Northanger Abbey

Henry Tilney:
Now I must give you one smirk, then we can be rational again.

Henry Tilney:
Your imagination may be overactive, but your instinct was true. Our mother did suffer grievously and at the hands of our father. Do you remember I spoke of a kind of vampirism?

Catherine Morland:
Yes.

Henry Tilney:
Perhaps it was stupid to express it so, but we did watch him drain the life out of her with his coldness and his cruelty. He married her for her money, you see. She thought it was for love. It was a long time until she knew his heart was cold. No vampires, no blood. But worse crimes, crimes of the heart.

Catherine Morland:
It was stupid and wicked of me to think such things as I did.

[last lines]

Catherine Morland:
He thought I was rich?

Henry Tilney:
It was Thorpe who misled him at first. Thorpe, who hoped to marry you himself. He thought you were Mr. Allen's heiress and he exaggerated Mr. Allen's birth to my father. You were only guilty of not being as rich as you were supposed to be. For that he turned you out of the house.

Catherine Morland:
I thought you were so angry with me, you told him what you knew. Which would have justified any discourtesy.

Henry Tilney:
No! The discourtesy was all his. I-I have broken with my father, Catherine, I may never speak to him again.

Catherine Morland:
What did he say to you?

Henry Tilney:
Let me instead tell you what I said to him. I told him that I felt myself bound to you, by honor, by affection, and by a love so strong that nothing he could do could deter me from...

Catherine Morland:
From what?

Henry Tilney:
Before I go on, I should tell you there's a pretty good chance he'll disinherit me. I fear I may never be a rich man, Catherine.

Catherine Morland:
Please, go on with what you were going to say!

Henry Tilney:
Will you marry me, Catherine?

Catherine Morland:
Yes! Yes I will! Yes!

[They kiss, and she backs him into a wall in her passion]

[voiceover]

The Voice of Jane Austen:
To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of 26 and 18 is to do pretty well. Catherine and Henry were married, and in due course the joys of wedding gave way to the blessing of a christening. The bells rang and everyone smiled. No one more than so than Eleanor, whose beloved's sudden ascension to title and fortune finally allowed them to marry. I leave it to be settled whether the tendency of this story be to recommend parental tyranny or to reward filial disobedience.

Catherine Morland:
When shall we go into society, Mrs Allen? I suppose it is too late this evening?

Mrs. Allen:
Bless you, my child, we neither of us have a stitch to wear!

Catherine Morland:
I did bring my best frock and my pink muslin is not too bad, I think.

Mrs. Allen:
No, no, no, no! Would you have us laughed out of Bath?

Mr. Allen:
Resign yourself, Catherine! Shops must be visited! Money must be spent! Do you think you could bear it?

Catherine Morland:
Very easily, sir!

Mrs. Allen:
There! Did you ever see anything prettier, Mr Allen?

Mr. Allen:
Other than yourself, do you mean, my dear?

Mrs. Allen:
Oh, fine, Mr Allen! But Catherine...

Mr. Allen:
Ah, she looks just as she should! Now... might we make our way, do you think? I entertain high hopes of our arriving at the rooms by midnight.

Mrs. Allen:
How he teases us, Catherine! Midnight, indeed!

Isabella Thorpe:
My dear one, in this false world, people often make promises they have little intention of keeping. Remember, we are your *true* friends.

[Riding in the curricle, Henry and Catherine see the first view of Northanger Abbey]

Henry Tilney:
There.

Catherine Morland:
It's exactly as I imagined. It's just like what we read about.

Henry Tilney:
Are you prepared to encounter all of its horrors?

Catherine Morland:
Horrors? Is Northanger haunted, then?

Henry Tilney:
That's just the least of it. Dungeons, and sliding panels; skeletons; strange, unearthly cries in the night that pierce your very soul!

Catherine Morland:
[sardonically] Any vampires? Don't say vampires. I could bear anything, but not vampires.

Henry Tilney:
[laughing] Miss Morland, I believe you are teasing me now. [seriously] I have to say, there is a kind of vampirism. No, let's just say that all houses have their secrets, and Northanger is no exception.

The Voice of Jane Austen:
No-one who had ever seen Catherine Morland in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a great heroine. Her situation in life, the character of her father and moth, and her own disposition, were equally against her. The Morlands were, in general, very plain, and Catherine, for many years of her life, as plain as any. Neither was it very wonderful that Catherine, who had, by nature, nothing heroic about her, should prefer cricket and baseball to dolls and books. But by the age of 15, appearances were mending. Catherine Morland was in training for a heroine.