‘I’m so sorry about this,’ Henry said. ‘It never crossed my mind that she’d fall for his bullshit. I thought she was having as much of a laugh as him. I’d no idea—’

‘Never mind that,’ Cat said. ‘I need to ask a favour.’

‘Anything. After this, anything.’ Ellie gripped her hand tightly.

‘I want you to take me back to Northanger so I can pack up and head off to Edinburgh. The Allens are there till tomorrow. I’ll go back to Dorset with them.’

‘But why? Surely you don’t blame us for Freddie’s shitty behaviour?’ Henry protested.

‘No, of course not. But if he’s getting engaged to Bella, surely he’s going to have to talk to your father? He’ll have to come home to Northanger. He’ll probably bring Bella with him to meet your father properly, as a future daughter-in-law. And I can’t trust myself under the same roof as them. I swear, I’d want to scratch her eyes out. Honestly, who’d have believed she could treat poor James like that? From being the loveliest man in the world to the poor sod who gets dumped in no time flat. It sucks.’

‘Duped and dumped, by the sound of it,’ Henry said. ‘But I can’t believe she’s engaged to Freddie. I think there must be some mistake about that. I’m really sorry that Bella has chucked your brother, but it’s just not credible that Freddie’s actually going to marry the girl.’

‘It’s true. She texted James that it was all over, that Freddie had proposed to her. Look –’ She proffered her phone and Ellie shuffled round the table so she could read it too. ‘Sorry about the bit at the end, but he’s just upset. He doesn’t mean it. He hardly knows you two.’

The Tilneys said nothing as they read the DMs. Henry handed back the phone and sighed. ‘Well, if it’s true, God help us all. What a disaster that would be. Freddie wouldn’t be the first man who has chosen a wife with less sense than his family expected.’

‘It’s awful,’ Ellie said. ‘Can you imagine Bella Thorpe running Northanger? And that mother of hers with her interior designs? I think I want to kill myself.’

‘I almost feel sorry for Freddie,’ Henry said. ‘Both as husband and son. He’s going to spend the next few years getting it in the neck from both sides. Cat, you know them better than we do. What sort of family are they? What’s the mother like?’

‘Apart from her terrible taste,’ Ellie said darkly. ‘I’ve seen the pics she’s always shoving under people’s noses with her iPad.’

‘I don’t believe there’s any harm in her,’ Cat said. ‘She thinks her family are the brightest and the best looking and the most talented in the country, but she’s not the only mother who’s that misguided about her kids. I expect my mum’s quite nice about me when I’m not there.’

‘What was Bella’s father?’ Henry asked.

‘A solicitor, I believe. They live in Crouch End. Though Bella has her eye on Chelsea,’ Cat added with a trace of malice.

‘Are they loaded?’ Ellie asked.

‘Don’t think so. Bella’s always going on about being skint. And the flat they’re in for the festival is pretty poky and on the edge of the centre. They only come so Mrs Thorpe can pick up potential clients. But that won’t matter in your family, surely? Your father said the other day money only mattered because it allowed him to promote the happiness of his children.’ Cat made the quotation mark sign in the air.

‘But would it be promoting Freddie’s happiness, to support him marrying an empty-headed gold-digger like Bella Thorpe? I know she was your friend, Cat, but I assumed that was just because her mum is Susie’s old pal and you were thrown together.’

‘She can be good fun.’ Cat felt a little uncomfortable at the wholesale trashing of someone whose company she had enjoyed, even though she clearly hadn’t understood what Bella was really like.

‘Fun’s not enough. You think she’s a gold-digger?’ Henry said.

Cat thought for a moment. ‘Now I think about it, she did seem pretty put out that my parents weren’t about to set them up in a nice little house in London, with a cushy number for James in a London set of chambers. I don’t know where she got that idea from, but she wasn’t thrilled at the thought of York and a mortgage. So maybe Ellie’s right and she saw Freddie as a better prospect.’

‘In fairness to Freddie,’ Ellie said, ‘he’s not the sort to go around busting up other people’s engagements. It’s not like he has any trouble finding girlfriends. He’s just not met the right one before.’

Henry gave her a condescending smile. ‘You’re much too indulgent of our brother, Ellie. When he’s in the mood, he’ll chase anything with a pulse. But if Bella Thorpe’s really got her hooks into him, his days on the town are numbered. It’s all over for him. He’s a dead man, and not just brain dead.’ He gave Ellie a gentle punch. ‘Just the kind of soul mate sister-in-law you’ve always craved, Ellie. Open, candid, artless, loyal, unpretentious and not in the least devious.’

‘The very qualities that would delight me if they were for real, dear Henry. I’ll have to leave that up to you to supply me with.’

Henry looked quickly away and grunted.

‘Poor James,’ Cat said. ‘He’s never going to get over this.’

Henry swigged his coffee, realised it had gone cold and pulled a face. ‘It’s tough for him right now. But I think it’s hard on you too, Cat. Bella was your friend. You did everything together in Edinburgh. You’ll miss that intimacy too.’

Cat shook her head. ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘I only saw in Bella what I wanted to see. I was desperate for a friend and I thought she was the one. I’m hurt, yes, but I’m not grieving like James is. If I never hear from her or see her again, I won’t lose sleep over it.’ She turned to Ellie and smiled. ‘Besides, I’ve got a better friend now.’

Henry looked fondly on the two girls. ‘Ah, Cat. You’ve got a gift for always finding the positive. We should all learn from that.’

‘And the positive is that Father will never accept Bella Thorpe as a suitable chatelaine for Northanger,’ Ellie said firmly. ‘She might think she’s engaged to Freddie, but five minutes with Father and it’ll be all over. There’s no way he’d support Freddie marrying someone with nothing to bring to the party.’

‘Surely your father doesn’t expect Freddie to marry for money?’ This was as monstrous a notion to Cat as any she’d attributed to the General.

‘It’s not quite that simple,’ Henry said. ‘It’s always good to bring more money into an estate like Northanger, to build for the future. But it’s not about greed. It’s more to do with understanding the power and obligation that goes with great wealth and great property. It’s the reason why you seldom get divorces among the dukes and earls and landowners, unless the estate is entailed. Divorce means splitting the land and the money, which ultimately makes life very hard for your children. So the landed classes put up and shut up and send the wife to live in the dower house or the cadet branch property. Thank God I’m a younger son and don’t have to bother about all that crap.’

‘And you don’t have to bother about leaving,’ Ellie added. ‘Northanger is the last place you’ll find Freddie right now. If he really is engaged to Bella, he won’t dare come near Father. And if he’s not? Well, he’s due to rejoin his regiment very soon and he’ll be desperate to make the most of every minute of freedom. So you’re safer with us than anywhere else.’

Reassured by this, Cat found herself able to rediscover some pleasure in the day. Since Henry was departing that evening for Glasgow, they made the most of their time, visiting Coldstream and Jedburgh as well before returning to Northanger. But before Henry left, they extracted a promise from him that he would have them to Woodston for lunch on Saturday. The General insisted he’d drive them over himself. ‘Always good to see the place,’ he said. ‘Besides, if I’m coming, Henry will have to make sure to lay on a decent spread. I’m doing this for your sake, ladies.’

It was, Cat thought, a small price to pay. What counted was that she would be in Henry’s company once more. She would have another opportunity to demonstrate that she had moved on from her disastrous adventure. An opportunity, in short, to demonstrate how much more amenable she was than Bella Thorpe.

28

Cat was convinced that the rain had started the moment Henry left. All through Friday, there was a slow, steady drizzle that turned every vista misty. Cat and Ellie made the most of their confinement, however, by starting to investigate whether it really would be practical for them to work together on some books for children. Before too long, they had discovered their ideas were remarkably similar and by the time they went to bed on Friday evening, they were delighted and confident that together they could make something that children would enjoy.

Saturday was no brighter when they left Northanger. The General gloomily predicted that the further west they went, the heavier the rain would become. He even cracked a joke about Glasgow and rain, which stunned Cat into silence.

The young women were in the back of the Mercedes together, and as soon as they climbed out of the valley and into the land of 3G, they were both engrossed in their phones. Momentarily, Cat let out a yelp of surprise. There, in her inbox was an email from the woman she hoped never to hear from again.


Hi Cat :)

Susie said she didn’t think you had wifi at Northanger Abbey but I told her that’s totally incredible. I meant to write before but you know how it is in Edinburgh, not a minute’s peace, right? I’ve been on the point of emailing you every day since you left, but always got interrupted by something or other. Anyway, here I am now, so get back to me soon as you can, ok, gf? :)