Northanger Abbey, chapter 22: Lifestyles of the Rich & Demanding

Good news: Catherine didn’t perish in her bed during her first night at Northanger Abbey. She wakes up after sleeping in for a bit (thanks to spending a couple hours in terror of some abbey ghost haunting the halls) and remembers, there’s a mystery afoot! Remember the possibly ancient, possibly secret message she found the night before? Cat does! She grabs it and reads …

… and it’s just a laundry list and some old bill. 

Cat is not so much devastated as acutely embarrassed that these were the contents that “had filled her with expectation and alarm, and robbed her of half her night’s rest!” She also realizes that there was nothing special about a lock if the key is out in the “open to all!” The narrator adds a line I will surely steal at some point that speaks to the goodness of her core: “She felt humbled to the dust.”

At breakfast, Cat gets another, smaller dose of embarrassment when Henry cheerfully assumes that she wasn’t disturbed by last night’s storm. She moves the topic to flowers, a fresh passion of hers that she owes to Eleanor. Mrs. Allen has tried and failed to impart the same appreciation to Cat. All of this seems to support my hypothesis that Cat is only as a good a student as her teacher is beloved.

Unfortunately, General Tilney soon spoils the fun. First he gives a “gentle hint of sympathetic early rising” that guilts Cat further for sleeping in; then he makes an “imposing” speech about the importance of giving his sons “employment” (talking over his daughter again in the process); and next, on hearing Cat’s desire to take a tour of the abbey’s interior, claims to see in her face “a judicious desire of making use of the present smiling weather” and instead takes her outside to see the grounds.

Of course, Cat finds this line of logic baffling, as I think anyone would. The general words his order (and make no doubt about it, it’s an order) in such a way that suggests it’s an imposition to him to go outside. He’s implying that he’s being gracious in allowing Cat to look at the grounds—though she never expressed interest in doing so. It’s a tricky bit of manipulation that he can get away with because of his imposing manner and because he cloaks his selfish desire in gallantry. 

But since the abbey’s grounds are lovely and Cat’s natural state is enthusiasm, the tour is a success. General Tilney goes from Mr. Collins to Lady Catherine in no time at all in his prideful expression: “[W]ithout any ambition of that sort [my]self … [I do] believe [the abbey’s gardens] to be unrivaled in the kingdom.” And he keeps asking Cat how his estate compares to Mr. Allen’s in a very smug tone that completely bypasses Cat (the narration makes his “self-satisfaction” very clear to the reader). 

Then the party stumble on a pathway with a “gloomy aspect” that the general seems to dislike—but he lets Cat and Eleanor go explore while he takes a different path. Eleanor shares that this was her mother’s favorite walk, and the more she speaks of her, the more obvious her grief becomes. Honestly, Cat could use a little sensitivity training here—she pelts Eleanor with questions about Mrs. Tilney, either oblivious to her friend’s mood or under the naive impression that she’s comforting her. Cat decides that “there was a something in the turn of [General Tilney’s] features which spoke his not having behaved well to [Mrs. Tilney].” This belief is strengthened when Eleanor innocently tells her that her mother’s portrait hangs in her room, not her father’s. 

Proof, she believes, of evil intentions: “She had often read of such characters, characters which Mr. Allen had been used to call unnatural and overdrawn; but here was proof positive of the contrary.” Even as the general charms her again when they meet up, his insistence that she not be allowed to tour the abbey without him makes her uncomfortable. 

Now on her guard, what will Cat’s next move be? Perhaps to find a key to unlock a new mystery …

The Shapard Shelf: The abbey’s grounds consists not only of the gardens, but also a pinery (a pineapple farm!) and succession houses, “special hothouses placed next to each other and kept at different, carefully graded temperatures.” Regarding General Tilney’s opinion about his sons staying active or employed, Shapard says that “[h]is idea of the need for professions was far from universal among the genteel classes,” and this view “may reflect his own active nature.” Given all that he’s done in this chapter alone to persuade or demand people go along with his whims, I don’t think it’s absurd to suggest that even the general’s best ideas stem from a very selfish, imposing will.