The Mystery of Northanger Abbey

Epilogue

Four months had passed. Catherine was back at her parents' house in Fullerton, keeping company to Mr and Mrs Allen as often as possible to avoid either being left alone with her own thoughts, or being bombarded by her siblings with questions about her stay at Northanger Abbey she did not want to answer. Henry and Eleanor had arranged for her to be sent home right away, in the family coach and accompanied by two servants. She was eternally grateful to them for taking such good care of her in spite of their own aggravated circumstances, but she had not heard -- nor read -- from them since.

Everything had happened so quickly after the deaths of the General, his mistress and his devoted butler. Eleanor had finally realised that her mother was hugging her and her tears had turned to tears of joy. Mr Collins had explained that after speaking to Catherine, he had decided to go find Mrs Tilney's ring in the servants' quarters, in order to prove some sort of malevolent intent on the General's part. Very little did he expect to find what he had actually stumbled upon!

Catherine now did everything she could to avoid thinking back. This had been an adventure -- though one she did not wish to remember. She now only wished to move on. Yet, there were days where everything her eyes touched reminded her of Henry and the Abbey: Mr Allen's hall was immense and very ancient; from the main parlour, one could very clearly see the pond in the park; the library was very vast and full of interesting books, many of them talking of murders and ghosts... Catherine had wondered for some time whether to ban Gothic novels completely from her reading regimen; however, she had decided against it because of Henry's defence of the genre: after all, he was right -- to some extent -- for reading horror stories had prepared Catherine for the horrors she had eventually encountered in the real world, and it was this preparedness of mind which had allowed her to unravel the puzzle, to gather and decipher the clues, to muster the curiosity, and then the courage, to explore and conquer her fears while doing so, and finally discover a horrible secret and contribute to the rescue of a long-lost mother.

Yet, despite her strong sense of personal accomplishment, she could not think back without shuddering; she could not help thinking that she had rather not known about the horros of the real world, that she had rather remained sheltered from it in her parents' and the Allens' cocoon of love and innocence. Looking through the window in the library, she could see the Fullerton parsonage, yet another sad reminded of Henry, especially as she imagined that his wise words of advice and appeal to self-knowledge would actually be a great comfort to her, as they had always been.

So was, once again, the train of her thoughts, one day, when she heard one of her little brothers call from the path: "Catherine, there's a fine looking clergyman on a horse who is come to see you!"

Catherine's heart missed a bit and she sprang downstairs and outside, right on time to see Henry elegantly jump down from his horse. After giving news of his family -- Frederick had inherited the Abbey, Mrs Tilney and Mr Collins had gotten married, Eleanor was engaged to Mr Collins's son -- Henry Tilney dropped to one knee, and after explaining that he had recently been ordained and given a humble parsonage in a small parish, proposed marriage to Catherine Morland, who accepted him on the spot.

To begin perfect happiness at the respective ages of twenty-six and eighteen is to do pretty well; and professing myself moreover convinced that the general's unjust interference, so far from being really injurious to their felicity, was perhaps rather conducive to it, by allowing them to become a hero and a heroine and grow together from it, I leave it to be settled, by whomsoever it may concern, whether the tendency of this work be altogether to recommend parental tyranny, or reward filial disobedience.

(the final sentence is a direct quote of the last sentence of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey, modified by this short story's author in the non-bold part)