspicion of there being many
chambers secreted. It was some relief, however, that they were to
return to the rooms in common use, by passing through a few of less
importance, looking into the court, which, with occasional passages,
not wholly unintricate, connected the different sides; and she was
further soothed in her progress by being told that she was treading
what had once been a cloister, having traces of cells pointed out, and
observing several doors that were neither opened nor explained to
her—by finding herself successively in a billiard-room, and in the
General’s private apartment, without comprehending their connection, or
being able to turn aright when she left them; and lastly, by passing
through a dark little room, owning Henry’s authority, and strewed with
his litter of books, guns, and greatcoats. From the dining-room, of which, though already seen, and always to be
seen at five o’clock, the General could not forgo the pleasure of
pacing out the length, for the more certain information of Miss
Morland, as to what she neither doubted nor cared for, they proceeded
by quick communication to the kitchen—the ancient kitchen of the
convent, rich in the massy walls and smoke of former days, and in the
stoves and hot closets of the present. The General’s improving hand had
not loitered here: every modern invention to facilitate the labour of
the cooks had been adopted within this, their spacious theatre; and,
when the genius of others had failed, his own had often produced the
perfection wanted. His endowments of this spot alone might at any time
have placed him high among the benefactors of the convent. With the walls of the kitchen ended all the antiquity of the abbey; the
fourth side of the quadrangle having, on account of its decaying state,
been removed by the General’s father, and the present erected in its
place. All that was venerable ceased here. The new building was not
only new, but declared itself to be so; intended only for offices, and
enclosed behind by stable-yards, no uniformity of architecture had been
thought necessary. Catherine could have raved at the hand which had
swept away what must have been beyond the value of all the rest, for
the purposes of mere domestic economy; and would willingly have been
spared the mortification of a walk through scenes so fallen, had the
General allowed it; but if he had a vanity, it was in the arrangement
of his offices; and as he was convinced that, to a mind like Miss
Morland’s, a view of the accommodations and comforts by which the
labours of her inferiors were softened, must always be gratifying, he
should make no apology for leading her on. They took a slight survey of
all; and Catherine was impressed, beyond her expectation, by their
multiplicity and their convenience. The purposes for which a few
shapeless pantries and a comfortless scullery were deemed sufficient at
Fullerton, were here carried on in appropriate divisions, commodious
and roomy. The number of servants continually appearing did not strike
her less than the number of their offices. Wherever they went, some
pattened girl stopped to curtsy, or some footman in dishabille sneaked
off. Yet this was an abbey! how inexpressibly different in these
domestic arrangements from such as she had read about—from abbeys and
castles, in which, though certainly larger than Northanger, all the
dirty work of the house was to be done by two pair of female hands at
the utmost. How they could get through it all had often amazed Mrs.
Allen; and, when Catherine saw what was necessary here, she began to be
amazed herself. They returned to the hall, that the chief staircase might be ascended,
and the beauty of its wood, and ornaments of rich carving might be
pointed out: having gained the top, they turned in an opposite
direction from the gallery in which her room lay, and shortly entered
one on the same plan, but superior in length and breadth.