till, I believe, it was convenient to have done with it. I happened just then to be looking out for some light thing of the kind, though I had pretty well determined on a curricle too; but I chanced to meet him on Magdalen Bridge, as he was driving into Oxford, last term: ‘Ah! Thorpe,’ said he, ‘do you happen to want such a little thing as this? It is a capital one of the kind, but I am cursed tired of it.’ ‘Oh! D—,’ said I; ‘I am your man; what do you ask?’ And how much do you think he did, Miss Morland?’
‘I am sure I cannot guess at all.’
‘Curricle-hung, you see; seat, trunk, sword-case, splashing-board, lamps, silver moulding, all you see complete; the ironwork as good as new, or better. He asked fifty guineas; I closed with him directly, threw down the money, and the carriage was mine.’
‘And I am sure,’ said Catherine, ‘I know so little of such things that I cannot judge whether it was cheap or dear.’
‘Neither one nor t’other; I might have got it for less, I dare say; but I hate haggling, and poor Freeman wanted cash.’
‘That was very good-natured of you,’ said Catherine, quite pleased.
‘Oh! D— it, when one has the means of doing a kind thing by a friend, I hate to be pitiful.’
An inquiry now took place into the intended movements of the young ladies; and, on finding whither they were going, it was decided that the gentlemen should accompany them to Edgar’s Buildings, and pay their respects to Mrs Thorpe. James and Isabella led the way; and so well satisfied was the latter with her lot, so contentedly was she endeavouring to ensure a pleasant walk to him who brought the double recommendation of being her brother’s friend, and her friend’s brother, so pure and uncoquettish were her feelings, that, though they overtook and passed the two offending young men in Milsom Street, she was so far from seeking to attract their notice, that she looked back at them only three times.
John Thorpe kept of course with Catherine, and, after a few minutes’ silence, renewed the conversation about his gig. ‘You will find, however, Miss Morland, it would be reckoned a cheap thing by some people, for I might have sold it for ten guineas more the next day; Jackson, of Oriel, bid me sixty at once; Morland was with me at the time.’
‘Yes,’ said Morland, who overheard this; ‘but you forget that your horse was included.’
‘My horse! Oh, D— it! I would not sell my horse for a hundred. Are you fond of an open carriage, Miss Morland?’
‘Yes, very; I have hardly ever an opportunity of being in one; but I am particularly fond of it.’
‘I am glad of it; I will drive you out in mine every day.’
‘Thank you,’ said Catherine, in some distress, from a doubt of the propriety of accepting such an offer.
‘I will drive you up Lansdown Hill tomorrow.’
‘Thank you; but will not your horse want rest?’
‘Rest! He has only come three and twenty miles today; all nonsense; nothing ruins horses so much as rest; nothing knocks them up so soon. No, no; I shall exercise mine at the average of four hours every day while I am here.’
‘Shall you indeed!’ said Catherine very seriously. ‘That will be forty miles a day.’
‘Forty! Aye, fifty, for what I care. Well, I will drive you up Lansdown tomorrow; mind, I am engaged.’
‘How delightful that will be!’ cried Isabella, turning round. ‘My dearest Catherine, I quite envy you; but I am afraid, brother, you will not have room for a third.’
‘A third indeed! No, no; I did not come to Bath to drive my sisters about; that would be a good joke, faith! Morland must take care of you.’
This brought on a dialogue of civilities between the other two; but Catherine heard neither the particulars nor the result. Her companion’s discourse now sunk from its hitherto animated pitch to nothing more than a short decisive sentence of praise or condemnation on the face of every woman they met; and Catherine, after listening and agreeing as long as she could, with all the civility and deference of the youthful female mind, fearful of hazarding an opinion of its own in opposition to that of a self-assured man, especially where the beauty of her own sex is concerned, ventured at length to vary the subject by a question which had been long uppermost in her thoughts; it was, ‘Have you ever read Udolpho, Mr Thorpe?’
‘Udolpho! Oh, Lord! Not I; I never read novels; I have something else to do.’
Catherine, humbled and ashamed, was going to apologise for her question, but he prevented her by saying, ‘Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff; there has not been a tolerably decent one come out since Tom Jones, except The Monk; I read that t’other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation.’
‘I think you must like Udolpho, if you were to read it; it is so very interesting.’
‘Not I, faith! No, if I read any, it shall be Mrs Radcliffe’s; her novels are amusing enough; they are worth reading; some fun and nature in them.’
‘Udolpho was written by Mrs Radcliffe,’ said Catherine, with some hesitation, from the fear of mortifying him.
‘No sure; was it? Aye, I remember, so it was; I was thinking of that other stupid book, written by that woman they make such a fuss about, she who married the French emigrant.’
‘I suppose you mean Camilla?’
‘Yes, that’s the book; such unnatural stuff! An old man playing at see-saw! I took up the first volume once and looked it over, but I soon found it would not do; indeed I guessed what sort of stuff it must be before I saw it: as soon as I heard she had married an emigrant, I was sure I should never be able to get through it.’
‘I have never read it.’
‘You had no loss, I assure you; it is the horridest nonsense you can imagine; there is nothing in the world in it but an old man’s playing at see-saw and learning Latin; upon my soul there is not.’
This critique, the justness of which was unfortunately lost on poor Catherine, brought them to the door of Mrs Thorpe’s lodgings, and the feelings of the discerning and unprejudiced reader of Camilla gave way to the feelings of the dutiful and affectionate son, as they met Mrs Thorpe, who had descried them from above, in the passage. ‘Ah, Mother! How do you do?’ said he, giving her a hearty shake of the hand. ‘Where did you get that quiz of a hat? It makes you look like an old witch. Here is Morland and I come to stay a few days with you, so you must look out for a couple of good beds somewhere near.’ And this address seemed to satisfy all the fondest wishes of the mother’s heart, for she received him with the most delighted and exulting affection. On his two younger sisters he then bestowed an equal portion of his fraternal tenderness, for he asked each of them how they did, and observed that they both looked very ugly.
These manners did not please Catherine; but he was James’s friend and Isabella’s brother; and her judgement was further bought off by Isabella’s assuring her, when they withdrew to see the new hat, that John thought her the most charming girl in the world, and by John’s engaging her before they parted to dance with him that evening. Had she been older or vainer, such attacks might have done little; but, where youth and diffidence are united, it requires uncommon steadiness of reason to resist
