“And then, the dragon too changed—as he must, when he loses the one thing in the world that gives him truth and life and sustenance.
“My father became hard and cold as stone and his heart turned to inviolate metal.”
“Oh!” said Catherine, beginning to understand many things at last. “Was he then, your father, the dragon that we saw in Bath that time we walked, and then at Northanger?”
“Yes. And now you must forgive me yet again, this time for my rudeness back then, when you had asked so many pointed questions about dragons and their nature and origins, and I would not answer to you or even speak of the dragon—for I could not in truth utter all this to you just then. Every morning, rising early (what you know as his constitutional walk), my father takes the dragon form and desperately flies the heavens, searching aimlessly for his treasure, now lost forever. He is compelled to do this unto eternity, and will be thus for years—indeed for immortal ages—until he either draws his last breath in battle or decides to face his loss and relinquish the falsehood of gold in favor of truth. Only then can he cease being the immortal dragon and return to being a mortal man, and one day die in peace.”
Henry paused, gathering himself for something, and took several steps back. Catherine put her hands to her face, in impossible dawning comprehension.
“And now—Open your eyes, Catherine, this must be seen. The dragons did not disappear, did not become extinct, nor did they ‘reappear’ suddenly in modern times. They are here among us, always. Dragons live in the hearts of men. A dragon emerges when there is the birth of perfect love—”
And saying this, Henry suddenly changed.
Catherine had no time to blink, but watched the mirage building in the air, as a strange unnatural wind came whirling to surround him, and it grew into a funnel, sending up leaves along the path and scattering blossoms in the grass . . . while the air in place of Henry thickened and he himself was momentarily dissolved into the fabric of the storm.
In his place was a great white dragon.
Catherine exclaimed, then held her hands to her lips and wordlessly cried.
It was the same one—her white dragon. It spread its wings that were like galleon sails on either sides of Catherine, and she held on to her bonnet and her dress and her very self, all rooted to the spot as the dragon unfurled itself to its full breadth and height and towered over her, pale and sparkling and glorious as the surface of a mirror in the sun.
“You are unhurt! You won the battle . . .” she whispered, through her tears.
And the dragon flexed its giant claws of white steel, moved its powerful limbs, and it blinked one great beautiful amber-golden eye at her in perfect silent communion.
And then it changed again . . . into her own beloved Henry.
“I am yours,” he said. “I am your dragon, for before you there was no dragon in my heart. And now there is one only for you—if you will have me. And even if you will not, the dragon will serve you always.”
And with a stifled cry Catherine came to him, throwing her arms about his neck in an embrace. And for long moments there were no words between them, no speech, only wonder.
“I had fought him, my father, and held him back from the final brink of madness,” he told her. “For, since the start he had pursued you in his confounded way, seeking you for the family on my behalf. Under a mistaken persuasion of your possessions and claims, he had courted your acquaintance in Bath, solicited your company at Northanger, and designed you for his daughter-in-law—thinking you an heiress, seeking in his confusion material riches, and never recognizing that the treasure he saw in you was of the truer kind.”
“I! An heiress!” exclaimed Catherine in amazement. “Why, that is so far from the truth, my family is hardly anything but simple, humble—”
“Ah, allow me to further explain to you the reasoning of my misguided father and the nature of things. As I say, he thought you wealthy to excess, and then, discovering otherwise, he first cast you out in a worthy fit of dragon passion, but then, the dragon greed took over, the dragon nature compelled, so he had to retrieve you, his last source of worldly treasure (as he mistakenly thought, partially correct as it was).”
“So he flew after the carriage, to have me return?”
“Yes and no—for even as he came after you his supernatural anger still boiled, and he was uncertain of anything but that you must not be allowed to slip away, for whatever unknown value you possibly held. I fought him, prevented him from hindering or hurting you, spoke truth into his heart and mind through the voiceless communion of dragonkind. He heard me, in his own maddened way, he heard me—thus, he still lives. But he is vanquished.
“And now, this needs be said: there are two types of dragon—the Dragon of Love and the Dragon of Gold. All dragons begin as creatures of love, pure and selfless. But if they experience the grave loss of this love, their nature changes, becomes perverted, from love to greed. And they harden and calcify and slowly approach the state of being stone and metal. In their slow ‘immortal death’ they must still hunger for treasure. But now they mistake treasure of the spirit for treasure of the material world. It is thus that history is filled with stories of ancient dragons, lying over hoards of priceless coin and jewels—heartless treasure of metal and stone—immortal and eternal, deep in the secret bowels of the earth. These are all the Dragons of Gold, dragons of despair and desolation, the only kind the world knows about, for they malinger here, having grown into monsters, refusing to let go.
“But the world knows little to nothing about the other kind of dragon, the original true kind, because such a creature is not ephemeral, and is not immortal—for it has no need to be. It loves and lives and dies in joy and sorrow of the fleeting moment along with its mortal love. And such a dragon thus passes into the ages unnoticed by the scholars or the natural scientists—for it appears rarely and hunts not at all, and when its time of loss comes, it gently relinquishes itself and passes on.
“I dearly hope to remain such a dragon,” ended Henry. “But of certainty one never knows—never knows what might happen were I to lose you.”
Their further revelations and divulging of the heart were placed on hold briefly, for now they had resumed walking and in moments were at the Allen’s house.
A very short visit to Mrs. Allen followed, in which Henry talked at random, without sense or connection, with fevered eyes and many secret looks of intimacy thrown in Catherine’s way. And Catherine, rapt in the contemplation of her own unutterable happiness, scarcely opened her lips. She had also had the occasion to learn from sentences artfully spoken on Mrs. Allen’s behalf, that he had openly “opposed his father on her behalf.”
And then, after they had quit the Allens’ residence and headed back, she had heard him say—in contrast to the previous revelatory supernatural explanation—in a more human and decidedly worldly manner, that he now offered her his hand.
“And now, as far as that mistaken notion of your great fortune—” said Henry.
And he proceeded to explain that the general had had nothing to accuse her of but her being the involuntary, unconscious object of a wicked deception which his dragon pride could not pardon, and which a better pride would have been ashamed to own.
Yes indeed, she was guilty only of being less rich than he had supposed her to be. And it was all because of John Thorpe!
“Oh, he is an odious horrid ogre!” exclaimed Catherine, unable to hold back. And Henry continued to tell his tale.
John Thorpe had first misled him. The general, perceiving his son one night at the theatre to be paying considerable attention to a certain Miss Morland, had accidentally inquired of Thorpe if he knew more of her than her name.
Thorpe, most happy to be on speaking terms with a man of General Tilney’s importance, had been joyfully and proudly communicative. At that time not only did he expect James Morland to engage Isabella, but he was likewise resolved upon marrying Catherine himself! And thus, his vanity induced him to repres
ent the family as yet more wealthy than his vanity and avarice had made him believe them to be.
Oh dear! thought Catherine, knowing exactly the kind of awful boasting exaggeration the ogre was capable of.
With whomsoever Thorpe was (or was likely to be) connected, his own consequence always required that theirs should be great. And as his intimacy with any acquaintance grew, so regularly grew their fortune—doubled, quadrupled, reached the sky!
Since Thorpe’s expectations of his friend Morland’s fortune were already overrated, it was easy to double what he thought was the amount of Mr. Morland’s preferment, trebling his private fortune, bestowing a rich aunt, and sinking half the children. Thus he was able to represent the whole family to the general in a most respectable light.
For Catherine, however (the object of the general’s dragon curiosity, and his own speculations), he had yet something more in reserve. The ten or fifteen thousand pounds her father could give her would be a pretty addition to Mr. Allen’s estate. Surely her intimacy with the Allens made her handsomely legacied hereafter. And from that it was easy to speak of her as the almost acknowledged future heiress of Fullerton, with hundreds of thousands, nay, millions at her disposal—a treasure hoard!
Upon such intelligence the dragon general had proceeded; for never had it occurred to him to doubt its authority. In addition, there were the absolute facts of the Allens being wealthy and childless, of Miss Morland’s being under their care, and of their treating her with parental kindness.
His resolution was soon formed. Already had he discerned a liking towards Miss Morland in the countenance of his son. And there was a certain peculiar wondrous air about her that he sensed on a supernatural level, being a supernatural (albeit damaged) creature himself.
In short, Henry was so convinced of his father’s entirely believing it to be an advantageous connection, that it was not till her expulsion from Northanger that they had the smallest idea of the false calculations which had hurried him on.
That they were false, the general had learnt from the very person who had suggested them—from Thorpe himself!
“Oh!” cried Catherine, interrupting again. “I knew there was a perfectly good reason I could not stand him beyond his infernal nephilim ogre manners!”
“Nephilim? Ogre?” said Henry, then added cleverly in his usual manner: “Has Thorpe in fact eaten anyone? Has it been documented? And if not—Precision of words is to be observed always, else one might come to the wrong conclusions.”
And Catherine burst out laughing then hastily explained both John and Isabella, altogether with their various subtle and crude attempts to acquire her soul, spirit, person, dowry, and verily the entire family (for the nephilim also sought treasure of all kinds), their horrid true inner visage (visible only to one such as herself) and their hot and cold weather fronts.
“Well then!” said Henry, “so that is what they are! I knew them to be other than ordinary human mortals. And yes, I had noted the so-called climate. But you must later tell me more.”
And then he resumed the present explanation about Thorpe. Apparently on that very recent and fateful trip from Northanger, General Tilney had chanced to meet John Thorpe again in town. This time, Thorpe was under the influence of exactly opposite feelings. He was irritated by Catherine’s refusal, and even more by the failure to accomplish a reconciliation between Morland and Isabella. Convinced that an association with the Morlands was no longer serviceable, he hastened to contradict to the general all that he had told him before in their praise, and now made up a profusion of defects—poverty, avarice, inability of giving the young people even a decent support. According to Thorpe the Morlands were a necessitous and numerous family, by no means respected in their own neighbourhood, aiming at a lifestyle beyond their fortune; seeking to better themselves by wealthy connections—a forward, bragging, scheming race!
The terrified general pronounced the name of Allen with an inquiring look; and here too Thorpe had painted a horrid picture. The Allens, he believed, had lived near them too long, and he knew the young man on whom the Fullerton estate must devolve—and it was not James Morland.
The general needed no more. The dragon was enraged—with almost everybody in the world but himself. And he set out the next day for the abbey, where Catherine was met with such a cruel and unjust expulsion.
Henry, in having such things to relate of his father, was almost as pitiable as in their first avowal to himself. He blushed for the narrow-minded counsel which he was obliged to expose. And he grieved for the old dragon’s dark nature that had taken his heart further along the path of gold—advancing it deeper in its chosen journey toward lifeless metal and eternity alone.
And yet, Henry had been indignant enough to oppose the old dragon directly—all because of her. And in doing so, his own heart had swelled with love, and it called forth his own dragon nature.
“I admit,” he said softly, “that before yesterday I had not known myself, had not known what I also was. It does not always run in the family, this thing. Dragons are made, not born. (My brother Frederick, for example, has no dragon in him—at least not at present, even though he seems to have the prideful airs of one.) But when our father had taken off from Northanger, following you, for the first time I had sensed the dragon—heard and felt him coming at a distance. And in an instant I knew exactly all that had transpired with you, having read his mind. And when your carriage was passing closest to me, I was pulled from within, twisted, uprooted—impossible to describe what it is that happened to me—and I turned, for the first time, and I came for you.”
“I saw you flying!” said Catherine. “I watched and I did not know. But strangely, I could somehow feel myself flying alongside you, all those many miles.”
“Ah, Catherine,” Henry exclaimed, “if only you realized what you can do, the power that you hold over the unseen world. Look what effect you have had upon an entire town of Bath, and then, you woke Northanger to its ancient ways.”
“You have no idea,” said Catherine smartly. “One of these days I must tell you of the chest and the cabinet in the apartment I had been staying in. And what manner of horrid things it had released—”
And he laughed and then told her how much happiness it was for him to see her thus, and that he hoped his earlier teasing of her love for Udolpho did not discompose her too much. “I had not suspected then, to what extent the delightful secrets you talked and dreamed about were in fact real—not only to you but to the world around you. Will you forgive me?”
“Goodness, for what? For keeping me balanced and sane and bringing my imagination back to the realm of common sense? It is only recently that I realize that I had not just imagined those terrible things, but I had in fact wished for them and made them happen!”
“Such is the power of the human treasure,” he replied. And then again he drew closer to her in an embrace.
“There are angels about us now, are there not?” Henry whispered.
“Oh yes,” she replied. “Over a dozen, two near your nose, and one of them is your own. He wants me to tell you to fix your cravat a bit, it has gotten somewhat in disarray since you have been a dragon—but never mind, I can do it myself on your behalf.”
Henry laughed again.
And then Catherine remembered. “Oh, wait! I do not think your father has an angel of his own about him. At least, I had never seen one with him. Why is that so? And yet, you do.”
Henry thought for a long moment. “I do not know for certain, he said with gravity, “but it might be that, as a Dragon of Love, I am still in the light. His angel—it is not lost, I dare hope, and I expect it is somewhere out there, waiting for him to return one day to a choice of mortal humanity. For that is one hope I will never relinquish on my father’s behalf.”
And with those words they had come to the Morland house and entered together.
The Dragon of Love
Chapter 31
Mr. and Mrs. Morland’s surprise on being applied
to by Mr. Tilney for their consent to his marrying their daughter was, for a few minutes, considerable.
It had never entered their heads to suspect an attachment on either side. But since nothing could be more natural than Catherine’s being beloved, they soon came to view it with happy agitation and gratified pride.
As far as they alone were concerned, there could not be a single objection. His pleasing manners and good sense were self-evident recommendations. And having never heard evil of him, goodwill supplied the place of experience, and his character needed no attestation.
“Catherine would make a sad, heedless young housekeeper, to be sure. You do realize, she is far more likely to converse with the mantelpiece than dust it?” was her mother’s foreboding remark; but quick was the consolation of there being nothing like practice.
“Mrs. Morland,” said Henry, “she is free to recite poetry to every chest and cabinet in the domicile, if that is what she desires.”
And with such charming words, no one could help but be perfectly satisfied.
There was but one obstacle remaining to their perfect happiness. And till that one was removed, it must be impossible for Mr. and Mrs. Morland to sanction the engagement. Their tempers were mild, but their principles were steady, and while his parent so expressly forbade the connection, they could not allow themselves to encourage it.
They did not expect or insist that the general should actively come forward to solicit the alliance, or very heartily approve it, but there must be at least a decent appearance of consent obtained from him. His simple consent—not money or fortune—was all that they wished for, and their own willing approbation was instantly to follow.