Northanger Abbey

31

Henry pushed his thick blond hair back from his forehead and gazed intently at Cat, an anxious expression on his face. He looked crumpled, like a man who has spent too long without a break in the driver’s seat. A faint shadow of stubble shaded his jawline. A poor attempt at a smile lifted one corner of his mouth. ‘Hi, Cat,’ he said.

For a moment, she thought her heart would explode in an incendiary mix of shock and delight. ‘Henry.’ The single word was all she could manage.

‘I’ve come to apologise. Will you talk to me?’

She stepped back and waved him into the kitchen. Henry walked in, giving the room a keen appraisal and smiling at what he saw. He turned to face her. ‘The way my family has treated you – and your brother too, indirectly – appals me. I’m ashamed to be a Tilney right now.’

Before either could say another word, Annie bounced back into the room waving a thin bundle of papers. ‘I found it. Heaven knows why, but I put it in with the Mothers’ Union agenda.’ She stopped in her tracks and surveyed the young people in the kitchen. ‘Who’s this, Cat?’

Henry stepped forward and offered his hand, more hesitantly than Cat had ever seen before. ‘Mrs Morland? I’m Henry Tilney. I’ve come to apologise for the terrible way my father treated your daughter. I wanted to do it in person so you would be in no doubt how serious I am. And of course, I wanted to be sure that Cat had got home safe and well.’

Annie, open-hearted as her daughter, shook his hand. ‘Take your coat off and sit down. If you’ve driven from Scotland you’ll be desperate for a decent cup of tea. You get nothing but sweepings in those motorway café cuppas. Cat, fetch down the tins. Henry won’t say no to some home baking, will you?’

Looking somewhat taken aback, Henry shrugged off his creased suit jacket and sat down at the kitchen table. Cat set down the cake tins and pulled out a chair to face him. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Your generosity makes me even more ashamed.’

Annie poured boiling water into three mugs. ‘You’re not your father, though, are you? What kind of person blames the child for the sins of the father?’

‘That’s kind of you to say so.’

‘Our children’s friends are always welcome here, Henry. Perhaps one day we’ll get to meet your sister?’

‘I’m sure she’d be delighted.’

‘How was your drive?’ Annie asked, handing out the mugs of tea and offering milk from the plastic bottle. And still Cat said nothing, apparently struck dumb by the arrival of the son of her persecutor.

‘Tedious,’ Henry said. ‘But I came as soon as I heard what had happened.’ He looked at Cat. ‘I didn’t get back on Tuesday night as I’d hoped. I had to go straight back to Edinburgh to pick up some case papers for the next day. So I only found out what had happened when I got back last night. As soon as I heard, I phoned my father in Nice and got some answers from him. Then I got straight in the car and set off.’ He sipped his tea and gave a little smile. ‘Slept in the car, I’m afraid. Sorry I look like a vagrant.’ They sat in silence for a moment while Henry drank tea and wolfed cake.

Cat – anxious, agitated, pink-cheeked and bright-eyed – was so changed from the apathetic creature of a few minutes before that a far less astute judge than her mother would have suspected she was more than pleased to see Henry. When he drained his cup and beamed his thanks at Annie, she said, ‘Cat, why don’t you and Henry walk over to the Allens’? I’m sure Susie would be thrilled to see him.’

‘That would be splendid,’ Henry said. He grabbed his jacket and waited for Cat to rise so he could follow her out. They walked down the drive to the garden, where a path led across the meadows and through the orchard to the rear of the Allens’ property. No sooner were they out of sight of the kitchen windows than Henry grabbed Cat’s hand and pulled her round to face him. ‘Are you ever going to speak to me again?’ he asked, his tone a plea.

‘I don’t know what to say. One minute I’m an outcast, the next minute you turn up here being charming to my mother. What am I supposed to think?’

‘That I’m desperately sorry and ashamed about what happened to you. That whatever the truth of the situation, my father dealt with it in an atrocious way.’

‘The truth of the situation? The truth of the situation is that your father threw me out of Northanger Abbey in the middle of the night and didn’t even ask whether I had enough money to get home. If it hadn’t been for Ellie—’

He gave a bitter laugh. ‘“If it hadn’t been for Ellie.” So it’s true, then?’

‘Henry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Because it’s all right with me, if that’s how it is. I just wish you’d told me instead of letting me make a complete fool of myself.’

‘Told you what? What am I supposed to have been keeping secret?’

‘You know perfectly well.’

‘What? Tell me. What?’

‘That you’re a lesbian. That you’re in love with Ellie.’

Cat stared at him, thunderstruck. ‘A lesbian? Me? What are you talking about?’

‘That’s why Father threw you out. Because he discovered that it wasn’t me you were interested in, it was Ellie.’ He let go her hand and turned away. ‘Really, Cat, I wish you’d felt able to be honest with me.’

‘I’m not a lesbian, Henry. I swear. I don’t even know any lesbians. Well, apart from the women who run the Post Office, and they don’t count because they’re older than God. Where did your father get this mad idea?’

Henry stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and began to pace back and forth, as if he were in court. ‘He was in London for a meeting, then he went to play poker. He ran into Johnny Thorpe—’

‘That pig?’ Cat was immediately wary. What fresh harm were the Thorpes intent on wreaking on her family?

‘My father likes him for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom. Anyway, they got talking and Father said you were staying with us and he rather thought you and I might end up as an item.’

Cat flushed. ‘Jeez! Talk about presumptuous.’

Henry looked discomfited. ‘Whatever. According to my father, Johnny burst out laughing and said he was barking up the wrong tree. Johnny said he’d been sniffing around – his words, not mine, before you slap me – but then he’d found out from his sister that you’re a lesbian.’

Furious, Cat turned on him. ‘And your father – and now you – believed it, of course. You men are so vain. All this because I told Bella I wasn’t interested in her tedious brother. If a woman doesn’t fall over herself to go out with one of you – because you’re a pig, or you’re a drunk, or you’re a bore – then she must be a lesbian? How dare you, Henry Tilney. How dare you come here and say these things to me?’

He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Don’t shoot the messenger. I came to try and put things right.’

‘But you started off assuming this shit was the truth. Like you could trust Johnny Thorpe ahead of me, just because he’s one of the boys.’

‘My father said it made sense to him. You have to admit, Cat, you and Ellie are very affectionate with each other. Always hugging and stuff.’

‘That’s just how girls are, Henry. I don’t have any guilty secrets. The people with the guilty secrets are your family.’ The words were out before she could stop herself. She had never been so angry, and her judgement had disappeared with her equilibrium.

He gave her a look of contempt. ‘You’re not still banging on about my father being the secret slayer of the west wing?’

‘You know what, Henry? For the longest time I thought you were vampires. The way you all avoid the sunlight. The way you all look young for your years. The fact that none of you looks like the woman you call your mother. The food you eat – rare steaks and liver, all that blood. But you Tilneys are a different kind of bloodsucker. It’s money you’re interested in, not blood.’

Henry stopped in his tracks, his mouth open, his expression bewildered. ‘Vampires? You mean, like in those books and films? With all that misogyny and oppression and werewolves and shit?’

‘Exactly. Because what is your father if he’s not oppressive and misogynist? Treating me like dirt, and all because he believed Johnny Thorpe. Even if he’d been telling the truth, what sort of excuse is that for throwing somebody out of your house in the middle of the night? So what if I was a lesbian – which, by the way, I am definitely not. So what if Ellie is a lesbian? Though God help her if she is. So yes, I think your family is riddled with secrets. I found the Bible, Henry. I found the Bible.’

Henry cast around histrionically, as if looking for an escape route from this madwoman. ‘You found the Bible?’ he said in tones of exaggerated calm. ‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘The family Bible. With the births and marriages, but not many deaths. Where all the boys called Henry Tilney seem to live to adulthood, which is unheard of back when loads and loads of babies and young children died.’

‘We’re not a family that has ever celebrated death, Cat. It’s a tradition.’

‘Oh, bollocks, Henry. You’re a family that has your own chapel and graveyard. You’re not exactly, “death where is thy sting”, are you? But more than that—’

‘Wait a minute, is this the Bible with the bullet hole?’

Cat was taken aback at his willingness to own something of her argument. ‘Yes.’

‘And that proves what, exactly?’

Cat hesitated. She hadn’t taken the opportunity to ask her father what he thought about the Bible with the bullet hole. ‘Well, only a creature steeped in evil would shoot a Bible.’ She was floundering and she knew it, but she wasn’t giving ground.

‘That’s a bit racist, Cat.’ He couldn’t restrain a wry smile, and she felt her resistance challenged.

‘What do you mean, racist?’

‘That bullet came from a German gun. And that Bible is the reason I’m here today.’

She frowned. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘My great-great grandfather was an officer in the First World War. He carried his Bible inside his tunic and it took a bullet for him on the Somme. If not for the Bible, he would have been killed, and I wouldn’t have been born. Cat, we’re not vampires. That’s crazy. Vampires don’t exist in the real world. Any more than the zombie apocalypse is just round the corner.’

Hands on hips, she stared him down. ‘Prove it.’

He burst out laughing. ‘You can’t prove a negative. I can’t prove there are no such things as vampires any more than you can prove you’re not a lesbian. You’re a vicar’s daughter, Cat – surely you of all people understand there’s a point where you have to have faith? Take people on trust?’

They stood staring at each other, neither willing to capitulate. Then Henry made an impatient gesture. ‘This is stupid, Cat. I came here to apologise for my father, that’s true. But that’s only part of the reason. I came because ever since I met you at Fiona Alexander’s dance class I’ve been falling in love with you.’

Her mouth suddenly dry, Cat took a step backwards. ‘No.’

He looked stricken. ‘You don’t feel the same?’

At last, Cat composed herself and spoke sense. ‘Oh, Henry, I’m completely crazy about you.’ And she threw her arms round the startled young man, who quickly recovered himself and gathered her into a warm embrace. Finally, Cat knew the kiss she’d dreamed of since that first dance. They stood locked together in the orchard, oblivious to anything but each other, as young lovers are inclined to be.

It was some time before they reached the Allens’ house and afterwards, neither would have been able to give any sort of account of the conversation that took place there. By the time they returned to the vicarage, the matter was sealed. Henry explained to the Morlands that he had argued so fiercely with his father that he feared there could be no reconciliation. ‘But I have a profession,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fully qualified by the end of the year. I can support myself without taking a penny from him. I’ll be fine. Straightening things out with Cat has been worth much more than any amount of money.’

The two young lovers looked at each other. ‘Vampire,’ she said.

‘Lesbian,’ he replied.

And to the astonishment of the Morlands, they burst into helpless laughter.