Part 43: Honour and Affection

It was but a moment, one transient moment of weakness, between far greater periods of careful husbandry and stewardship. Ironically, it was a moment of joy that caught at Henry's baser nature, brought on by the welcome return of correspondence with his sister. The description of her new harmonious life was everything he had ever wished for Eleanor, and the accompanying entreaties to visit promised a very sweet reunion.

"You have but to name the date and all shall be prepared; nay, an express today will see the coach-and-four sent at once!"

While exercising the dogs he considered the many things that should be done if he were to go, how soon he could manage it all, the southerly route to be taken, and then without fully realizing it the ease by which a private carriage could travel from Glouchestershire to Wilstshire to Scotland, all in a day's time. He idly wondered whether the famed border establishments changed horses as readily as names when the sportive fancy became far too real a suggestion and he shook his head to dismiss it.

It was a moment, abruptly ended before it could truly begin, and discarded without too much difficulty. Every vow penned, every improvement planned, forbade such a rash scheme. With the chagrin of a man fully aware of his own foibles, Henry recognized he also wished to preserve the admiration still fully apparent in Catherine's scrawled lines, even if it was beyond the power of mortal man to completely deserve such devotion.

Title from Chapter 30 of Northanger Abbey: "He felt himself bound as much in honour as in affection to Miss Morland, and believing that heart to be his own which he had been directed to gain, no unworthy retraction of a tacit consent, no reversing decree of unjustifiable anger, could shake his fidelity, or influence the resolutions it prompted."