Jane Austen's World

Northanger Abbey, Vol 2, Chapter XIII + XIV

Inquiring readers, 

In Volume Two, Chapters 13 & 14, the emotional drama that Eleanor Tilney and Catherine Morland share almost explodes from its pages. After discovering that Catherine Morland was not the great heiress he thought her to be, General Tilney ordered his daughter, Eleanor, to oust Catherine from Northanger Abbey. Heretofore, Jane Austen has depicted Eleanor as a quiet, genteel, and deferential young lady, who had not been given much of a center stage. Now Austen reveals us to her inner thoughts and emotions. Catherine, as usual, continues to be an open and wide-eyed innocent.

Eleanor’s Reluctant Message

“Eleanor, stood there. Catherine’s spirits, however, were tranquillized but for an instant, for Eleanor’s cheeks were pale, and her manner greatly agitated. Though evidently intending to come in, it seemed an effort to enter the room, and a still greater to speak when there. Catherine, supposing some uneasiness on Captain Tilney’s account, could only express her concern by silent attention, obliged her to be seated, rubbed her temples with lavender-water, and hung over her with affectionate solicitude. “My dear Catherine, you must not — you must not indeed — ” were Eleanor’s first connected words. “I am quite well. This kindness distracts me — I cannot bear it — I come to you on such an errand!”

“Errand! –to me!”

“How shall I tell you! — Oh! how shall I tell you!” 

The above scene is more about Eleanor’s mortification at being the messenger of bad tidings than Catherine Morland’s reaction, which was concern for another, not herself. Eleanor knew the consequences of her angry’s father’s actions and is devastated. Catherine, perplexed, wonders about the reason for her departure. 

A new idea now darted into Catherine’s mind, and turning as pale as her friend, she exclaimed, “‘Tis a messenger from Woodston!”

Catherine’s only concern is for Henry Tilney. Woodston is his residence, about 20 miles away from the Abbey.

“You are mistaken, indeed,” returned Eleanor, looking at her most compassionately — “it is no one from Woodston. It is my father himself.” 

Eleanor could not lie. Indeed, she could not implicate her brother, who had no part in this deception. 

Her voice faltered, and her eyes were turned to the ground as she mentioned his name. His unlooked-for return was enough in itself to make Catherine’s heart sink, and for a few moments she hardly supposed there were anything worse to be told. 

Eleanor bravely continues, telling Catherine of her part as an unwilling messenger. She also reveals how much Catherine’s friendship means to her:

She  [Catherine] said nothing; and Eleanor, endeavoring to collect herself and speak with firmness, but with eyes still cast down, soon went on. “You are too good, I am sure, to think the worse of me for the part I am obliged to perform. I am indeed a most unwilling messenger. After what has so lately passed, so lately been settled between us — how joyfully, how thankfully on my side! — as to your continuing here as I hoped for many, many weeks longer, how can I tell you that your kindness is not to be accepted — and that the happiness your company has hitherto given us is to be repaid by — but I must not trust myself with words. My dear Catherine, we are to part. My father has recollected an engagement that takes our whole family away on Monday. We are going to Lord Longtown’s, near Hereford, for a fortnight. Explanation and apology are equally impossible. I cannot attempt either.”

Although the General’s excuse was a lie, poor Eleanor was forced to give it. She could not hide her shame. Anything Eleanor said between the lines escaped Catherine, who must have known that Lord Longtown could not be ignored.

“My dear Eleanor,” cried Catherine, suppressing her feelings as well as she could, “do not be so distressed. A second engagement must give way to a first. I am very, very sorry we are to part – so soon, and so suddenly too; but I am not offended, indeed I am not. I can finish my visit here, you know, at any time; or I hope you will come to me. Can you, when you return from this lord’s, come to Fullerton?”

Eleanor answers:

“It will not be in my power, Catherine.”

This sentence illustrates Eleanor’s story in a nutshell – she has no power and is entirely ruled by her father. Her oldest brother is largely absent. Henry is the only male in her family who shows her respect and deference, but she still must depend on him to escort her in public. 

Catherine, Eleanor, and Henry had forged a close relationship because of their genuine like for each other. The brother and sister loved Catherine for her guileless utterances. She in turn admired them for the attention they paid her, which she found flattering. She trusted them like an eager puppy and reveled in their company, especially Henry’s, with whom she had fallen in love. 

Astounded by Eleanor’s answer, she swallows her disappointment, but still can’t understand why she must leave the Abbey.

“Come when you can, then.” —

Eleanor made no answer; and Catherine’s thoughts recurring to something more directly interesting, she added, thinking aloud, “Monday — so soon as Monday; — and you all go. Well, I am certain of — I shall be able to take leave, however. I need not go till just before you do, you know. Do not be distressed, Eleanor, I can go on Monday very well. My father and mother’s having no notice of it is of very little consequence. The General will send a servant with me, I dare say, half the way — and then I shall soon be at Salisbury, and then I am only nine miles from home.”

Her sweet speech hurt Eleanor more than harsh words ever could. Eleanor must have steeled herself before answering her friend. Someone new to reading Jane Austen’s novels or who has recently been introduced to the Regency Era with all its strict customs, mores, and rules of etiquette could only guess why Eleanor was so distressed by her father’s behavior. The truth was that no genteel Regency lady of Catherine’s station was allowed by her family to travel as an unescorted passenger in a public coach. 

“Ah, Catherine! were it settled so, it would be somewhat less intolerable, though in such common attentions you would have received but half what you ought. But — how can I tell you? — tomorrow morning is fixed for your leaving us, and not even the hour is left to your choice; the very carriage is ordered, and will be here at seven o’clock, and no servant will be offered you.”

The General’s edict was dangerous and indefensible. Both Eleanor and Catherine understood the full import of the message. Catherine was to be banished without even the most common decency or courtesy, alone, and without funds – her nightmare has come true, except she was not to be abducted but evicted.

Catherine sat down, breathless and speechless. “I could hardly believe my senses, when I heard it; — and no displeasure, no resentment that you can feel at this moment, however justly great, can be more than I myself — but I must not talk of what I felt. Oh! that I could suggest anything in extenuation! Good God! what will your father and mother say! After courting you from the protection of real friends to this — almost double distance from your home, to have you driven out of the house, without the considerations even of decent civility! Dear, dear Catherine, in being the bearer of such a message, I seem guilty myself of all its insult; yet, I trust you will acquit me, for you must have been long enough in this house to see that I am but a nominal mistress of it, that my real power is nothing.”

Catherine searches for an answer:

“Have I offended the General?” said Catherine in a faltering voice.

Eleanor can give no good excuse:

“Alas! for my feelings as a daughter, all that I know, all that I answer for, is that you can have given him no just cause of offence. He certainly is greatly, very greatly discomposed; I have seldom seen him more so. His temper is not happy, and something has now occurred to ruffle it in an uncommon degree; some disappointment, some vexation, which just at this moment seems important, but which I can hardly suppose you to have any concern in, for how is it possible?”

Catherine still grasps for excuses and is still sorry for offending the General. She is only sad that he had not recalled his assignation with Lord Longtown earlier, so that she could have written to her parents for funds and an escort. 

Eleanor responds:

“I hope, I earnestly hope, that to your real safety it will be of none; but to everything else it is of the greatest consequence: to comfort, appearance, propriety, to your family, to the world. Were your friends, the Allens, still in Bath, you might go to them with comparative ease; a few hours would take you there; but a journey of seventy miles, to be taken post by you, at your age, alone, unattended!”

“Oh, the journey is nothing. Do not think about that. And if we are to part, a few hours sooner or later, you know, makes no difference. I can be ready by seven. Let me be called in time.” Eleanor saw that she wished to be alone; and believing it better for each that they should avoid any further conversation, now left her with “I shall see you in the morning.”

Catherine must have had an accurate idea of her journey’s long distance and its travails. (Northanger Abbey is over twice the distance from her home than the thirty mile journey with the Allens to Bath.) She also must have known that the General’s order was grossly uncivil. However, she was given no choice as to the time and day she was to depart, or of her mode of travel, and thus, stripped of choice, she spent a sleepless night. 

As good as her word, Catherine was ready early.

Soon after six Eleanor entered her room, eager to show attention or give assistance where it was possible; but very little remained to be done. Catherine had not loitered; she was almost dressed, and her packing almost finished.” 

The silence between the two women spoke volumes. 

Very little passed between them on meeting; each found her greatest safety in silence, and few and trivial were the sentences exchanged while they remained upstairs, Catherine in busy agitation completing her dress, and Eleanor with more good-will than experience intent upon filling the trunk.” 

One can imagine the discomfort both women felt at that moment. They were quiet and deep in thought, and for the first time experienced awkwardness in each other’s company. Catherine, her appetite gone, silently reminisced how cheerful and carefree her previous breakfast in this room had been with brother and sister. 

The appearance of the carriage, a hack post chaise, brought Catherine and Eleanor back to the present. A hack post chaise was a basic hired carriage guided only by a post-boy or postillion on a lead horse. (Jennifer S. Ewing states in her JASNA article: “Olsen observes that “There is always something vaguely tacky about hack vehicles in Austen.  When she wants to convey a sense of comfortable, sophisticated travel, she uses the phrase ‘post-chaise’ or something similar.  Hackney coaches are associated with poverty, disgrace, anonymity, and disappointment…”)

Eleanor turns to her friend:

“You must write to me, Catherine,” she cried, “you must let me hear from you as soon as possible. Till I know you to be safe at home, I shall not have an hour’s comfort. For one letter, at all risks, all hazards, I must entreat. Let me have the satisfaction of knowing that you are safe at Fullerton, and have found your family well, and then, till I can ask for your correspondence as I ought to do, I will not expect more. Direct to me at Lord Longtown’s, and, I must ask it, under cover to Alice.”

Eleanor asks Catherine to send word of her safe arrival at Fullerton to someone named Alice. This person was probably her maid or a servant, as Eleanor would not have called Lord Longtown’s wife or daughter by their first names. The secrecy was necessary, for her controlling father would have the mail delivered to him before distributing the letters to his family.

Eleanor would not rest until she learned of Catherine’s safe arrival. Catherine balks at first, but then gives in – “Oh, Eleanor, I will write to you indeed.”

This gave Eleanor some comfort, but she suspected Catherine might not have had enough money left from her personal allowance to pay for the ride home. This…

proved to be exactly the case. Catherine had never thought on the subject till that moment, but, upon examining her purse, was convinced that but for this kindness of her friend, she might have been turned away from the house without even the means of getting home…”

Catherine’s artless utterances during her visit with the Tilneys must have clued Eleanor about the true state of her family’s finances, and so her father’s reason for evicting her from the Abbey was probably no surprise.

The Journey Home

Catherine was too wretched to be fearful. The journey in itself had no terrors for her; and she began it without either dreading its length or feeling its solitariness. Leaning back in one comer of the carriage, in a violent burst of tears, she was conveyed some miles beyond the walls of the abbey before she raised her head…”

During this first stage of the ride Catherine must have been alone in the carriage. Had passengers been present, she would not have burst violently into tears. Gentle ladies were taught to hold their emotions in check. While she was impulsive and naive, she also had impeccable manners.

A public coach was generally cramped and dirty. The straw on the floor was rarely changed. Passengers sought the four corners for some privacy, but some passengers in a six-seater coach were squeezed into the center, like the filling in a sandwich. 

Watch the beginning of Part 2 of two videos from a JASNA article about riding in a public coach, by Sandy Lerner .

The distance between Fullerton and Northanger Abbey was seventy miles. Carriages during that time could go as fast as 6-7 miles per hour on a post road. They often slowed down significantly on secondary roads, which were rutted after heavy rains and badly maintained. Austen writes:

…”she traveled on for about eleven hours without accident or alarm, and between six and seven o’clock in the evening found herself entering Fullerton.” 

The journey lasted from ten to eleven hours, which meant that the horses reached speeds of up to 7 miles per hour. The added time was due to the stops in stages when fresh horses were exchanged with spent horses. Horses could pull a carriage for an average from 15 to 20 miles at most before needing to stop. The exchanges were rapid, and took as little as five minutes per stop (think of the speed of NASCAR pit stops – Regina Jeffers). 

…after the first stage she had been indebted to the post-masters for the names of the places which were then to conduct her to it; so great had been her ignorance of her route. She met with nothing, however, to distress or frighten her. Her youth, civil manners, and liberal pay procured her all the attention that a traveller like herself could require; and stopping only to change horses…”

Of the journey, Jane writes that “the hours passed away, and her journey advanced much faster than she looked for”, but Catherine had not eaten since breakfast, which ended around 7 AM. She must have been hungry and exhausted when the coach stopped in Fullerton. Her spirits lifted, however, when she was met with joy by her family and she reveled in their unconditional love.

The chaise of a traveller being a rare sight in Fullerton, the whole family were immediately at the window; and to have it stop at the sweep-gate was a pleasure to brighten every eye and occupy every fancy — a pleasure quite unlooked for by all but the two youngest children, a boy and girl of six and four years old, who expected a brother or sister in every carriage…”

“…Her father, mother, Sarah, George, and Harriet, all assembled at the door to welcome her with affectionate eagerness, was a sight to awaken the best feelings of Catherine’s heart; and in the embrace of each, as she stepped from the carriage, she found herself soothed beyond anything that she had believed possible. So surrounded, so caressed, she was even happy!” 

This heartwarming homecoming was the balm Catherine needed after such a heartsore night and day, but after the homecoming, reality set in and the family noticed her pale looks:

In the joyfulness of family love everything for a short time was subdued, and the pleasure of seeing her, leaving them at first little leisure for calm curiosity, they were all seated round the tea-table, which Mrs. Morland had hurried for the comfort of the poor traveller, whose pale and jaded looks soon caught her notice, before any inquiry so direct as to demand a positive answer was addressed to her.”

As Catherine spoke for half an hour, her family’s distress on her behalf increased.

…but here, when the whole was unfolded, was an insult not to be overlooked, nor, for the first half hour, to be easily pardoned. Without suffering any romantic alarm, in the consideration of their daughter’s long and lonely journey, Mr. and Mrs. Morland could not but feel that it might have been productive of much unpleasantness to her; that it was what they could never have voluntarily suffered; and that, in forcing her on such a measure, General Tilney had acted neither honourably nor feelingly — neither as a gentleman nor as a parent. Why he had done it, what could have provoked him to such a breach of hospitality, and so suddenly turned all his partial regard for their daughter into actual ill will…”

Mrs Morland was struck by General Tilney’s actions of sending her away without even a servant to escort her, and the needless trouble he caused her daughter. Not only could travel be dangerous during this era, especially at night when highwaymen roamed (recall the earlier Hugh Thomson image), or in the bitter cold of winter, but the journey might be delayed due to a broken wagon wheel, a lame horse, or impassable roads, rivers, or streams. Mrs Morland, ever the positive thinker, concludes that this experience was a character builder for her daughter.

“Well,” continued her philosophic mother, “I am glad I did not know of your journey at the time; but now it is over, perhaps there is no great harm done. It is always good for young people to be put upon exerting themselves; and you know, my dear Catherine, you always were a sad little shatter-brained creature; but now you must have been forced to have your wits about you, with so much changing of chaises and so forth; and I hope it will appear that you have not left anything behind you in any of the pockets.”

Catherine Keeps her Promise and Writes a Letter

Catherine reproached herself for coolly saying goodbye to Eleanor. The funds she gave her provided for a safe journey instead of one that was fraught with danger. If she had run out of the ability to pay, she might have been stranded miles from home without the means to contact her family.

According to Deborah Barnum, author of the Jane Austen in Vermont blog, the estimated cost of a hired post-chaise in 1800 was “about £1 / mile [i.e @1 shilling / horse / mile, to include the postillion.]”  Eleanor’s gift was truly generous when one considers that Jane Austen’s annual allowance for personal purchases (which included gifts) was around £ 20 per year. Cassandra’s yearly income from the investments she made with the  £1,000 that Tom Fowler bequeathed to her was around  £35 (Lucy Worsley). The sisters’ combined income could not have paid for this expensive journey. 

The money therefore which Eleanor had advanced was enclosed with little more than grateful thanks, and the thousand good wishes of a most affectionate heart.”

Mrs Morland observed how sadly out of luck Catherine had been in making friends during her ventures in Bath and at the Abbey, and says ”the next new friends you make I hope will be better worth keeping.”

Catherine coloured as she warmly answered, “No friend can be better worth keeping than Eleanor.”

Eleanor, who had largely been invisible before this drama, became a three-dimensional character in these two chapters. She reacted with real feeling and emotion when her father ordered her to remove Catherine from the Abbey, and when she had to put the plan in motion, but when Austen sped the novel to its conclusion, she was placed in the background again. 

General Tilney’s behavior so disgusted his son Henry that it irrevocably altered their relationship. Henry hurried to Fullerton to apologize to Catherine and ask for her hand in marriage. She was just the sweet acquiescent girl he’d been searching for as his wife.

Additional Resources

Jane Austen Northanger Abbey: An Annotated Edition, edited by Susan J. Wolfson, 2014.Harvard University Press, Massachusetts, US. London, UK. 363 pp.

Worsley, Lucy.Jane Austen at Home: A Biography, 2017. St. Martin’s Press, 1st. Ed. NY

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Regina Jeffers: Every Woman Dreams: Traveling by Coach During the Regency, an Overview

Susanna Ives’ Floating World: Lost in the Regency Mail

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