That was so much like Alice, to turn every trial into a romance she could neatly wrap up within twenty chapters. “You know Henry would never be so dishonourable, and I doubt Catherine would defy her parents’ authority even if Henry would agree to such a thing.”
Alice sat next to her on the edge of the bed. “I am sorry, then.”
Eleanor only sighed. After having a glimpse of what living away from her father might be like, it was a blow to realise it would never happen.
“Maybe your father will relent once he realises how devoted Mr Henry Tilney is to this lady.”
Such a change in the general was impossible. “My father wants a union of fortune for his children, and I fear from what Henry writes that Catherine does not have the prospects that my father assumed she did. It might be years yet before they can marry, and until then I shall have to stay at Northanger.”
Her father would never value her as mistress of his board, never allow her to fully direct his household; and she would always be subject to his morose, tyrannical temper. Living with Henry and Catherine was now out of the question, and she was certain that she would not like to live with whatever woman her eldest brother Frederick eventually chose. What hope for her happiness could she have now?
“I shall have to marry.”
“Of course you do. We all do, but I, for one, intend to put it off for as long as possible,” Alice said, laughing. “I would have to give up writing to take care of a husband’s house and children. Now, be serious; what can you mean by wanting to marry?”
“It is the only way to be free of my father,” she said firmly.
“You must be joking.”
“Do you not see? The only contentment I ever have is the satisfaction of acting right by my father according to the best of my abilities. I am so weary of it, Alice!” she cried. “All endeavours to please are ineffectual, and my father seems determined to find fault with everything I do. It requires a more than common degree of patience and resolution to forbear, and I cannot do it any longer.”
She could not seek as much individual enjoyment if she had a husband, but what happiness did she even have now in her father’s house?Finding a husband was the only way forward.
“But when I am married,” Eleanor continued, “as a wife I could command respect. A husband would be more obliged to invest some power in his wife, much more so than a father to his daughter.”
“And I suppose any gentleman with enough money for your father will do?”
Eleanor nodded. “Sullenness, I could cope with. Obstinance, I could perhaps manage well. Dullness, peevishness, even infidelity I could survive so long as I had the freedom of a married woman, and my husband’s respect.” It was not the union she had imagined for herself, but she would sacrifice those girlish hopes to escape Northanger and grasp what little independence she could have. “So long as he is not a fool or a rake or has a temper like my father’s, I will do what I must to marry the first eligible man I see.”
“You are in earnest? Eleanor, no!” Alice cried. “What about Mr Brampton?”
The mention of Philip’s name brought fresh to her heart the most excruciating and intolerable pang. “He is a friend, and friend enough that he would be happy to see me removed from Northanger.”
Alice gave her a disbelieving stare, and Eleanor looked away in silence, her heart beating fast.
“Mr Brampton is merely the son of your mother’s cousin, then?” Alice’s voice raised sceptically. “A childhood friend, the intimate of Mr Henry Tilney’s? That is all he is to you?”
She could hardly say that he could be everything to her if only he had the courage to speak and if her father would ever agree. If General Tilney disdained Catherine Morland, he would never consider Philip. Philip Brampton had connexions her father could value, but not near to the fortune.
Whatever our feelings are for one another, Philip has enough pride not to ask when he knows the general would never consent to our union.
Eleanor, endeavouring to collect herself and speak with firmness, went on. “Mr Brampton and I are connected by the bonds of common friendship, no more, and he knows what I suffer at Northanger. Mr Brampton would, of course, wish a happy union for me—”
“With himself!”
“With a gentleman my father approved of and whom I respected.”
“He might say that, but he won’t feel it in his heart.” Alice gave her a long look. “How can you marry a man you don’t love?”
She felt a calm resolve settle over her. “I am not interested in captivating a man’s heart. There is some man who needs a wife with a fortune, with good connexions, a wife to keep his house and tend to his children and who requires nothing more than respect and the authority due to any married woman.”
“You might be made so unhappy if you choose poorly.”
Eleanor gave her a sad smile. “How happy do you think I am now? My happiness will come from my freedom from Northanger. It will arise from sharing the peace of a husband who is made happier by my presence in his house.”
Alice was now standing over her with her arms crossed over her chest. Alice had parents who, while comparatively absent, treated her kindly. She could never understand the constant anxiety of living under someone who ruled absolutely, of whom she could never be certain if she were to be shouted at or ignored for days.
Eleanor rose and grasped her friend’s hands. “Alice, I do not expect a happier destiny than choosing a husband who can appreciate my domestic virtues, and to be proud of the homage those virtues receive in public. It is all I can expect, and leaving Northanger will in and of itself grant me happiness.”
