33 Northanger Abbey - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to podcast that offers you a calm and relaxing transition into a great night's sleep.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.

This is your time and your space.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 26 From this time,

The subject was frequently canvassed by the three young people and Catherine found,

With some surprise,

Her two young friends were perfectly agreed in considering Isabella's want of consequence and fortune as likely to throw great difficulties in the way of her marrying their brother.

Their persuasion that the General would,

Upon this ground alone,

Independent of the objection that might be raised against her character,

Oppose the connection,

Turned her feelings moreover with some alarm towards herself.

She was as insignificant and perhaps as portionless as Isabella and if the heir of the Tilney property had not grandeur and wealth enough in himself,

At what point of interest were the demands of his younger brother to rest?

The very painful reflections to which this thought led could only be dispersed by a dependence on the effect of that particular partiality which,

As she was given to understand by his words as well as his actions,

She had from the first been so fortunate as to excite in the General and by a recollection of some most generous and disinterested sentiments on the subject of money,

Which he had more than once heard him utter and which tempted her to think his disposition in such matters misunderstood by his children.

They were so fully convinced,

However,

Their brother would not have the courage to apply in person for his father's consent and so repeatedly assured her he had never in his life been less likely to come to Northanger than at the present time,

That she suffered her mind to be at ease as to the necessity of any sudden removal of her own.

But as it was not to be supposed that Captain Tilney,

Whenever he made his application,

Would give his father any just idea of Isabella's conduct,

It occurred to Catherine as highly expedient that Henry should lay the whole business before him,

As it really was,

Enabling the General by that means to form a cool and impartial opinion and prepare his objections on a fairer ground than inequality of situations.

She proposed it to him accordingly,

But he did not catch at the measure so eagerly as she had expected.

No,

Said he,

My father's hands need not be strengthened,

And Frederick's confession of folly need not be forestalled.

He must tell his own story.

But he will tell only half of it.

A quarter would be enough.

A day or two passed away and brought no tidings of Captain Tilney.

His brother and sister knew not what to think.

Sometimes it appeared to them as if his silence would be the natural result of the suspected engagement,

And at others that it was wholly incompatible with it.

The General,

Meanwhile,

Though offended every morning by Frederick's remissness in writing,

Was free from any real anxiety about him,

And he had no more pressing solicitude than that of making Miss Morland's time at Northanger pass pleasantly.

He often expressed his uneasiness on this head,

Feared the sameness of everyday society and employment would disgust her with the place,

Wished the lady Frazers had been in the country,

Talked every now and then of having a large party to dinner,

And once or twice began even to calculate the number of young dancing people in the neighbourhood.

But then it was such a dead time of year,

No wild fowl,

No game,

And the lady Frazers were not in the country,

And it all ended at last in his telling Henry one morning that when he next went to Woodstone,

They would take him by surprise there some day or another,

And eat their mutton with him.

Henry was greatly honoured and very happy,

And Catherine was quite delighted with the scheme.

And when do you think,

Sir,

I may look forward to this pleasure?

I must be at Woodstone on Monday to attend the parish meeting,

And shall probably be obliged to stay two or three days.

Well well,

We'll take our chance some one or other of these days,

There's no need to fix.

You're not to put yourself all out of the way.

Whatever you may happen to have in the house will be enough.

I think I can answer for the young ladies making allowance for a bachelor's table.

Let me see,

Monday will be a busy day with you,

We will not come on Monday.

Tuesday will be a busy one with me.

I expect my surveyor from Brockham with his report,

And afterwards I cannot in decency fail attending the club.

I really could not face my acquaintance if I stayed away now,

For,

As I am known to be in the country,

It would be taking exceedingly amiss.

And it is a rule with me,

Miss Morland,

Never to give offence to any of my neighbours,

If a small sacrifice of time and attention can prevent it.

They're a set of very worthy men,

They have half a buck from Northanger twice a year,

And I dine with them whenever I can.

Tuesday,

Therefore,

We may say,

Is out of the question,

But on Wednesday,

I think,

Henry,

You may expect us,

And we shall be with you early,

That we may have time to look about us.

Two hours and three quarters will carry us to Woodstoun,

I suppose.

We shall be in the carriage by ten,

So about a quarter before one on Wednesday you may look for us.

A ball itself could not have been more welcome to Catherine than this little excursion,

So strong was her desire to be acquainted with Woodstoun.

And her heart was still bounding with joy when Henry,

About an hour afterwards,

Came booted and ready-coated into the room where she and Eleanor were sitting,

And said,

I am come,

Young ladies,

In a very moralising strain,

To observe our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for,

And that we often purchase them at great disadvantage,

Giving ready-moneyed actual happiness for a draught on the future that may not be honoured.

Which is myself at this present hour.

Because I am to hope for the satisfaction of seeing you at Woodstoun on Wednesday,

Which bad weather or twenty other causes may prevent,

I must go away directly two days before I intended it.

" "'Go away?

' said Catherine with a very long face.

"'And why?

' "'Why?

How can you ask the question?

Because no time is to be lost in frightening my old housekeeper out of her wits.

Because I must go and prepare a dinner for you,

To be sure.

" "'No,

Not seriously.

' "'I,

And sadly,

Too,

For I'd much rather stay.

' "'But how can you think of such a thing,

After what the General said,

When he so particularly desired you not to give yourself any trouble,

Because anything would do?

' Henry only smiled.

"'I'm sure it's quite unnecessary,

Upon your sister's account and mine.

You must know it to be so.

And the General made such a point of your providing nothing extraordinary.

Besides,

If he had not said come half so much as he did,

Here's always such an excellent dinner at home,

That sitting down to a middling one for any day could not signify.

I wish I could reason like you,

Catherine,

For his sake and my own.

Good-bye,

As tomorrow is Sunday.

Eleanor,

I shall not return.

' Henry went,

And it being,

Any other time,

A much simpler operation to Catherine to doubt her own judgment than Henry's,

She was very soon obliged to give him credit for being right,

However disagreeable to her his going.

But the inexplicability of the General's conduct dwelt much on her thoughts,

That he was very particular in his eating,

She had,

By her own unassisted observation,

Already discovered.

But why should he say one thing so positively and mean all the while another?

That was most unaccountable.

How were people at that rate to be understood?

Who but Henry could have been aware of what his father was at?

From Saturday to Wednesday,

However,

They were now to be without Henry.

This was the sad finale of every reflection,

And Captain Tilney's letter would certainly come in his absence,

And Wednesday Catherine was very sure would be wet.

The past,

Present and future were all equally in gloom now,

Her brother so unhappy,

And her loss in Isabella so great,

And Eleanor's spirits always affected by Henry's absence.

What was there to interest or amuse her?

She was tired of the woods and the shrubberies,

Always so smooth and so dry,

And the Abbey in itself was no more to her now than any other house.

The painful remembrance of the folly it had helped to nourish and perfect was the only emotion which could spring from the consideration of the building.

What a revolution in her ideas,

She who had so longed to be in an Abbey.

Now there was nothing so charming to her imagination as the unpretending comfort of a well-connected parsonage,

Something like Fullerton but better.

Fullerton had its faults,

But Woodstone probably had none.

If Wednesday should ever come!

It did come,

And exactly when it might be reasonably looked for.

It came and it was fine,

And Catherine trod on air.

By ten o'clock the chaise and four conveyed the trio from the Abbey,

And after an agreeable drive of almost twenty miles they entered Woodstone,

A large populous village in a situation not unpleasant.

Catherine was ashamed to say how pretty she thought it,

As the General seemed to think an apology necessary for the flatness of the country and the size of the village.

But in her heart she preferred it to any place she'd ever been,

And looked with great admiration at every neat house above the rank of a cottage,

And at all the little charmless shops which they passed.

At the further end of the village,

And tolerably disengaged from the rest,

Stood the parsonage,

A new-built,

Substantial stone house,

With its semi-circular sweep and green gates.

And as they drove up to the door,

Henry,

With the friends of his solitude,

A large newfoundland puppy and two or three terriers,

Was ready to receive and make much of them.

Catherine's mind was too full as she entered the house to observe or say a great deal,

And till called on by the General for her opinion,

She had very little idea of the room in which she was sitting.

Upon looking round it then,

She perceived in a moment it was the most comfortable room in the world,

But she was too guarded to say it,

And the coldness of her praise disappointed him.

"'We are not calling it a good house,

' said he.

"'We are not comparing it with Fullerton nor Fanger.

We are considering it as a mere parsonage,

Small and confined,

We allow,

But decent perhaps and habitable,

And altogether not inferior to the Generality,

Or,

In other words,

I believe there are few country parsonages in England half so good.

"'It may emit of improvement,

However,

Far be it for me to say otherwise,

And anything in reason,

A bow thrown out,

Perhaps,

Though between ourselves,

If there is one thing more than any other my aversion,

It's a patched-on bow.

'" Catherine did not hear enough of this speech to understand or be pained by it,

And other subjects being studiously brought forward and supported by Henry,

At the same time that a tray full of refreshments was introduced by his servant,

The General was shortly restored to his complacency,

And Catherine to all her usual ease of spirits.