Northanger Abbey, chapter 30: A Gentleman Caller
Mama Morland watches her daughter’s listlessness over the next few days and becomes alarmed. We know that Cat misses the Tilneys and mourns the loss of Henry. When she “talk[s] so much about the French bread at Northanger” one morning, as her mother chides, it’s actually because she remembers Henry’s attentiveness to her during meals there. Mama Morland is convinced that “[Cat’s] rambling and her idleness” is a product of “growing [into] quite a fine lady,” which is a critique rather than a compliment. She fears that exposure to the refined manners and tastes of the Tilneys has spoiled Cat. The little ironic twist here is that the actual young lady who yearns for grand surroundings is her son’s ex-fiancee. It’s just that with no clue as to the existence of Henry Tilney, Mama Morland misreads Cat’s heartbreak as the beginnings of a superiority complex.
But on the third day of Cat’s homecoming, a hero comes along. While Mama Morland is busy trying to find some instructive literature to snap Cat out of her funk (jeez, no wonder this girl hated lessons and lectures), Henry Tilney unexpectedly comes to call. He’s there to make sure Cat got home safely and Mrs. Morland “receive[s] him with the simple professions of unaffected benevolence.” Mrs. Morland doesn’t blame the apologetic Henry at all for his father’s behavior, and on seeing Cat’s “glowing cheek and brightened eye,” complacently believes that the visit is exactly what Cat needs. Henry asks Cat to show him to the Allens, and once they get an overly-helpful younger sister out of the way, Mrs. Morland allows Cat to go.
Then the proposal happens. See? We got there, guys.
Their love confession is more comical than romantic, though the romance is still there. Henry confesses his feelings and “they pretty equally knew” that Cat’s heart “[is] already entirely his own.” There is no grander reason for Henry to have “[given] her a serious thought” than “a persuasion of her partiality for him.” The narrator acknowledges that such dull matchmaking is “dreadfully derogatory of an heroine’s dignity.” Though still fearful of his father, “Henry [saves Cat] from the necessity of a conscientious rejection [of his proposal], by engaging her faith before he mentioned” that his horrible dad is being a poo-poo head throwing a toddler tantrum has forbidden Henry to pursue her. Will the engagement be a success? We’ll have to check in next time.
Meanwhile, you’re probably asking yourself how things got to this point. Sure, Henry loves Cat, but why did General Tilney kick Cat out of his house? Well … what if I were to tell you that we have none other than John Thorpe to blame for this?
You read that right. The timeline goes like this: way back when James the lovesick big brother first met Thorpe at Oxford, he got a little braggy about his fortune—his “expectations” were “overrated,” at least—and Thorpe let his imagination run wild with “Mr. Morland’s preferment” and “a rich aunt.” On meeting the general in Bath, Thorpe embellished Cat’s fortune to make himself look distinguished, unknowingly spurring General Tilney’s matchmaking machinations to get Cat (and the presumed rich aunt) for Henry. The general didn’t question Thorpe’s information, since at that time the Thorpes and the Morlands were allegedly heading for a double-wedding, and who would ally themselves twice over with a less-than-wealthy family? Only a completely useless idiot, that’s who. Which, of course, is what Thorpe proved himself to be when he and the general met up again in London: bitter over Cat’s dismissal of his proposal and the dissolution of James’s engagement, Thorpe “confessed himself to have been totally mistaken in his opinion of their circumstances and character” (it’s suggested that James “misled … his friend to believe his father a man of substance and credit”). Worst of all, Cat isn’t in a position to inherit any of the Allens’ wealth.
This all incensed General Tilney, who thundered back to Northanger Abbey to give Cat the boot, and later demanded that Henry forget about her.
And then Henry EXPLODED—his “indignation on hearing how Catherine had been treated … had [made him] open and bold.” It’s great. I wish we had a whole scene of this: “The general, accustomed on every ordinary occasion to give the law in his family, prepared for no reluctance but of feeling, no opposing desire that should dare to clothe itself in words, could ill brook the opposition of his son.” None of his subsequent anger “intimidate[s] Henry,” however, who “felt himself bound as much in honor as in affection to Miss Morland.” Yeah you do Henry!
And how does Cat feel about all this? Well, she’s “heard enough to feel that in suspecting General Tilney of either murdering or shutting up his wife, she had scarcely sinned against his character, or magnified his cruelty.” Welcome to married life, Cat.
The Shapard Shelf: The literature Mrs. Morland fetches for Cat is “probably a fictional letter” out of a periodical called The Mirror, where “the supposed author laments that a month of staying with a great lady has corrupted his daughters.” Shapard points out a couple of critiques surrounding General Tilney’s actions: first, the general would have recognized Thorpe’s “obvious faults” rather than have taken him at his word about Cat’s fortune; second, his kicking Cat out so rudely “represents such a transgression of expected behavior that knowledge of it would certainly spread and harm his reputation”—in other words, it may have been too implausible for contemporary readers to take seriously.
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