Fanfic Short Stories

Northanger Abbey: Hedgehog Day

Story description: Groundhog Day AU where Catherine relives the day Henry caught her sneaking into his mother's room.

Hedgehog Day

Catherine Morland might have run to her room to cry, had it not crossed her mind that it was an action one would expect from the heroine of a horrid novel. After Henry Tilney had confronted her with the consequences of being overly influenced by such stories, she determined to be more practical and less dramatic. The sun was still up, and she had spent rather too much time indoors today, and thus she turned her steps to the path she had trod with Eleanor recently — Mrs. Tilney's favorite walk.

A breeze dried her tears and, having confirmed that no one was nearby to overhear, Catherine addressed herself to the absent Mrs. Tilney, offering an apology for imagining the poor woman had been murdered by her husband. No more would she be overruled by her imagination, Catherine promised.

No sooner had the promise been made, than a hedgehog crossed her path — and such an unusual specimen, its quills white as snow, it brought to mind the pale creatures said to cross one's path to herald a quest. Indeed, she thought that stags were the expected herald, but a hedgehog-sized quest was more suitable for her lowered spirits.

She followed the creature as it left the path, and within a minute it stopped in front of an ancient gravestone. Catherine stooped to read it, and found the name Dorothea and dates corresponding to the century when Northanger Abbey had belonged to the Church. Dorothea, it seemed, had perished at the age of thirty-two. There was no epigraph, but an image carved into the stone beneath her name resembled a hedgehog.

Catherine returned her gaze to the creature who had led her here. "What am I to do?" she wondered. But the hedgehog had disappeared, and now she heard the voices of her friends. Suddenly she noticed that the sun was dipping below the horizon. She had spent longer than she intended studying the gravestone, and now she retraced her steps back to the main path to assure her friends that she was not lost.

Should she tell them about the gravestone? was her next quandary. She did not recall the etiquette for quests, and whether it was proper to enlighten one's friends of the possibility of embarking on one. After their meal, she asked if they might suggest a volume from their library she could peruse, stating a preference for an adventure featuring a quest. Henry found one he thought she would enjoy, and offered an approving smile at this change in her reading habits. Unfortunately, the stresses of the day had brought on a headache, and she set the book aside to read the next day.

#

Catherine woke early and reached for the book, only to find it had disappeared from her bedside table. But this was not the strangest occurrence of the morning. When she arrived at the breakfast table and asked after Henry, his sister looked surprised and said he was not expected until Tuesday.

"But this is Tuesday, is it not?" Catherine asked. "And he arrived unexpectedly yesterday afternoon."

Eleanor shook her head, insisting that today was Monday.

Confused, Catherine sat at the table and finally said, "I had the most convincing dream, it seems. How odd that I remember it so vividly." She decided to treat the dream as a warning, and made slight adjustments to the day's routine. Instead of lingering over Mrs. Tilney's portrait in Eleanor's room and then being interrupted by the General as she and Eleanor later approached his wife's bedchamber, they visited Mrs. Tilney's rooms first.

It was a shock, indeed, that the rooms should match so closely what Catherine had seen in her dream. There was nothing mysterious or untoward. She was soon ready to leave, but on turning around was startled to see a maid in the room. "Oh, excuse me!" Catherine exclaimed, for she had nearly bumped into the maid — but such an odd maid this was, wearing all-white livery, which seemed entirely impractical.