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 over rated,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 for ever,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 rhodo montade 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.