I was grieved for him, and grieved for Catherine. I was also grieved for Frederick, for whatever his faults, he deserved better than Isabella Thorpe.
I returned the letter, saying, ‘Well, if it is to be so, I can only say that I am sorry for it. Frederick will not be the first man who has chosen a wife with less sense than his family expected. I do not envy his situation, either as a lover or a son.’
Eleanor was looking perplexed, and Catherine handed her the letter.
‘My dear Catherine, I am more sorry than I can say,’ said Eleanor, when she had read it. ‘I can scarcely believe it. I know very little of Isabella, and so I do not know what to think. I saw her once or twice in Bath, but not to speak to, except to exchange the usual pleasantries. I find it hard to believe that Frederick intends to marry her. What are her connections? And what is her fortune? For although I think Frederick would be capable of marrying a woman without either of those things to recommend her, I believe she would have to have a number of personal qualities which Isabella, from my acquaintance with her, would seem to lack. I cannot imagine Frederick risking our father’s displeasure for anything less than love, and I have seen nothing in him lately to suggest that condition.’
‘Her mother is a very good sort of woman,’ was Catherine’s answer.
‘What was her father?’
‘A lawyer, I believe. They live at Putney.’
‘Are they a wealthy family?’
‘No, not very,’ said Catherine. ‘I do not believe Isabella has any fortune at alclass="underline" but that will not signify in your family. Your father is so very liberal! He told me the other day that he only valued money as it allowed him to promote the happiness of his children.’
Eleanor and I glanced at each other. My father might say that nothing else mattered but unless he had changed even more than we suspected, he was very far from believing it.
‘But,’ said Eleanor, after a short pause, ‘would it be to promote Frederick’s happiness, to enable him to marry such a girl? She must be an unprincipled one, or she could not have used your brother so. And how strange an infatuation on Frederick’s side! A girl who, before his eyes, is violating an engagement voluntarily entered into with another man! Is not it inconceivable, Henry? Frederick too, who always wore his heart so proudly! Who found no woman good enough to be loved!’
‘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, being so lacking in self-consequence, vanity and artifice, that she did not know what Eleanor meant, ‘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,’ I replied; ‘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,’ I said, and could not resist a smile.
‘My own disappointment and loss in her is very great; but, as for poor James, I suppose he will hardly ever recover,’ she said sadly.
I felt for her, and thought that the best thing was to laugh her out of her melancholy. For although it was on the surface of it a misfortune, I could not help thinking that James and his sister had both had a very narrow escape.
‘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.’ Becoming a thought more serious, and wanting to show her that what she had lost was not so very great after all, I went on, ‘You feel that you have no longer any friend to whom you can speak with unreserve. No one on whose regard you can place dependence, or whose counsel, in any difficulty, you could rely on. You feel all this?’
‘No,’ she said, 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 might have supposed.’
Thinking enough time had been spent on such unhappy thoughts, I said, ‘Come, let us explore the woods. It is still spring, whatever our relatives may be doing to upset or vex us, and the day is fine. Who knows, but we may find a hyacinth.’ I turned to Eleanor. ‘Catherine has but lately learned to love a hyacinth.’
‘Then by all means, let us go,’ said Eleanor.
Catherine became calmer throughout the walk, and jumped only twice this evening when Frederick’s name was mentioned by my father, but for the rest of the evening she was tolerably comfortable, and I must hope that by the end of the week she will be able to think of it with no more than a passing sigh.
Wednesday 10 April
The subject of Isabella’s engagement – supposed engagement – to Frederick has been frequently canvassed by Eleanor, Catherine and myself.
‘I cannot believe that Frederick will marry someone as lacking in fortune and consequence as Isabella,’ said Eleanor, as we retired to the library after breakfast, a heavy rain having set in.
‘Even if Frederick was set upon such a path, which I beg leave to doubt, my father will never countenance it,’ I said. ‘He will certainly oppose the connection, and without his blessing it will be difficult for Frederick to marry. He has his soldier’s pay, but that is little enough, and for anything more he still looks to my father.’
‘But I have heard your father say, many times, that he has no interest in money,’ Catherine ventured.
Eleanor and I exchanged glances. It was true that my father frequently said as much, but did not mean it. Why, then, he said it we did not know. To make himself seem more agreeable, perhaps? But why should he want to make himself agreeable to Catherine? It plagued me. As a friend for Eleanor? Yes. But there was something more. As a possible wife for me? But she was no heiress. Was that why he said that money did not count? But why, if money did not count, had he spent so many years throwing heiresses at my head?
‘You must give me warning if your brother is to come to Northanger,’ said Catherine, ‘for indeed, I cannot meet him.’
‘You can be easy on that score, I am sure,’ said Eleanor. ‘Frederick will not have the courage to apply in person for our father’s consent. He has never in his life been less likely to come to Northanger than at the present time.’
Catherine was somewhat mollified, but said, ‘You must tell your father what sort of person Isabella is, for your brother cannot be expected to tell him everything.’