] I suppose they must have trusted the Allens to take good care of Catherine? Can it be a consequence from having many children? You simply haven't got time to worry about every unpleasant possibility.

I think that they also just didn't think those kind of things happened in real life - that was stuff only found in novels. Catherine's the one that thinks that life is going to turn out like a novel - there's nothing written so far that indicate her parents think that! And so far - nothing's happened like it's "supposed to" if you take novels as the guide!