Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons Read online

  “—only see how he moves; that horse cannot go less than ten miles an hour: tie his legs and he will get on—” John Thorpe was not to be silenced. That is until he himself changed the topic: “What do you think of my gig, Miss Morland? A neat one, is not it? Well hung; town-built—” his voice roared and ripped the air, modulating in ogrish crescendos, and would have been audible as a hellish monstrosity far across Cheap Street to anyone who was as metaphysically attuned as Catherine (all others merely heard a horrid foghorn).

  “And how much do you think he asked for it, Miss Morland?” he finished at last, after describing a tedious purchase transaction.

  “I am sure I cannot guess at all.”

  “He asked fifty guineas; I threw down the money, and the carriage was mine!”

  “And I am sure,” said Catherine, “I know so little of such things that I cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear.”

  “Neither one nor t’other; I might have got it for less; but I hate haggling, and the poor fellow wanted cash.”

  “That was very good-natured of you,” said Catherine, quite pleased to be able to say something relevant and even minimally positive in light of so much heat.

  “Oh! D—— it, when one has the means of doing a kind thing by a friend, I hate to be pitiful.”

  “Do not believe it, Catherine!” the angels clamored. “All kindness of his kind has ulterior motives!”

  “Yes, I am not all daft, thank you!” she replied smartly, rather aggrieved by the heat and the cold in the vicinity, and then coughed profusely to make up for her mumble.

  “Gracious! My sweet, I do hope you are not developing a sore throat,” announced Isabella, in her honey intonations, but with just a hint of solemn meaning. “Or was it something you said? I did not quite catch, with all your coughing.”

  “Oh no, I am quite fine—that is, ’tis nothing, cough cough!” said Catherine, while a chill of another sort came to her. What if horrid Isabella and her dreadful ogre brother—being what they were, unnatural—could see the angels too? Or at least be aware of them somehow?

  Did they know what she could see? And did they perchance know she could see them?

  While our heroine was beset by these new alarms, it was decided that the gentlemen should accompany the young ladies to Edgar’s Buildings, and pay their respects to Mrs. Thorpe.

  James and Isabella led the way, moving along the street like an arctic cold front. And so well satisfied was Isabella with her lot, so content to ensure a pleasant walk for her brother’s friend, and her friend’s brother, so pure and uncoquettish were her feelings, that—though they passed certain two young men—she paid them no notice whatsoever and looked back at them only three times.

  John Thorpe kept of course with Catherine, following up the cold front with a major heat wave. After a few minutes’ silence, he renewed the conversation about his gig. “Miss Morland, it would be reckoned a cheap thing by some. I might have sold it for ten guineas more the next day! Morland was with me at the time.”

  “Yes,” said Morland, who overheard this; “but you forget that your horse was included.”

  “My horse! Oh, d—— it! I would not sell my horse for a hundred. Are you fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?”

  Catherine spoke, glancing as little as possible at the lumbering ogre at her side. “Yes, very; I have hardly ever an opportunity of being in one; but I am particularly fond of it.”

  “I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day.”

  “Thank you,” said Catherine, in some distress, from a doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer, and from the small matter of whom the offer came from.

  “I will drive you up Lansdown Hill tomorrow.”

  “No! No! No!”

  The angelic chorus of protest was so loud that it eclipsed all other street noises.

  “Oh, hush!—choo!” sneezed Catherine, and widened her eyes meaningfully at the darting figures of Lawrence, inches from her nose, and Clarence and Terence at both her ears, plus a dozen or so unnamed seraphs pulling at her hair and bonnet and petticoats.

  “Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?” she then managed to utter.

  “Rest! He has only come three and twenty miles today; all nonsense; nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing knocks them up so soon. No, no; I shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day while I am here.” As Thorpe spoke with animation, the heat in his immediate vicinity shot up at least five more degrees.

  “Shall you indeed!” said Catherine very seriously, removing a handkerchief to wipe her brow and the tip of her nose. “That will be forty miles a day.”

  “Forty! Aye, fifty, for what I care. Maybe even sixty! Nay, why stop there—seventy! Well, I will drive you up Lansdown tomorrow; mind, I am engaged.”

  “How delightful that will be!” cried Isabella, turning round, and bringing a much-needed cooling weather front, which Catherine momentarily appreciated—that is, before she felt her moist brow start to rime over. “My dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will not have room for a third.”

  “A third indeed! No, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters about; that would be a good joke, faith! Morland must take care of you.”

  Angels were verily colliding in the air between them all.

  James Morland, meanwhile, pulled out his own handkerchief, and started to mutter about blasted unseasonable cold and rotten heat at this time of the year, and how, dare say, one could hardly keep up with the flux of it all, in the span of minutes, it seemed . . .

  This was followed by a dialogue of civilities between James and Isabella, as they now all milled about in one grouping. And it started to rain yet again, so that even the passerby stared at the precipitation of about three feet in diameter, as if a single watering pail was being emptied from far up in the heavens directly over their spot. One matron stopped, saying, “Upon my word, one sees it all in Bath!” and graciously offered them her umbrella.

  But Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. As they resumed walking, distancing the two nephilim from each other, the rain ceased. And Catherine’s brutish companion’s discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated thunder-and-brimstone pitch to nothing more than grunts of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met.

  And Catherine—after listening and agreeing as long as she could, with all the civil deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opposite opinion to a large-toothed ogre—ventured at last to vary the tedious subject to one uppermost in her thoughts: “Have you ever read Udolpho, Mr. Thorpe?”

  “Udolpho! Oh, Lord! Not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do.”

  Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologize for her question, but she received angelic succor.

  “Fie! One might wonder, dear child, if this one ever reads at all!” said Clarence, or maybe Terence.

  And Thorpe prevented her by saying, “Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t’other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.”

  “I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is so very interesting.” Catherine was emboldened by her favorite subject.

  “Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs. Radcliffe’s; her novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading. Some fun and nature in them, not to mention, the secret to hidden treasure—”

  “Ahem!” came a loud meaningful cough from Isabella up ahead.

  “Udolpho was written by Mrs. Radcliffe,” said Catherine, with some hesitation, from fear of mortifying him into raising the immediate temperature even further.

  “Not sure; was it? Aye, I remember, so it was. I was thinking of that other stupid book, written by that woman who married the French emigrant.”

  “I suppose you mean Camilla?”

  “Yes, that
’s the book; such unnatural stuff! An old man playing at see-saw.”

  “I have never read it.”

  “You had no loss, I assure you; the horridest nonsense you can imagine; nothing but an old man’s playing at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul there is not . . .”

  Catherine wiped her brow and wisely endured.

  This brought them to the door of Mrs. Thorpe’s lodgings. “Ah, Mother! How do you do?” said the dutiful and affectionate son, giving her a hearty shake of the hand (and possibly some heat blisters, but the dear mother was surely used to it). “Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch.” And a wicked yellowish glow came to the monstrous creature’s eyes.

  Poor Mrs. Thorpe, thought Catherine, surely did not deserve such unfounded commentary, in light of having borne such offspring and thus performed her required Herculean Labors upon this earth.

  The offspring continued: “Here is Morland and I come to stay a few days with you, so you must look out for a couple of good beds somewhere near.”

  And this address seemed to satisfy all the fondest wishes of the mother’s heart, for she received him with the most delighted and exulting affection. It occurred to Catherine that Mrs. Thorpe had no idea—which was surely for the best.

  On his two younger sisters Thorpe bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness. He asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly.

  Such manners heartily repulsed Catherine; but he was James’s friend—she could not very well tell her brother she routinely witnessed angels, and now—demonic ogres.

  Her judgment was further confounded by Isabella’s assuring her, when they withdrew to see the new hat, that John thought her the most charming girl in the world. And before they parted, John engaged her to dance with him that evening.

  Had Catherine been older or vainer, such attacks might have done little. But youth requires uncommon steadiness to resist the attraction of being called the most charming girl in the world—even by demonic nephilim with large carnivore teeth—and of being so very early engaged as a partner.

  As a consequence, when the two Morlands, after sitting an hour with the Thorpes, set off to walk together to Mr. Allen’s, and James said, “Well, Catherine, how do you like my friend Thorpe?” instead of answering plainly, “I do not like him at all, he is a drooling ogre, and his sister a man-luring harpy,” she carefully replied, “I like him very much; he seems very agreeable.”

  This made some of the angels weep, and James’s own heavenly guardian bawled outright, shedding great diamond-bright tears to scatter on the ground as lovely sparkles.

  “Oh dear . . .” whispered Catherine, biting her lip in regret. “I can hardly tell him the truth, can I?” And she coughed as usual, muttering the rest of the sentence in her sleeve.

  But James was exceedingly gladdened. “He is as good-natured a fellow as ever lived; a little of a rattle, but—And how do you like the rest of the family?”

  Once placed on a path of minor deception, what could Catherine say?

  “Very, very much indeed: Isabella—uhm—particularly.”

  “I am very glad to hear you say so; she is just the kind of young woman I could wish to see you attached to. So much good sense! So thoroughly unaffected and amiable! So lovely!—ahem. I always wanted you to know her; and she seems very fond of you. She said the highest things in your praise; and the praise of such a girl as Miss Thorpe even you, Catherine,” taking her hand with affection, “may be proud of.”

  “Indeed I am,” she replied (while angels sobbed all around); “I—ahem—like her exceedingly—that is, well—yes, I am delighted that you like her too. You hardly mentioned anything of her when you wrote to me after your visit there.”

  Catherine wanted to rend her handkerchief in horrid guilt and agitation at her own untrue words, but her brother was still holding her hand. . . .

  “Because I thought I should soon see you myself,” said James warmly. “I hope you will be a great deal together while you are in Bath. She is a most amiable girl; such a superior understanding! How fond all the family are of her! And how she must be admired in such a place as this—is not she?”

  “Oh, yes. Very much indeed, I fancy; Mr. Allen thinks her the prettiest girl in Bath.” And so does every other gentleman.

  “I dare say he does; and I do not know any man who is a better judge of beauty than Mr. Allen. I need not ask you whether you are happy here, my dear Catherine; with such a companion and friend as Isabella Thorpe, it would be impossible to be otherwise. And the Allens are very kind to you?”

  “Yes, very kind; I never was so happy before; and now you are come it will be more delightful than ever. How good of you to come so far on purpose to see me.”

  James accepted this tribute of gratitude, and qualified his conscience for accepting it too, by saying with perfect sincerity, “Indeed, Catherine, I love you dearly.”

  He then added, “But there is one more reason for my arrival, I admit. It might be complete nonsense, but it is amusing to imagine . . . There was talk, I must say, among the Thorpes when I was there, of hidden treasure. From what I understand, there is a grand ancient hoard of gold—or diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds!—or other some such, buried or otherwise hidden away in Bath, or its whereabouts. Maybe in the pump-room! Or underneath the pump-room, in deep secret corridors! Or maybe even right underneath our feet! And there are Secret Clues! They are supposedly concealed all about, leading to horrid places just like in Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels. All very gothic and sanguine and mysterious!”

  Catherine froze and listened, her imagination immediately and fiercely engaged. Dark gothic mysteries! Treasure! Here in Bath! Dark gothic mysteries beyond a black veil! Udolpho!

  But the fascinating subject was far too quickly changed.

  Inquiries and communications concerning brothers and sisters, followed. Family matters passed between them, and continued (with only one digression on James’s part, in praise of the beauties of Miss Thorpe), till they reached Pulteney Street.

  Here he was welcomed with great kindness by Mr. and Mrs. Allen, and invited to dine with them. A pre-engagement in Edgar’s Buildings prevented his accepting the invitation and obliged him to hurry away.

  Until the time of the two parties uniting in the Octagon Room, Catherine was left to the company of dear, familiar fluttering angels whom she largely ignored, and the luxury of a raised, restless, and frightened imagination, in near darkness, over the pages of Udolpho—lost from all worldly concerns of dressing (and Mrs. Allen’s late-running dressmaker) and dinner, and taking only a minute to reflect upon her own felicity in being already engaged for the evening.

  Catherine reads The Mysteries of Udolpho.

  Chapter 8

  In spite of Udolpho and the dressmaker, however, the party from Pulteney Street reached the Upper Rooms in very good time.

  The Thorpes and James Morland were there only two minutes before them. Catherine observed James’s angelic guardian soar nervously over the top of his head and rapidly beat his tiny glittering wings in an attempt to fan away the scalding air radiated by John Thorpe. The other household angels—likely in charge of Mrs. Thorpe and her younger daughters—were making every effort to assist, but keeping well away from both John and Isabella.

  “Upon my word! It only now occurs to me,” whispered Catherine to Lawrence who perched on one of her sleeves, “that neither of these . . . nephilim have angels to watch over them!”

  “Indeed, not,” the angel replied. “The nephilim are most often watched over by beings of another kind.”

  “You do not perchance mean—demons? Oh dear!”

  The angel sadly nodded, adding, “But, it is their choice. Nephilim—even though they are children of the fallen ones—are fundamentally neutral, poised on the brink of Good and Evil, and gifted with human free will. They are able to take either fork in the road. Sadly, they most often choose the non-human side of their bloo
d, which is tainted by the dark.”

  “Are their—demons—here, then? Should I somehow see them also?”

  “Blessedly, they are not,” replied Lawrence, unfurling his wings, and starting to fan Catherine gently as the Thorpes closed the distance enough to make John Thorpe’s heat palpable. “You will indeed know them if you see them, dear child, and I hope you never have to . . . But, by Heavenly Decree, demons are not permitted to appear in the flesh, or be fully tangible, before midnight, and not after three in the morning when the rooster crows. So, they are not here . . . yet.”

  And Catherine realized in that chilling moment that she had never up to that point had the pleasure of being in Isabella’s company at an evening event that carried on past midnight—either one or the other of them had been elsewhere, or had left early.

  She was fortunate all this time—indeed, all her life! To have never seen a demon! And, most recently, to have avoided being in the presence of Isabella’s demonic guardian! As if Isabella herself was not dire enough!

  But, oh dear, tonight was going to be horridly different . . . Although, I did long for frightful Udolpho excitement, did I not?

  Catherine’s eager yet terrified anticipation of horrid events was momentarily lessened as the two parties came together. Isabella went through the usual ceremony of meeting her friend with the most smiling and affectionate haste, admiring her gown, and envying the curl of her hair. Catherine felt only mildly doubtful about reciprocating, even though to her true sight Isabella appeared to be a scarecrow attired in finery.

  They followed their chaperones, arm in (thoroughly chilled) arm, into the ballroom, whispering to each other whenever a thought occurred, and supplying the place of many ideas by a squeeze of the hand or a smile of sometimes forced affection.

  The dancing began within a few minutes after they were seated. Catherine stared in open wonder at the sea of dancers and, directly overhead, a blazing cloud of their angels, brighter than candlelight—oh, so many glorious angels!—all whirling in time to the music, above and below. An impossible, beautiful sight!