Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons Read online

  And then his hat sat so well, and the innumerable capes of his greatcoat looked so becomingly important! Indeed, there was a sense of leashed wondrous power emanating from him; of mystery even. . . .

  To be driven by him, next to dancing with him, was certainly the greatest happiness in the world.

  In addition to every other delight, she was now listening to her own praise; was being thanked (on his sister’s account) for her kindness in becoming her visitor; hearing it ranked as real friendship creating real gratitude. His sister, he said, was uncomfortably circumstanced—she had no female companion—and, in the frequent absence of her father, was sometimes without any companion at all.

  “But how can that be?” said Catherine. “Are not you with her?”

  “Northanger is only half my home; I have an establishment at my own house in Woodston, which is nearly twenty miles from my father’s. Some of my time is necessarily spent there.”

  “How sorry you must be for that!”

  “I am always sorry to leave Eleanor.”

  “Yes; but besides your affection for her, you must be so fond of the abbey! After being used to such a home as the abbey, an ordinary parsonage-house must be very disagreeable.”

  He smiled, and said, “You have formed a very favourable idea of the abbey.”

  “To be sure, I have. Is not it a fine old place, just like what one reads about?”

  “Aha! And so we come at last to Udolpho! Well then, are you prepared to encounter all the horrors that a building such as ‘what one reads about’ may produce? Have you a stout heart? Nerves fit for sliding panels and tapestry? A mind steadfast and clear enough to decrypt sanguine terror from arcane clues?”

  Catherine held back an imminent exclamation of utter delight.

  “What,” he continued, “think you only Bath has dire secrets to unravel, its carrots and cowbells at midnight? Wait till you see the abbey!”

  “Oh! yes—that is, no! I do not think I should be easily frightened, because there would be so many people in the house—and besides, it has never been uninhabited and left deserted for years, and then the family come back to it unawares, without giving any notice, as generally happens.”

  “No, certainly. We shall not have to explore our way into a hall dimly lighted by the expiring embers of a wood fire—nor be obliged to spread our beds on the floor of a room without windows, doors, or furniture. But you must be aware that when a young lady is introduced into such a dwelling, she is always lodged apart from the rest of the family. While they snugly repair to their own end of the house, she is formally conducted by Dorothy, the ancient housekeeper, up a different staircase, and along many gloomy passages, thick with ghosts, into an apartment never used since some cousin or kin died in it about twenty years before—under unspeakable circumstances. Can you stand such a ceremony as this? Will not your mind misgive you when you find yourself in this gloomy chamber—too lofty and extensive for you, with only the feeble rays of a single lamp to take in its size—its walls hung with tapestry exhibiting figures as large as life, and the bed, of dark green stuff or purple velvet, presenting even a funereal appearance? Will not your heart sink within you?”

  “Oh! But this will not happen to me, I am sure,” said Catherine, breathlessly imagining things even more dreadful.

  “How fearfully will you examine the furniture of your apartment! And what will you discern? Not tables, toilettes, wardrobes, or drawers, but on one side perhaps the remains of a broken lute, on the other a ponderous chest which no efforts can open, and over the fireplace the portrait of some handsome warrior, whose features will so incomprehensibly strike you, that you will not be able to withdraw your eyes from it. Dorothy, meanwhile, no less struck by your appearance, gazes on you in great agitation, and drops a few unintelligible hints (entirely more dire than turnips). To raise your spirits, moreover, she gives you reason to suppose that the part of the abbey you inhabit is undoubtedly haunted, and informs you that you will not have a single domestic within call. With this parting cordial she curtsies off—you listen to the sound of her receding footsteps as long as the last echo can reach you, not unlike midnight bells—and when, with fainting spirits, you attempt to fasten your door, you discover, with increased alarm, that it has no lock.”

  “Oh! Mr. Tilney, how frightful! This is just like a book! But it cannot really happen to me. I am sure your housekeeper is not really Dorothy. Well, what then?”

  “Nothing further to alarm perhaps may occur the first night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours’ unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival, you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder so loud as to seem to shake the edifice to its foundation will roll round the neighbouring mountains—and during the frightful gusts of wind you will probably discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable of course to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly arise, throwing your dressing-gown around you, and examine this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection, and on opening it, a door will immediately appear—being only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will succeed in opening it—and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through it into a small vaulted room.”

  “No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing. Heaven be praised there are dear angels to protect us—” Catherine was once again about to say too much.

  Fortunately he seemed to overlook that portion of her utterance. “What! Not when Dorothy has given you to understand that there is a secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the chapel of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off? Could you shrink from so simple an adventure? No, you will proceed into this small vaulted room, and through this into others, without perceiving anything very remarkable in either. In one perhaps there may be a dagger, in another a few drops of blood—and a cowbell—and in a third the remains of some instrument of torture, and next to it a sack of meaningful potatoes; but there being nothing in all this out of the ordinary, and your lamp being nearly exhausted, you will return towards your own apartment. In repassing through the small vaulted room, however, your eyes will be drawn to a large old-fashioned cabinet of ebony and gold—labeled clearly that it was manufactured in an orphanage near the Rhine by a certain M. Clermont but NOT Beatrice Foster—which you had previously passed unnoticed. Impelled by an irresistible presentiment, you will eagerly advance to it, unlock its folding doors, and search into every drawer—but for some time without discovering anything of importance—perhaps nothing but a considerable hoard of diamonds!”

  “Oh!” exclaimed Catherine; then put a hand across her lips. Meanwhile, a daring idea took hold—what if Northanger Abbey, not Bath, contained hidden treasure?

  “Oh dear . . .” Clarence, or possibly Terence, let out a long-suffering sigh near one of her ears.

  But Henry continued, despite her outburst: “At last, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will open—a roll of paper appears—you seize it—it contains many sheets of manuscript—you hasten with the precious treasure into your own chamber, but scarcely have you been able to decipher ‘Oh! Thou—whomsoever thou mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may fall, written from this point forward in nothing but blood and implementing the most arcane and secret encryption method known only as The Udolpho Code’—when your lamp suddenly expires, leaving you in total darkness—to await the arrival of the Necromancer of the Black Forest, the one and only true heir to the Castle of Wolfenbach!”

  “Oh! No! No!—do not say so!!! Well, go on.”

  But Henry was too much amused by the interest he had raised to be able to carry it farther. He could no longer command solemnity either of subject or voice, and was obliged to entreat her to use her own fancy
in the continuation of Matilda’s woes.

  Apparently, Henry had no idea (or simply had forgotten) how great a part she had played in the infestation of those silly Clues all over Bath! And he was still laughing at her!

  Catherine recollected herself, ashamed of her eagerness for the horrid, and assured him that she had not the smallest fear of really encountering what he related. “Miss Tilney, she was sure, would never put her into such a chamber as he had described! She was not at all afraid.”

  As they drew near the end of their journey, her impatience for a sight of the abbey returned in full force.

  Every bend in the road was expected with solemn awe to afford a glimpse of its massy walls of grey stone, rising amidst a grove of ancient oaks, with the last beams of the sun playing in beautiful splendour on its high Gothic windows. . . .

  But so low did the building stand, that she found herself passing through the great gates of the lodge into the very grounds of Northanger, without having discerned even an antique chimney.

  She knew she had no right to be surprised. But there was a something in this mode of approach which she had not expected. To pass between lodges of a modern appearance, to find herself with such ease in the very precincts of the abbey, and driven so rapidly along a smooth, level road of fine gravel, without obstacle, alarm, or solemnity, struck her as odd and inconsistent.

  She was not long at leisure for such considerations. A sudden scud of rain, driving full in her face, made it impossible for her to observe anything further, and fixed all her thoughts on the welfare of her new straw bonnet.

  She was actually under the abbey walls, was springing, with Henry’s assistance, from the carriage, was beneath the shelter of the old porch, and had even passed on to the hall, where her friend and the general were waiting to welcome her—without feeling one awful foreboding of future misery, or any past scenes of horror being acted within the solemn edifice.

  The breeze had not seemed to waft the sighs of the murdered to her—not even a putrid stench of anyone’s demon. It wafted nothing worse than a thick mizzling rain. And Catherine was ready to be shown into the common drawing-room.

  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 suggested it. The furniture was in all the profusion and elegance of modern taste. The new marble fireplace displayed the prettiest English china. The windows, to which she looked for original Gothic form, were less than expected. To be sure, the pointed arch was preserved—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 stone-work, for painted glass, ancient 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. All here was intended only for daily use and comfort. However, some apartments in the Abbey were worthy of her notice—and he began describing 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 to indicate it was time to part. 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.

  After she had gone, Catherine turned momentarily to the nearest window and grew very still.

  Outside, silhouetted against the sky, moved the swiftly receding unmistakable silhouette of a great dragon.

  Chapter 21

  A moment’s glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that her apartment was very unlike the one which Henry had described with the amused intent to alarm her.

  Her heart was still beating rapidly after having seen the dragon outside her window. But our heroine composed herself. After all, unlike all the poor orphans, urchins, noble maidens, and waifs left to fend for themselves under tragic Udolpho circumstances, she was not alone.

  She was surrounded by a world of heavenly guardians.

  But then, so was everyone else (the only difference being, to them, all such guardianship was invisible). It never before occurred to Catherine to wonder if and why those doleful others—the sorrowful victims in the horrid novels—had been abandoned by Heaven’s guardians to such destitute fates.

  But now the sobering thought, brought on by the menacing shadow right outside her window, suddenly plagued her. What right, what hope had she, then, to a better fate?

  But the answer came quickly and surely.

  “You, dear child, can see and hear us in a manner unlike most everyone else. Thus, you are also guided and protected more securely—not because you are any better or more deserving than other mortals in the eyes of God, but because you are capable of being shown solutions that others cannot and will not make the effort to discover.”

  But Catherine persisted. “Dearest angels, but what of the innocents? Surely the little babes, the newborns cannot fend for themselves? What if they are stolen by sanguine villains? What is to protect them?”[22]

  “It is true,” said the angel, “that a child enters the world as a blank slate, stripped of all that came before, in order to begin anew. For, indeed you do not ask the full question—what came before?

  “In this world it is possible to grasp only what can be ascertained by mortal senses in the present span of a lifetime. Much is speculated as to what comes after a life ends, but it is almost never spoken of what comes before. And yet, it is such an easy notion to consider, if one is but to look at anything else—take for example the baking of bread.

  “Bread is not brought out of nothing into sudden being, to be eaten and enjoyed—verily, not even manna from heaven (which has its definite origins, i.e. heaven). Bread is baked from dough, which in turn is formed out of living yeasts and flours of wheat and other grains and water. And before that, the yeasts are cultivated and the grains themselves are grown and harvested from other living matter, with its own history of being (in whatever basic form) that stretches as long going back as it does going forward. Each loaf you eat has a history as far back as there are stars upon the firmament of heaven. You might ask, at what precise moment does a loaf become a loaf—become itself, that precise thing known as bread—and when does it stop being itself, and becomes something else in its eternal journey of existence?

  “And, if not ordinary daily bread, then why not a human child? What defines it, and what defines its innocence? Its flesh comes from the flesh of its parents, and it in itself is a living spark of divine energy that has its own source of previous experience from somewhere else. Innocence is a relative notion of this material world. It is a property of finite judgment—but mortal judgment can only go so far as to span that what is mortally known (though, often far less; if the mortal judge in question has had the misfortune to occupy a lofty court bench for a span of years sufficient to absorb enough law to have become the bench—hard; oft vacant, and when not, oft legally pugnacious; and always made of the same old wood[23]). Who, indeed, knows everything, but the One?

  “And as for our newborn, the child indeed cannot make choices until it is self-aware enough to recognize the existence of such—at which point innocence ends and responsibility takes over. But, you ask, what of that moment of true innocence when the babe is still blameless and incapable, as far as this existence? The truth is—even with eyes closed against one’s will, arms bound, fe
et restrained, one can still walk off a cliff or be carried over it by others whose choices are more unfettered. The child is exactly in such a vulnerable position. So many others can choose its fate. The child’s mother, for example; others who care for the child—or who neglect it.

  “The child has done nothing wrong yet it suffers, because it—and everything that comprises it: flesh, spirit, ancestral past, an existential chain of being, components from the stars themselves; all these things put together—is in a unique place and time—a cosmic coordinate where suffering is to be found—that is the end result of many ‘someones’ and their various choices.

  “The angels cannot protect or guard where there are no choices to be found or made. And the secret truth is, we are not guardians of the flesh but of the spirit. We only guard that which can be guarded, the kernel that is everlasting. All else is ephemeral clamor, and fades away to dust, as the world turns.

  “Indeed, the world is nothing but a sum total of eternally cascading and intermingling choices made by all of us—human beings, living creatures, angels, seraphim, and the fallen ones.

  “The entire world has been thusly made—as a one thing of perfect balance. And, being a One Perfect Thing, its individual living components, each imbued with free will, are yet bound by the limits of this Original Framework to maintain this perfection at whatever cost to themselves.

  “Through the very nature of our original creation, we are all inexplicably bound together. We are constrained by creation’s rules and physical limitations—which include personal inconveniences, loss, dire harm, and blatant idiocy—and we are bound through the collective choices of ourselves and others.

  “Choices—even seemingly neutral ones such as whether to smile at someone, or drink a cup of tea, or take a turn into this dark street, or step with your left foot or right (or another arrangement, such as a walking-shovel)—all have natural consequences. And consciously selfish or wicked choices, (made by the Udolpho villains, or the fallen ones, who had chosen not for the common ‘all’ together, but for themselves alone) adversely affect everyone else.