Tuesday 13 July
I am glad Mr Leith is here, and I am persuaded that Mama is glad, too, for she likes him and she trusts him. He spent the morning with her, but this afternoon he found me in the library and told me that she was asking for me.
‘She is very weak,’ he said. ‘Her bilious attacks are severe and almost constant. She is enjoying a brief respite at the moment but I fear it will not last long. I cannot disguise from you the seriousness of her condition. Say nothing to distress her. Speak quietly and do not let her tire herself. Your brother is with her at the moment, but you may go up in a few minutes. It is unfortunate that your sister is away from home. She is visiting your aunt, I understand?’
‘Yes. I had a letter from her this morning,’ I said. ‘I will read it to Mama.’
‘Good. Well, I think you may go up.’
I went upstairs. As I approached Mama’s room, Frederick was just coming out. He was visibly upset. I started to speak but the words died on my lips. He looked at me sorrowfully and then stood back to let me pass.
The curtains were drawn and the room was dark. I went over to the bed and was shocked to see how drawn she looked. But she smiled when she saw me and I did what I could to lift her spirits, entertaining her with a few tales of school and then reading her Eleanor’s letter.
‘I am so glad I sent her to stay with your Aunt Ann,’ said Mama, sinking back on her pillows. ‘It is not easy for her here, being the only girl, and when you and Frederick are away it is even more difficult, for she is very much on her own. This stupid illness of mine has made it impossible for me to spend as much time with her as I would wish. So I was very pleased when your Aunt Ann invited her to stay, though Scotland is such a long way away. But it seems the journey was worth the effort, for she is evidently having fun with her cousins. It does me good to hear of her trimming bonnets and looking through fashion plates like other girls of her age.’
She gave a wan smile, but then her face contorted and she waved me away. The sound of her illness followed me out of the room.
Wednesday 14 July
Mr Leith called in two of his colleagues this morning and all three of them remained in almost constant attendance on Mama, doing what they could to alleviate her suffering, which was intense. They became more and more concerned as the day wore on, until at last they told Papa that Eleanor should be sent for, if he wanted her to have a chance of seeing her mother again. Papa sent a letter at once, and then paced the garden without once looking at any of the transformations he had wrought. I went into the chapel and, being unable to help Mama in any other way, I prayed.
Friday 16 July
It is as I feared. Mama’s attack of the bilious fever was much worse this time and she suffered a seizure in the early hours of this morning. Though I can scarcely believe it, she is dead. The abbey is in mourning. The servants weep quietly and Papa is seriously affected. Frederick is subdued and I feel lost. But it is even worse for Eleanor. Poor child! To be away from home at such a time. There is now no chance of her seeing our mother again, unless it is to see her in her coffin.
AUGUST
Monday 2 August
Eleanor is home, the funeral is over, and the household is returning to normal, if anything can ever be considered normal again.
I am worried about Eleanor. I picked up our copy of A Sicilian Romance today and found that Eleanor had turned back the corner of one of the pages we had already read:One day, when Julia was arranging some papers in the small drawers of a cabinet that stood in her apartment, she found a picture which fixed all her attention. It was a miniature of a lady, whose countenance was touched with sorrow, and expressed an air of dignified resignation. The mournful sweetness of her eyes, raised towards Heaven with a look of supplication, and the melancholy languor that shaded her features, so deeply affected Julia, that her eyes were filled with involuntary tears. She sighed and wept, still gazing on the picture, which seemed to engage her by a kind of fascination. She almost fancied that the portrait breathed, and that the eyes were fixed on hers with a look of penetrating softness. Full of the emotions which the miniature had excited, she presented it to Madame, whose mingled sorrow and surprise increased her curiosity. But what were the various sensations which pressed upon her heart, on learning that she had wept over the resemblance of her mother! Deprived of a mother’s tenderness before she was sensible of its value, it was now only that she mourned the event which lamentation could not recall.
Slipped inside the pages at that point was a small miniature of our mother.
I did not like to mention the matter to our father, but I was glad when he told me that Mrs Hughes has offered to visit. Mrs Hughes, being Mama’s oldest friend, will know what to do.
Tuesday 3 August
Mrs Hughes arrived this afternoon, full of sympathy and maternal solicitude. She radiated comfort and we were all glad of her presence, Eleanor particularly so. The two of them hugged, and Mrs Hughes listened to all my sister’s heartfelt grief with tender pity.
When I could speak to her alone, I showed her the novel. She read the passage and said, ‘It is not to be wondered at, but she will feel better now that I am here. I do not think she should read any more Gothic novels, however, at least not for the time being. Motherless heroines are all very well when they are a long way away, but at the moment they are too close to real life for comfort. Some company is what your sister needs, to take her out of her sad thoughts. I will stay for as long as I can, but I think that school would be a good thing. It will give her cheerful companions of her own age. The abbey will be very lonely for her otherwise. I will speak to your papa about it.’
She was as good as her word. I never thought Papa would agree to the idea, but Mrs Hughes represented the virtues of the idea to him and at last he gave way.
I went out riding and when I returned I discovered that Mrs Hughes and Eleanor were in Mama’s favourite walk. Eleanor never used to like it, but ever since Mama died she has been drawn to it. I thought it an unhealthy place, with its narrow path winding through a thick grove of old Scotch firs and its gloomy aspect, but when I spoke to Mrs Hughes about it later, saying that I thought it was certain to bring on a fit of melancholy, Mrs Hughes said that some period of melancholy was necessary.
‘And what about you, Henry?’ she asked.
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you have lost your mother, too.’
I told her that I was happy, but it was not until she had listened to me for an hour that I realized how devastated I had been. She has done us all good, even Papa, who busies himself more than ever, but who I am sure misses Mama, as do we all. I cannot believe it. I keep expecting her to walk in the room with her customary smile and attend to her needlework, but I know I will never see her again.
Thursday 12 August
Papa called Eleanor into his study this morning and told her that Mama’s jewellery would, when she was old enough, be hers. It was a melancholy experience for her to touch the much-loved necklaces and bracelets, but it served to turn her thoughts forward as well as back.
‘Papa has promised me the pearls for my come-out,’ said Eleanor to me this afternoon. ‘They were a gift to Mama from her papa when she married. I have always liked them and I am looking forward to wearing them when I am old enough; they will remind me of her.’
‘You will look very well in them, I am sure, and Mama would be pleased. Do you like having Mrs Hughes here?’
‘Very much. I am only sorry that she will soon have to leave us, though I understand that her own family need her. But she has promised to visit us again, if Papa is willing, and she says that we must write to each other very often.’
I offered her my arm as we walked through the gardens.
‘She has told Papa that he should send you to school, otherwise you will be very much on your own here,’ I said.
She clutched my arm more tightly.
‘I could not bear to leave Northanger,’ she said in a worried voice.
&nb
sp; ‘Not at the moment, perhaps, but in time. You will have company at school, and an opportunity to make friends. Mama met Mrs Hughes when they were both at school, remember. I think it would be good for you, by which I mean, I think it would promote your happiness. I will soon be going back to school myself, and Frederick will be returning to his regiment, which means that, otherwise, you will be left here with Papa.’
She shuddered, knowing Papa’s temper to be uncertain at the best of times.
‘Perhaps it would be a good idea,’ she said. ‘And then I could invite friends to stay with me in the holidays as well.’
‘An excellent idea. I am glad you have decided to like school. I know Mrs Hughes will be suggesting the idea to you within a very few days, and at least you will now be prepared.’
‘Life is not what I thought it was going to be,’ said Eleanor with a sigh.
‘No, my dear,’ I said, putting my hand over hers. ‘It never is.’
1798
Friday 26 October
Though I sometimes wish my father were not so restless and not forever altering things, I must confess that the new parsonage is a vast improvement on the old one, and that Woodston is now ideally suited to my needs. The house is large and airy with plenty of light: a gentleman’s residence with an imposing drive and entranceway. There is also a small room next to the drawing room where I can keep all my mess and clutter, and where I can have my dogs about me. I told him so this morning when I expressed my intention of moving into it next week.
‘That will never do,’ he said. ‘It is not yet fitted up. There is no furniture in the dining parlour and the drawing room has not even been decorated.’
‘I am not thinking of entertaining just yet. The small room next to the dining parlour is fitted out and it is enough for my needs. I can eat there and sit there as well as anywhere else, at least until the rest of the house is ready for use.’
‘You would do better to stay here until everything is done, it is far more comfortable and an easy journey.’
‘I need to be in my own parish. When I am more established there it will be different, but for the moment I want to set my mark on the place,’ I said.
‘If it were just a matter of furniture, then perhaps I would agree with you, but there are other improvements to be made and they would be easier to carry out if you were here.’
‘As to any further improvements to the parsonage, it has just been built. I cannot think there is any more to be done,’ I said.
‘Oh, the house, but the gardens are not finished, and there is work to be done on the view. The Carsons’ cottage can be seen from the drawing room window, it would be much better to knock it down and build it elsewhere. I have already talked to Robinson about it.’
‘Then I must ask you to untalk to him. It is time for me to start managing the place myself, and besides, I cannot ask the Carsons to move their cottage for so small a reason as to improve the view.’
‘So small a reason, you call it? When the cottage can plainly be seen amongst the apple trees? I think it a very good reason.’
I knew he would go on arguing, for if I waited for him to be ready for me to move I would wait for ever, and so I cut short his protestations by saying, ‘I have already appointed a housekeeper.’
‘Have you indeed? And did you not think to consult me about it? But then, you have always been headstrong, and I suppose you must move into the parsonage at some time. But not next week, you had better go next month. We have house guests arriving on Monday, do not forget, and they will be here for the better part of a month. Some of them, my oldest friends, are already here. Your brother will no doubt take over the billiard room as usual with his set of friends. The army has done something to improve him but not as much as I hoped. He is still prone to mix with the wrong company, he needs a wife. I have invited a number of eligible young women and you, too, Henry, should be giving some serious thought to the matter of matrimony. Many of your friends are already married. Charles Plainter is not only married but he has three children.’
‘Charles is older than I am.’
‘True, but you are four-and-twenty, old enough to be finding someone with a good dowry of twenty or thirty thousand pounds. There is a particular young lady I think you will like, a Miss Barton.’
I will be very surprised if I like Miss Barton, my father’s and my tastes on young ladies being exactly opposite, but it will not stop my father from bringing her to my notice at every opportunity.
Eleanor was sympathetic. I found her in the arbour, sheltered from the wind, well wrapped up in her coat and cloak, writing in her journal.
‘Do not let me interrupt you,’ I said. ‘I would not want to get in the way. I hope you are writing of me. Let me tell you what you ought to say: Henry home, booted and greatcoated – complimented me on my gown – said that blue becomes me – admired the curl of my hair – disturbed me with his nonsense when I would much sooner be writing in my journal.’
She laughed and put her journal aside.
‘I did not expect you back so soon. Have you come to say goodbye?’
‘Never goodbye, my dear Eleanor, though you are right, I told our father I would be leaving for Woodston next week. In his usual way he overrode me and the result is that I am to stay for the house party and leave next month. He wishes me to marry Miss Barton.’
‘She is very beautiful.’
‘And very mercenary. She will not settle for a younger son, and comes only in the hope of seeing Frederick. She will profess herself delighted with the abbey, the neighbours, the countryside, in short everything about us, for the first week. Then, after ten or eleven days, when she learns that Frederick has no interest in her, she will discover that the countryside lacks true beauty; by the end of the second week she will find that our neighbours are boors; by the time the party ends she will be concealing her yawns behind her hands and whispering to the rest of our guests that she will not be sorry to leave.’
‘I think our father means us all to find our destinies this month. He has told me on a number of occasions that General Courteney’s nephew and the Marquis of Longtown’s son are both admirable gentlemen, and that either one of them would make me a good husband. I believe he means to marry me off to one or other of them.’
I sat down beside her.
‘Have nothing to do with the Marquis of Longtown’s son,’ I said. ‘He will in time be a marquis himself, and they are always imperious and cruel.’
She laughed, and we were both taken back to a moment eight years ago, when we read A Sicilian Romance.
‘Did you ever finish it?’ I asked Eleanor.
‘No, I never read any of it after Mama . . .’ She fell silent for a few moments and then, rousing herself, said, ‘Did you?’
‘No,’ I admitted. ‘We have not been very fair to Julia. We have left her imprisoned in a small room and we have left Ferdinand languishing in a dungeon. Do you never want to know what happened to them?’
‘Perhaps, one day.’ She looked about her, at the newly replanted arbour, and said, ‘A lot has changed since then, but in essentials it is still the same. You have still not found your heroine.’
‘Alas, no, despite Papa holding regular house parties in an effort to bring more wealth – I beg your pardon, a heroine – into the family. I will not find her in Miss Barton, that is sure. Do you know who the other guests are to be?’
‘Yes, I wrote the invitations myself.’
She named them all, and I gave a wry smile.
‘And so, the characters are before us,’ I said. ‘Eleanor Tilney, heroine; General Tilney, the imperious father; Frederick Tilney, the son and heir, a cynical rake; Henry Tilney, the younger son, an ironic creature with – perhaps – the soul of a romantic; an assortment of gentlemen who seek to take the heroine off to their castles, or at least their residences in the remote reaches of the country; friends of Frederick Tilney, idle and extravagant; a collection of military gentlemen, friends of General Tilney; and an
absence of the friends of Miss Tilney and Mr Henry Tilney, who are not considered grand enough for the occasion.’
Eleanor laughed. Then she said, ‘Frederick remains as fastidious as ever, and yet he continues to mix with the worst kinds of young men. I think that he is lonely, and yet he rejects every young woman offered to him. I cannot make him out. I sometimes wonder whether he will ever find anyone good enough to be loved by him, for I am certain that that is what is the cause of his problems. Do you think he will find anyone?’
‘I begin to despair of it. His early disappointment has given him a morose outlook, and as life has not provided him with any proof that love exists, he takes leave to doubt it. Whereas I – I have not given up hope,’ I said.
‘I am glad of it. You are not so very old, only four-and-twenty, there is time for you yet.’
‘And you, my dear Eleanor, are only twenty. Far too young to be marrying General Courteney’s nephew and, at any age, far too good to be marrying the Marquis of Longtown’s son. They are here already, I understand.’
‘Yes. Papa wanted his particular friends to himself for a few days before the rest of the guests arrived, and their families of course came with them. I am hoping you will render me your assistance in my attempts to avoid them, for they have been following me everywhere I go. Only in the library am I safe if I remain indoors. They never so much as look at a book. But I believe we may be free of them here for awhile.’
‘When I marry – if I marry – my wife must love to read. I shall make it the one condition. Her dowry is unimportant, her family is irrelevant, but she must be a lover of novels, or else no wedding will take place!’