She was here
shown successively into three large bed-chambers, with their
dressing-rooms, most completely and handsomely fitted up; everything
that money and taste could do, to give comfort and elegance to
apartments, had been bestowed on these; and, being furnished within the
last five years, they were perfect in all that would be generally
pleasing, and wanting in all that could give pleasure to Catherine. As
they were surveying the last, the General, after slightly naming a few
of the distinguished characters by whom they had at times been
honoured, turned with a smiling countenance to Catherine, and ventured
to hope that henceforward some of their earliest tenants might be “our
friends from Fullerton.” She felt the unexpected compliment, and deeply
regretted the impossibility of thinking well of a man so kindly
disposed towards herself, and so full of civility to all her family. The gallery was terminated by folding doors, which Miss Tilney,
advancing, had thrown open, and passed through, and seemed on the point
of doing the same by the first door to the left, in another long reach
of gallery, when the General, coming forwards, called her hastily, and,
as Catherine thought, rather angrily back, demanding whither she were
going?—And what was there more to be seen?—Had not Miss Morland already
seen all that could be worth her notice?—And did she not suppose her
friend might be glad of some refreshment after so much exercise? Miss
Tilney drew back directly, and the heavy doors were closed upon the
mortified Catherine, who, having seen, in a momentary glance beyond
them, a narrower passage, more numerous openings, and symptoms of a
winding staircase, believed herself at last within the reach of
something worth her notice; and felt, as she unwillingly paced back the
gallery, that she would rather be allowed to examine that end of the
house than see all the finery of all the rest. The General’s evident
desire of preventing such an examination was an additional stimulant. Something was certainly to be concealed; her fancy, though it had
trespassed lately once or twice, could not mislead her here; and what
that something was, a short sentence of Miss Tilney’s, as they followed
the General at some distance downstairs, seemed to point out: “I was
going to take you into what was my mother’s room—the room in which she
died—” were all her words; but few as they were, they conveyed pages of
intelligence to Catherine. It was no wonder that the General should
shrink from the sight of such objects as that room must contain; a room
in all probability never entered by him since the dreadful scene had
passed, which released his suffering wife, and left him to the stings
of conscience. She ventured, when next alone with Eleanor, to express her wish of
being permitted to see it, as well as all the rest of that side of the
house; and Eleanor promised to attend her there, whenever they should
have a convenient hour. Catherine understood her: the General must be
watched from home, before that room could be entered. “It remains as it
was, I suppose?” said she, in a tone of feeling. “Yes, entirely.”

“And how long ago may it be that your mother died?”

“She has been dead these nine years.” And nine years, Catherine knew,
was a trifle of time, compared with what generally elapsed after the
death of an injured wife, before her room was put to rights. “You were with her, I suppose, to the last?”

“No,” said Miss Tilney, sighing; “I was unfortunately from home. Her
illness was sudden and short; and, before I arrived it was all over.”

Catherine’s blood ran cold with the horrid suggestions which naturally
sprang from these words. Could it be possible? Could Henry’s father—? And yet how many were the examples to justify even the blackest
suspicions! and, when she saw him in the evening, while she worked with
her friend, slowly pacing the drawing-room for an hour together in
silent thoughtfulness, with downcast eyes and contracted brow, she felt
secure from all possibility of wronging him. It was the air and
attitude of a Montoni! what could more plainly speak the gloomy
workings of a mind not wholly dead to every sense of humanity, in its
fearful review of past scenes of guilt? Unhappy man! and the
anxiousness of her spirits directed her eyes towards his figure so
repeatedly, as to catch Miss Tilney’s notice. “My father,” she
whispered, “often walks about the room in this way; it is nothing
unusual.”

“So much the worse!” thought Catherine; such ill-timed exercise was of
a piece with the strange unseasonableness of his morning walks, and
boded nothing good. After an evening, the little variety and seeming length of which made
her peculiarly sensible of Henry’s importance among them, she was
heartily glad to be dismissed; though it was a look from the General
not designed for her observation which sent his daughter to the bell. When the butler would have lit his master’s candle, however, he was
forbidden. The latter was not going to retire. “I have many pamphlets
to finish,” said he to Catherine, “before I can close my eyes, and
perhaps may be poring over the affairs of the nation for hours after
you are asleep. Can either of us be more meetly employed? _My_ eyes
will be blinding for the good of others, and _yours_ preparing by rest
for future mischief.”

But neither the business alleged, nor the magnificent compliment, could
win Catherine from thinking that some very different object must
occasion so serious a delay of proper repose. To be kept up for hours,
after the family were in bed, by stupid pamphlets was not very likely. There must be some deeper cause: something was to be done which could
be done only while the household slept; and the probability that Mrs.
Tilney yet lived, shut up for causes unknown, and receiving from the
pitiless hands of her husband a nightly supply of coarse food, was the
conclusion which necessarily followed. Shocking as was the idea, it was
at least better than a death unfairly hastened, as, in the natural
course of things, she must ere long be released. The suddenness of her
reputed illness, the absence of her daughter, and probably of her other
children, at the time—all favoured the supposition of her imprisonment. Its origin—jealousy perhaps, or wanton cruelty—was yet to be
unravelled. In revolving these matters, while she undressed, it suddenly struck her
as not unlikely that she might that morning have passed near the very
spot of this unfortunate woman’s confinement—might have been within a
few paces of the cell in which she languished out her days; for what
part of the abbey could be more fitted for the purpose than that which
yet bore the traces of monastic division? In the high-arched passage,
paved with stone, which already she had trodden with peculiar awe, she
well remembered the doors of which the General had given no account. To
what might not those doors lead?