Under a mistaken persuasion of her
possessions and claims, he had courted her acquaintance in Bath,
solicited her company at Northanger, and designed her for his
daughter-in-law. On discovering his error, to turn her from the house
seemed the best, though to his feelings an inadequate proof of his
resentment towards herself, and his contempt of her family. John Thorpe had first misled him. The General, perceiving his son one
night at the theatre to be paying considerable attention to Miss
Morland, had accidentally inquired of Thorpe if he knew more of her
than her name. Thorpe, most happy to be on speaking terms with a man of
General Tilney’s importance, had been joyfully and proudly
communicative; and being at that time not only in daily expectation of
Morland’s engaging Isabella, but likewise pretty well resolved upon
marrying Catherine himself, his vanity induced him to represent the
family as yet more wealthy than his vanity and avarice had made him
believe them. With whomsoever he was, or was likely to be connected,
his own consequence always required that theirs should be great, and as
his intimacy with any acquaintance grew, so regularly grew their
fortune. The expectations of his friend Morland, therefore, from the
first overrated, had ever since his introduction to Isabella been
gradually increasing; and by merely adding twice as much for the
grandeur of the moment, by doubling what he chose to think the amount
of Mr. Morland’s preferment, trebling his private fortune, bestowing a
rich aunt, and sinking half the children, he was able to represent the
whole family to the General in a most respectable light. For Catherine,
however, the peculiar object of the General’s curiosity, and his own
speculations, he had yet something more in reserve, and the ten or
fifteen thousand pounds which her father could give her would be a
pretty addition to Mr. Allen’s estate. Her intimacy there had made him
seriously determine on her being handsomely legacied hereafter; and to
speak of her therefore as the almost acknowledged future heiress of
Fullerton naturally followed. Upon such intelligence the General had
proceeded; for never had it occurred to him to doubt its authority. Thorpe’s interest in the family, by his sister’s approaching connection
with one of its members, and his own views on another (circumstances of
which he boasted with almost equal openness), seemed sufficient
vouchers for his truth; and to these were added the absolute facts of
the Allens being wealthy and childless, of Miss Morland’s being under
their care, and—as soon as his acquaintance allowed him to judge—of
their treating her with parental kindness. His resolution was soon
formed. Already had he discerned a liking towards Miss Morland in the
countenance of his son; and thankful for Mr. Thorpe’s communication, he
almost instantly determined to spare no pains in weakening his boasted
interest and ruining his dearest hopes. Catherine herself could not be
more ignorant at the time of all this, than his own children. Henry and
Eleanor, perceiving nothing in her situation likely to engage their
father’s particular respect, had seen with astonishment the suddenness,
continuance, and extent of his attention; and though latterly, from
some hints which had accompanied an almost positive command to his son
of doing everything in his power to attach her, Henry was convinced of
his father’s believing it to be an advantageous connection, it was not
till the late explanation at Northanger that they had the smallest idea
of the false calculations which had hurried him on. That they were
false, the General had learnt from the very person who had suggested
them, from Thorpe himself, whom he had chanced to meet again in town,
and who, under the influence of exactly opposite feelings, irritated by
Catherine’s refusal, and yet more by the failure of a very recent
endeavour to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella,
convinced that they were separated forever, and spurning a friendship
which could be no longer serviceable, hastened to contradict all that
he had said before to the advantage of the Morlands—confessed himself
to have been totally mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances and
character, misled by the rhodomontade of his friend to believe his
father a man of substance and credit, whereas the transactions of the
two or three last weeks proved him to be neither; for after coming
eagerly forward on the first overture of a marriage between the
families, with the most liberal proposals, he had, on being brought to
the point by the shrewdness of the relator, been constrained to
acknowledge himself incapable of giving the young people even a decent
support. They were, in fact, a necessitous family; numerous, too,
almost beyond example; by no means respected in their own
neighbourhood, as he had lately had particular opportunities of
discovering; aiming at a style of life which their fortune could not
warrant; seeking to better themselves by wealthy connections; a
forward, bragging, scheming race. The terrified General pronounced the name of Allen with an inquiring
look; and here too Thorpe had learnt his error. The Allens, he
believed, had lived near them too long, and he knew the young man on
whom the Fullerton estate must devolve. The General needed no more. Enraged with almost everybody in the world but himself, he set out the
next day for the abbey, where his performances have been seen. I leave it to my reader’s sagacity to determine how much of all this it
was possible for Henry to communicate at this time to Catherine, how
much of it he could have learnt from his father, in what points his own
conjectures might assist him, and what portion must yet remain to be
told in a letter from James. I have united for their ease what they
must divide for mine. Catherine, at any rate, heard enough to feel that
in suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his
wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his
cruelty. Henry, in having such things to relate of his father, was almost as
pitiable as in their first avowal to himself. He blushed for the
narrow-minded counsel which he was obliged to expose. The conversation
between them at Northanger had been of the most unfriendly kind. Henry’s indignation on hearing how Catherine had been treated, on
comprehending his father’s views, and being ordered to acquiesce in
them, had been open and bold. The General, accustomed on every ordinary
occasion to give the law in his family, prepared for no reluctance but
of feeling, no opposing desire that should dare to clothe itself in
words, could ill brook the opposition of his son, steady as the
sanction of reason and the dictate of conscience could make it. But, in
such a cause, his anger, though it must shock, could not intimidate
Henry, who was sustained in his purpose by a conviction of its justice.