CHAPTER 21

A moment's glance was enough to satisfy Catherine that her apartment

was very unlike the one which Henry had endeavoured to alarm her by the

description of. It was by no means unreasonably large, and contained

neither tapestry nor velvet. The walls were papered, the floor was

carpeted; the windows were neither less perfect nor more dim than those

of the drawing-room below; the furniture, though not of the latest

fashion, was handsome and comfortable, and the air of the room

altogether far from uncheerful. Her heart instantaneously at ease on

this point, she resolved to lose no time in particular examination of

anything, as she greatly dreaded disobliging the general by any delay.

Her habit therefore was thrown off with all possible haste, and she was

preparing to unpin the linen package, which the chaise-seat had conveyed

for her immediate accommodation, when her eye suddenly fell on a large

high chest, standing back in a deep recess on one side of the fireplace.

The sight of it made her start; and, forgetting everything else, she

stood gazing on it in motionless wonder, while these thoughts crossed

her:

"This is strange indeed! I did not expect such a sight as this! An

immense heavy chest! What can it hold? Why should it be placed here?

Pushed back too, as if meant to be out of sight! I will look into

it--cost me what it may, I will look into it--and directly too--by

daylight. If I stay till evening my candle may go out." She advanced and

examined it closely: it was of cedar, curiously inlaid with some darker

wood, and raised, about a foot from the ground, on a carved stand of the

same. The lock was silver, though tarnished from age; at each end

were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver, broken perhaps

prematurely by some strange violence; and, on the centre of the lid, was

a mysterious cipher, in the same metal. Catherine bent over it intently,

but without being able to distinguish anything with certainty. She could

not, in whatever direction she took it, believe the last letter to be

a T; and yet that it should be anything else in that house was

a circumstance to raise no common degree of astonishment. If not

originally theirs, by what strange events could it have fallen into the

Tilney family?

Her fearful curiosity was every moment growing greater; and seizing,

with trembling hands, the hasp of the lock, she resolved at all hazards

to satisfy herself at least as to its contents. With difficulty, for

something seemed to resist her efforts, she raised the lid a few inches;

but at that moment a sudden knocking at the door of the room made her,

starting, quit her hold, and the lid closed with alarming violence. This

ill-timed intruder was Miss Tilney's maid, sent by her mistress to be of

use to Miss Morland; and though Catherine immediately dismissed her, it

recalled her to the sense of what she ought to be doing, and forced her,

in spite of her anxious desire to penetrate this mystery, to proceed in

her dressing without further delay. Her progress was not quick, for her

thoughts and her eyes were still bent on the object so well calculated

to interest and alarm; and though she dared not waste a moment upon

a second attempt, she could not remain many paces from the chest. At

length, however, having slipped one arm into her gown, her toilette

seemed so nearly finished that the impatience of her curiosity might

safely be indulged. One moment surely might be spared; and, so desperate

should be the exertion of her strength, that, unless secured by

supernatural means, the lid in one moment should be thrown back. With

this spirit she sprang forward, and her confidence did not deceive her.

Her resolute effort threw back the lid, and gave to her astonished eyes

the view of a white cotton counterpane, properly folded, reposing at one

end of the chest in undisputed possession!

She was gazing on it with the first blush of surprise when Miss Tilney,

anxious for her friend's being ready, entered the room, and to the

rising shame of having harboured for some minutes an absurd expectation,

was then added the shame of being caught in so idle a search. "That is

a curious old chest, is not it?" said Miss Tilney, as Catherine hastily

closed it and turned away to the glass. "It is impossible to say how

many generations it has been here. How it came to be first put in this

room I know not, but I have not had it moved, because I thought it might

sometimes be of use in holding hats and bonnets. The worst of it is that

its weight makes it difficult to open. In that corner, however, it is at

least out of the way."

Catherine had no leisure for speech, being at once blushing, tying her

gown, and forming wise resolutions with the most violent dispatch. Miss

Tilney gently hinted her fear of being late; and in half a minute they

ran downstairs together, in an alarm not wholly unfounded, for General

Tilney was pacing the drawing-room, his watch in his hand, and having,

on the very instant of their entering, pulled the bell with violence,

ordered "Dinner to be on table directly!"

Catherine trembled at the emphasis with which he spoke, and sat pale

and breathless, in a most humble mood, concerned for his children, and

detesting old chests; and the general, recovering his politeness as he

looked at her, spent the rest of his time in scolding his daughter for

so foolishly hurrying her fair friend, who was absolutely out of breath

from haste, when there was not the least occasion for hurry in the

world: but Catherine could not at all get over the double distress

of having involved her friend in a lecture and been a great simpleton

herself, till they were happily seated at the dinner-table, when the

general's complacent smiles, and a good appetite of her own, restored

her to peace. The dining-parlour was a noble room, suitable in its

dimensions to a much larger drawing-room than the one in common use, and

fitted up in a style of luxury and expense which was almost lost on the

unpractised eye of Catherine, who saw little more than its spaciousness

and the number of their attendants. Of the former, she spoke aloud

her admiration; and the general, with a very gracious countenance,

acknowledged that it was by no means an ill-sized room, and further

confessed that, though as careless on such subjects as most people, he

did look upon a tolerably large eating-room as one of the necessaries

of life; he supposed, however, "that she must have been used to much

better-sized apartments at Mr. Allen's?"

"No, indeed," was Catherine's honest assurance; "Mr. Allen's

dining-parlour was not more than half as large," and she had never

seen so large a room as this in her life. The general's good humour

increased. Why, as he had such rooms, he thought it would be simple not

to make use of them; but, upon his honour, he believed there might be

more comfort in rooms of only half their size. Mr. Allen's house, he was

sure, must be exactly of the true size for rational happiness.

The evening passed without any further disturbance, and, in the

occasional absence of General Tilney, with much positive cheerfulness.

It was only in his presence that Catherine felt the smallest fatigue

from her journey; and even then, even in moments of languor or

restraint, a sense of general happiness preponderated, and she could

think of her friends in Bath without one wish of being with them.

The night was stormy; the wind had been rising at intervals the whole

afternoon; and by the time the party broke up, it blew and rained

violently. Catherine, as she crossed the hall, listened to the tempest

with sensations of awe; and, when she heard it rage round a corner of

the ancient building and close with sudden fury a distant door, felt

for the first time that she was really in an abbey. Yes, these were

characteristic sounds; they brought to her recollection a countless

variety of dreadful situations and horrid scenes, which such buildings

had witnessed, and such storms ushered in; and most heartily did she

rejoice in the happier circumstances attending her entrance within walls

so solemn! She had nothing to dread from midnight assassins or drunken

gallants. Henry had certainly been only in jest in what he had told her

that morning. In a house so furnished, and so guarded, she could have

nothing to explore or to suffer, and might go to her bedroom as securely

as if it had been her own chamber at Fullerton. Thus wisely fortifying

her mind, as she proceeded upstairs, she was enabled, especially on

perceiving that Miss Tilney slept only two doors from her, to enter

her room with a tolerably stout heart; and her spirits were immediately

assisted by the cheerful blaze of a wood fire. "How much better is

this," said she, as she walked to the fender--"how much better to find a

fire ready lit, than to have to wait shivering in the cold till all the

family are in bed, as so many poor girls have been obliged to do, and

then to have a faithful old servant frightening one by coming in with a

faggot! How glad I am that Northanger is what it is! If it had been like

some other places, I do not know that, in such a night as this, I could

have answered for my courage: but now, to be sure, there is nothing to

alarm one."

She looked round the room. The window curtains seemed in motion. It

could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the

divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly

humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so, peeped courageously

behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window seat to scare her,

and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt the strongest conviction

of the wind's force. A glance at the old chest, as she turned away from

this examination, was not without its use; she scorned the causeless

fears of an idle fancy, and began with a most happy indifference to

prepare herself for bed. "She should take her time; she should not hurry

herself; she did not care if she were the last person up in the house.

But she would not make up her fire; that would seem cowardly, as if

she wished for the protection of light after she were in bed." The fire

therefore died away, and Catherine, having spent the best part of an

hour in her arrangements, was beginning to think of stepping into bed,

when, on giving a parting glance round the room, she was struck by the

appearance of a high, old-fashioned black cabinet, which, though in

a situation conspicuous enough, had never caught her notice before.

Henry's words, his description of the ebony cabinet which was to escape

her observation at first, immediately rushed across her; and though

there could be nothing really in it, there was something whimsical, it

was certainly a very remarkable coincidence! She took her candle and

looked closely at the cabinet. It was not absolutely ebony and gold; but

it was japan, black and yellow japan of the handsomest kind; and as she

held her candle, the yellow had very much the effect of gold. The key

was in the door, and she had a strange fancy to look into it; not,

however, with the smallest expectation of finding anything, but it was

so very odd, after what Henry had said. In short, she could not sleep

till she had examined it. So, placing the candle with great caution on

a chair, she seized the key with a very tremulous hand and tried to turn

it; but it resisted her utmost strength. Alarmed, but not discouraged,

she tried it another way; a bolt flew, and she believed herself

successful; but how strangely mysterious! The door was still immovable.

She paused a moment in breathless wonder. The wind roared down the

chimney, the rain beat in torrents against the windows, and everything

seemed to speak the awfulness of her situation. To retire to bed,

however, unsatisfied on such a point, would be vain, since sleep must be

impossible with the consciousness of a cabinet so mysteriously closed

in her immediate vicinity. Again, therefore, she applied herself to the

key, and after moving it in every possible way for some instants with

the determined celerity of hope's last effort, the door suddenly yielded

to her hand: her heart leaped with exultation at such a victory, and

having thrown open each folding door, the second being secured only by

bolts of less wonderful construction than the lock, though in that her

eye could not discern anything unusual, a double range of small drawers

appeared in view, with some larger drawers above and below them; and in

the centre, a small door, closed also with a lock and key, secured in

all probability a cavity of importance.

Catherine's heart beat quick, but her courage did not fail her. With a

cheek flushed by hope, and an eye straining with curiosity, her fingers

grasped the handle of a drawer and drew it forth. It was entirely empty.

With less alarm and greater eagerness she seized a second, a third, a

fourth; each was equally empty. Not one was left unsearched, and in not

one was anything found. Well read in the art of concealing a treasure,

the possibility of false linings to the drawers did not escape her, and

she felt round each with anxious acuteness in vain. The place in the

middle alone remained now unexplored; and though she had "never from

the first had the smallest idea of finding anything in any part of the

cabinet, and was not in the least disappointed at her ill success thus

far, it would be foolish not to examine it thoroughly while she was

about it." It was some time however before she could unfasten the door,

the same difficulty occurring in the management of this inner lock as of

the outer; but at length it did open; and not vain, as hitherto, was her

search; her quick eyes directly fell on a roll of paper pushed back

into the further part of the cavity, apparently for concealment, and

her feelings at that moment were indescribable. Her heart fluttered, her

knees trembled, and her cheeks grew pale. She seized, with an unsteady

hand, the precious manuscript, for half a glance sufficed to ascertain

written characters; and while she acknowledged with awful sensations

this striking exemplification of what Henry had foretold, resolved

instantly to peruse every line before she attempted to rest.

The dimness of the light her candle emitted made her turn to it with

alarm; but there was no danger of its sudden extinction; it had yet some

hours to burn; and that she might not have any greater difficulty in

distinguishing the writing than what its ancient date might occasion,

she hastily snuffed it. Alas! It was snuffed and extinguished in one. A

lamp could not have expired with more awful effect. Catherine, for a

few moments, was motionless with horror. It was done completely; not a

remnant of light in the wick could give hope to the rekindling breath.

Darkness impenetrable and immovable filled the room. A violent gust

of wind, rising with sudden fury, added fresh horror to the moment.

Catherine trembled from head to foot. In the pause which succeeded, a

sound like receding footsteps and the closing of a distant door struck

on her affrighted ear. Human nature could support no more. A cold sweat

stood on her forehead, the manuscript fell from her hand, and groping

her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension of

agony by creeping far underneath the clothes. To close her eyes in

sleep that night, she felt must be entirely out of the question. With

a curiosity so justly awakened, and feelings in every way so agitated,

repose must be absolutely impossible. The storm too abroad so dreadful!

She had not been used to feel alarm from wind, but now every blast

seemed fraught with awful intelligence. The manuscript so wonderfully

found, so wonderfully accomplishing the morning's prediction, how was it

to be accounted for? What could it contain? To whom could it relate?

By what means could it have been so long concealed? And how singularly

strange that it should fall to her lot to discover it! Till she had made

herself mistress of its contents, however, she could have neither repose

nor comfort; and with the sun's first rays she was determined to peruse

it. But many were the tedious hours which must yet intervene. She

shuddered, tossed about in her bed, and envied every quiet sleeper. The

storm still raged, and various were the noises, more terrific even

than the wind, which struck at intervals on her startled ear. The very

curtains of her bed seemed at one moment in motion, and at another

the lock of her door was agitated, as if by the attempt of somebody to

enter. Hollow murmurs seemed to creep along the gallery, and more than

once her blood was chilled by the sound of distant moans. Hour after

hour passed away, and the wearied Catherine had heard three proclaimed

by all the clocks in the house before the tempest subsided or she

unknowingly fell fast asleep.