‘That is the most unpromising circumstance,the strongest presumption against him.When I think of his past declarations,I give him up. Moreover,I have too good an opinion of Miss Thorpe's prudence,to suppose that she would part with one gentleman before the other was secured.It is all over with Frederick indeed!He is a deceased man defunct in understanding.Prepare for your sister in law,Eleanor,and such a sister in law as you must delight in! Open,candid,artless,guileless,with affections strong but simple,forming no pretensions and knowing no disguise.’
‘Such a sister in law,Henry,I should delight in,’said Eleanor,with a smile.
‘But perhaps,’observed Catherine,‘though she has behaved so ill by our family,she may behave better by yours.Now she has really got the man she likes,she may be constant.’
‘Indeed I am afraid she will,’replied Henry;‘I am afraid she will be very constant,unless a baronet should come in her way;that is Frederick's only chance. I will get the Bath paper,and look over the arrivals.’
‘You think it is all for ambition then? And,upon my word,there are some things that seem very like it.I cannot forget,that,when she first knew what my father would do for them,she seemed quite disappointed that it was not more.I never was so deceived in anyone's character in my life before.’
‘Among all the great variety that you have known and studied.’
‘My own disappointment and loss in her is very great;but,as for poor James,I suppose he will hardly ever recover it.’
‘Your brother is certainly very much to be pitied at present;but we must not,in our concern for his sufferings,undervalue yours.You feel,I suppose,that,in losing Isabella,you lose half yourself:you feel a void in your heart which nothing else can occupy.Society is becoming irksome;and as for the amusements in which you were wont to share at Bath,the very idea of them without her is abhorrent.You would not,for instance,now go to a ball for the world.You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserve;on whose regard you can place dependence;or whose counsel,in any difficulty,you could rely on.You feel all this?’
‘No,’said Catherine,after a few moments'reflection,‘I do not ought I?To say the truth,though I am hurt and grieved,that I cannot still love her,that I am never to hear from her,perhaps never to see her again,I do not feel so very,very much afflicted as one would have thought.’
‘You feel,as you always do,what is most to the credit of human nature. Such feelings ought to be investigated,that they may know themselves.’
Catherine,by some chance or other,found her spirits so very much relieved by this conversation,that she could not regret her being led on,though so unaccountably,to mention the circumstance which had produced it.
Chapter 26
From this time,the subject was frequently canvassed by the three young people;and Catherine found,with some surprise,that her two young friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's want of consequence and fortune as likely to throw great difficulties in the way of her marrying their brother.Their persuasion that the General would,upon this ground alone,independent of the objection that might be raised against her character,oppose the connection,turned her feelings moreover with some alarm towards herself.She was as insignificant,and perhaps as portionless as Isabella;and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and wealth enough in himself,at what point of interest were the demands of his younger brother to rest?The very painful reflections to which this thought led,could only be dispersed by a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality,which,as she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions,she had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the General;and by a recollection of some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money,which she had more than once heard him utter,and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood by his children.
They were so fully convinced,however,that their brother would not have the courage to apply in person for his father's consent,and so repeatedly assured her that he had never in his life been less likely to come to Northanger than at the present time,that she suffered her mind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden removal of her own.But as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney,whenever he made his application,would give his father any just idea of Isabella's conduct,it occurred to her as highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him as it really was,enabling the General by that means to form a cool and impartial opinion,and prepare his objections on a fairer ground than inequality of situations.She proposed it to him accordingly;but he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected.‘No,’said he,‘my father's hands need not be strengthened,and Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled.He must tell his own story.’
‘But he will tell only half of it.’
‘A quarter would be enough.’