An abbey! yes,it was delightful to be really in an abbey! but she doubted,as she looked round the room,whether anything within her observation,would have given her the consciousness.The furniture was in all the profusion and elegance of modern taste.The fire place,where she had expected the ample width and ponderous carving of former times,was contracted to a Rumford,with slabs of plain though handsome marble,and ornaments over it of the prettiest English china.The windows,to which she looked with peculiar dependence,from having heard the General talk of his preserving them in their Gothic form with reverential care,were yet less what her fancy had portrayed.To be sure,the pointed arch was preserved the form of them was Gothic they might be even casements but every pane was so large,so clear,so light!To an imagination which had hoped for the smallest divisions,and the heaviest stonework,for painted glass,dirt and cobwebs,the difference was very distressing.
The General,perceiving how her eye was employed,began to talk of the smallness of the room and simplicity of the furniture,where everything being for daily use,pretended only to comfort,&c.;flattering himself however that there were some apartments in the Abbey not unworthy her notice and was proceeding to mention the costly gilding of one in particular,when taking out his watch,he stopped short to pronounce it with surprise within twenty minutes of five!This seemed the word of separation,and Catherine found herself hurried away by Miss Tilney in such a manner as convinced her that the strictest punctuality to the family hours would be expected at Northanger.
Returning through the large and lofty hall,they ascended a broad staircase of shining oak,which,after many flights and many landing places,brought them upon a long wide gallery.On one side it had a range of doors,and it was lighted on the other by windows which Catherine had only time to discover looked into a quadrangle,before Miss Tilney led the way into a chamber,and scarcely staying to hope she would find it comfortable,left her with an anxious entreaty that she would make as little alteration as possible in her dress.
Chapter 21
A moment's glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that her apartment was very unlike the one which Henry had endeavoured to alarm her by the deion of. It was by no means unreasonably large,and contained neither tapestry nor velvet. The walls were papered,the floor was carpeted;the windows were neither less perfect，nor more dim than those of the drawing room below;the furniture,though not of the latest fashion,was handsome and comfortable,and the air of the room altogether far from uncheerful.Her heart instantaneously at ease on this point,she resolved to lose no time in particular examination of anything,as she greatly dreaded disobliging the General by any delay.Her habit therefore was thrown off with all possible haste,and she was preparing to unpin the linen package,which the chaise seat had conveyed for her immediate accommodation,when her eye suddenly fell on a large high chest,standing back in a deep recess on one side of the fire place.The sight of it made her start;and,forgetting everything else,she stood gazing on it in motionless wonder,while these thoughts crossed her:
‘This is strange indeed!I did not expect such a sight as this! An immense heavy chest! What can it hold? Why should it be placed here? Pushed back too,as if meant to be out of sight! I will look into it cost me what it may,I will look into it and directly too by daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may go out.’She advanced and examined it closely:it was of cedar,curiously inlaid with some darker wood,and raised,about a foot from the ground,on a carved stand of the same.The lock was silver,though tarnished from age;at each end were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver,broken perhaps prematurely by some strange violence;and,on the centre of the lid,was a mysterious cypher,in the same metal.Catherine bent over it intently,but without being able to distinguish anything with certainty.She could not,in whatever direction she took it,believe the last letter to be a T;and yet that it should be anything else in that house was a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment.If not originally theirs,by what strange events could it have fallen into the Tilney family?