it was snuffed and extinguished
in one. A lamp could not have expired with more awful effect. Catherine, for a few moments, was motionless with horror. It was done
completely; not a remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the
rekindling breath. Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. A violent gust of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to
the moment. Catherine trembled from head to foot. In the pause which
succeeded, a sound like receding footsteps and the closing of a distant
door struck on her affrighted ear. Human nature could support no more. A cold sweat stood on her forehead, the manuscript fell from her hand,
and groping her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in, and sought some
suspension of agony by creeping far underneath the clothes. To close
her eyes in sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the
question. With a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every
way so agitated, repose must be absolutely impossible. The storm too
abroad so dreadful! she had not been used to feel alarm from wind, but
now every blast seemed fraught with awful intelligence. The manuscript
so wonderfully found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning’s
prediction, how was it to be accounted for? What could it contain? To
whom could it relate? By what means could it have been so long
concealed? And how singularly strange that it should fall to her lot to
discover it! till she had made herself mistress of its contents,
however, she could have neither repose nor comfort; and with the sun’s
first rays she was determined to peruse it. But many were the tedious
hours which must yet intervene. She shuddered, tossed about in her bed,
and envied every quiet sleeper. The storm still raged, and various were
the noises, more terrific even than the wind, which struck at intervals
on her startled ear. The very curtains of her bed seemed at one moment
in motion, and at another the lock of her door was agitated, as if by
the attempt of somebody to enter. Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along
the gallery, and more than once her blood was chilled by the sound of
distant moans. Hour after hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine
had heard three proclaimed by all the clocks in the house before the
tempest subsided or she unknowingly fell fast asleep. CHAPTER 22


The housemaid’s folding back her window-shutters at eight o’clock the
next day was the sound which first roused Catherine; and she opened her
eyes, wondering that they could ever have been closed, on objects of
cheerfulness; her fire was already burning, and a bright morning had
succeeded the tempest of the night. Instantaneously, with the
consciousness of existence, returned her recollection of the
manuscript; and springing from the bed in the very moment of the maid’s
going away, she eagerly collected every scattered sheet which had burst
from the roll on its falling to the ground, and flew back to enjoy the
luxury of their perusal on her pillow. She now plainly saw that she
must not expect a manuscript of equal length with the generality of
what she had shuddered over in books, for the roll, seeming to consist
entirely of small disjointed sheets, was altogether but of trifling
size, and much less than she had supposed it to be at first. Her greedy eye glanced rapidly over a page. She started at its import. Could it be possible, or did not her senses play her false? An
inventory of linen, in coarse and modern characters, seemed all that
was before her! if the evidence of sight might be trusted, she held a
washing-bill in her hand. She seized another sheet, and saw the same
articles with little variation; a third, a fourth, and a fifth
presented nothing new. Shirts, stockings, cravats, and waistcoats faced
her in each. Two others, penned by the same hand, marked an expenditure
scarcely more interesting, in letters, hair-powder, shoe-string, and
breeches-ball. And the larger sheet, which had enclosed the rest,
seemed by its first cramp line, “To poultice chestnut mare”—a farrier’s
bill! such was the collection of papers (left perhaps, as she could
then suppose, by the negligence of a servant in the place whence she
had taken them) which had filled her with expectation and alarm, and
robbed her of half her night’s rest! she felt humbled to the dust. Could not the adventure of the chest have taught her wisdom? A corner
of it, catching her eye as she lay, seemed to rise up in judgment
against her. Nothing could now be clearer than the absurdity of her
recent fancies. To suppose that a manuscript of many generations back
could have remained undiscovered in a room such as that, so modern, so
habitable!—Or that she should be the first to possess the skill of
unlocking a cabinet, the key of which was open to all! How could she have so imposed on herself? Heaven forbid that Henry
Tilney should ever know her folly! and it was in a great measure his
own doing, for had not the cabinet appeared so exactly to agree with
his description of her adventures, she should never have felt the
smallest curiosity about it. This was the only comfort that occurred. Impatient to get rid of those hateful evidences of her folly, those
detestable papers then scattered over the bed, she rose directly, and
folding them up as nearly as possible in the same shape as before,
returned them to the same spot within the cabinet, with a very hearty
wish that no untoward accident might ever bring them forward again, to
disgrace her even with herself. Why the locks should have been so difficult to open, however, was still
something remarkable, for she could now manage them with perfect ease. In this there was surely something mysterious, and she indulged in the
flattering suggestion for half a minute, till the possibility of the
door’s having been at first unlocked, and of being herself its
fastener, darted into her head, and cost her another blush. She got away as soon as she could from a room in which her conduct
produced such unpleasant reflections, and found her way with all speed
to the breakfast-parlour, as it had been pointed out to her by Miss
Tilney the evening before. Henry was alone in it; and his immediate
hope of her having been undisturbed by the tempest, with an arch
reference to the character of the building they inhabited, was rather
distressing. For the world would she not have her weakness suspected,
and yet, unequal to an absolute falsehood, was constrained to
acknowledge that the wind had kept her awake a little. “But we have a
charming morning after it,” she added, desiring to get rid of the
subject; “and storms and sleeplessness are nothing when they are over. What beautiful hyacinths! i have just learnt to love a hyacinth.”

“And how might you learn? By accident or argument?”

“Your sister taught me; I cannot tell how.