Northanger Abbey, chapter 27: Single Woman Seeks Former BFF

Finally, we reach the coda for Cat and Isabella’s friendship. Interesting that it ends while Cat is staying at Northanger Abbey, a place where she has already learned some self-knowledge and gained some much-needed perspective. And once again, we have a character who reveals her true inner self through the written word—a revelation so blunt that Cat isn’t fooled for one second.  

What kind of letter could do all this? Let me show you: 

After a preamble through which we learn that Cat has already written to Isabella twice, Isabella complains 

I have had my pen in my hand to begin a letter to you almost every day since you left Bath, but have always been prevented by some silly trifler or other. 

So she always meant to write back, but got too caught up in smaller stuff that didn’t matter. Great start! 

After sucking up to Cat a little more, Isabella gets to the point:

I am quite uneasy about your dear brother, not having heard from him since he went to Oxford; and am fearful of some misunderstanding. Your kind offices will set all right: he is the only man I ever did or could love, and I trust you will convince him of it.  

“Not having heard from him” is how she describes breaking off their engagement. “[T]he only man I ever did or could love” is how she describes the same man who believes she used him to encourage the jealousy of Captain Tilney. 

The spring fashions are partly down; and the hats the most frightful you can imagine.  

This is the next sentence she wrote. Right after trying to use Cat as a conduit between she and James, Isabella’s talking about fashion accessories. She will continue this pattern.

 After side-eyeing the Tilneys, she at last brings up the captain:

… it is very difficult to know whom to trust, and young men never know their minds two days together. I rejoice to say that the young man whom, of all others, I particularly abhor, has left Bath. You will know, from this description, I must mean Captain Tilney, who, as you may remember, was amazingly disposed to follow and tease me, before you went away. 

Here is where Isabella starts trying to rewrite history. If you’ll recall, there were a few episodes where Cat saw just exactly how Captain Tease “follow[ed] and tease[d]” Isabella—and that Isabella made little effort to put a stop to it.  

Afterwards he got worse, and became quite my shadow. Many girls might have been taken in, for never were such attentions; but I knew the fickle sex too well. He went away to his regiment two days ago, and I trust I shall never be plagued with him again. 

Again, this is absolutely not the impression James gave of their dynamic in his letter. Notice that Isabella’s penchant for condemning the entire male gender crops up again. She also takes a potshot at poor Charlotte Davis again when she claims that Captain Token Bad Boy flirted with Miss Davis before he left: “I pitied his taste.” She adds that she deliberately avoided meeting him “in Bath Street,” and promises that “she would not have followed him for all the world.” I find this choice of words a little suspect: “would not” is not the same as did not. It’s totally possible she’s telling the truth here, but her other lies are so outrageous that I can’t tell! 

Such a contrast between him and your brother! Pray send me some news of the latter—I am quite unhappy about him; he seemed so uncomfortable when he went away, with a cold, or something that affected his spirits. I would write to him myself, but have mislaid his direction; and, as I hinted above, am afraid he took something in my conduct amiss. 

She’s really putting in the effort to spin the situation. She didn’t break up with James—the guy got the sniffles and forgot about her! She wants to talk to him, but she doesn’t know his address at Oxford! She thinks he’s mad at her, but can’t think why he would be! She again asks Cat to be the go-between, which, combined with the pitiful excuse that she doesn’t know how to address a letter to one James Morland ℅ Oxford University, signals that she doesn’t think James would answer any letter from her. In other words: this is damage control.

I have not been to the rooms this age, nor to the play, except going in last night with the Hodges, for a frolic, at half price: [...] I was determined they should not say I shut myself up because Tilney was gone. We happened to sit by the Mitchells, and they pretended to be quite surprised to see me out. I knew their spite: at one time they could not be civil to me, but now they are all friendship; but I am not such a fool as to be taken in by them. 

Isabella hasn’t been socializing. Except for when she goes out to social events. Allusions to the gossip surrounding she and Tilney are all over the place. “[T[hey pretended to be quite surprised to see me out” indicates that the dalliance was public enough (and perhaps shameful enough) that the public are reacting to it. Isabella’s declaration of “I am not such a fool” seems to indicate that there are degrees of foolishness she’s aware of having acted herself. 

Anne Mitchell had tried to put on a turban like mine, as I wore it the week before at the concert, but made wretched work of it—it happened to become my odd face, I believe, at least Tilney told me so at the time, and said every eye was upon me; but he is the last man whose word I would take. 

Now we’re on hats again! And this time it ties into Captain Tilney’s flirtation technique. Why why why does Isabella constantly tell on herself? Wearing a headpiece because a man told her she looks good in it does not make her sound less suspicious. Especially when she’s trying to claim complete loyalty to a different man. How does she think Cat is going to take this? Does she truly believe Cat will take her at her word?

She does, doesn’t she? 

I wear nothing but purple now: I know I look hideous in it, but no matter—it is your dear brother’s favorite color. Lose no time, my dearest, sweetest Catherine, in writing to him and to me, Who ever am, etc.

Isabella adds this pathetic detail about the color purple presumably so that Cat might include it in a letter to James, and it might tug on his heartstrings. Never mind that her belief that she looks horrible in purple speaks to a superficiality that doesn’t make her look good metaphorically. She asks Cat to keep up a correspondence with her presumably to update Isabella about James’s current feelings toward her. 

Cat, “ashamed of having ever loved” Isabella, refuses this request: “No, James should never hear Isabella’s name mentioned by her again.” She lets the Tilney siblings know that Captain Tilney is done with Isabella, and so is she: “She is a vain coquette … I do not believe she had ever any regard either for James or for me, and I wish I had never known her.” Yay! Perception!

She’s still miffed about Captain Tilney’s role in the engagement debacle. Henry admits that his brother has “his vanities” and probably just liked the idea of creating “mischief” with Isabella. If Isabella had been less heartless, Henry suggests, it’s possible that his brother would have treated her better. Cat shows her bias against the captain and Henry admires Cat’s ability to sympathize with Isabella, who was after all discarded by a man who treated her as disposable. Cat concludes that “Frederick [Tileny] could not be unpardonably guilty, while Henry made himself so agreeable.”

I wouldn’t wish gangrene on Captain Tilney, but I do think a long illness might straighten out the guy’s priorities.

Shapard Shelf: Shapard points out that Cat’s condemnation of Captain Tilney is something of a mild transgression: “politeness ... would dictate not denouncing someone’s brother, especially while staying in their home.” Henry respects her “moral integrity,” however, so no lasting harm done.